I. May a WTO Member Prohibit the Transfer of Personal Data from its Territory? II. The WTO's Trade in Services Framework A. General and Specific Obligations B. General Exception for Data Privacy III. Will Online Data Privacy Protection Prove to be an Exceptional Exception Under GATS? A. Specific Commitments B. The "Necessity" Exception--Article XTV(c) IV. Conclusion Personal data has been labeled the "currency" of the digital economy (1)--unsurprisingly, since many large and small companies rely heavily on the harvesting of Internet-based personal data. While "personal data" takes many forms, it is generally recognized to consist of information that could potentially identify an individual, regardless of whether the individual willingly sends the information to a provider of services (such as a bank or a social media site) or unknowingly supplies it to a third party collector (just by visiting a website). In a virtual market with capacities unknown to many regulators and which, by virtue of the Internet, transcends geographic boundaries, companies buy, sell, process, and store volumes of personal data that may help them identify consumer preferences, medical histories, and financial profiles. As countries rush to address the competing interests between the invaluable free-flow of information and consumers' "right to be forgotten" on the Internet, the data privacy issue sits on a collision course with international trade rules now more than it ever has in the past. (2) If personal data is the currency of the digital economy, then "big data" is its jackpot. (3) The claims for big data--"mass repositories of data that can be collected across multiple platforms, in multiple jurisdictions, and in multiple languages" (4)--are that it fosters transformative innovation, (5) stimulates economic growth, (6) enhances the development of new medicines, (7) drives productivity, efficiency, and growth, (8) and combats terrorism, (9) to name a few. Yet, the collection of big data brings concomitant and complex privacy concerns that span national borders and regulatory regimes. Much has been written about the (in)adequacy of World Trade Organization (WTO) disciplines to address the burgeoning issues associated with Internet-based personal data trade. (10) Meanwhile, companies are racing to enter new markets and to provide cross-border data services because no one can afford to sit on the sidelines. (11) In addition, countries are moving full-speed ahead on new privacy regulations with or without the WTO's blessing, demanding their regulatory sovereignty regarding the protection of their citizens' data. (12) The European Union formally led the charge on January 25, 2012, by releasing the draft of a sweeping new general data protection regulation. (13) The United States quickly followed with the White House's framework for protecting privacy in the digital economy in February 2012, (14) and the Federal Trade Commission's privacy framework final report and recommended best practices in March 2012. (15) Additionally, the United States has begun drafting new consumer privacy legislation, which could address some of the concerns that the European Union, among others, have with the perceived lack of data privacy controls in the United States. (16) China and India are also critical players in the data privacy space. (17) Not only do both countries have draft guidelines or rules circulating to crack down on the use of personal data on the web, the countries will also soon have more people online than the United States and Europe have citizens. (18) How can WTO Members regulate the collection, storage, and use of personal data without running afoul of their trade commitments? Put another way, do WTO disciplines provide any measurable limits on a Member's ability to regulate the use of data collected within one Member's borders by a company whose home base is in another Member? …


Six rice cultivars showing various types of resistance or susceptibility to Pyricularia oryzae in the field were compared under controlled environmental conditions. The resistance of the cultivars with adult-plant resistance was race-specificat early growth stage. On all cultivars tested, blast infection became increasingly reduced on either leaves of adult plants or older leaves, as observed in rice plants of different leaf stages infected with different individual races. Their increase inhost resistance was marked by an apparent transition in infection type and reduced blast severity depending on leaf age and developmental stage of plants. The ranking of disease severity of the adult-plantresistant cultivars to different races was constant during plant development, whereas that of the susceptible cultivars was differential. It is suggested that different degrees of resistance in rice cultivars may exist in seedlings and be consistently maintained during plant development, probably becoming more distinct as rice plants mature.


Remarkable volume changes (>300%) and poor electrical conductivity hinder the commercial application of silicon in lithium ion batteries despite the fact that it delivers a high theoretic capacity of 4200 mA h g−1. Thus, a novel Si@rGO/g-C3N4 hybrid with a 3D porous sandwiched architecture, where silicon nanoparticles are anchored uniformly onto a rGO/g-C3N4 hybrid matrix via interface chemical bonding, is synthesized by a facile combined method of template-free self-assembly and heat-treatment. This sandwiched Si@rGO/g-C3N4 hybrid anode material exhibits a high reversible capacity of 1354.8 mA h g−1 at 0.1C and an ultra-long cycle life of 1000 cycles at 0.5C. A capacity loss of only 0.019% per cycle at 0.5C is achieved with a coulombic efficiency of 99.8%, even after 1000 cycles. The outstanding cycling performance could be attributed to the interface bonding between the surface Si NPs (silicon nanoparticles) and N-doped rGO/g-C3N4, which not only creates inert domains for controllable lithium ion intercalation, but also configures a relatively stable mechanical structure on cycling. The reported approach provides a viable strategy to synthesise ultra-long-life silicon anode materials.


Background: The Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion had the potential to increase continuity of insurance coverage and remove barriers to accessing health services following an abortion in states where Medicaid pays for abortion. We examined the association of Medicaid expansion with postabortion Medicaid enrollment and described postabortion preventive reproductive services among Medicaid-enrolled women in Oregon. Methods: We used Medicaid claims and enrollment data to identify abortions to women ages 20-44 in 2009-2017 (N = 30,786), classified into a treatment group-those likely to be affected by Medicaid expansion-and a comparison group. Outcomes included Medicaid enrollment (number of months enrolled and any lapse in enrollment) in the 6 and 12 months postabortion. Difference-in-differences analyses were used to compare outcomes preexpansion (2009-2012) and postexpansion (2014-2017) for treatment and comparison groups. Linear regression models were adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, rurality, and month. We described receipt of preventive reproductive services in 0-2 months and in 3-12 months postabortion. Results: Medicaid expansion was associated with enrollment increases of 2.0 and 4.7 months and with declines in any enrollment lapse of 54 and 48 percentage-points over 6 and 12 months postabortion, respectively (p < 0.001). Many who remained enrolled through postabortion received preventive care including contraceptive services (41%) and screening for sexually transmitted infections (23%). Conclusions: Medicaid expansion may increase continuity of insurance coverage for those receiving abortions, and in turn promote access to preventive services that can improve subsequent reproductive health outcomes.


This study provides the first investigation on the occurrence of human pharmaceuticals in the tropical aquatic environment of Malaysia. Water samples were collected at seven different sites along the Langat River and effluents from five sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Langat River Basin. Samples were extracted by solid phase extraction (SPE) and analyzed using liquid chromatography coupled with a tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for 18 pharmaceuticals from six therapeutic classes and one metabolite. Fifteen out of these 19 pharmaceuticals were detected in the river water samples. Mefenamic acid, salicylic acid and glibenclamide were detected in all river water samples indicating their ubiquitous nature and resistance to degradation under the warm and humid tropical conditions. The median concentrations of detected pharmaceuticals ranged from less than the method detection limit (<MDL) for furosemide, loratadine, salbutamol, perindopril, metoprolol and nifedipine to 112.7 ng L−1 for diclofenac. A similar number of pharmaceuticals were detected in the STPs' effluents samples. Several of these pharmaceuticals, namely salbutamol, atenolol, metoprolol, mefenamic acid, salicylic acid and furosemide were detected in all the STPs' effluents samples. The median concentrations for the detected pollutants ranged between <MDL for lovastatin and amlodipine to 1994 ng L−1 for metformin. The highest concentration detected in the river water samples was for acetaminophen (346.3 ng L−1) and in STPs effluents was for metformin (34228 ng L−1). The concentrations of most analytes found in this study were comparable to those reported in the other parts of the world. However, this is the first time amlodipine is detected in the environmental samples.


In 2011, we proposed a novel magnetron sputtering method. It involved the use of pulsed injection of working gas for the initiation and control of gas discharge during reactive sputtering of an AlN layer (Gas Injection Magnetron Sputtering – GIMS). Unfortunately, the presence of Al–Al bonds was found in XPS spectra of the AlN layers deposited by GIMS onto Si substrate. Our studies reported in this paper proved that the synchronization of time duration of the pulses of both gas injection and applied voltage, resulted in the elimination of Al–Al bonds in the AlN layer material, which was confirmed by the XPS studies. In our opinion the most probable reason of Al–Al bonds in the AlN layers deposited by the GIMS was the self-sputtering of the Al target in the final stage of the pulsed discharge.


The formalism of multi-objective influence diagrams has recently been developed for modeling and solving sequential decision problems under uncertainty and multiple objectives. Since utility values representing the decision maker's preferences are only partially ordered (e.g., by the Pareto order) we no longer have a unique maximal value of expected utility, but a set of them. Computing the set of maximal values of expected utility and the corresponding policies can be computationally very challenging. In this paper, we consider alternative notions of optimality, one of the most important one being the notion of possibly optimal, namely optimal in at least one scenario compatible with the inter-objective tradeoffs. We develop a variable elimination algorithm for computing the set of possibly optimal expected utility values, prove formally its correctness, and compare variants of the algorithm experimentally.


To identify the most important competencies for college graduates to succeed in the 21st century workforce, we conducted an analysis of the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database. O*NET is a large job analysis operated and maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor. We specifically analyzed ratings of the importance of abilities (52 ratings), work styles (16 ratings), skills (35 ratings), and knowledge (33 ratings) to succeed in one's occupation. First, we conducted descriptive analyses. Next, data were split into 2 sets, according to the theoretical structure proposed by the O*NET content model, and principal component analyses (PCAs) were run on each dataset. The PCAs identified 15 components: problem solving, mechanical skills, service orientation, cultural literacy, business literacy, science literacy, civic literacy, information processing, athleticism, visual acuity, fluid intelligence, communication skills, teamwork, achievement/innovation, and attention to detail/near vision. Components were then ranked in importance using the mean component scores over all occupations. A comparison of this ranking with previous 21st century competencies frameworks suggested that 5 competencies stand out as important for most occupations: problem solving (e.g., complex problem solving), fluid intelligence (e.g., category flexibility), teamwork (e.g., cooperation), achievement/innovation (e.g., persistence), and communication skills (e.g., oral expression). Consistent with this conclusion, a correlation of component scores with wages found that 4 of these 5 competencies were strongly related to wages, with the exception being teamwork.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an important risk factor for ischaemic stroke, and anticoagulation is now indicated in many patients, particularly those with congestive cardiac failure, hypertension, a history of transient ischaemic attacks or embolic stroke. In a retrospective study (and audit), we examined 280 cases of AF (acute, paroxysmal non‐sustained and chronic sustained) admitted to a general hospital in the UK. The commonest underlying medical condition was ischaemic heart disease (57%), while the commonest presenting feature was congestive cardiac failure (60%). Pharmacological cardioversion was preferred against electrical cardioversion for reverting to sinus rhythm. Fifty‐six patients (20%) received warfarin, 55 patients (20%) were on aspirin, and the remaining 169 (60%) received neither warfarin nor aspirin. More awareness is needed among physicians managing AF particularly in relation to anticoagulation.


Obligations are an important and indispensable part of many access control policies, such as those in DRM (Digital Rights Management) and healthcare information systems. To be able use obligations in a real-world access control system, there must exist a language for specifying obligations. However, such a language is currently lacking. XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language), the current de facto standard for specifying access control policies, seems to integrate obligations as a part of it, but it treats obligations largely as black boxes, without specifying what an obligation should include and how to handle them. In this paper we examine the challenges in designing a practical approach for specifying and handling obligations, and then propose a language for specifying obligations, and an architecture for handling access control policies with these obligations, extending XACML's specification and architecture. In our design, obligations are modeled as state machines which communicate with the access control system and the outside world via events. We further implement our design into a prototype system named ExtXACML, based on SUN's XACML implementation. ExtXACML is extensible in that new obligation modules can be added into the system to handle various obligations for different applications, which shows the strong power of our design.


Large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated an impressive ability to perform arithmetic and symbolic reasoning tasks, when provided with a few examples at test time ("few-shot prompting"). Much of this success can be attributed to prompting methods such as"chain-of-thought'', which employ LLMs for both understanding the problem description by decomposing it into steps, as well as solving each step of the problem. While LLMs seem to be adept at this sort of step-by-step decomposition, LLMs often make logical and arithmetic mistakes in the solution part, even when the problem is decomposed correctly. In this paper, we present Program-Aided Language models (PAL): a novel approach that uses the LLM to read natural language problems and generate programs as the intermediate reasoning steps, but offloads the solution step to a runtime such as a Python interpreter. With PAL, decomposing the natural language problem into runnable steps remains the only learning task for the LLM, while solving is delegated to the interpreter. We demonstrate this synergy between a neural LLM and a symbolic interpreter across 13 mathematical, symbolic, and algorithmic reasoning tasks from BIG-Bench Hard and other benchmarks. In all these natural language reasoning tasks, generating code using an LLM and reasoning using a Python interpreter leads to more accurate results than much larger models. For example, PAL using Codex achieves state-of-the-art few-shot accuracy on the GSM8K benchmark of math word problems, surpassing PaLM-540B which uses chain-of-thought by absolute 15% top-1. Our code and data are publicly available at http://reasonwithpal.com/ .


This paper examines the question as to whether crude oil resource is a blessing or curse to Nigeria: The case of the Niger Delta Region. The paper traces the origin of oil exploration and exploitation from Titusville in Pennsylvania. United States of America where the first all well was drilled by Edwin L. Darke in 1859 to 1956 when crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the present day Bayelsa State in Nigeria. The paper observes that the blessings from crude oil resource to Nigeria at large and Niger Delta region in particular take the form of increased government revenues, increased export earnings and the attendant improvement, opportunities and linkage effects in the economy, etc. It also observes that the curses or woes of crude oil resource which emanate mainly from the exploration and production on activities of the multinational companies take the form of oil spillage, environmental pollution or degradation, destruction of landscape, unemployment, socio-economic-political instability and pervasive poverty etc. the paper is of the view that crude oil resource is more of curse than a blessing to the Niger Delta region. To change this ugly trend, we suggest that the Federal Government of Nigeria should put in place appropriate measures to stem further mismanagement and looting by the "few priviledge minority from the major ethnic groups" of the revenue derived from export of crude oil and make realistic monetary and fiscal policies that will help alleviate the suffering of the Niger Delta people.
 JORIND Vol. 4 (2) 2006: pp. 53-58


Forensic science is increasingly relied upon by law enforcement to assist in solving crime and gaining convictions, and by the judicial system in the adjudication of specific criminal cases. However, the value of forensic science relative to the work involved and the outcome of cases has yet to be established in the Australian context. Previous research in this area has mainly focused on the science and technology, rather than examining how people can use forensic services/science to the best possible advantage to produce appropriate justice outcomes. This five-year project entails an investigation into the effectiveness of forensic science in police investigations and court trials. It aims to identify when, where and how forensic science can add value to criminal investigations, court trials and justice outcomes while ensuring the efficient use of available resources initially in the Victorian and the ACT criminal justice systems and ultimately across Australia and New Zealand. This paper provides an overview of the rationale and aims of the research project and discusses current work-in-progress.


The aim of this body of work was to determine the method of action of mesenchymal stromal cell immunomodulation, and their potential benefits in treating pulmonary fibrosis. This was achieved through a series of in vitro studies and an in vivo model of lung disease, namely, bleomycin induced pulmonary fibrosis.
Firstly MSC expansion of Treg cells was shown to be dependent on Jagged 1 signalling. MSC inhibition of DC maturation and antigen presentation was shown to also involve Jagged 1 however IL-6 signalling is also necessary. MSC inhibition of DC maturation resulted in a semi mature or "tolerogenic" DC, expressing lower levels of co-stimulatory markers. These cells were capable of suppressing antigen specific T cell proliferation and inducing Treg cells from a naive population.
MSC trophic factors were further examined for their ability to promote wound healing. MSC conditioned media cultured with lung epithelial cells encouraged proliferation through the release of the growth factor HGF. MSC CM also reduced the proliferation and activation of primary lung fibroblasts, yet encouraged their migration. These results suggest MSC do not hinder the body's natural wound healing efforts but prevents unsolicited fibroblast activity and encourages epithelial growth and repair. The positive effects of MSC treatment were further examined in vivo, where MSC were shown to improve pathology in a bleomycin driven model of lung fibrosis.
The bleomycin model was examined and refined in order to more accurately represent therapeutic intervention, allowing for investigation of MSC as an anti-fibrotic cell therapy.


An orthogonal spreading code family based on scrambled Walsh-Hadamard (WH) sequences is proposed for quasi-synchronous (QS) code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems. With 1 chip offset, either the top or the bottom half rows of the WH matrix remain orthogonal if they are scrambled using the proposed scrambling patterns. With quadriphase scrambling applied on a quarter row of the WH matrix, the zero-correlation zone (ZCZ) is extended to 3 chips. The proposed spreading codes satisfy the theoretical limit of code size for a given code length and ZCZ. Compared with existing spreading codes for QS-CDMA, the proposed spreading codes have several advantages: 1) A special procedure for code family construction is not needed; it only requires a simple modification to the scrambling sequence of the conventional CDMA, which employs WH sequences as user signatures. 2) Flexible code family size; the size can easily be extended for multicell applications without having to consider existing codes used. Moreover, if synchronization is guaranteed to be within 1 chip, the code size can be doubled by allocating another quarter member of the WH sequence set. 3) The benefits of long code scrambling from the conventional cellular CDMA systems are inherited, such as robustness against interception and multiaccess interference randomization.


OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to see if exposure to life events influences age-related decline in control.

METHODS
The data came from a large, nationally representative sample of Canadians aged 18 and older (n = 17, 291). We examined the principal research question by testing for an interaction between age, life events, and mastery using linear regression, both cross-sectionally and over time.

RESULTS
Similar to previous work, there was a nonlinear association between age and mastery. The data suggested that exposure to life events was associated with lower levels of perceived control at any age, but that the impact of stress exposure was stronger in older adults. This effect was also evident for change in mastery over time.

DISCUSSION
The findings from this study suggest that exposure to life events is an important, yet overlooked, determinant of age-related decline in control. Loss of personal and social resources may be the reason older adults appear more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress.


This thesis presents a foreign policy decision-making analysis of Kazakhstan's foreign relations in the initial post-independence period. The study applies a neoclassical realist theoretical framework in order to provide the understanding of Kazakhstan's external behaviour. The thesis conceptually assumes that the integration of the presidential decision-making element in the analysis of the republic's foreign policy is essential to account for Kazakhstan's foreign strategies, which would otherwise appear to be anomalous from the deterministic perspective of the structural theories of international relations. The set objective of the work is to produce a theoretically informed historical narratives of Almaty's policymaking during three episodes in the republic's diplomatic history – the elaboration of a distinct balancing strategy; the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal; and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace mission.
The reconstruction of events behind the decisions made by president Nursultan Nazarbayev and his key advisors through the assessment of primary materials sourced from the archives of Kazakhstani foreign policy demonstrates that foreign decision-making process played a crucial role in the identification of national interests and development of appropriate policy responses in each of the episodes under examination. Chapter IV illustrates how the nation's policymakers developed a unique balancing strategy to ascertain the country's sovereignty and eliminate security risks under overwhelming geopolitical pressures that emanated from Russia and China. Chapter V discusses the episode when Nazarbayev was subjected to direct international pressure to surrender the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal on the terms imposed by the USA, in response to which Nazarbayev devised a deliberately ambivalent and protracted strategy in regard to the republic's nuclear status. Chapter VI reveals the adaptability of the republic's policymaking to the changing international context as the regression of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace initiative demonstrates. The exposition of intricate policy planning and profound diplomatic endeavours reflected in archival documents reinforces the thesis's premise about the non-deterministic nature of Kazakhstan's foreign policy.


Visual working memory has severe capacity limits, creating a bottleneck for active processing. A key way of mitigating this limitation is by chunking, i.e. compressing several pieces of information into one visual working memory representation. However, despite decades of research, chunking efficiency remains debated because of mixed evidence. We propose that there are actually 2 integration mechanisms: Grouping combines several objects to one representation, and object-unification merges the parts of a single object. Critically, we argue that the fundamental distinction between the 2 processes is their differential use of the pointer system, the indexing process connecting visual working memory representations with perception. In grouping, the objects that are represented together still maintain independent pointers, making integration costly but highly flexible. Conversely, object-unification fuses the pointers as well as the representations, with the single pointer producing highly efficient integration but blocking direct access to individual parts. We manipulated integration cues via task-irrelevant movement, and monitored visual working memory's online electrophysiological marker. Uniquely colored objects were flexibly grouped and ungrouped via independent pointers (experiment 1). If objects turned uniformly black, object-integration could not be undone (experiment 2), requiring visual working memory to reset before re-individuation. This demonstrates 2 integration levels (representational-merging versus pointer-compression) and establishes the dissociation between visual working memory representations and their underlying pointers.


A nemacheiline loach Yunnanilus jinxiensis sp. nov. has been discovered in collections from a Pearl River Drainage in Ludong village, Jingxi county, and Guangxi of China in May 2008. Yunnanilus jinxiensis is a new member of the Yunnanilus pleurotaenis group. It can be distinguished from all other congeners in this group by the following characters: body entirely covered by scales, except between pectoral fins and pelvic fins; lateral line present, with 15–20 pores; dorsal fin with 8 branched rays; pectoral fin with 13–14 branched rays; the air bladder has two chambers, the anterior ones into bony capsules and a large free posterior chamber, filling body cavity; caudal fin slightly emarginated; body depth 3.9–4.6 times the standard length (SL); head length 4.1–4.4 times SL; caudal peduncle depth 7.5–9.0 times SL; eye diameter 5.5–6.7 times the head length (HL); interorbital width 2.2–2.4 times HL.


: Impulse activity of lumbar interneurons was recorded extracellularly during fictious locomotion of thalamic cats. Neurons whose activity was modulated in the rhythm of fictitious locomotion were revealed in the lateral intermediate zone and in the lateral ventral born. 41.2% of these neurons were mainly activated at the phase of "flexion", 48.5%--at the phase of "extension" and 10.3%--at both phases. Neurons with tonically increasing or decreasing activity during rhythmic efferent discharges and neurons whose activity did not change during fictitious locomotion were also observed. All these types of neurons were similarly activated during late discharges in efferent nerves. But in this case the depth of modulation of neuronal activity was lower than during fictitious locomotion. Afferent inputs to the recorded interneurons were also investigated. The neuronal organization of the spinal locomotor generator is discussed on the basis of the obtained data.


Objective: To examine the association between vaping and health behaviors (physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, sleep, cigarette use, alcohol consumption) and mental health among college students. Methods: Socio-demographic characteristics, vaping, health behaviors, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms of undergraduates enrolled at a large university located in the Northeast of the United States were assessed via an online survey. Results: Of all participants (n = 1775), less than a fifth (n = 314, 17.7%) reported any vaping in the past month. More men reported vaping than women (23.2% vs. 14.5%). Those who vaped reported fewer nights of restful sleep and greater alcohol consumption. Those who smoked and binge drank were more likely to report vaping. Perceived stress was greater among women who vaped, and depressive symptoms were greater among those who vaped regardless of gender. Conclusions: Vaping was associated with smoking, alcohol consumption, and poorer mental health among young adults.


Techniques are presented for obtaining time-resolved sequences of holograms and holographic interferograms of a shock wave impinging on a model in a shock tube. Several images are multiplexed on a single frame of film using a stationary, focused object beam and an angularly swept reference beam. At the reconstruction stage, the direction from which the reconstruction beam is shone determines which image is observed. In the original implementation, angular sweeping of the reference beam was achieved by the combination of a flat spinning mirror with a circular mirror that redirected the light on a fixed area of film. The holographic light source was a ruby laser, multiply Q-switched by a Pockels cell at rates of up to 20 thousand pulses a second. The method has been used to record either schlieren images or holographic interferograms of shock waves. Schlieren images of the phenomenon were holographically recorded by introducing an aperture at a focal point in the optical path of the object beam. Holographic interferograms were generated by overlaying two sequences on the same medium, one containing the phenomenon and the other the undisturbed field (reference exposure). The spinning mirror equipment is capable of recording sequences of some 10 frames at 50 μs separation, over a useful sweep angle of about 110°. Proper timing of the sweep with respect to shock arrival was not assured with the original spinning mirror design, and there were additional problems with registration between successive sweeps and with "time smear" of the holographic recording. A solid state design based on ferroelectric liquid crystal electro-optical shutters is currently under development. In addition to eliminating problems with synchronization, registration and smearing, such a system would be uniquely suited to simultaneously recording the reference exposure on all frames.


The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation standard (CC) promises to replace scattered and often conflicting regional and national security standards. An emerging international standard, it is intended to support developers, evaluators and consumers of security products. The CC provides a framework to rate products by evaluation assurance level (EAL). Each EAL embodies a recommended set of assurance requirements: the higher the EAL, the more secure the product. You can use EALs to pick and choose which assurance requirements you want to satisfy. Think of the EALs as you would think of bandwidth or processor speed. Not everyone in your organization needs a dedicated T3 line or a 450 MHz desktop. Likewise, not every security product you use needs an EAL7 rating. The article shows how you, as a security products consumer, can use the CC to help determine if a given product meets your security needs. By rating different products according to their EALs, the CC can help you comparison shop and select an appropriately secure product. Further, the standard's international scope can help you integrate your system's security components with those in other countries-whether those components belong to customers, vendors, or other divisions of your own enterprise.


Objective: To compare subjects who had at least one parent with a total knee replacement for severe primary knee osteoarthritis with age and sex matched controls who had no family history of knee osteoarthritis Design: Population based case–control study of 188 matched pairs (mean age 45 years, range 26 to 60). Methods: Articular cartilage volume and bone size were determined at the patella and at the medial tibial and lateral tibial compartments by processing images acquired using T1 weighted, fat saturated magnetic resonance imaging. Radiographic osteoarthritis (ROA) was assessed from a standing semiflexed radiograph scored for joint space narrowing and osteophytosis. Knee pain was assessed by questionnaire. Height, weight, body mass index (BMI), lower limb muscle strength, and endurance fitness were measured by standard protocols. Results: Compared with the controls, index offspring had higher BMI (27.8 v 26.0 kg/m2, p = 0.02), weaker lower limb muscles (127 v 135 kg, p = 0.006), more knee pain (47% v 22%, p<0.001), and greater medial tibial bone area (17.6 v 17.1 cm2, p = 0.01). With the exception of BMI, these differences persisted in multivariate analysis. There was a non-significant trend to higher cartilage volume at tibial sites and increased ROA in the offspring in the total and subgroup analyses, but no difference in height and endurance fitness. Conclusions: BMI, muscle strength, knee pain, and medial tibial bone area, but not cartilage volume, appear to play a role in the genetic regulation and development of knee osteoarthritis.


Soil compaction is widely applied in geotechnical engineering practice. It is used to maximise the dry density of soils to reduce subsequent settlement under working loads or to reduce the permeability of soils. The durability and stability of structures are highly related to the appropriate compaction achievement. The structural failure of roads and airfields, and the damage caused by foundation settlement can often be traced back to the failure in achieving adequate compaction. For that reason, soil compaction is important for engineering activities involving earthworks.
 Compacted soils are unsaturated by nature, which includes both air and water within their voids. Thus, unsaturated soil mechanics principles are crucial in understanding the compaction behaviour of soils. There are several qualitative studies, which attempt to explain the compaction behaviour of soils and there is a vast body of literature covering the behaviour of compacted soils. Still, fundamental research on the compaction process is limited. In addition, the current constitutive models available for unsaturated soils assume that the soil state after compaction is the initial state of the soil. However, compacted soils undergo a stress history which influences the post compaction behaviour. Considering these facts, it still remains that the compaction of soil is a complex phenomenon, which is not well explained, particularly from a quantitative sense. Further understanding of the compaction behaviour during the compaction process will provide important insights on the behaviour of compacted soils.
 The main aim of this research project is to extend the current understanding of the compaction process of soils. The research focuses on three different areas: investigating the experimental behaviour of soils during the static compaction process and obtaining data for compaction modelling; developing a compaction model using the existing constitutive models for unsaturated soils; and evaluating the performance of this model in predicting the compaction behaviour of soils.
 In the experimental part, static compaction tests were conducted on two different granular soils, sand with 2% and 5% bentonite content by weight. The tests were undertaken on samples with different water contents in order to observe the effect of matric suction on the compaction behaviour. The initial matric suction of the specimens was measured using the null type axis translation technique and the matric suction variations were monitored during the compaction process. It was found that the unsaturated samples were always more compressible than the saturated sample. This finding is contrary to the assumption made in most constitutive models, and thus modelling the compaction behaviour using these models may result in some deficiencies. In addition, in granular soils with low water content the axis translation technique was found to be very time consuming for the suction measurements. This was attributed to the discontinuous water phase within the samples.
 To develop a compaction model, a volume change constitutive relationship for unsaturated soils, defined in terms of two independent stress variables, was incorporated with pore pressure predictions. The model was developed for undrained, semi-drained and drained loading conditions. Initially, compressibility coefficients in the volume change relationship were considered as constant parameters, i.e., the compressibility of a soil element does not change with increasing vertical stress. Using constant compressibility coefficients, the compaction curve can be predicted only for the wet side of the curve, not the dry side. Thus, variable compressibility coefficients were derived from constitutive models proposed in the literature, and using these coefficients, the well-known shape of the compaction curve was predicted on both dry and wet side of the compaction curve. It was found that the shape of the compaction curve can be the theoretically predicted using unsaturated soil mechanics principles. The main insight gained from the model development was that the influence of matric suction on the material compressibility with respect to net stress is the governing factor determining the inverted parabolic shape of the compaction curve.
 The performance of the compaction models were examined on their ability to predict the compaction behaviour of soils. Data for four different soils, two sand-bentonite mixtures tested in this study, and Boom clay and Speswhite kaolin data from literature, were used for models evaluation. Two different constitutive modelling approaches were analysed, which are the separate stress state variables approach and combined stress state approach. It was concluded that the samples prepared from initially slurry soils and from initially dry soils could not be treated the same and would require the use of different sets of soil parameters. In addition, the compaction behaviour of soils, prepared from initially dry samples, could only be modelled over a narrow range of water contents using a single set of soil parameters. Minimum two sets of soil parameters are required to model the compaction behaviour over a wide range of water contents with the current constitutive models.


This retrospective study analyzes the seminal fluid indices of 633 male partners of infertile couples at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital over a four year period. All the laboratory records on seminal fluid analysis between 1st January 2003 and 31st December 2006 were reviewed. The seminal fluid characteristics of the patients were determined and the abnormalities classified according to the World health organisation guidelines. Five hundred (79.0%) of the men had abnormal seminal fluid parameters. About 56.0% of the subjects were asthenozoospermic, 38.9% were oligozoospermic, 2.8% had teratozoospermia while 7.0% had azoospermia. The significant contribution of the male factor to infertility in our environment is highlighted. The need for the encouragement of male partners of infertile couples to avail themselves for proper infertility evaluation and the advantages of early detection and treatment of sexually transmitted infections in men is stressed.

 KEY WORDS: Male infertility, seminal fluid indices, Uyo


Discovering complex and meaningful relationships, which we call Semantic Associations, is an important challenge. Just as ranking of documents is a critical component of today's search engines, ranking of relationships will be essential in tomorrow's semantic search engines that would support discovery and mining of the Semantic Web. Building upon our recent work on specifying types of Semantic Associations in RDF graphs, which are possible to create through semantic metadata extraction and annotation, we discuss a framework where ranking techniques can be used to identify more interesting and more relevant Semantic Associations. Our techniques utilize alternative ways of specifying the context using ontology. This enables capturing users' interests more precisely and better quality results in relevance ranking.


Adequate design solution and maintenance of circuits with fast reactors cooled by lead and lead-bismuth coolants require taking into account the peculiarities of hydrodynamics of these coolant flows. The design pressure of saturated vapors of lead and its alloys at temperatures of 400–550 °C is 10 −18−10 −10 atm, which is significantly less than that of sodium or water. Processes of traditional cavitation cannot occur in a flow of heavy liquid-metal coolants because of their specific character. The main circulation pumps of reactor circuits are one of their basic elements. In fact, the flow-type parts of these pumps and other vane pumps operating in lead and its alloys cannot be calculated by traditional methods in terms of cavitation characteristics; appropriate calculation formulas are not currently available. To study cavitation processes in a heavy liquid-metal coolant flow, the authors have carried out the experiments aimed at:- determining the conditions of disconnection of liquid lead and lead-bismuth eutectic column;- determining the cavitation characteristics of a centrifugal pump transferring lead at a temperature of 500 °C;- studying the characteristics of ejector (Venturi nozzle) in a liquid metal;- studying the cavitation erosion effect of the lead coolant on impeller vanes of an axial-flow pump in a limited volume in the FT-4-A stand at a lead flow rate of up to 1200 t/h;- studying the cavitation characteristics of an axial-flow pump in the FT-4 stand at shaft speeds of 13.34–25 Hz.These studies are performed with the lead coolant at temperatures of 450°−550°C, oxygen in lead from 10−4−10−5 to 100, flow rates from 20 to 1800 t/h, which corresponds to velocities of the lead coolant flow from 1.0 to 26 m/s.The experiments have shown that as distinct from water, traditional cavitation processes in a heavy liquid-metal coolant (HLMC) flow are not recorded. The probable cavitation mechanism is gas cavitation. The allowance for the specific character of hydrodynamics of HLMC flows is necessary for adequate design engineering and maintenance of some elements of the reactor circuit.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Robotics: Science and Systems IV spans a wide spectrum of robotics, bringing together researchers working on the foundations of robotics, robotics applications, and the analysis of robotics systems. This volume presents the proceedings of the fourth annual Robotics: Science and Systems conference, held in 2008 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The papers presented cover a range of topics, including computer vision, mapping, terrain identification, distributed systems, localization, manipulation, collision avoidance, multibody dynamics, obstacle detection, microrobotic systems, pursuit-evasion, grasping and manipulation, tracking, spatial kinematics, machine learning, and sensor networks as well as such applications as autonomous driving and the design of manipulators for use in functional-MRI. The conference and its proceedings reflect not only the tremendous growth of robotics as a discipline but also the desire in the robotics community for a flagship event at which the best of the research in the field can be presented.


With the further development of China's economy, the relevance between income gap and the stage of economic development becomes more and more obvious. Using the panel data of 29 provinces in China during 1986-2010, this paper measures the income gap between urban and rural areas with the ratio of urban—rural income and Theil Index respectively. Furthermore, the thesis discusses the relevance between the stage of economic development and the urban-rural income gap. The result shows that China's urban-rural income gap is expanding along with the economic development during these 25 years at the national level. Meanwhile, it is found that there is a marked regional differences in China. The income gap has obviously increased in western China that is in good agreement with it at the nation level. On the contrary, there is a reduced effect of different degree of the income gap in the eastern and central regions. This shows that there is an imbalance of economic development in China once again. There are different stages of economic development within the different region even in one China.


In this paper, the local imbalances between supply and demand of skills, as well as some determining elements of them, are initially highlighted, by using a simple graphic tool, i.e. the OECD Diagnostic Tool. Then particular attention is paid to some policies for promoting the matching between supply and demand of skills through appenticeship and employment services. In particular some legal criticalities, affecting especially southern areas, and making it difficult to implement those policies that are effective notably at territorial level, are underlined.


This LibGuide is an accompaniment to the FSHN Food Product Development class, the required food science undergraduate capstone experience offered at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign through the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition


Herein, we report a facile synthesis of bay-region-functionalized peropyrenes and teropyrenes through an InCl3-catalyzed double or quadruple benzannulation reaction of alkynes. This method also allows for the formation of persistently twisted, and thus chiral, peropyrenes. In contrast to using Bronsted acids to facilitate the alkyne benzannulation reaction, these InCl3-catalyzed reactions are capable of cyclizing electron-rich, electron-poor, and even alkyl-substituted alkynes; this drastically improves the scope of products that can be accessed. X-ray crystallographic analysis showed that the substituents in the bay-region play an important role, not only in the crystal packing, but also for their chirality in the solid-state. The excellent solubility and broad scope of both the peropyrenes and teropyrenes obtained by this method, enable us to fully study their interesting optical and electrochemical properties for the first time.


We present a detailed analysis of the morphology of granular systems composed of frictionless pentagonal particles by varying systematically both the size span and particle shape irregularity, which represent two polydispersity parameters of the system. The microstructure is characterized in terms of various statistical descriptors such as global and local packing fractions, radial distribution functions, coordination number, and fraction of floating particles. We find that the packing fraction increases with the two parameters of polydispersity, but the effect of shape polydispersity for all the investigated structural properties is significant only at low size polydispersity where the positional and/or orientational ordering of the particles prevail. We focus in more detail on the class of side/side contacts, which is the interesting feature of our system as compared to a packing of disks. We show that the proportion of such contacts has weak dependence on the polydispersity parameters. The side- side contacts do not percolate but they define clusters of increasing size as a function of size polydispersity and decreasing size as a function of shape polydispersity. The clusters have anisotropic shapes but with a decreasing aspect ratio as polydispersity increases. This feature is argued to be a consequence of strong force chains (forces above the mean), which are mainly captured by side-side contacts. Finally, the force transmission is intrinsically multiscale, with a mean force increasing linearly with particle size.


One hundred and eighteen strains of spore-forming lactic acid bacteria, and one strain of Lactobacillus plantarum were investigated with regard to morphological, biochemical, and physiological characteristics. These characteristics were analyzed numerically. The strains were separated into three clusters. Cluster 1 consists of 44 strains including Sporolactobacillus inulinus (2 strains), "Sporolactobacillus laevas" (15 strains), "Sporolactobacillus laevas var. intermedius" (7 strains), "Sporolactobacillus racemicus" (7 strains), "Bacillus laevolacticus" (12 strains), and "Bacillus racemilacticus" (1 strain). Cluster 2 consists of 70 strains: "B. laevolacticus" (57 strains), "B. racemilacticus" (2 strains), "S. racemicus" (8 strains), "S. laevas" (2 strains), and "S. laevas var. intermedius" (1 strain). Cluster 3 comprises 3 strains including the type strain of Bacillus coagulans and one strain each of "B. laevolacticus" and "B. racemilacticus." One strain of "S. racemicus" and the type strain of Lactobacillus plantarum were not included in the above clusters. The clusters are considered to correspond respectively to the taxa Sporolactobacillus, "Bacillus laevolacticus, " and Bacillus coagulans. Catalase activity and production of acid from lactose and melibiose were useful in differentiating the three clusters.


Aim Tracking technologies are often proposed as a method to elucidate the complex migratory life histories of migratory marine vertebrates, allowing spatially explicit threats to be identified and mitigated. We conducted a global analysis of foraging areas of adult green turtles (Chelonia mydas) subject to satellite tracking (n = 145) and the conservation designation of these areas according to International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria. Location The green turtle has a largely circumtropical distribution, with adults migrating up to thousands of kilometres between nesting beaches and foraging areas, typically in neritic seagrass or algal beds. Methods We undertook an assessment of satellite tracking projects that followed the movements of green turtles in tropical and subtropical habitats. This approach was facilitated by the use of the Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (http:// www.seaturtle.org) and the integration of publicly available data on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Results We show that turtles aggregate in designated MPAs far more than would be expected by chance when considered globally (35% of all turtles were located within MPAs) or separately by ocean basin (Atlantic 67%, Indian 34%, Mediterranean 19%, Pacific 16%). Furthermore, we show that the size, level of protection and time of establishment of MPAs affects the likelihood of MPAs containing foraging turtles, highlighting the importance of large, well-established reserves.


The effects of smoking on the mortality experience of elderly populations are considered by comparing the mortality rates for elderly smokers, ex-smokers and nonsmokers. This question arose since a recent study, using similar data, suggested that there was no health benefit for elderly cigarette smokers who discontinue cigarette smoking. Although ultimately in the latter part of the life-span, the benefit which might be gained by giving up smoking would not increase life-span significantly, the present study shows that for all of the older age groups investigated, a lower mortality from all causes of death is observed for nonsmokers and ex-smokers compared with elderly smokers. Consequently, even though no direct evidence is available, from this or other studies, as to whether it is desirable for elderly smokers to discontinue smoking, because of the general consistency of the data for the younger and older age groups, it seems probable that giving up smoking represents a health benefit for most older smokers.


Date Presented 4/19/2018 A systematic review was conducted to determine the influence of family meals on the health and well-being of family members. Results suggest that increased family meal frequency is associated with improved health and well-being outcomes for family members. Primary Author and Speaker: Lauren Lange Additional Authors and Speakers: Emily Katz, Karla Ausderau


In this paper, we study a time-critical facet of context-awareness: context transitions, which we model as changes in specific context types over time, e.g., activity or location. We present results from a user-centred field study involving participant interviews and motion data capture from two mobile device sensors: the accelerometer and magnetic field sensor. The results show how the participants subjectively interpret their daily context transitions with variable granularity, and a comparison of these context transitions with mobile device motion data shows how the motion data poorly reflect the identified transitions. The results imply that care should be taken when representing and modelling users' subjective interpretations of context, as well as the objective nature of context sensors. Furthermore, processing and usability trade-offs should be made if real-time ondevice transition detection is to be implemented.


The familiar idea of a gap between theory and practice suggests a fundamental difference. This difference may be explained by an underlying distinction between two incomplete and incompatible models of social phenomena, a doctrine model (in which we construct theories) and a practice model (in which we understand practice). Social phenomena such as morality, law, or medicine can be described in terms of interaction, a practice, and they can be described as a set of precepts, a doctrine. These models embody different types of knowledge (Ryle, Scott). In a practice model understandings are often implicit and tacit rather than explicit as in the doctrine perspective. Professional wisdom or metis is not easy to grasp in general theoretical insights, because it is so particularistic and contextual.This distinction may explain why there is little progress in methodological discussions on reflective equilibrium. In the doctrine view, reflective equilibrium is an epistemological tool that may be used to reach moral truth. In the practice perspective, it is a hermeneutic or pragmatist process of critical self-reflection aimed at becoming a better person or a better society, or performing a moral action.It is not possible to bridge the gap by combining both models in one integrated perspective. Theory and practice refer to different ways of looking at social phenomena. The only way of doing optimal justice to both is by a dialectical process in which we switch between the two models.


Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) based electrospun nanoweb fibers with outstanding piezo-, pyro- and ferroelectric behavior are being intensely studied by many researchers, especially for touch-sensor applications. In order to further improve the advantageous characteristics of PVDF nanoweb fibers, we focused our attention on studying the effect of filling PVDF solution with calculated amount of calcium chloride (CaCl2) or multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT), and their electrospun nanoweb fibers were analyzed for the changes in β-crystalline phase, and its associated piezoelectric characteristics using a custom-made sensor set-up developed in our lab. FT-IR spectroscopy was used to confirm the changes in the β-crystalline content with varying content of CaCl2 and MWCNT. SEM data revealed the reducing fiber diameter with increasing CaCl2 content. PVDF nanoweb subjected to pressure showed changes in touch sensing property as analyzed using an oscilloscope integrated with Labview program. Overall, the PVDF nanoweb containing the additives used in our study exhibited greater sensitivity-in-touch for use in smart apparel applications compared to unmodified PVDF nanoweb, and the results are reported in detail here.


The aim of this research work is to investigate the sliding properties of the monotectic surface layers developed by a laser surface-treatment technology. The coatings-remelting technology has been chosen from the laser surface treatment methods. The surface of Al-Si alloy was coated with a lead layer by galvanizing, then the basic material and the surface layer were remelted together by using laser beam produced a monotectic Al- Pb surface layer. The structure of monotectic surface layer has been determined by means of a light microscope and scanning electron microscope. The sliding properties of the basic material (as cast, nearly eutectic Al-Si alloy), the Al-Si-Pb monotectic surface layer as well as the Al-Cu-Sn sliding bearing (Al-Cu matrix and Sn sliding layer) used in the gas industry have been investigated.


ABSTRACT Literature from the perspective of Western philosophy remains to be embedded in a "deficit" opinion that points at "fixing" Black males in special education rather than valuing the individuality of each pupil. Furthermore, educators must look at the "toughest-at-risk" pupil with the notion that he has extraordinary abilities. Consequently, the current body of scholarship on the intersectionality of race, dyslexia, and giftedness is limited in scope. Thus, this auto-ethnographic account epitomizes the voice of a gifted Black male with dyslexia represented through poetry. I utilized auto-ethnographic and critical disability theory as a way to learn, and become more conscious of my academic and social journey, and identity development. The overall purpose is to offer a personal account of my lived experiences as a means to further advance the ongoing examination of the intersectionality with the hope that my story will resonate with readers, scholars, parents, teachers, and students.


As a classical machine learning method, multi-task learning (MTL) has been widely applied in computer vision technology. Due to deep convolutional neural network (D-CNN) having strong ability of feature representation, the combination of MTL and D-CNN has attracted much attention from researchers recently. However, this kind of combination has rarely been explored in the field of vehicle analysis. The authors propose a D-CNN enhanced with weighted multi-attribute strategy for extensive exploration of comprehensive vehicle attributes over surveillance images. Specifically, regarding to recognising vehicle model and make/manufacturer, several related attributes as auxiliary tasks are incorporated in the training process of D-CNN structure. The proposed strategy focuses more on the main task compared with traditional MTL methods, which has assigned different weights for the main task and auxiliary tasks rather than treating all involved tasks equally. To the extent of their knowledge, this is the first report relating to the combination of D-CNN and weighted MTL for exploration of comprehensive vehicle attributes. The following experiments will show that the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art method for the vehicle recognition and improves the accuracy rate by about 10% for the analysis of other vehicle attributes on the recently public CompCars dataset.


Emerging countries have been winning large market shares since the early 1990s. Among these, China stands out with the most remarkable performance: it almost tripled its world market share becoming a leading exporter, second only to EU 27. Products exported by China incorporate, however, a large share of foreign inputs. By 2007 one tenth of internationally traded products were shipped to China. These recent evolutions reveal the large and growing domestic market potential and explain the increasing attractiveness of the Chinese market to foreign producers. The present paper attempts to identify the countries that profit and suffer the most from the recent expansion of the Chinese market. I use an econometric shift-share methodology that permits to identify for each trade flow the share of growth arising from the capacity to target the products and markets with the highest increase in demand, and the share due exclusively to exporter's performance.


A 64-year-old man presented with pathologic crying and right hemiplegia due to a unilateral pontine infarct from probable branch disease of the basilar artery. The circumscribed nature of the lesion was supported by MRI and short-latency evoked potentials. The weeping spells ceased after a few days of imipramine in low doses. Pathologic laughing and crying can be viewed as a limbic-motor disconnection syndrome, in which the faciovocal motor system is released from forebrain afferents carrying information of emotional content. The inclusion of pathologic laughing and crying in the syndrome pseudobulbar palsy is inaccurate and misleading, since each is related to distinct functional and anatomic systems intrinsic to the human brainstem.


Abstract. In this study a method is introduced for the retrieval of optical thickness and effective particle size of ice clouds over a wide range of optical thickness from ground-based transmitted radiance measurements. Low optical thickness of cirrus clouds and their complex microphysics present a challenge for cloud remote sensing. In transmittance, the relationship between optical depth and radiance is ambiguous. To resolve this ambiguity the retrieval utilizes the spectral slope of radiance between 485 and 560 nm in addition to the commonly employed combination of a visible and a short-wave infrared wavelength. An extensive test of retrieval sensitivity was conducted using synthetic test spectra in which all parameters introducing uncertainty into the retrieval were varied systematically: ice crystal habit and aerosol properties, instrument noise, calibration uncertainty and the interpolation in the lookup table required by the retrieval process. The most important source of errors identified are uncertainties due to habit assumption: Averaged over all test spectra, systematic biases in the effective radius retrieval of several micrometre can arise. The statistical uncertainties of any individual retrieval can easily exceed 10 µm. Optical thickness biases are mostly below 1, while statistical uncertainties are in the range of 1 to 2.5. For demonstration and comparison to satellite data the retrieval is applied to observations by the Munich hyperspectral imager specMACS (spectrometer of the Munich Aerosol and Cloud Scanner) at the Schneefernerhaus observatory (2650 m a.s.l.) during the ACRIDICON-Zugspitze campaign in September and October 2012. Results are compared to MODIS and SEVIRI satellite-based cirrus retrievals (ACRIDICON – Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems; MODIS – Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer; SEVIRI – Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager). Considering the identified uncertainties for our ground-based approach and for the satellite retrievals, the comparison shows good agreement within the range of natural variability of the cloud situation in the direct surrounding.


The purpose of this investigation was to examine and compare the simultaneous electromyographic activity from surface and implanted wire electrodes of an antagonist pair of muscles during a reversal stretching technique. Previous studies reported increased electromyographic activity of a muscle being stretched during antagonist muscle activation. Five male subjects performed a stretching method which consisted of active plantarflexion, followed by active dorsiflexion. Adjacent surface and implanted wire electrodes were applied to the soleus and tibialis anterior muscles. Comparison of the surface electrode recordings showed apparent cocontraction during dorsiflexion. However, no activity was observed on the soleus wire electrode trace during the dorsiflexion phase of the stretching method. Power spectral analysis showed a significant (P less than 0.001) frequency shift between plantarflexion (91.9 V2.Hz-1) and dorsiflexion (66.1 V2.Hz-1) from the surface electrode recordings. Cross-correlation between tibialis anterior and surface soleus activity during dorsiflexion provided strong evidence that the apparent electromyographic soleus signal originated in the tibialis anterior muscle with an average of 8.7 ms delay of the surface soleus signal. Although not generalizable to other studies, it was concluded that in this study the tracings from the surface electrodes, which gave the appearance of co-contraction between antagonist muscles, were actually cross-talk between the electrodes. The rationale for antagonist contraction during stretching in order to inhibit contraction of the muscle being stretched is supported with this evidence and is consistent with those studies which show greater range of motion gains using the reversal technique.


Objective: The General Medical Council (GMC) of the UK has identified the need to support doctors through education in safety and quality improvement (QI) methods. This study reports findings from the GMC annual survey of 2018 from urology trainees regarding the state of QI training and their training needs. Material and methods: We designed a set of four questions to assess how QI methods are being taught nationally, and inserted them in the 2018 annual GMC trainee survey for urology. This is a cross-sectional study assessing the current state of QI training and mentoring received by trainees, and their self-assessed ability and confidence in completing a QI project as part of training requirements. Data were statistically analysed in Stata 15 stratified by Local Education Training Boards (LETBs)/Deanery and by specialty trainee level (ST3–7). Results: In total, 270 responses were received from urology trainees. Data showed significant variation across the country. Responses from ST3–7 trainees ranged from 5–20% on completing more than three QI projects, while 7–58% replied that they had done none. Across all ST grades, 40% of trainees stated they had not undertaken QI, whereas 0–27% reported they had not received any mentoring on QI to date. There was significant variation across training regions too: 11–74% of trainees answered that they have received training in QI methods, and 58–100% responded that they were confident in undertaking QI projects. Across all LETBs, 1–3% responded that they uploaded projects on national websites for dissemination; finally, a range of 0–18% stated they had completed more than three projects. Conclusion: This is the first national snapshot of QI training for the entire urology specialty in the UK. The study demonstrates wide variation in QI training and activity undertaken by trainees, and shows a lack of systematic implementation of QI education across training regions. Level of evidence: 2c


Despite the availability of different treatments
for advanced NSCLC, all of them have a palliative intention and a cure for the disease is unlikely. Thus, advanced lung
cancer remains as an unmet medical need.
Chemotherapy has been used as the therapy of choice for advanced NSCLC patients,
but it is mainly limited by the patient's performance status.
More recently, targeted therapies have introduced more specific treatment options
that show efficacy in specific niche of patients, but precisely due to their target
specificity, they usually provoke early resistance. In addition to these limitations, most of the best drugs currently used for
treatment of advanced NSCLC show small increases in patient survival with severe
associated toxicity. Novel drugs with low toxicity that could be given chronically
to control the advanced disease can make a difference. They could allow the management
of advanced cancer as a chronic disease that, even when not cured, it can be controlled for long periods of time offering patients a good quality of life. Active-specific immunotherapy is an area of oncology
that is rapidly expanding with encouraging results. Cancer vaccines against many
potential targets have shown to increase patient survival in clinical trials at
all stages NSCLC, when included as first-line, maintenance, or second-line therapy.
Safety of cancer vaccines supposes a new hope for cancer therapy, and this unique characteristic makes it possible to be used in sub-sets of patients that cannot receive
other approved treatments because of their high toxicity. In this paper, authors propose how active immunotherapy
could be included in the current algorithm for treatment of advanced NSCLC patients.


This report comprehensively examines a wide range o marine geoengineering techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or boost the reflection of incoming solar radiation to space (albedo modification) or in some cases both. Further, the report recommends a) that a coordinated framework for proposing marine geoengineering activities, submitting supporting evidence and integrating independent expert assessment must be developed and b) that a greater expertise on wider societal issues is sought with the aim to establish a knowledge base and provide a subsequent analysis of the major gaps in socio-economics and geopolitics.


The article reports on the advertising effectiveness of the press media in the RSA with regard to the Telematic MBA degree offered by the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. The MBA degree is offered to students countrywide (even internationally) via telematic learning with study centres all over the RSA. Students apply for acceptance during November each year and successful candidates commence their MBA studies at the beginning of the next year. The advertising campaign runs from August to October, and includes a variety of media. The press plays a significant role in this campaign. The article reports on the effectiveness of the different press media, namely, daily newspapers and Sunday newspapers. In addition, the effects of the physical advertisement positioning in the papers (section of the newspaper as well as page the layout), are examined and quantified into money terms per enquiry per advertisement. Direct response evaluation is used to determine the effectiveness of an advertisement and its medium. Analysis revealed that the Sunday Times are the most cost-effective option with regard to Sunday newspapers, while in daily newspapers the Sowetan, Business Day and Beeld are also favourable options. This results correlate favourably with the CPM ratings on readership. This value of this article is therefore that it supplies a frame of reference that could be applied to future marketing campaigns in educational programmes. It also serves as a reference frame that could be used to estimate market response from advertisements in a specific newspaper. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.16(3) 2002: 103-108


This paper provides a scenario of Dr Picksie, an urban engineering instructor in an institute of higher education. Frustrated with the lack of student engagement and authentic, interactive, collaborative pedagogy, he tries Problem-Based Learning (PBL). By following steps of implementing and assessing PBL, he successfully leads his class through their first PBL case, The Case of the Crowded Sidewalks, and gives students the confidence and knowledge to continue more complex PBL problems throughout the semester. Although fictitious, the instructor in this scenario represents a compilation of concerns, successes, confusions and frustrations voiced by faculty and students in higher education through the authors' professional development workshops, teaching, and research studies. Keywords: Problem-Based Learning, PBL, instructional design, collaboration, problem solving, pedagogy


Purpose To evaluate the role of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in the wound healing process following severe chemical burns to the ocular surface. Methods Chemical burning of the ocular surface was induced in mice (C57BL/6) via the application of 0.1 M NaOH. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) mRNA expression in the ocular surface and lacrimal gland was evaluated via real-time reverse transcription PCR on days 2, 7, and 30 after induction of the chemical burn. The expression of MIF protein in the ocular surface and lacrimal gland was evaluated via western blot analysis. Immunohistochemical staining was conducted to detect MIF and vasculoendothelial growth factor in the cornea during the wound healing process. The angiogenic role of MIF was further evaluated using an 8–0 polyglactin suture technique to induce corneal neovascularization. Results MIF, TNF-α, and IL-1β mRNA expression were elevated significantly in the ocular surface up to day 30 after chemical burn induction. TNF-α alone was elevated in the lacrimal gland. MIF protein elevation was confirmed via western blot analysis, and the spatial similarity of MIF and VEGF expression in the cornea was noted during the wound healing process. 8–0 polyglactin sutures soaked in MIF induced significantly higher numbers of new vessels on the mouse cornea after 7 days (p=0.003, Mann–Whitney test). Conclusions These findings indicate that MIF performs a crucial role in wound healing on the ocular surface after the induction of chemical burns.


In Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986), this Court held that political gerrymandering claims are justiciable. A majority of this Court reaffirmed that holding in Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004). But in Vieth, several members of this Court raised legitimate concerns about whether the federal courts are well suited to police such an inherently political process as redistricting.

Reaffirming the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims and affirming the district court in this case will not inevitably involve the federal courts in supervising every redistricting decision. The purpose of this amicus brief is to explain how the Court can create incentives for states to adopt independent redistricting processes to which the federal courts can safely defer.

As this Court, the Framers, and foundational political theory have recognized, elected officials, such as Members of Congress and state legislators, are fiduciaries who have a duty to loyally serve the interests of the people they represent, not their own interests. This commitment to fiduciary government is embedded deep in the constitutional structure. But the process of redistricting is rife with conflicts of interest where incumbent legislators can manipulate the process to entrench themselves and their political allies — a breach of their fiduciary obligation.

Courts are no better at reviewing business judgments than political ones. But when faced with the analogous problem of self-dealing directors in corporate law, courts do not just throw up their hands and declare the whole matter nonjusticiable. Instead, corporate law creates a two-track system of judicial review. Decisions made by conflicted fiduciaries are subjected to exacting scrutiny, but corporate law creates a safe harbor for decisions made or ratified through independent processes. When conflicted directors run their decisions through an independent process, the taint of self-dealing is cleansed, and reviewing courts can safely defer to the substantive outcome so long as they ensure that the process was independent.

Finding an unconstitutional political gerrymander in this case will not plunge the federal courts ever deeper into the political thicket if this Court creates a safe harbor for redistricting decisions made through independent processes. State legislatures are insufficiently independent from their co-partisans in Congress. But the threat of litigation and skeptical judicial review of districts drawn by conflicted state legislatures will create a powerful incentive for those legislatures to adopt independent processes — like the citizens redistricting commissions in Arizona and California — to engage in the complex and delicate task of redistricting without the temptation to manipulate district lines for partisan entrenchment. Courts can safely defer to the substantive redistricting decisions of these institutions and confine their review to ensuring that the process was fair and independent — a task for which courts are well suited.

If, however, the Court decides to overrule Bandemer and Vieth, the Court should limit its holding to congressional gerrymandering and not reach the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims involving state legislative districts. Neither this case nor Lamone v. Benisek, No. 18-726, involves state districts, and the contexts are sufficiently different that the Court should not reach the question here.


It is arguable that whether the single camera captured (monocular) image datasets are sufficient enough to train and test convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for imitating the biological neural network structures of the human brain. As human visual system works in binocular, the collaboration of the eyes with the two brain lobes needs more investigation for improvements in such CNN-based visual imagery analysis applications. It is indeed questionable that if respective visual fields of each eye and the associated brain lobes are responsible for different learning abilities of the same scene. There are such open questions in this field of research which need rigorous investigation in order to further understand the nature of the human visual system, hence improve the currently available deep learning applications. This paper analyses a binocular CNNs architecture that is more analogous to the biological structure of the human visual system than the conventional deep learning techniques. While taking a structure called optic chiasma into account, this architecture consists of basically two parallel CNN structures associated with each visual field and the brain lobe, fully connected later possibly as in the primary visual cortex. Experimental results demonstrate that binocular learning of two different visual fields leads to better classification rates on average, when compared to classical CNN architectures.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Lactobacillus fermentum Suo (LF-Suo) on activated carbon-induced constipation in ICR (Institute of Cancer Research) mice. ICR mice were orally administered with lactic acid bacteria for 9 days. Body weight, diet intake, drinking amount, defecation status, gastrointestinal transit and defecation time, and the serum levels of MTL (motilin), Gas (gastrin), ET (endothelin), SS (somatostatin), AChE (acetylcholinesterase), SP (substance P), VIP (vasoactive intestinal peptide) were used to evaluate the preventive effects of LF-Suo on constipation. Bisacodyl, a laxative drug, was used as a positive control. The normal, control, 100 mg/kg bisacodyl treatment, LB (Lactobacillus bulgaricus)-, LF-Suo (L)- and LF-Suo (H)-treated mice showed the time to the first black stool defecation at 90, 218, 117, 180, 155 and 137 min, respectively. By the oral administration of LB-, LF-Suo (L), LF-Suo (H) or bisacodyl (100 mg/kg), the gastrointestinal transit was reduced to 55.2%, 72.3%, 85.5% and 94.6%, respectively, of the transit in normal mice, respectively. In contrast to the control mice, the serum levels of MTL, Gas, ET, AChE, SP and VIP were significantly increased and the serum levels of SS were reduced in the mice treated with LF-Suo (p < 0.05). By the RT-PCR (reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction) and western blot assays, LF-Suo increased the c-Kit, SCF (stem cell factor), GDNF (glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) and decreased TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid 1), NOS (nitric oxide synthase) expressions of small intestine tissue in mice. These results demonstrate that lactic acid bacteria has preventive effects on mouse constipation and LF-Suo demonstrated the best functional activity.


The major aims of this study were to assess the effects of temperature (15-35 8C) and meal size (less than 30% snake mass) on the metabolism and digestive physiology of Trimeresurus stejnegeri stejnegeri Schmidt, 1925 and to com- pare the results with those of terrestrial snakes. Specific dynamic action (SDA), peak VO2, and scope of peak VO2 increased with meal size. Temperature had little effect on SDA. With regression analysis, we found that baseline metabolic rates of T. s. stejnegeri were generally smaller than that for frequent feeders and larger than that for infrequent feeders. We gener- alized three types of SDA profiles among T. s. stejnegeri and terrestrial snakes (including frequent and infrequent feeders). Trimeresurus stejnegeri stejnegeri had a more shallow and extended profile of postprandial metabolism, which did not sup- port our hypothesis that the pace of digestive metabolism of arboreal snakes is faster than that of terrestrial snakes. The apparent assimilation efficiency (range 0.698-0.884) was significantly lower at 15 8C. At the preferred temperature (26.5- 28.8 8C) for a postprandial 50 g snake, the simulated ratios of four parameters (time to peak VO2, first defecation time, gastric digestion time, and final defecation time) to SDA duration approximated 0.2, 0.5-0.7, 0.7, and 1.1, respectively.


The pressure on primary schools from Government initiatives such as 'school improvement measures' and 'target setting' (DfEE, 1997) is immense. These together with the imperative to 'deliver' the National Literacy Strategy (DfEE, 1998) have resulted in a 'squeeze' on the foundation subjects of the National Curriculum. The pressure will increase with the Numeracy (DfEE, 1998a) developments planned for the next academic year. This paper discusses how a primary school is, with the assistance of a university-based facilitator, attempting to manage its curriculum planning to ensure Design and Technology remains an important aspect of children's education within a broad and balanced curriculum. It explores the processes the school has undergone in examining its current practice and develops tentative plans for projection of its curriculum 1999-2002. Central to this planning is the use of an ICT-based system to facilitate curriculum planning processes and curriculum documentation. Findings explore the implications of the curriculum development process implemented in this school and the implications of using ICT for curriculum planning.


This paper presents a novel 4-bit phase shifter using distributed active switches in 0.18-mum RF CMOS technology. The relative phase shift, which varies from 0deg to 360deg in steps of 22.5deg, is achieved with a 3-bit distributed phase shifter and a 180deg high-pass/low-pass phase shifter. The distributed phase shifter is implemented using distributed active switches that consist of a periodic placement of series inductors and cascode transistors, thereby obtaining linear phase shift versus frequency with a digital control. The design guideline of the distributed phase shifter is presented. The 4-bit phase shifter achieves 3.5 plusmn 0.5 dB of gain, with an rms phase error of 2.6deg at a center frequency of 12.1 GHz. The input and output return losses are less than -15 dB at all conditions. The chip size is 1880 mum times 915 mum including the probing pads.


This report is a review of reliability data on the PPVT obtained from 32 research studies published between 1965 and 1974. Much of the research was done on Head Start children. Overall, the median of reliability coefficients reported here (0.72) has remained remarkably close to the original median of 0.77 found in standardizing the test. Unexpectedly, elapsed time between test and retest had only a slight effect on the reliability coefficients. However, as expected, the greater range in ages and ability levels of subjects, the higher were the reliabilities. For average children in the elementary grades, and for retarded people of all ages, PPVT scores remained relatively stable over time and there was close equivalence between alternate forms. Scores were least stable for preschool children, especially from minority groups. Black preschool girls were more variable in their performance on the PPVT than boys, and preschool girls generally were more responsive than boys to play periods conducted before testing was begun. A number of variables associated with examiners and setting affected the scores on the test. As expected, raw scores tended to yield slightly higher reliabilities than MA and considerably higher reliabilities than IQ scores.


Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This study explores the role of religiosity in external whistleblowing intention by extending the attitude-behavioural-context (ABC) theory to the whistleblowing context in Malaysia. A Muslim has the responsibility to report any wrongdoing in their organisation to protect public interest, as part of amr bil ma'ruf wa nahy 'anil munkar, or enjoining good and forbidding evil. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study utilises a structured questionnaire involving 185 Muslim auditors in Malaysia. A purposive non-probability sampling technique was used, and the data was analysed using SmartPLS 3.3.3. Research findings: The results reveal that religiosity positively influences the perceived control, self-efficacy, and external whistleblowing intention of Muslim auditors, but found no evidence to support the hypotheses related to their attitudes. Further, perceived control and self-efficacy are shown to positively influence attitude.Theoretical contribution/Originality: From the perspective of the ABC theory, the findings suggest that self-efficacy and perceived control are the contextual factors that strongly influence external whistleblowing, and that religiosity can be added to extend the ABC theory in the whistleblowing context. Practitioner/Policy implications: The findings are valuable to audit firms in understanding the effect of religiosity to Muslim auditors to reveal wrongdoings in their firms. Research limitation/Implications: This study is among the first to use ABC theory to examine religiosity in the context of whistleblowing. Hence, it fills the gap in the existing literature by illustrating how ABC theory can be applied in the study relating to the ethical behaviour of accounting professionals.


Background and study aims: Peripancreatic fluid collections (PFCs) have been adequately drained using multiple plastic stents placed in a single-step endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) procedure. Recent reports have presented the usefulness of metal stents for this procedure; however, there has been no prospective comparative study on their effectiveness and safety. We conducted a prospective randomized study to compare multiple plastic stents with fully covered, self-expanding metal stents (FCSEMSs) for the drainage of PFCs. Patients and methods: Between January 2012 and May 2013, patients with PFCs demonstrated by various modalities were enrolled in our study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either a FCSEMS or plastic stents for EUS-guided PFC drainage. The procedure time, technical success rate, and adverse event rates of the PFCs were evaluated. Results: 50 patients (41 men) were included and randomly assigned to either the FCSEMS group (n = 25) or the plastic stent group (n = 25). The median procedure time with FCSEMS was significantly shorter than with plastic stents (15.0 min vs. 29.5 min, P < 0.01). The technical success rate was 100 % for both groups. The clinical success rate was 20 out of 23 for FCSEMS and 20 out of 22 for plastic stents (P = 0.97). No adverse events occurred in the FCSEMS group, while adverse events occurred in two patients in the plastic stent group (P = 0.16). One recurrence was observed during follow-up in the FCSEMS group and none in the plastic stent group (P = 0.15). Conclusions: EUS-guided PFC drainage with FCSEMSs is comparable to such drainage with plastic stents in terms of technical feasibility, efficacy, and safety; however, the use of FCSEMSs may also simplify and shorten the procedure. Clinical trial registration: KCT0000766 (https://cris.nih.go.kr)


Urbanization is generally linked to economic growth, and agglomeration economies mean that people in larger cities are more productive. However, urban expansion is also associated with congestion, localized environmental damage, and in many countries, deficiencies in infrastructure and housing conditions. Urban policies worldwide are increasingly based on an apparent international consensus that urban compactness is a desirable policy goal, for reasons of environmental sustainability and economic productivity. However, there is almost no evidence that compact cities are more productive outside of high-income countries, with a productive service sector. Given that land-intensive manufacturing activities is the economic base of many cities in Latin America, policies promoting compactness may reduce economic productivity by constraining expansion. The tensions between environmental, social and economic goals in the urban policy of countries with rapidly expanding cities has not been sufficiently studied. Mexico is an ideal case study because of the rapid rate at which cities have been growing in recent decades. In this report, we examine impacts—both positive and negative—of the way in which cities have been growing in Mexico. First, we test the relationship between urban form and economic productivity, testing the hypothesis that growing in a compact manner promotes productivity. We find that in Mexico, urban sprawl is associated with higher levels of economic productivity. This finding is counterintuitive and raises questions about the conventional wisdom related to cities and economic growth. We then examine two of the important 'costs' of urban expansion: transportation and socio-economic segregation. Findings in these cases confirm expectations that more sprawling cities have higher transportation costs and more socioeconomic segregation. We conclude by arguing that policy makers must at least acknowledge the tradeoffs between productivity, transportation costs, and socio-spatial structure.


Discussions have drawn attention to the relationship between strategy and structure for much of the last quarter century. Yet, no firm basis has emerged to settle the issue of causal direction or to affirm the relationship's effects on organizational performance. By adding a new dimension to the strategy-structure model, this article attempts to conceptually link long-term performance with (a) the presence of subunits having distinctive competence in strategic planning and (b) the coordination of these differentiated subunits into a discernable microstructure embedded within the overall organization. This new dimension is explored and developed by use of a case of the Pacific Coast seaport industry.


The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a public health emergency of international concern. The purpose of this study was to propose an improved dynamic SEIR (ID-SEIR) model to predict the epidemic trends of novel COVID-19. Firstly, we obtain the values of parameters in ID-SEIR model by using the epidemic data of Wuhan as the training sample. Secondly, we predict the epidemic trends of COVID-19 for the three most serious USA, New York and Italy with our proposed ID-SEIR model, and we can apply the proposed method to predict the epidemic trends of other countries and areas. Finally, we find that the proposed ID-SEIR model established in this paper has strong reliability, which can reasonably reflect the changes in national policies and public behavior during the epidemic. Also, this model can make predictions in line with the actual development of the epidemic and provide reference for infection prevention and control.


Computational models are greatly useful in cognitive science in revealing the mechanisms of learning and decision making. However, it is hard to know whether all meaningful variance in behavior has been account for by the best-fit model selected through model comparison. In this work, we propose to use recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to assess the limits of predictability afforded by a model of behavior, and reveal what (if anything) is missing in the cognitive models. We apply this approach in a complex reward-learning task with a large choice space and rich individual variability. The RNN models outperform the best known cognitive model through the entire learning phase. By analyzing and comparing model predictions, we show that the RNN models are more accurate at capturing the temporal dependency between subsequent choices, and better at identifying the subspace in the space of choices where participants' behavior is more likely to reside. The RNNs can also capture individual differences across participants by utilizing an embedding. The usefulness of this approach suggests promising applications of using RNNs to predict human behavior in complex cognitive tasks, in order to reveal cognitive mechanisms and their variability.


Leading a long-established LLC as an Interim Director poses particular challenges and rewards. Uncertainties abound for the program and for the individual. Professionally speaking, taking on the hybrid role of faculty/ administrator can be both difficult and exciting. Ultimately, the solutions are in the details. Listening carefully to students, understanding institutional history, and looking toward the demands of the future can help an Interim Director care-take the program. In this reflection on my experience with the Russell Scholars Program at the University of Southern Maine, I seek to show how a commitment to student engagement is the bedrock for a successful interim period. From holding to stewarding to shaping, an Interim Director can support and buoy an established program. From a background in literature and creative writing, I discovered the poetry of work in the complexity of this new role. Rather than threaten to destabilize a settled environment, an interim period can provide a necessary pause for reflection and appreciation. As with other interstices, the period between permanent directorships can be rich with new energy, new ways of seeing, and new appreciation for the philosophical undergirding of the original LLC.


Paenibacillus larvae is the causative agent of American foulbrood (AFB), a damaging disease of honey bees (Apis mellifera) with a global distribution. AFB infects the honey bee larvae through spore-contaminated larval food and once infected the larvae will die within twelve days. AFB infection leads to the eventual death of the honey bee colony. In many countries the best control method is thought to be the destruction of the colony, to destroy the hardy, infectious spores. Therefore infection nearly always leads to the death of the colony. In the UK cases of the disease have decreased in recent years due to statutory control methods, however sporadic outbreaks occur each year. Many advances have been made in our knowledge of the mechanisms of infection by P. larvae in recent years however, a high resolution, standardised method of strain typing is required to track disease spread and understand outbreak sources. This thesis describes the development of the first multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for P. larvae. MLST is the gold standard for pathogenic bacteria typing. It is based on the sequencing of sections of 6-10 housekeeping genes. MLST is standardised, as primer and allele sequences can be made available for other researchers. The new MLST scheme was used to describe previously undetectable patterns of distribution at a global level as well as at a national level. Humans and bees are implicated in the movement of the disease over different spatial scales. Using the MLST scheme a diverse group of isolates were selected for whole genome sequencing. For the first time multiple genomes were compared within and between genotypes. The ability of the MLST scheme to describe relationships amongst sequence types (STs) was tested by comparing phylogenies based on core genes and MLST sequences. I describe the discovery of seven plasmids in four STs previously unknown to harbour plasmids.