Abstract Inadequate knowledge of the population structure and diversity present often hamper the efficient use of germplasm collections. Using a high through-put system, twelve microsatellite loci were used to analyze genetic diversity and population structure in a national field genebank repository of 243 cacao accessions grouped into 11 populations based on their known sources. Based on multi-locus profiles, the Bayesian method was used for individual assignment to verify membership in each population, determine mislabeling and ancestry of some important accessions used in breeding program. A total of 218 alleles was revealed with a mean number of 18.2 alleles per locus. Gene diversity (He = 0.70) and allelic richness (4.34 alleles per locus) were highest in the F1 hybrid population. Differential mating system was suggested as responsible for the observed deficit and excess of heterozygotes observed among the populations. Analysis of molecular variance showed that within-population variance accounted for 63.0% of the total variance while the rest 37% was accounted for by the among-population variance. Cluster dendrogram based on UPGMA revealed two main subsets. The first group was made up of the Amelonado/Trinitario ancestry and the other of Nanay/Parinari ancestry. We found that Nanay and Parinari populations were the major source of Upper Amazon genes utilized while a large proportion of genetic diversity in the field genebank remained under-utilized in development of improved cultivars released to farmers in Nigeria. This study showed that the presence of alleles of the Upper Amazon Forasteros (Nanay, Parinari and Iquitos Mixed Calabacillo) genetic materials in the locally available accessions predated the formal large scale introduction of Upper Amazon materials in 1944. This is the first report of population structure of field genebank collections of cacao in Nigeria since more than seven decades of formal cacao breeding research.


We study the implications of product market competition and investment for price setting, wage bargaining and thereby for equilibrium unemployment in an economy with product and labour market imperfections. We show that intensified product market competition will reduce equilibrium unemployment, whereas the effect of increased capital intensity is more complex. Higher capital intensity will decrease the equilibrium unemployment when the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour is less than one, while the reverse happens when this elasticity is higher than one but smaller than the elasticity of substitution between products. Finally, we demonstrate how labour and product market imperfections, characterized by the wage and price setting mark-ups, affect the optimal capital stock. Our findings raise important questions for future empirical research.


Different kinds of medical images have different characteristics. But all of them have a common feature, i.e. useful information is usually gathered and occupied a small area in the image and the useful areas (which are called as regions of interest, i.e. ROI), are compress with low compression ratio and other areas, are compress with high compression ratio to make high density compression. The compressed image is kept with useful information as well as small size. The wavelet-based image encoding can improve the compression rate and the visual quality considerably, and many researchers propose different methods for encoding the wavelet-based images. In this project, the SPIHT (Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees) algorithm is an efficient method for segmenting the Region of Interest. The SPIHT algorithm adopts a hierarchical quad-tree data structure on wavelet-transformed image. The algorithm extracts image edge information by using canny operator first, and then divides image into regions-of-interest (ROIs) and non-ROIs. The experimental results show advantages: (1) The algorithm has high compression ratio as well as keeping the quality of ROIs; (2) The algorithm is adaptive and practical, which can be used for remote medical image compression, storage and transfer.


FINAL ID: H41B-1034 TITLE: Effects of pumping strategies on pesticide concentration of a drinking water well SESSION TYPE: Poster SESSION TITLE: H41B. Agricultural Surface and Groundwater Quality I Posters AUTHORS (FIRST NAME, LAST NAME): Angeliki Aisopou1, Poul Løgstrup Bjerg1, Philip J Binning1, Hans-Jørgen Albrechtsen1 INSTITUTIONS (ALL): 1. DTU (Technical University of Denmark), Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark. Title of Team: ABSTRACT BODY: Groundwater is an important source of drinking water production in many countries including Denmark. This requires high quality groundwater that meets the standards of the European Water Framework Directive. Yet as a result of agricultural activitity, deposition and previous handling, pesticides are frequently found in groundwater and can raise a substantial problem for ground water abstraction. The concentration of this contamination may vary between different layers. The heterogeneity of the subsurface geology and the depth of the drinking water well's screen are important parameters that affect the resulting contamination of the abstracted groundwater. The pesticide concentration in wells may also be affected by the pumping strategy because pumping can alter the structure of the flow field, the flowpath of water going to the well and subsequently the age of water at the well. The purpose of this study was to examine numerically the effects of pumping on pesticide contamination of drinking water wells using a reactive transport model in a hypothetical aquifer system resembling a typical Danish well field. The application history of the pesticides is crucial. This can be taken into account by assessing the effects of pumping on water age distribution along the well.BODY: Groundwater is an important source of drinking water production in many countries including Denmark. This requires high quality groundwater that meets the standards of the European Water Framework Directive. Yet as a result of agricultural activitity, deposition and previous handling, pesticides are frequently found in groundwater and can raise a substantial problem for ground water abstraction. The concentration of this contamination may vary between different layers. The heterogeneity of the subsurface geology and the depth of the drinking water well's screen are important parameters that affect the resulting contamination of the abstracted groundwater. The pesticide concentration in wells may also be affected by the pumping strategy because pumping can alter the structure of the flow field, the flowpath of water going to the well and subsequently the age of water at the well. The purpose of this study was to examine numerically the effects of pumping on pesticide contamination of drinking water wells using a reactive transport model in a hypothetical aquifer system resembling a typical Danish well field. The application history of the pesticides is crucial. This can be taken into account by assessing the effects of pumping on water age distribution along the well. Three compounds with different application histories were considered: an old banned pesticide MCPP (Mecoprop) which is mobile and relatively persistent in deeper aquifers, and a highly applied, biodegradable and strongly sorbing pesticide glyphosate, and its degradation product AMPA. A steady state flow field was first computed. A well field was then introduced and different pumping regimes were applied for a period of 180 years; a low-rate pumping, a high-rate pumping and a varying pumping regime. A constant application rate at the surface was assumed for the application period of each pesticide. The pre-abstraction age distribution of the water in the system was first estimated using a steady-state flow and transport simulation. These water ages were then used as the initial conditions for the transient simulations. The results of the simulations showed that the range of water ages contributing to the well increased during pumping and was substantially affected by the pumping rate. High pesticide concentrations were persistent in the well 40 to 100 years after they were banned, due to the high residence times in the aquifer. Large changes in simulated pesticides concentrations at the well occurred during pumping. The pesticide concentration reaching the well was affected by the pumping regime and the pesticide application history and properties. A higher pumping rate induced a higher pesticide concentration peak at the well of shorter duration, while a lower pumping rate induced a lower concentration peak of longer duration. The long term scenarios revealed that at high pumping rates MCPP would disappear 40 years after its application end year, while glyphosate concentrations increase and reach a plateau, which is Page 1 of 2 21-12-2011 http://agu-fm11.abstractcentral.com/s1aplanner/com.scholarone.s1aplanner.s1aplanne... highly dependent on the pumping rate. The findings of the study help understand the results of groundwater monitoring programmes and can be used for the quantitative evaluation of management and pumping strategies for the long-term supply of safe potable groundwater.


Max Tech and Beyond: Fluorescent Lamps Project Managers Louis-Benoit Desroches & Karina Garbesi Environmental Energy Technologies Division Author Michael Scholand N14 Energy Limited, Navigant Consulting Inc. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory One Cyclotron Road Berkeley, CA 94720 April 1, 2012 The work described in this report was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Program under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.


Abstract The paper aims to highlight the serious methodological issue of contemporary bioethics (especially topics on the subject of animal ethics). In the discourse on the issue of the pain and suffering of animals and in derived questions, a certain form of anthropomorphism is manifested. Ethical applications of empirical research results that are relevant to humans (or humans as an anatomically and physiologically analogous animal species) are preferred. Subsequently, these extrapolations serve as a criterion for judging the qualitative level of the capabilities of all animals. Serious ethical conclusions are drawn from this reduction.


In this paper, a finite elment-eigenvalue method is formulated to solve the finite element models of time dependent temperature field problems in non-homogeneous materials such as functionally graded materials (FGMs). The method formulates an eigenvalue problem from the original finite element model and proceeds to calculate the associated eigenvectors from which the solution can be obtained. The results obtained highly accurate and are exponential functions of time which when compared with the exact solution tended fast to the steady state solution.


in all patients with a hyperkinetic movement disorder, imaging evidence of iron deposition within the brain, and an autosomal dominant family history. muscle, NIRS measures local microvascular and mitochondrial


In a large class of extra-dimensional models, a scalar degree of freedom known as the radion is long-lived, or even stable, on cosmological scales. In this paper we investigate the impact of radionactivity on the evolution of the universe. We demonstrate that whether the radion overcloses the universe, constitutes the dark matter, is the inflaton, the curvaton, or does not play any role in cosmology, depends crucially on the ratio between the energy densities stored in the radion and in the inflaton at the time of inflation. We discuss the general difficulties in reconciling models with low compactification scale (i.e., TeV scale) with the simple picture of inflation.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of these three clinical in situ studies was to investigate the relative performance of commercially available and experimental dentifrice formulations, having different fluoride sources and excipient ingredients, at remineralizing a bovine enamel surface previously softened by a dietary acid challenge.

METHODS
Each study utilized the same randomized, placebo-controlled, single-blind, crossover design. Subjects undertook single brushings of their natural teeth, with an in situ appliance in place, using different dentifrices in a randomly assigned order. Study A involved 58 subjects with the following dentifrices: Sensodyne Pronamel (1450 ppm F as NaF/5% KNO3); Blend-a-Med Classic (1450 ppm F as NaF); and a matched (Pronamel) placebo control (0 ppm F). Study B involved 56 subjects with the following dentifrices: Sensodyne Pronamel (1150 ppm F as NaF/5% KNO3); Crest Cavity Protection (1100 ppm F as NaF); Crest Pro-Health (0.454% SnF2 [1100 ppm F]/sodium hexametaphosphate); and a matched (Pronamel) placebo control (0 ppm F). Study C involved 56 subjects with the following dentifrices: Sensodyne Pronamel (1150 ppm F as NaF/5% KNO3); Sensodyne Pronamel Gentle Whitening (1150 ppm F as NaF/5% KNO3); Colgate Sensitive Multi Protection (1000 ppm F as NaMFP/5.53% potassium citrate/2% zinc citrate); and a matched (Pronamel) placebo control (0 ppm F). Subjects wore their palatal appliances holding eight bovine enamel blocks, previously exposed for 25 minutes to an in vitro erosive challenge with grapefruit juice, for the duration of the experiment. Five minutes after appliance insertion, subjects undertook a supervised, 90-second brush/rinse regimen with their assigned dentifrice. Surface microhardness (SMH) of the specimens was determined prior to the erosive challenge (baseline), after the in vitro erosive challenge, and were remeasured after four hours in situ remineralization following the tooth brushing event. Finally, SMH values were determined after a second in vitro erosive challenge at the end of the in situ remineralization period. Statistical analyses included ANOVA and pair-wise comparisons between treatments, testing at a 5% significance level.

RESULTS
All three studies demonstrated significantly greater percent surface microhardness recovery (% SMHr) and percent relative erosion resistance (% RER) for dentifrices containing sodium fluoride compared to placebo controls. Overall, significantly greater % SMHr (p < 0.0001) was observed for Sensodyne Pronamel compared to Blend-a-Med Classic, Crest Pro-Health, and Colgate Sensitive Multi Protection dentifrices. Similarly, Sensodyne Pronamel delivered directionally better % RER vs. Blend-a-Med Classic (p = 0.0731), and significantly higher % RER vs. Crest Pro-Health (p = 0.0074) and Colgate Sensitive Multi Protection (p <0.0001). Crest Cavity Protection demonstrated significantly better % RER (p = 0.031) than Crest Pro-Health, which in turn demonstrated significantly better % RER than the placebo control (p < 0.0001). No other statistically significant between-product comparisons were observed.

CONCLUSION
The results of these in situ studies support the effectiveness of dentifrices containing sodium fluoride to reharden enamel previously softened with an erosive challenge. Furthermore, these studies demonstrate the protective effects conferred to enamel, from erosion following the remineralization process in the presence of "ionic" fluoride. Under clinically relevant conditions, Sensodyne Pronamel and Sensodyne Pronamel Gentle Whitening offered superior anti-erosion performance compared to currently marketed dentifrice controls. These studies reinforce previous research indicating the importance of formulation effects on the relative remineralization performance of dentifrices under erosive conditions.


Balancing between computational efficiency and sample efficiency is an important goal in reinforcement learning. Temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms stochastically update the value function, with a linear time complexity in the number of features, whereas least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) algorithms are sample efficient but can be quadratic in the number of features. In this work, we develop an efficient incremental low-rank LSTD({\lambda}) algorithm that progresses towards the goal of better balancing computation and sample efficiency. The algorithm reduces the computation and storage complexity to the number of features times the chosen rank parameter while summarizing past samples efficiently to nearly obtain the sample complexity of LSTD. We derive a simulation bound on the solution given by truncated low-rank approximation, illustrating a bias- variance trade-off dependent on the choice of rank. We demonstrate that the algorithm effectively balances computational complexity and sample efficiency for policy evaluation in a benchmark task and a high-dimensional energy allocation domain.


Famous for its history of numerous element discoverers, Sweden is the origin of this comprehensive encylopedia of the elements. It provides both an important database for professionals as well as detailed reading ranging from historical facts, discoverers' portraits, colour plates of mineral types, natural occurrences, and industrial figures to winning and refining processes, biological roles and applications in modern chemistry, engineering and industry. Elemental data is presented in fact tables which include numerous physical and thermodynamic properties, isotope lists, radiation absorption characteristics, NMR parameters, and others. Further pertinent data is supplied in additional tables throughout the text. Published in Swedish in three volumes from 1998 to 2000, the contents have been revised and expanded by the author for this English edition.


Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignancy of plasma cells usually infiltrating the bone marrow, associated with the production of a monoclonal immunoglobulin (M protein) which can be detected in the blood and/or urine. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that genetic factors are involved in MM pathogenesis, and several studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the susceptibility to the disease. SNPs within miRNA‐binding sites in target genes (miRSNPs) may alter the strength of miRNA–mRNA interactions, thus deregulating protein expression. MiRSNPs are known to be associated with risk of various types of cancer, but they have never been investigated in MM. We performed an in silico genome‐wide search for miRSNPs predicted to alter binding of miRNAs to their target sequences. We selected 12 miRSNPs and tested their association with MM risk. Our study population consisted of 1,832 controls and 2,894 MM cases recruited from seven European countries and Israel in the context of the IMMEnSE (International Multiple Myeloma rESEarch) consortium. In this population two SNPs showed an association with p < 0.05: rs286595 (located in gene MRLP22) and rs14191881 (located in gene TCF19). Results from IMMEnSE were meta‐analyzed with data from a previously published genome‐wide association study (GWAS). The SNPs rs13409 (located in the 3′UTR of the POU5F1 gene), rs1419881 (TCF19), rs1049633, rs1049623 (both in DDR1) showed significant associations with MM risk. In conclusion, we sought to identify genetic polymorphisms associated with MM risk starting from genome‐wide prediction of miRSNPs. For some mirSNPs, we have shown promising associations with MM risk.


The establishment and partial characterization of a continuous cell line from the dorsal fin of red sea bream, Pagrus major, are described. The cell line, designated RSBF-2, has been subcultured for more than 100 passages since its initiation in November 2000. It was optimally maintained at 28 degrees C in Leibovitz L-15 medium with 10% foetal bovine serum. Propagation of RSBF-2 cells was serum dependent and exhibited low plating efficiency (<1.7%). Aside from long-term cryopreservation, the cells could also be kept at 4 degrees C for 72 days. The distribution of the chromosome number was 38-98 with a mode of 48. The RSBF-2 cell line was susceptible to red sea bream iridovirus but only produced a few rounded and refractory cells. Virus-inoculated RSBF-2 cells were then subcultured to generate a persistently infected cell line. RSBF-2 was also very sensitive to the extracellular products of Photobacterium damselae ssp. piscicida and produced significant fluorescent signals after transfection with pEGFP-C3. Analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences revealed 99% identity between the cell line and Pagrus major.


ABSTRACT Exposure to heat stress has been recognized as one of the major factors leading to the breakdown of the coral-alga symbiosis and coral bleaching. Here, we describe the presence of three new cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes from the reef-building coral endosymbiont Symbiodinium (type C3) and changes in their expression during exposure to severe and moderate heat stress conditions. Sequence analysis of the CYP C-terminal region and two conserved domains, the "PERF" and "heme-binding" domains, confirmed the separate identities of the CYP genes analyzed. In order to explore the effects of different heat stress scenarios, samples of the scleractinian coral Acropora millepora were exposed to elevated temperatures incrementally over an 18-h period (rapid thermal stress) and over a 120-h period (gradual thermal stress). After 18 h of gradual heating and incubation at 26°C, the Symbiodinium CYP mRNA pool was approximately 30% larger, while a further 6°C increase to a temperature above the average sea temperature (29°C after 72 h) resulted in a 2- to 4-fold increase in CYP expression. Both rapid heat stress and gradual heat stress at 32°C resulted in 50% to 90% decreases in CYP gene transcript abundance. Consequently, the initial upregulation of expression of CYP genes at moderately elevated temperatures (26°C and 29°C) was followed by a decrease in expression under the greater thermal stress conditions at 32°C. These findings indicate that in the coral-alga symbiosis under heat stress conditions there is production of chemical stressors and/or transcriptional factors that regulate the expression of genes, such as the genes encoding cytochrome P450 monooxygenases, that are involved in the first line of an organism's chemical defense.


STUDY OBJECTIVE: To assess social variations and trends in health expectancy over a period of rapid social and economic change. DESIGN: Cross sectional survey data on the association between social status--gender, socioeconomic class and ethnic group--and measures of health status at two points in time approximately a decade apart. The Sullivan method of calculating health expectancy was used. SETTING: The adult population of New Zealand in the periods 1980-81 and 1992-93. PARTICIPANTS: Representative samples of the adult civilian non-institutionalised population of 6,891 (1980-81) and 5,873 (1992-93) respectively. MAIN RESULTS: In comparison with life expectancy, adjusting for health status narrowed the gender gap but widened socioeconomic and ethnic differentials. These results were replicated for three measures--self reported health, mobility, and handicap--suggesting a robustness of outcome to specific indicators. Comparable data over the period of study were only available for the mobility measure. Increases in longevity appeared to be fully absorbed by minor disability. Ethnic and socioeconomic disadvantages remained static or widened for the 15-64 age group, suggesting a potential social polarisation in the disability transition. CONCLUSIONS: The operationalization of health expectancy appears to be rather robust to specific indicators. Health expectancy may provide a sensitive health impact assessment of social and economic policy. Existing theories of the disability transition may need to be modified to take account of social variation, at least in the special case of disability free health expectancy over the 15-64 age range.


Despite numerous efforts, it is still unclear whether lenticular galaxies (S0s) evolve from spirals whose star formation was suppressed, or formed trough mergers or disc instabilities. In this paper we present a pilot study of 21 S0 galaxies in extreme environments (field and cluster), and compare their spatially resolved kinematics and global stellar populations. Our aim is to identify whether there are different mechanisms that form S0s in different environments. Our results show that the kinematics of S0 galaxies in field and cluster are, indeed, different. Lenticulars in the cluster are more rotationally supported, suggesting that they are formed through processes that involve the rapid consumption or removal of gas (e.g. starvation, ram pressure stripping). In contrast, S0s in the field are more pressure supported, suggesting that minor mergers served mostly to shape their kinematic properties. These results are independent of total mass, luminosity, or disc-to-bulge ratio. On the other hand, the mass-weighted age, metallicity, and star formation time-scale of the galaxies correlate more with mass than with environment, in agreement with known relations from previous work, such as the one between mass and metallicity. Overall, our results re-enforce the idea that there are multiple mechanisms that produce S0s, and that both mass and environment play key roles. A larger sample is highly desirable to confirm or refute the results and the interpretation of this pilot study.


Two studies evaluated relations between different forms of achievement motivation and transactional interpersonal impact messages during a dyadic puzzle-solving task. In Study 1,400 college students received no formal competence feedback during the task. In Study 2, competence feedback was manipulated for 600 college students and used to create high-, low-, and mixed-status dyads. Expectancies of success had robust actor and partner effects on submission in both studies. Competence valuation was linked with communal partner effects in Study 1 and a generalized interpersonal sensitivity in Study 2. When competence was ambiguous, approach and avoidance achievement motives exhibited affectively driven actor and partner effects consistent with their roots in pride and shame, respectively; however, when competence was established formally, motives had more cognitively driven effects on person perception and behavior (e.g., rejection sensitivity). Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of the achievement motivation system for organizing interpersonal impact messages during competence pursuits.


A novel low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) resonator is proposed based on the hybrid resonant circuits. The resonator exhibits a very compact size and is also able to introduce a transmission zero in the filter design. A super compact bandpass filter with high performance was designed at the center frequency of 2.45 GHz and fabricated using the proposed LTCC hybrid resonator. This filter has a very compact size of 0.9 mm 0.688 mm 0.652 mm and exhibits a low insertion loss of less than 1.2 dB in the passband. Moreover, the transmission zero that is located at 4.5 GHz efficiently suppresses the spurious responses. In order to improve the stopband suppression even more, the revised resonator is used for the second filter design. Besides occupying an even smaller volume of 0.76 mm 0.748 mm0.67 mm, the second filter exhibits a wide stopband suppression higher than 35 dB from 3.4 to 8 GHz. In addition to the super compact size and wide stopband suppression, insertion losses of less than 2.5 dB were achieved in the passband. A transmission zero at 5.8 GHz was also achieved.


The ever-increasing demand for higher bandwidth continues to fuel the need for faster and more power-efficient IOs, with the next generation high-speed serial links expected to reach data rates higher than 112Gb/s using PAM-4 signaling [1–3]. While PAM-4 spectral efficiency is better than that of NRZ, it is less tolerant of residual ISI and noise. As a consequence, a driver with high bandwidth and large output amplitude is required. This paper presents a 64Gbaud PAM-4 TX with a fully reconfigurable 3-tap FFE, which achieves a power efficiency of 1.3pJ/b in PAM-4 mode and 2.7pJ/b in NRZ mode for a differential output swing of $1\mathrm{V}_{ppd}$. A feature of the FFE construction is the use of fully re-assignable FFE segments among the 3 taps, which allows a reduced number of segments for lower capacitance and higher driver bandwidth. To minimize power consumption, a quarter-rate clocking architecture is adopted with a tailless 4:1 multiplexer, which also acts as a pre-driver to a tailless CML output driver.


Background In the UK, obesity is more common in some ethnic minority groups than in Whites but little is known about the extent to which ethnic minorities are more exposed to obesity promoting environments. We examine whether area deprivation and ethnic density are associated with access to fast food outlets, supermarkets and physical activity structures. Design Population sizes of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Black Caribbeans and Black Africans (2001 Census), income deprivation (Index of Multiple Deprivation), and number of fast food outlets, supermarkets, indoor (eg, sports clubs) and outdoor physical activity (eg, football grounds) structures were obtained for lower super output areas (LSOA). Ethnic density was measured using index of dissimilarity (evenness in distribution of a group relative to the White group), isolation index (extent to which ethnic minority group members are exposed to each other), cluster size (proportion in LSOA) and concentration (proportion of local authority district's ethnic population in an LSOA). Setting England Main Outcome Measures Rate ratios (RR), derived from multilevel Poisson models, using the rate of structures in low ethnic density areas as baseline rate. Results Ethnic densities were generally higher in the most than least deprived areas, least consistent for Indians. Fast food outlets and supermarkets were also more likely to be found in the most than least deprived areas. In contrast, outdoor PA structures were more likely to found in least deprived areas. Adjusted for area deprivation, the index of dissimilarity and concentration measures reflected a pattern of more fast food outlets in high than low ethnic density areas. For example, RRs for fast food outlets in the highest ethnic density areas using the concentration measure were: Indians 1.91 (95% CI 1.22 to 3.00), Pakistanis 1.41 (1.05 to 1.89), Bangladeshis 1.80 (1.43 to 2.26), Black Caribbeans 1.29 (0.85 to 1.96), Black Africans 1.42 (1.01 to 1.98). Supermarkets were more likely to be in higher than lower-density Pakistani and Bangladeshi areas using these two ethnic density measures. Across all ethnic groups the concentration measure reflected a positive association with occurrence of indoor PA structures, while all ethnic density measures reflected a pattern of inverse association with occurrence of outdoor PA structures. Conclusion These findings indicate that ethnic minorities might be more exposed to fast food outlets and less exposed to outdoor PA structures in high than low ethnic density areas. These issues might contribute to ethnic differences in food choices and engagement in physical activity.


In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been applied to model gameplay with great success, achieving super-human performance in various environments, such as Atari, Go and Poker. However, these studies mostly focus on winning the game and have largely ignored the rich and complex human motivations, which are essential for understanding humans' diverse behavior. In this paper, we present a multi-motivation behavior model which investigates the multifaceted human motivations and learns the underlying value structure of the agents. Our approach extends inverse RL to vectored-valued rewards with Pareto optimality which significantly weakens the inverse RL assumption. Our model therefore incorporates a wider range of behavior that commonly appears in real-world environments. For practical assessment, our algorithm is tested on World of Warcraft datasets and demonstrates the improvement over existing methods.


There is no unanimity in the literature regarding the causes of increasing cross–market correlations in crisis periods. This effect is often justified by the authors as a consequence of contagion, but the evidence is that contagion can be confused with the integration effect since both have a tendency to increase correlations among markets, especially during down-market periods. The main goal of this paper is to examine the effect of increasing cross–market correlations during the 2007–2009 global financial crisis on the largest European stock markets (i.e. the U.K., France and Germany), in the context of the influence of the 2007 U.S. subprime crisis. The crisis periods are formally established based on the statistical method of dividing market states into bullish and bearish markets. The evaluation of contagion is carried out by applying both standard contemporaneous cross–market correlations and volatility– adjusted cross-correlations (Forbes, Rigobon 2002). The results are consistent with the literature and confirm that heteroskedasticity in market returns biases tests for contagion based on correlation. Moreover, an integration test is performed using the Larntz–Perlman (1985) procedure for testing the equality of correlation matrices computed over nonoverlapping subsamples: the pre–crisis and crisis periods in the group of investigated markets. No reason was found to reject the research hypothesis of no integration effect during the recent global crisis. The study might be viewed as a contribution to the debate concerning the causes of increasing cross–market correlations during periods of turmoil.


The present paper reviews CODG TEC response to the moderate storm of July 26, 2003 and that of July 29 at Niamey station in West African equatorial station (Geo Lat 13° 28'45.3 "N; Geo long: 02° 10'59.5" E) in Niger. These two moderate geomagnetic storms are of solar wind origin. The study showed an increase in CODG TEC values during the initial phase of the storm and a decrease in CODG TEC values during the main and recovery phases of the storm. In general, in the equatorial region, positive and negative storms occurred (increase and decrease in TEC values). Here we highlight the prereversal enhancement (PRE), a particularity of the equatorial ionosphere. Our investigations show M, B and R profiles in addition to the well-known dome profile in the variation of the CODG TEC in Niamey. This work suggests a variation of the equatorial electrojet intensity during the storm recovery phase, the appearance of the counter-electrojet as well as a disturbance of the ExB drift. This study is local, in the equatorial region in the West African sector. Data are needed to corroborate some hypotheses such as changes in profiles associated with the presence or absence of electrojet and counter-electrojet currents. We advocate for a new IHY for Africa and for data exchange between researchers.


A new class of layered microstructural composites that combines equiaxed and textured alumina layers was fabricated. Template loading was used to change the texture fraction and porosity in the textured layers. Due to the thermal expansion anisotropy of the textured layers, residual compressive stresses as high as 100 MPa were achieved during cooling from the sintering step. Fracture experiments showed that the interface between the basal planes of highly oriented alumina grains in the textured layers changes from a "strong interface" to a "weaker interface" as the porosity changes from 1% to 5%. Composites with 5% porous textured layers show both crack bifurcation and crack deflection in the textured layers. Crack deflection is attributed to the anisotropic fracture energy of the oriented microstructures and crack bifurcation is ascribed to the compressive stresses that arise from the thermal expansion mismatch between adjacent layers.


Active Front Steering (AFS) is an important application to improve the stability of the vehicle, and the driver characteristic is also an important factor for the vehicle stability. In this article, a driver-behavior-based prediction control algorithm for AFS is proposed. According to the informed road trajectory, the ideal preview driver model is introduced to predict the future steering wheel angle. Based on this, a two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) reference vehicle model and a PID controller are used to generate active steering control. The algorithm is verified by Carsim and Matlab/Simulink co-simulation, and the results show that trajectory tracking of the vehicle can be guarantee and driver manipulation duty can be reduced.


This paper deals with a novel MAC layer protocol, namely directive synchronous transmission asynchronous reception (D-STAR) able to space-time synchronize a wireless sensor network (WSN). To this end, D-STAR integrates directional antennas within the communications framework, while taking into account both sleep/active states, according to a cross-layer design. After characterizing the D-STAR protocol in terms of functional characteristics and antenna model, the related performance is presented, in terms of network lifetime gain, latency and collision probability. It has shown a remarkable gain in terms of energy consumption reduction with respect to the basic approach endowed with omnidirectional antennas, without increasing the signaling overhead nor affecting the set up latency.


The inheritance of hydrocyanic acid (HCN) production was studied in populations derived from two sorghum ✕ sudangrass crosses. Plants from these crosses were sampled for HCN at two different stages of growth. Data from both crosses indicated that high HCN production was partially dominant to low HCN. The F₂ distributions appeared to be unimodal and continuous. Broad-sense heritabillty estimates ranged from 41.3 to 68.0. These values indicated that HCN production is a heritable character but may be influenced to a large extent by environment. Highly significant correlations were obtained for HCN levels of F₂ plants when sampled at two stages of growth, although actual levels of HCN differed at the two growth stages.


The issues related to recruiting African American psychiatric inpatients are discussed in the context of a study on the influence of ethnicity on psychiatric diagnosis. Ethnically diverse psychiatric residents interviewed 960 Black and White inpatients in 2 urban psychiatric hospitals. Despite the obstacles cited in the literature about recruiting and retaining African Americans into research, 78% of this sample were African American. In addition, interview completion and refusal rates did not differ by patient ethnicity. Results suggest that matching interviewer and patient ethnicity did not influence African Americans' likelihood of participating in or of refusing an interview. This article summarizes a number of guidelines that others may find useful in conducting clinical research with African Americans, ranging from the formation of academic—public liaisons to interviewer training.


The pandemic-induced shutdowns are leading to a financial pandemic. When the unemployed worker or small business can't pay the rent, then the landlord can't pay the mortgage. Even when a creditor provides forbearance on a loan, the borrower's credit is damaged for years. What is needed is a way to stop the chain reaction and give everyone enough breathing room to recover without costing the taxpayer trillions of dollars.

The GRACE (General Recovery and Credit Extension) Act would provide renters and borrowers an automatic ability to defer rent, credit card, and installment debt payments for six months. They would still have to pay the money back later, with affordable monthly payments stretched over a long-enough period to reduce the pain.

Payment deferral without any other action would create cash flow difficulties for the creditors. To alleviate the problem, the creditors would be able to use the receivables created by the deferred payments as collateral for immediate loans from any bank for the full amount of the expected deferrals. The loans would be non-recourse loans backed by the U.S. government.

Banks may be skittish about expanding their lending because of concerns about complying with bank capital standards. To incentivize banks to make such loans, they would carry a zero-risk weight for purposes of calculating Risk-Weighted Assets (RWA) and the total leverage ratio, and they would be counted as High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA).

In order to avoid long-term damage to a borrower's credit, the GRACE Act would require that the deferred payments be reported as current on credit reports, and that lenders would not be permitted to deny credit based on a borrower's use of the deferrals.

The process resembles a pre-packaged Chapter 11: The borrower seeking deferment fills out an online form listing the payments to be deferred with contact information for the creditors. The creditors then receive a notification (either electronically or in writing). The notification can be used immediately as collateral for a loan from any lender.

The GRACE Act is designed to give much-needed breathing room to our workers and businesses. It is not designed to keep zombie businesses alive or rescue those who were already bankrupt before the pandemic. Accordingly, the deferrals should be restricted to payments that were on-time as of February 1, 2020. This will limit credit losses to the federal government. To avoid the negative publicity of bailouts for billionaires, there should be a limit on the total payments any one person or business can defer.

The GRACE Act is a WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN for borrowers, creditors, taxpayers, and the US economy. It will simplify the resolution of the wave of defaults that threatens to paralyze the economy for years to come. It will flatten the curve of the financial pandemic and prevent millions unnecessary evictions and bankruptcies. However, the GRACE Act is not a panacea that will cure all of the economic fallout from the pandemic. Additional efforts will be needed to address other areas of the economy. The GRACE Act should be an integral part of the next rescue package.


Phosphine-sulfonate-based Pd and Ni complexes are widely recognized as potent catalysts for ethylene polymerization and copolymerizations with polar functionalized comonomers. Significant efforts have been directed towards modifying ligand structures and improving catalyst properties. In this contribution, we install a heterocyclic unit in the phosphine-sulfonate ligand framework and study the properties of their corresponding Pd and Ni catalysts. The furyl- and benzofuryl-derived phosphine-sulfonate palladium catalysts show high activities for ethylene polymerization and copolymerization with polar monomers (methyl acrylate, butyl acrylate, 6-chloro-1-hexene, 10-undecenol, and 10-hendecenoic acid). The furyl- and benzofuryl-derived phosphine-sulfonate nickel catalysts are also highly active for ethylene polymerization. The N-methylpyrrolyl-, thienyl-, and benzothienyl-derived palladium and nickel catalysts demonstrate very low or no activity in ethylene polymerization. The microstructures of the resulting polyethylene (highly linear vs. highly branched) are significantly affected by the nature of the heterocyclic substituent. Interactions between the heteroatoms and the metal centers, as well as the π–π stacking between the heterocyclic unit and the benzo backbone in the ligand are hypothesized to play important roles in determining the properties of these metal catalysts.


This paper describes inferences based on linear predictors for stationary time series. These methods are flexible, since relatively few assumptions are needed to fit a linear predictor. A confidence interval for the resulting predicted value, which takes account of the variance of the estimated parameters, is discussed. The possible non-parsimony of the linear prediction compared to the classical ARMA forecasting method is a drawback often mentioned in the literature. On the other hand, as we show in a small simulation study, the usual predictive inference based on an ARMA modelling is overoptimistic in small samples, whereas the coverage rate of our confidence interval is close to the nominal value even for small series.


This paper proposes a two-dimensional scan shift control concept for multiple scan chain design. Multiple scan chain test scheme provides very low scan power by skipping many long scan chain switching activities. Based on two-dimensional scan shift control, we can achieve low test power with simple and small overhead structure. The proposed scheme skips many unnecessary don't care (X) patterns to reduce the test data volume and test time. The experimental results of the proposed scheme illustrate the significant improvement in shift power reduction, test volume and test time reduction. Compared with traditional single scan chain design, the large benchmark b17 of ITC'99 has over 50% reduction in test data volume and over 40% reduction in test time with little area overhead and very few extra pins, and the power reduction is over 97%.


The role that different psychological disorders play in entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors is of increasing interest and importance to the scientific community. Scholars have undertaken a range of investigations that demonstrate that individuals with specific psychological disorders should be treated differently to other individuals. Some studies contribute to psychological disorders shifting from a disability paradigm to a paradigm of diversity. The main objective of this work is to carry out a preliminary analysis of the literature published about the relationship between psychological disorders and entrepreneurship. For this purpose, a bibliometric methodology and a fractional counting method of clustering were developed, identifying and analyzing 108 documents as recorded in the Web of Science and Scopus databases on the relationship between entrepreneurship and psychological disorders. This paper represents a contribution to the state-of-the-art of research on entrepreneurship and psychological disorders, identifying trends and proposing future topics and research lines.


Abstract Modern valves of Lucina pensylvanica (Bivalvia: Lucinidae) were analyzed for 18O/16O ratios, drilling predation traces, biometric measurements, and taphonomic descriptors to explore seasonal variations in ecological and taphonomic processes within a death assemblage from Grand Bahama Island. The &dgr;18O values at the shell margin ( = last growth episode) were used as a proxy for temperature at the time closest to the organism's death. Temperature estimates suggest that most individuals died in warmer months, whereas mortality appeared to have been lower during cooler seasons (<24 °C). Only drilled valves yielded the coldest temperatures at the shell margin (∼18.1–21.3 °C), whereas exclusively undrilled valves exhibited the hottest temperatures at the last growth episode (∼25.5–26.5 °C). Drilled valves were significantly smaller and exhibited higher taphonomic alteration than undrilled valves, pointing to postmortem transport and sorting. While seasonal variations in predation and growth rates may have affected the observed patterns to some extent, the results, at least partly, reflect hydrodynamic variations throughout the year, which may have induced seasonal variation in postmortem sorting of drilled and undrilled valves. This study illustrates that, by combining geochemical proxies and quantitative paleoecological data, more informed ecologic and taphonomic interpretations can be achieved for subfossil and fossil assemblages.


This work describes dominant patterns of coupled interannual variability of the 10-m wind and sea surface temperature in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (CS&GM) during the period 1982–2016. Using a canonical correlation analysis (CCA) between the monthly mean anomalies of these fields, four coupled variability modes are identified: the dipole (March–April), transition (May–June), interocean (July–October), and meridional-wind (November–February) modes. Results show that El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences almost all the CS&GM coupled modes, except the transition mode, and that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in February has a strong negative correlation with the dipole and transition modes. The antisymmetric relationships found between the dipole mode and the NAO and ENSO indices confirm previous evidence about the competing remote forcings of both teleconnection patterns on the tropical North Atlantic variability. Precipitation in the CS and adjacent oceanic and land areas is sensitive to the wind–SST coupled variability modes from June to October. These modes seem to be strongly related to the interannual variability of the midsummer drought and the meridional migration of the intertropical convergence zone in the eastern Pacific. These findings may eventually lead to improving seasonal predictability in the CS&GM and surrounding land areas.


Allan Mackintosh was a gifted physics student at Cambridge University, whose later career was quite unusual. After obtaining his B.A. as a scholar at Peterhouse College in 1957, he worked in the Royal Society Mond Laboratory under the supervision of Professor A.B. Pippard. For his thesis on an 'Experimental study of the Fermi surface of lead', he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1960. He spent seven years as a Professor at Ames, Iowa, and returned to Europe to hold two Professorships in Copenhagen. He became Director of the Danish National Laboratory at Risø from 1971 to 1976, and of NORDITA from 1986 to 1989. He was President of the Danish Physical Society from 1976 to 1979, and of the European Physical Society from 1980 to 1982.


This report documents cross-country findings from analysis conducted by World Bank staff working on Jobs Diagnostics. It identifies some key insights for policy makers to take into account when designing policies and programs for inclusive growth. The findings are drawn from three different sources. The macroeconomic section analyzes data for over 16,000 overlapping episodes of economic growth in 125 countries. The labor supply section analyzes labor data from the latest household surveys in 150 countries around the world. The firm-level analysis draws on business data from countries for which—at the time of writing—the World Bank had conducted a Jobs Diagnostic. The report identifies jobs-related transitions as the pathways people follow to better jobs —workers increase their hours worked, become more productive in their work, move between locations, change sectors and occupations, and shift from self- to waged employment and from less to more successful firms.


The idea that the establishment of a centrally planned system or the creation of a worker-controlled system amount to a socialist revolution is closely associated with the main contradictions that Marx highlighted in capitalism: the capital-labour conflict or the mismatch between planned production and anarchical distribution. Analysing these alternative forms of revolution, the author raises a number of questions: which of them fits human nature better? which of them is more closely associated with Darwinian evolutionism? is it correct to assume that democratic firm management tends to improve human nature?


S62 Ann Dermatol Received April 1, 2019, Revised April 8, 2019, Accepted for publication April 13, 2019 Corresponding author: Bark-Lynn Lew, Department of Dermatology, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, 892 Dongnam-ro, Gangdong-gu, Seoul 05278, Korea. Tel: 82-2-440-7329, Fax: 82-2-440-7336, E-mail: email@example.com ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4443-4161 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Copyright © The Korean Dermatological Association and The Korean Society for Investigative Dermatology pISSN 1013-9087ᆞeISSN 2005-3894 Ann Dermatol Vol. 31, Suppl, 2019 https://doi.org/10.5021/ad.2019.31.S.S62


Holocene Timberline Fluctuations and Climate Variability Alpine life and landscapes are exposed to extreme environmental conditions. Avalanches, landslides and floods, due to extreme climatic events such as heavy snow and rain storms, can impact both wild and managed landscapes. Above timberline, climatic conditions are so harsh that they impede the growth of trees. According to one recent hypothesis (the "growth-limitation hypothesis"), low temperatures reduce production of plant tissues (Körner, 1999). Therefore, trees become victims of their strategy to accumulate large amounts of biomass in order to overgrow other vegetational life forms. Because the upper boundary of tree growth is temperature controlled, it can be used as a proxy for estimation of past temperatures, assuming that today's occurrence of trees is in equilibrium with local climate. Similar assumptions are made to derive paleo-temperature estimations from other organisms. Many recent paleoecological studies in the Alps have focused on climate reconstruction, but relatively few studies have addressed basic past relationships between organisms and their biotic and abiotic environments. One of the reasons for avoiding the latter topic may be that accurate studies require independent environmental proxies and high temporal resolution (years to decades), especially if the goal is to reconstruct past responses of short-lived organisms to climatic change. Moreover, concerns about global warming have focused much effort on the reconstruction of past climatic changes and their forcing mechanisms, but the response of organisms and biomes seems at least from an ecological and economical point of view of similar relevance (e.g. collapse, migration or adaptation of boreal and alpine life). The above-mentioned assumption that today's distribution of trees is in equilibrium with climate may not necessarily be true. Over the past several thousands years, human activities in the Alps have resulted in lowering of timberlines by 200-300 altitudinal meters. Nevertheless, single trees in remote


The purpose of this research is to find out about the social economic characteristics of child hobo in Samarinda City. Using qualitative methods, sampling use accidental sampling. Obtained data from observation, interview, and documentation will be recorded in field notes which usually contains two aspects which is descriptive and reflective records. Findings from this child hobo characteristics researchs shows that most of them on age 6 to 18 years old consists of 50% boys and 50% girls. These childs Hobo, 80,5% dropped out and 19,4% stays on school. Most of these kids origins is from Celebes 66,7%, and few of them came from Borneo 25%. Even fewer came from Nusa Tenggara Timur and Java. The majority of these child hobo still had their family intact, so that 80,6% of them still lives with their respective parents. Based on jobs, 75% worked as street performers, 19,44% as newspaper seller and 5,56% as asongan seller . This jobs is one of the most promising because they need less to none talent and finesse. Most of them 52,78% works 6 to 10 hours a day with earnings about 20 to 50 thousands rupiah a day 50%. Keyword: Child Hobo, School, Jobs and Social Economic


Ciprofloxacin is a fluoroquinolone antimicrobial with activity against both gram-negative and -positive bacteria including pseudomonal and staphylococcal species. It is the only available oral agent possessing this unique spectrum of activity that achieves serum concentrations adequate to treat a variety of systemic infections. A retrospective drug utilization review and a prospective drug use evaluation of ciprofloxacin were performed to determine if the agent was being used for appropriate indications, to ensure correct dosing and appropriate monitoring, and to determine whether its use is cost effective at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Cleveland (VAMCC). For the retrospective review, 40 patients' charts were randomly chosen for review from computerized inpatient and outpatient prescription records. Drug use review criteria were developed by the Pharmacy Service and Infectious Disease Section. For the prospective evaluation, data were collected for all inpatient and outpatient requests for ciprofloxacin during a six-month period (May to November 1988) using the same criteria as in the retrospective study. Cost analysis was performed by identification and cost comparison of alternative therapy and by estimating the number of days saved by using appropriate oral therapy. All charts from the retrospective review were found to meet criteria for appropriate use. All patients for whom documented follow-up was performed had microbiologic or clinical cures. In the prospective evaluation, 168 patients were started on ciprofloxacin. Ninety-five percent of patients had appropriate justification for use according to criteria. Drug cost savings for the six-month period was +14,962.54 or +29,925.08/year. This covered drug and minibag acquisition costs only. An estimated 127 hospital days were saved (shortened length of +71,717.00 or +143,434.00/year.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The double exposure method (DEM) is proposed herein as a new X-ray stress measurement method for coarse grain materials. A diffraction angle can be obtained from an incident and a spotty diffracted beam. Each X-ray beam is measured by an area detector on a linear motion stage on the 2 θ-arm in the DEM. To examine the validity of the DEM, the residual stress of the plastically bent specimen was measured. In addition, the residual stress distribution of the indentation specimen was measured. The result by the DEM was similar to the result simulated by the finite element method. As a result, the DEM is useful for the X-ray stress measurement method for coarse grain material.


THE Mental Status Schedule (MSS) is an instrument designed to improve the research value of clinical judgments of current psychopathology based on data collected during a psychiatric interview. It is intended primarily for use with psychiatric patients, but it can also be used with nonpatients living in the community. It focuses upon signs and symptoms associated with neurotic, Psychotic, and organic brain disorders. The latest version of the MSS, designated Form A, is currently being used in a number of projects involving such varied problems as the research evaluation of treatment, case finding, routine admission assessment, and the phenomenology of mental disorders. Its advantages over other commonly used assessment procedures are: the incorporation of a standardized interview schedule to reduce inconsistency and oversight due to variability in interviewing techniques and coverage of psychopathology; the use of a score sheet which serves simultaneously as a


One of the most widely used methods in determining soil water diffusivity, D, as a function of the volumetric water content, θ, is the one-step outflow method. Unfortunately, the calculation of D(θ) according to direct methods usually requires the estimation of the first and second derivative of the outflow volume, V, dV/dt and d 2 Wdt 2 of the original measured cumulative outflow data V(t). These derivatives are usually approximated by applying a finite difference technique to two or three consecutive outflow measurements. Therefore, the accuracy of the results depends essentially on the accuracy of local outflow measurements. Inaccuracies are more intensive in the last portion of the outflow curve, where small errors of measurement may yield large inaccuracies in the first and second derivatives of the outflow curve. Furthermore, the entire calculation procedure for estimating dV/dt and d 2 WdtA is rather laborious and complicated. We developed a direct method based on a simple curve-fitting procedure applied to the experimental outflow data for a simple power and an extended power form function, which leads to direct calculation of the soil water diffusivity function from explicit formulae. The only parameters involved in these formulae are the empirical parameters obtained by the curve-fitting procedure. The proposed method was verified from one-step outflow experiments performed in nine porous materials (one sand, two soils, and six substrate mixtures). Comparison with previous methods indicated a good performance of the proposed explicit algebraic formulae.


The first series of the Channel Nine crime drama series, Underbelly, is the starting point for a reflection on the relationship between women, work, crime and feminism. Following a brief description of the episode 'Wise Monkeys' written by Felicity \Packard which features three of the 'real' women involved in Melbourne's gangland murders, the essay considers the significant role women have played in the depiction of crime on television as creators, writers and actors. In the end, it all comes down to power and control, who wins and who loses in what Gregg and Wilson (2010) have identified as the 'cultural economy of infamy' where the playing field is still far from level, either in the television industry or on the 'mean streets' of crime.


The interaction between phosphorylase B and an AMP analog, adenosine-5'-chloromethylphosphonate, is found to be irreversible. Their binding stechiometry is calculated from the differential absorption spectrum. Maximal inhibition is reached when 1,3--1,5 moles of the analogue is bound per mole of monomer phosphorylase B. The enzyme-inhibitory complex exhibited 50% activity is characterized by a sigmoid curve of the reaction rate dependency on the substrate concentration, by a decrease of the affinity to glucose-1-phosphate and the maximal rate, and by an increase of Hill's coefficient. Similar SH-groups titration curves were obtained for modified and native phosphorylase in the presence of AMP. Apophosphorylase was incapable of the complete reactivation by pyridoxalphosphate in the presence of adenosine-5'-chloromethylphosphonate. The complex of phosphorylase B and the AMP analogue is found to be inhibited by glucose-6-phosphate, like the native enzyme in the presence of AMP. The results of ultracentrifugation and disc electrophoresis show that the AMP analogue contributes the formation of the tetrameric form of the enzyme. The data obtained indicate the tight binding of adenosine-5'-chloromethylphosphonate in the active site of phosphorylase B. The properties of the complex confirm the importance of the phosphate group for the AMP binding in the allosteric site and for the enzyme activation.


This paper deals with the influence of wind and coastal currents on the distribution and concentration of Chlorophyll-a in the nearshore waters off the northern Karnataka coast (between towns of Karwar and Bhatkal), along the central west coast of India. In general, concentrations of Chlorophyll-a were high (0.6-1.50 mg/l) in this region. High concentrations of Chlorophyll-a in the nearshore waters during the monsoon season were related to local upwelling and river input. During the upwelling, the surface water moved offshore and is replaced by nutrient-rich subsurface water leading to high concentrations of Chlorophyll-a in a narrow zone along the coast, and preventing the dispersion of Chlorophyll-a into the ocean. Higher concentrations of Chlorophyll-a observed in the nearshore water during the winter months (December) were related to vertical mixing due to winter cooling effect. During the pre-monsoon season, high concentration zone was narrow and bordered the coast. These variations corresponded to the wind and the coastal currents in the area. Though the central west coast of India represents a typical tropical coast in terms of cyclicity in wind, waves and river input, the prevailing upwelling and downwelling resulted in the unique dispersion of Chlorophyll-a. There were lower concentrations of Chlorophyll-a beyond the zone of down- and upwelling (corresponding to water depth of 35-40 m), suggesting that fishing-related activities along the coast are more viable within this zone corresponding to water depth less than 35-40 m.


Introduction Phosphodiesterases (PDE) control the cellular concentrations of cAMP to modulate a number of cellular functions. PDE4 specific inhibitors, Apremilast and Rolipram, have demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory activity in PsA, yet their effects have not been fully elucidated in the synovium. In this study, we evaluate the effects of PDE4 inhibition on PsA synovial tissue and examine the role of miR-23a as a post-transcriptional regulator of PDE4B. Aims To examine the expression, regulation and the disease-modifying effects of PDE4 in PsA synovial tissue. Methods The anti-inflammatory effects of PDE4 inhibition, mediated by Rolipram, was examined in PsA synovial explant ex vivo. Synovial fibroblast outgrowths were quantified using matrigel invasion assays and pro-inflammatory mediators by ELISA and Real-time PCR. Expression of PDE4 isoforms(A-D) and miR-23a were quantified in response to TLR4 activation in ST and/or FLS. In-Silico analysis identified PDE4B as a potential target of miR-23a which was confirmed by gold-standard, luciferase reporter gene assay. MiR-23a expression was correlated to clinical markers to further elucidate its role in PsA pathogenic mechanisms. Results PDE4 inhibition decreased the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-8, IL-6, MCP1, IL-1β while increasing IL-10 expression. Furthermore, Rolipram reduced the number of explant outgrowths from synovial tissue from day 8 through to day 21. We next wanted to investigate which PDE4 isoform could be responsible for these anti-inflammatory effects and found that PDE4B displayed the highest expression at baseline and in response to LPS. To try and understand how PDE4B expression is regulated in the joint we examined the role of miR-23a which we confirmed directly targets PDE4B. A reciprocal relationship was identified between PDE4B and miR-23a in PsA FLS in response to LPS stimulation. In line with this miR-23a was found to be significantly decreased at the site of inflammation compared to OA controls and correlated with key clinical markers such as DAS-28 CRP. Conclusions PDE4 inhibition decreases the pro-inflammatory activity of PsA synovial tissue. These actions may be mediated predominantly through the blockade of the PDE4B isoform which we found to be regulated by miR-23a. This data suggests a potential benefit for the development of PDE4B specific inhibitor for the treatment of PsA.


Given the high costs of agricultural production, especially due to the price of fertilisers, particularly nitrogen, the use of inoculants to supply nitrogen to soybean crops is a widely recommended practice. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of applying inoculants through seed and planting furrow in soil previously cultivated with soybean and Brazilian native "cerrado" biome soil under greenhouse conditions. Seven treatments were tested: 1) inoculation via seed (inoculant + fungicide + micronutrient), 2) treatment via seed (fungicide + micronutrient), 3) control (only seed), 4) inoculation via furrow-dose 1 (recommended dose), 5) inoculation via furrow-dose 2 (twice the recommended dose), 6) inoculation via furrow-dose 3 (three times the recommended dose) and 7) inoculation via furrow-dose 1 + seed inoculation. We evaluated plant height, fresh and dry matter weight of the aerial part and nodules, number of total, viable and non-viable nodules, number of pods per plant and grain yield. Inoculation was more effective when used in cerrado soil, but soybean performance in treatments without inoculation was higher in previously cultivated soil. Application through furrow proved to be a viable practice due to the similarity of the results obtained with the traditional application by seed.


The rat beta-galactoside alpha 2,6-sialytransferase gene is differentially utilized by liver and kidney in the generation of mRNAs that predict substantially divergent polypeptides. In order to determine the biosynthetic relationship between these sialyltransferase mRNA isoforms, genomic sequences were isolated and analysed. Five exons that span at least 40 kb of DNA carry the coding information for the liver beta-galactoside alpha 2,6-sialyltransferase protein. An additional exon contains only sequences for the 5'-untranslated leader of the liver mRNA. In contrast, the predominant kidney mRNAs from this gene share only three coding exons that specify the carboxyl terminal 42% of the liver sialyltransferase protein sequence. In addition, these kidney mRNAs contain information from two other exons that comprise the 5' divergent region of these transcripts. Primer extension and S1 nuclease protection analysis demonstrate that the hepatic and kidney specific mRNAs are transcriptionally initiated at different sites within the sialyltransferase gene. While the hepatic sialyltransferase mRNAs are transcribed from the first exon, the kidney transcripts are initiated from a site within the third intron. Genomic regions upstream of both transcriptional initiation sites can regulate expression of the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene in transiently transfected L cells. Together, the data implicate multiple promoters as a principle mechanism in the generation of kidney and liver gene product diversity in sialyltransferase expression.


This study investigates the areas of resilience and vulnerability in sentential negation in heritage Egyptian Arabic and explores their theoretical implications. Egyptian heritage speakers completed three narrative production tasks, five experimental production tasks, and a acceptability judgment task. The results indicate that they have a full grasp of the location of negation and its configurational properties, but diverge from native speakers in such aspects of sentential negation as merger with lexical heads and dependency or licensing relations. We propose that these asymmetric patterns are due to various factors, including the age at which a structure is typically acquired in the L1, as well as its morphological and syntactic characteristics. The results of this study have implications for the ongoing debate in heritage language research about the linguistic areas that display greater stability/vulnerability. For example, phrase structure seems less vulnerable than licensing dependencies and the mapping between syntax and the morphological interface.


Conventional Canny edge detector can detect edges in image with additive noise effectively but not ultrasound image that are corrupted by multiplicative speckle noise which alleviates image resolution resulting in inaccurate characterization of object features. In this paper, we proposed to incorporate the modified SRAD into the Canny edge detector to replace the Gaussian blurring in the conventional Canny edge detector in order to suppress the multiplicative noise effectively while preserving the edge of the object in ultrasound image. The result shows that the proposed method can provide better result than conventional method in a much wider range of parameter values. The proposed method through experimental result indicates that it is capable of producing promising edge detection result in ultrasound image.


In this paper, an H.263 video codec is implemented by adopting the concept of hardware and software co-design. Each module of the codec is investigated to find which approach between hardware and software is better to achieve real-time processing speed as well as flexibility. The hardware portion includes motion-related engines. such as motion estimation and compensation, and a memory control part. The remaining portion of the H.263 video codec is implemented in software using a RISC processor. This paper also introduces efficient design methods for hardware and software modules. In hardware, an area-efficient architecture for the motion estimator of a multi-resolution block matching algorithm using multiple candidates and spatial correlation in motion vector fields (MRMCS), is suggested to reduce the chip size. Software optimization techniques are also explored by using the statistics of transformed coefficients and the minimum sum of absolute difference (SAD) obtained from the motion estimator.


By definition, children with autism have poor peer relationships despite age and ability. When children enter adolescence, social problems typically worsen and feelings of loneliness and isolation may emerge. Thus, the overarching goal of the current study is to examine the social–emotional relationships of adolescents with autism and their typically developing (TD) classmates. Participants included 20 adolescents, 7 adolescents with autism and 13 TD classmates. All participants were enrolled in a drama class at a regular education high school in the Los Angeles area. Results indicate that adolescents with autism experienced significantly more loneliness than their TD classmates, had significantly poorer friendship quality in companionship and helpfulness, and had significantly lower social network status than their TD classmates. In addition, 92.4% of TD adolescents had secondary or nuclear social network centrality, which means that those adolescents were significantly connected and recognised in their classroom social structure although 71.4% of the adolescents with autism were either isolated or peripheral in their classroom. These findings imply that although inclusion in regular classrooms may allow adolescents with autism to be involved in the social structure of their classroom, they experienced more loneliness, poorer friendship quality and social network status as compared with their classmates. These results suggest that, perhaps, more intensive social skills' interventions that focus on friendship development are needed in adolescents with autism.


New efficient approaches to the characterization of fly ash and particulate matter (PM) have to be developed in order to better understand their impacts on environment and health. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) contained in PM from biomass burning have been identified as genotoxic and cytotoxic, and some tools already exist to quantify their contribution to PM. Optical fluorescence microscopy is proposed as a rapid and relatively economical method to allow the quantification of PAH in different particles emitted from biomass combustion. In this study samples were collected in the flue gas of biomass-combustion facilities with nominal output ranging from 40 kW to 17.3 MW. The fly ash samples were collected with various flue gas treatment devices (multicyclone, baghouse filter, electrostatic precipitator); PM samples were fractionated from the flue gas with a DEKATI® DGI impactor. A method using fluorescence observations (at 470 nm), white-light observations and image processing has been developed with the aim of quantifying fluorescence per sample. Organic components of PM and fly ash, such as PAH, humic-like substances (HULIS) and water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) were also quantified. Fluorescence microscopy analysis method assessment was first realized with fly ash that was artificially coated with PAH and HULIS. Total amounts of PAH in the three size fractions of actual PM from biomass burning strongly correlated with the intensities of fluorescence. These encouraging results contribute to the development of a faster and cheaper method of quantifying particle-bound PAH. Copyright 2015 American Association for Aerosol Research


Hydrogen bonding to the tyrosyl radical in ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) has been simulated by a complex between the phenoxyl radical and a water molecule. Multiconfigurational self-consistent field linear response theory was used to calculate the g-tensor of the isolated phenoxyl radical and of the phenoxyl-water model. The relevance of the model was motivated by the fact that spin density distributions and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra of the phenoxyl and tyrosyl radicals are very similar. The calculated g-tensor anisotropy of the phenoxyl radical was comparable with experimental findings for tyrosyl in those RNRs where the H-bond is absent: g(x) = 2.0087(2.0087), g(y) = 2.0050(2.0042), and g(z) = 2.0025(2.0020), where the tyrosyl radical EPR data from Escherichia coli RNR are given in parentheses. The hydrogen bonding models reproduced a shift toward a lower g(x) value that was observed experimentally for mouse and herpes simplex virus RNR where the H-bond was detected by electron-nuclear double resonance after deuterium exchange. This decrease could be traced to lower angular momentum and spin-orbit coupling matrix elements between the ground B-2(1) and the first excited B-2(2) states (oxygen lone-pair n to pi(SOMO) excitation) upon hydrogen bonding in a linear configuration. The g(x) value was further decreased by hydrogen bonding in bent configurations due to a blue shift of this excitation.


Recent code provisions for building and other structures (1994 and 1997 NEHRP provisions, 1997 UBC) have adopted new site classification. The new site classification system is based on average shear wave velocity to a depth of 30 m. when the shear wave velocity is not available; other soil properties such as undrained shear strength can be used. The study of propagation damages in various earthquakes illustrates the importance of the site effect on the ground seismic characteristics. From the point of the earthquake engineering view, the most important characteristics of the strong ground motion are amplitude, frequency content and duration. All of these properties have a significant effect on earthquake damage. The behavior of soils under cyclic loading is basically nonlinear and hysteretic. Ground response analysis is used to predict the movements of the ground and develop a design response spectrum in order to determine the dynamic stresses and strains and earthquake forces. The profile was studied by using various methods of soil response analysis and finally, the results were examined. In this paper, soil responses were examined by NERA, EERA software and the results compared with each other. Eventually, we concluded that the values obtained from the EERA are more than the value obtained from the NEERA software.


Purpose: Radiotherapy is commonly used to treat a majority of patients with head and neck cancers. The long-term radiation-induced reduction of saliva output significantly contributes to the posttreatment morbidity experienced by these patients. The purpose of this study was to test the ability of the stable-free radical Tempol (4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl), an established radioprotector, to prevent radiation-induced salivary hypofunction in mice. Experimental Design: The heads of C3H mice were exposed to a range of single radiation doses with or without an i.p. injection of 275 mg/kg Tempol 10 min before treatment. Salivary gland output was assessed 8 weeks postirradiation. Results: Radiation caused a dose-dependent reduction in salivary flow in this model. Tempol treatment alone significantly reduced radiation-induced salivary hypofunction. The combination of Tempol with mouth/nose shielding showed essentially complete radiation protection at 15 Gy and ∼75% protection at 17.5 Gy. Conclusions: This study demonstrates for the first time that significant radioprotection of the salivary glands is possible with Tempol in C3H mice.


Is life worth living if I become critically injured and disabled in the line of duty? This is a question we have been asked time and time again. There is life after being a police officer regardless of retirement, illness, or injury. It lies in the mindset and coping skills we have when faced with adversity and struggles. We set ourselves up for failure if we do not plan for the "what if's" of law enforcement with those closest to us. They are the ones left with the responsibility to care for us if we are injured. The warrior mindset is not only necessary for surviving while being an officer, but it is also an imperative tool to teach our spouses if they are to care for us should we become catastrophically injured. Too often we do not prepare for the worst but if we take the time to help our spouses understand us it sets us up for success versus failure.


aging in a broad sense. The majority of the contributions represent studies of Alzheimer's disease, or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type, and several tackle this problem by considering the nature of aging itself. Many of the papers consist only of pilot studies or relatively preliminary observations and it is doubtful whether these will see the light of day as publications in more complete form elsewhere. However, there is much of interest that will stimulate other research laboratories, and indeed clinicians, in their work. The book begins with challenging reviews of the methodology and interpretation of longitudinal studies of the brain function in aging people. Patrick Rabbitt, in particular, provides a cogent discussion of the pitfalls both of methodology and interpretation of such studies. Drachman provides a critical discussion of the relation of normal aging to dementia, an area in which definitions are loose and speculation rife. Terry and Davies provide a review of recent morphological and biochemical aspects of Alzheimer's disease, a topic taken up later in the book by Bowen and colleagues among others. There are a number of papers on regional cerebral metabolism using PET scanning and many reports of studies of choline, cholinergic synaptic transmission, lecithin and choline pharmacological studies, and discussions of other neurotransmitter and neuronal aspect of brain aging, mostly in the rat. In summary, this volume is a timely addition to the literature on aging of the brain, in all its aspects.


There is substantial evidence that over 80% of matter in the universe is dark matter – which is non-baryonic in nature and is thought to be composed of a new, slow-moving, stable particle not found in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Its presence is inferred from gravitational effects on luminous matter from several independent observations, from the galactic to the cosmological scale. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are the leading candidate, which can explain all of the observed effects. LUX and LZ are dual-phase xenon time projection chambers (TPC), aiming to observe scattering of WIMPs from xenon nuclei. LUX has an active mass of 250 kg of liquid xenon, and took data at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, between 2013 and 2016. The first WIMP search run of 85 live days in 2013 set world-leading exclusion limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section. This was improved by a reanalysis of those data, and subsequently by a new run yielding 332 live days, which set a minimum exclusion limit of 2.2 × 10−46 cm2 for a 50 GeV WIMP (90% CL). In addition, the most stringent limit to date on the spindependent WIMP-neutron scattering cross section comes from the reanalysis of the 2013 dataset, with a minimum exclusion of 9.4 × 10−41 cm2 for a 33 GeV WIMP. LZ is a next generation experiment with a 7 tonne active mass to be deployed in the same location as LUX, expected to be 100 times more sensitive. Work presented in this thesis includes analysis of the 2013 LUX search data to produce the spin-dependent results, evaluating the detector response using a tritium β− source, and determining the 85Kr background from data. A study was carried out on spurious electron emission phenomena from thin cathodic wires under high electric fields, using LUX engineering data where the grid voltages were increased above nominal operating values; this led to new insights into the microscopic breakdown mechanisms which have affected these (and other) TPC detectors for decades. The detailed understanding of the electroluminescence response gained in LUX was applied to the design of the LZ electroluminescence region; detailed simulation work of electrode geometry was performed to assess the performance of several candidate designs.


Abstract Adult volunteers (7 females, 7 males) aged between 19 and 51 years, 7 right-handers and 7 left-handers, were asked to complete re-training writing tasks by using their non-dominant hand over 10 consecutive days. It is possible for adults to learn quickly to write legibly with their non-dominant hand. Left handers have a higher legibility score initially although right-handers improved with training more than left-handers. Individual's performance was unrelated to age and sex in the small sample studied.


The aim of the study was to formulate metronidazole tablets using starch from Xanthosoma sagittifolium as binder and disintegrant in metronidazole tablets. Metronidazole tablets were produced by wet granulation method using X. sagittifolium starch as binder at concentrations of 5, 10, 15 and 20% w/w, and as disintegrant (5% w/w). The micromeritic properties of the granules were determined using the direct and indirect methods. The necessary official and non official tests were performed on the tablets to include uniformity of tablets weight, content of active ingredient, disintegration test, hardness, friability tests and in vitro drug release. Also, the phytochemical constituents of the starch were determined. The results show that the granules had a good flow and values obtained were within the specified limits for the production of good quality tablets. Deviations obtained from the tablet weight uniformity test were significantly (p< 0.05) below 5%. Tablets disintegration time ranged from 3.00 ± 0.08 min to 14.00 ± 0.10 min for M1 and M4 tablets formulated with 5 and 20% of X. sagittifolium starch respectively. The tablets hardness ranged from 7.20 ± 1.25 to 8.55 ± 1.17 kgf. In vitro release showed that M1 tablets had T25, T50 and T90 % at 5, 13 and 23 min respectively, while M4 tablets had T25, T50 and T90 % at 8, 18 min and were unable to release 90% of metronidazole at 30 min. Phytochemical analysis showed that the starch contained alkaloids, glycosides, carbohydrate and steroids. Therefore, starch from X. sagittifolium could be used to formulate metronidazole tablets for improved oral bioavailability of metronidazole.


Nascent personal computers, high-bandwidth wireless networking technologies and the pervasive use of the internet have transformed the style of performing business. The IT infrastructure provides transmission and storage of gigantic amounts of critical information used in each domain of society and it enables government agencies to speedily interact with each other as well as with industry, citizens, state, local governments and across international boundaries. The paper focuses on an assortment of concerns related to cyber crime and the role of Government to combat the issue. Further findings draw attention to array of cyber crime which is not covered in the IT Act.


Abstract The vehicle routing path (VRP) is non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) and therefore difficult to solve. The fact that VRP is both of theoretical and practical interest (owing to its real-world applications), explains the amount of attention given to the VRP by researchers during past years. Research on the development of heuristics for the VRP has made considerable progress since the first algorithms were proposed in the early 1960s. Several families of heuristics have been proposed for the VRP. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the most important families of heuristics for the VRP. At the end, the survey presents the solution method used for a small-scale case study in a logistic company in Turkey.


Green infrastructure, such as green roofs, is increasingly being used to reduce 'heat stresses' associated with urban heat island effects. This article discusses strategies to identify vulnerable neighborhoods in the City of Chicago, where green roofs could achieve multiple goals to mitigate urban heat-related challenges. Numerical simulations were performed using the urbanized version of the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting model to predict rooftop temperatures, a representative variable for exposure in this study. The model was dynamically coupled with a physically-based green rooftop algorithm as a part of the urban parameterization within the model. Our approach integrates information from multiple sources: social vulnerability indices (a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity), high-resolution temperature simulations over the urban area, and observed electricity (air conditioning) consumption data. The social vulnerability indicators were used to develop a quantitative heat vulnerability index for Chicago. We found that an analysis of multiple drivers is needed to identify neighborhoods that will likely benefit from mitigation strategies like green roofs. Our case study identified a large number of census tracts in south and west Chicago, along with isolated tracts throughout the city that would strongly benefit from green roof implementation. The tools and methodology from this study can be easily adopted for other urban regions and would be informative for stakeholders and managers, in general, in making adaptation strategies for extreme heat management.


In December 1958 the Lamont Geological Observatory research vessel "Vema" dredged four specimens of Monoplacophora from the Peru-Chile Trench off northern Peru. This is the second discovery of living representatives of this class of Mollusca which was thought, until 1957, to have become extinct in the Devonian. The specimens are considered to represent a new subgenus and species: Neopilina (Vema) ewingi, and the discovery suggests that more relict types may exist alive in the deep sea off Central and South America.


For a number of Italian writers the modem city has come to mean as much a style, a fractured syntax, a paratactic sign-system, as a physical construct with certain demonstrable boundaries. In the works of such authors as halo Calvino and Francesca Duranti the crisis of reason is symbolized by indeterminate aleatory structures - such as the labyrinth or the chessboard - all of which can be considered variations on the theme of the modem city. Calvino and Duranti's invisible or labyrinthine cities serve as an infinitely malleable poetic dramatization of the mind. The cities are both projections of their respective narrators and images that shape the reader's experience. By analysing the spatial structures of the narratives and by examining the use of space as a locus of fantasy this article shows how these novels chart cityscapes of the mind.


A series of fluorinated lanthanide–organic frameworks (LnOFs), formulated as [Ln(H3tftp)(H2O)] [where Ln3+ = La3+ (1), (La0.95Eu0.05)3+ (2), (La0.95Tb0.05)3+ (3) and (La0.94Eu0.03Tb0.03)3+ (4)], has been successfully prepared, under hydrothermal conditions, using the novel ((2,4,6-trifluorobenzene-1,3,5-triyl)tris(methylene))triphosphonic acid (H6tftp) organic ligand and Ln3+ cations as metallic centers. The three-step preparation of the tripodal H6tftp ligand is described. H6tftp and all intermediate molecules involved in the synthesis were fully characterized in the liquid and solid states. While the La3+-based LnOF material was isolated as single-crystals, with its crystal structure being fully described by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, phase identification of the Eu3+- and Tb3+-based materials was performed by powder X-ray diffraction. It is shown that the crystal structure of this isotypical series of materials is based on a neutral two-dimensional ∞2[Ln(H3tftp)(H2O)] coordination polymer placed in the ac plane of the unit cell, exhibiting a uninodal 4-connected square layered topology. It is shown that the most striking and supramolecular relevant interactions are classical O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds within the polymer, further contributing to the structural robustness of the layer. Prepared LnOFs were fully characterized in the solid state using elemental and thermogravimetric analysis, electron microscopy (SEM and EDS) and FT-IR spectroscopy. Compound 1 was further studied using solid-state NMR (31P HPDEC MAS and 13C{1H} CP MAS) and thermodiffractometry. Photoluminescent studies have been performed on the mixed-lanthanide materials 2 and 3.


Since Darwin, the nature of the relationship between evolution and domestication has been debated. Evolution offers different mechanisms of selection that lead to adaptation and may end in the origin of new species as defined by the biological species concept. Domestication has given rise to numerous breeds in almost every domesticated species, including chickens. At the same time, so-called artificial selection seems to exclude mechanisms of sexual selection by the animals themselves. We want to forward the question to the animal itself: With whom do you reproduce successfully? This study focused on the sexual behavior of the domestic chicken Gallus gallus f.dom., particularly the White Crested Polish breed. Experiments on mate choice and the observation of fertilization and hatching rates of mixed-breeding groups revealed breed-specific preferences. In breeding groups containing White Crested Polish and a comparative breed, more purebred chicks hatched than hybrids (number of eggs collected: 1059). Mating was possible in equal shares, but in relation to the number of eggs collected, purebred offspring (62.75%±7.10%, M±SE) hatched to a greater extend compared to hybrid offspring (28.75%±15.32%, M±SE). These data demonstrate that the mechanism of sexual selection is still present in domestic chicken breeds, which includes the alteration of gene frequencies typical for domestication and evolutionary speciation. Due to selection and mate choice we state that breeding in principle can generate new species. Therefore, we see domestication as an evolutionary process that integrates human interests of animal breeding with innate mate choice by the animal.


Situated within workplace equality and discrimination scholarship, this paper focuses on intersectional identity narratives. We seek to better understand the workplace experiences of British Black, Asian, and minority ethnicity (BAME) professional women, and how these experiences impact on a range of wellbeing outcomes. The absence of research relating to BAME professional women reflects a failure to consider intersectional organizational identities and experiences. We aim to problematize the existence of single and static identity categories within intersectional analyses and the challenge they represent. We engage a non-traditional methodological approach, conducting real-time online written interviews with professional British BAME women. We consider the important interplays at the intersection of minority ethnicity, gender, and nationality. The main themes to emerge were (a) experiences of misperceived identity imposition, whereby such social treatment had implications for participants' well-being and (b) the use of strategic essentialism by participants on the basis of nationality, ethnicity and gender, an innovative finding in intersectional research. We conclude that a focus on identity categories such as ethnicity or race and gender alone may lead to the further constraining and classifying of certain individuals. To avoid this there is need to consider intersectional identity experiences in light of nationality and the disparate underpinning systems of domination.