Understanding the effectiveness of environmental flow deliveries along rivers requires monitoring vegetation. Monitoring data are often collected at multiple spatial scales. For riparian vegetation, optical remote sensing methods can estimate growth responses at the riparian corridor scale, and field‐based measures can quantify species composition; however, the extent to which these different measures are duplicative or complementary is important to understand when planning monitoring programmes with limited resources. In this study, we analysed riparian vegetation growth in the delta of the Colorado River in response to an experimental pulse flow. Our goal was to compare ground‐based measurements of vegetation structure and composition with satellite‐based Landsat radiometric variables, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). We made this comparison in 21 transects following the delivery of 131.8 million cubic meters (mcm) of water in the stream channel during the spring of 2014 as a pulse flow and 38.4 mcm as base flows. Vegetation cover increased 14% and NDVI increased 0.02 (15%) by October 2015, and both variables returned to pre‐pulse flow values in October 2016. Observed changes in vegetation structure and composition did not persist after the second year. The highest increase in vegetation cover in October 2014 and October 2015 resulted from species that could respond rapidly to additional water such as reeds (Arundo donax and Phragmites australis), cattail (Typha domingensis), and herbaceous plants. Dominant shrubs, saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) and arrowweed (Pluchea sericea), both indicative of nonrestored habitats showed variable increases in cover, and native trees (Salicaceae family) presented low increases (1%). The strong NDVI–vegetation cover relationship indicates that NDVI is appropriate to detect changes at the riparian corridor scale but needs to be complemented with ground data to determine the contributions by different species to the observed trends.


While it is well-established that the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor is largely responsible for the widely-reported decline of populations of the Western honeybee Apis mellifera, the exact role the mite plays in honeybee health remains unclear. The last few years have seen a surge in studies associating RNA viruses vectored by the mite with the death of honeybee colonies. Varroa facilitates the spread of RNA viruses because it feeds on developing bee brood and transfers haemolymph from bee-to-bee. Such a change in transmission, from horizontal and vertical to vector-based, is predicted to lead to an increase in virulence of RNA viruses, thus potentially providing an explanation for the observed association between Varroa and certain viruses. Here we document the effect of changing the route of transmission of honeybee viruses contained in the haemolymph of honeybee pupae. We find that a change in mode of transmission rapidly increases viral titres of two honeybee viruses, Sacbrood virus (SBV) and Black queen cell virus (BQCV). This increase in viral titre is accompanied by an increase in virulence. In contrast, the virus most often associated with Varroa, Deformed wing virus (DWV), shows a reduction in viral titre in the presence of SBV and BQCV. In addition, DWV does not cause mortality to honeybee pupae in isolation. Most likely a change in mode of transmission due to the arrival of a vector quickly eliminates the most virulent honeybee viruses resulting in an association between Varroa and less virulent viruses such as DWV. Our work therefore provides empirical evidence for an alternative explanation for the widely-observed association between Varroa and DWV.


Introduction In the past listening to music was relegated to traveling in automobiles, while in the home, while engaged in recreational activities and occasionally at work. Today, the portable music industry (e.g. cassettes, compact discs, and iPod/MP3 digital audio devices) has popularized music "on the go" and invaded just about every environment including training venues. These devices have made it easier for people to enjoy their music and create their own style of workouts with relative ease, regardless of the setting, and has transcended into a multi-million dollar industry (14). Similarly, the sports arena is an environment where music has flourished. Traditionally, music has been used to motivate and inspire people prior to an important event (e.g. pre-game of a critical contest) as well as when they engage in sports and training for competition. Thus, athletes and traditional exercisers alike have used music as an accompaniment to exercise to sustain motivation, resist mental and emotional fatigue, and potentially enhance their physical and athletic performance (10). Scientific inquiry has revealed three key ways in which music can 'influence' preparation and competitive performances through dissociation, arousal regulation, and synchronization (3, 4, 6, 8-10). More specifically, research indicates music to be particularly effective in distracting exercisers away from their perceived exertion. Conceptual Framework Conceptually the underlying framework of using motivational music in exercise and sport devised by Karageorghis et al. (7) indicated two main hypotheses regarding arousal regulation and fatigue dissociation. First, music can be used to alter emotional and physiological arousal and thus can act either as a stimulant or sedative prior to and during physical activity. Therefore, an athlete can use various music tempos as a 'psych-up' strategy in preparation for a competition or perhaps an aid to calming over anxiousness. Second, music diverts a performer's attention from sensations of fatigue during exercise. This diversionary technique, known as dissociation, lowers perceptions of effort. Effective dissociation can promote a positive mood state, thus turning the attention away from thoughts of physiological sensations of fatigue (7). Rated Perceived Exertion Noble and Robertson (13) define perceived exertion as the subjective intensity of effort, strain discomfort and/or the fatigue that is experienced during an exercise. Currently, the most consistent findings suggest that perceived exertion will rate in lower values when participants exercise to music (12, 13, 22, & 24). The research data compiled from over the past two decades has found music particularly effective in distracting exercisers away from their perceived exertion during physical activity. A study by Nethery, Harmer, and Taaffe (12) found that perceived exertion while exercising to music was lower than for other attentional distracters and for the no distraction condition. Furthermore, Thornby et al. (22) tested exercising participants in the presence of music, no music and noise. They discovered that participants reported a lower perceived exertion while exercising in the presence of music in comparison to the no music and noise conditions. These findings coupled with the popularity and substantial profits generated between the association of music and training (14) would seem to indicate a correlation between the use of music and performance. However, the effects of listening to music on performance and other physiological measures are less clear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect listening to music has on running performance and rating of perceived exertion of college students. Methods Experimental Approach to the Problem Listening to music (music listening) was defined as the subject's self selection of music tracks and use of a personal digital audio player (e. …


Introduction Patients with severe gastrointestinal motility disorders often are found to have intravenous access clots or deep venous thrombosis, which can especially be difficult to manage, particularly if the patients require sustained intravenous access (IVA). We have previously reported that many patients who have IVA thrombosis have concomitant coagulation disorders. In this study, our goal was to determine the underlying prevalence of hypercoagulability in a series of patients with documented severe gastroparesis. Methods We studied 63 consecutive patients (10 male, 53 female, mean age 42 years) who had both symptoms of gastroparesis and documented disorders of gastric emptying in order to assess the prevalence of inherited and acquired coagulopathies in this group. All patients were being evaluated for a gastric neural stimulation device or had one placed previously. Patients underwent a hematologic interview and previously standardized measures of coagulation. Laboratory studies performed included measuring acquired defects of factor VII, factor VIII, fibrinogen, lupus anticoagulant panel, antiphospholipid antibody panel, homocysteine (in the setting of kidney disease), and activated protein resistance. The congenital defects measured were antithrombin III, protein C, protein S (total and free), factor II mutation, factor V Leiden, methylenetetrahydrofolate resistance (MTHFR), and homocysteine. Results Of the 63 patients, all but 7 (89%) were found to have detectable coagulation abnormalities. Twenty-five of the 63 (40%) patients had a documented history of abnormal clotting, including deep venous thrombosis, intravenous access thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism. All of the patients with a previous history of thrombosis were found to have detectable clotting abnormalities. No abnormalities in antithrombin III, protein C, or factor V Leiden were detected in this study group. Conclusion We conclude that there is a high prevalence of both acquired and congenital hypercoagulable defects in patients with gastroparesis that may predispose them to thrombosis. This unique finding warrants consideration of a coagulation evaluation in patients with severe gastroparesis, especially when those patients found to have underlying clotting abnormalities are placed in thrombophilic situations.


A Mixed Integer Linear Programming model for the design and planning of green supply chains is developed. Strategic and tactical decisions are taken, namely on facility location and capacity installation, supplier selection, technology selection, transportation network definition, supply planning, and product recovery. The aim of this work is to study the use of environmental indicators in these decisions while accounting for profit objectives. Different objective functions concerning environmental aspects are implemented. ReCiPe quantifies the environmental performance of the supply chain and combinations of ReCiPe's midpoint categories allow a deeper analysis of the impact of these categories in strategic and tactical decisions. The goal is to understand if focusing on selected categories affects supply chain decisions and overall supply chain environmental impact. Net Present Value quantifies the economic performance and is used for lexicographic optimization. The model is applied to a case-study and important managerial insights are obtained. From a holistic point of view, it answers the question: how should supply chain environmental impact be assessed? From a case-study perspective, insights are obtained regarding what type of improvements should be implemented to reduce the environmental impact and how this would affect supply chain strategic and tactical decisions, along with economic performance.


Larval swimming behavior in response to sharp laboratory haloclines was studied in 4 species of subtropical colonial ascidians: Eudistoma hepaticum, Eudistoma olivaceum, Ecteinascidia turbinata and Polyandrocarpa zorritensis. Larvae were observed as they swam upward from seawater of high salinity (33 or 28 ppt) into a layer of lower salinity. The vertical movements of larvae in columns with haloclines were compared with movements of larvae in unstratified control columns. Dilute seawater at 10 and 16 ppt acted as a barrier to tadpoles of all species swimming toward the surface. Seawater at 22 ppt also halted upward progression in all species except Eudistoma hepdticum. Seawater of 26 ppt was passed without difficulty by the larvae of all species. However, most larvae (with the exception of Eudistoma olivaceum) sank or swam out of 26 ppt sea water as soon as they arrived at the airwater interface, whereas larvae in 33 ppt control columns remained at the surface for significantly longer periods of time. There were interspecific differences in the larval responses, some of which could explain differences in the distances that various species penetrate into coastal lagoons. However, salinity was not a robust explanation for overall distributional patterns. The observed responses to haloclines could help explain how larvae are retained near parental habitats in the mouths of estuaries.


: One hundred and eighty patients with stones in the calyces, renal pelvis, upper, middle, and lower ureter were treated by piezoelectric extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy using the EDAP LT-01 lithotripter. The size of the stones treated ranged from 0.5 cm to 6.5 cm with the vast majority (94%) measuring less than 3.0 cm. Forty-eight patients (27%) had multiple stones in the renal collecting system. Successful fragmentation occurred in 79%, partial fragmentation in an additional 17%, and no fragmentation in 4%. Forty percent of patients required repeated treatment with an average of 2.3 sessions. Of those patients treated, none required general anesthesia, however, analgesia was needed in 121 patients (67%). Urosepsis occurred in 4% and 0.5% developed intrarenal hematoma. There was no mortality or loss of renal units in this series. The auxiliary procedure rate was 15% (percutaneous nephrolithotripsy 5%, ureteroscopic manipulation 9%, and open surgery 1%). The 3-month stone-free rate was 64%.


A compact wideband printed antenna embedded in a half-wavelength cavity is introduced here. It consists of a strip-based metasurface printed in the cavity aperture. The principle of operation and key parameters are discussed. The numerical results are validated successfully around 2.3 GHz, and fractional -10-dB bandwidths reaching 31.8% and 34% are measured for cavity antenna prototypes without or with a surrounding ground plane, respectively. The corresponding measured radiation efficiencies and gain values at 2.3 GHz reach 92% and 87%, and 5.9 and 4.7 dBi, respectively.


The recent development of deep learning has mostly been focusing on Euclidean data, such as images, videos, and audios. However, most real-world information and relationships are often expressed in graphs. Graph convolutional networks (GCNs) appear as a promising approach to efficiently learn from graph data structures, showing advantages in several practical applications such as social network analysis, knowledge discovery, 3D modeling, and motion capturing. However, practical graphs are often extremely large and unbalanced, posting significant performance demand and design challenges on the hardware dedicated to GCN inference. In this paper, we propose an architecture design called UltraWorkload-Balanced-GCN (UWB-GCN) to accelerate graph convolutional network inference. To tackle the major performance bottleneck of workload imbalance, we propose two techniques: dynamic local sharing and dynamic remote switching, both of which rely on hardware flexibility to achieve performance autotuning with negligible area or delay overhead. Specifically, UWBGCN is able to effectively profile the sparse graph pattern while continuously adjusting the workload distribution among parallel processing elements (PEs). After converging, the ideal configuration is reused for the remaining iterations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first accelerator design targeted to GCNs and the first work that auto-tunes workload balance in accelerator at runtime through hardware, rather than software, approaches. Our methods can achieve near-ideal workload balance in processing sparse matrices. Experimental results show that UWB-GCN can finish the inference of the Nell graph (66K vertices, 266K edges) in 8.1ms, corresponding to 199×, 16×, and 7.5× respectively, compared to the CPU, GPU, and the baseline GCN design without workload rebalancing.


Pertussis reemergence is underpinned by slowly waning immunity to both whole-cell and acellular vaccines together with incomplete past vaccination coverage. The problem of pertussis The recent rise of pertussis in developed countries has generated controversy as to its cause. Domenech de Cellès et al. modeled pertussis transmission using incidence data from Massachusetts, United States. They found little evidence that the switch to the acellular vaccine contributed to the Massachusetts outbreaks. Instead, waning vaccine-conferred immunity, as opposed to vaccine failure to mount a full or even partial immune response, best explained the local rise in pertussis cases along with a historical gap in vaccination coverage. Simulations suggested that administering existing boosters to children may be an effective strategy to halt pertussis transmission. The resurgence of pertussis over the past decades has resulted in incidence levels not witnessed in the United States since the 1950s. The underlying causes have been the subject of much speculation, with particular attention paid to the shortcomings of the latest generation of vaccines. We formulated transmission models comprising competing hypotheses regarding vaccine failure and challenged them to explain 16 years of highly resolved incidence data from Massachusetts, United States. Our results suggest that the resurgence of pertussis is a predictable consequence of incomplete historical coverage with an imperfect vaccine that confers slowly waning immunity. We found evidence that the vaccine itself is effective at reducing overall transmission, yet that routine vaccination alone would be insufficient for elimination of the disease. Our results indicated that the core transmission group is schoolchildren. Therefore, efforts aimed at curtailing transmission in the population at large, and especially in vulnerable infants, are more likely to succeed if targeted at schoolchildren, rather than adults.


In this study, we aim to analyze how Software Defined Networking (SDN) can help to ensure a high-quality uninterrupted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service accompanied by video for prioritized users and entities in a network congested with background traffic. Guaranteeing a level of Quality of Service (QoS) and resource prioritization are key concepts for future networks (e.g, 5G, NGSON) and may be required in an emergency situation such as an international disaster recovery operation. Providing QoS in such scenarios with the help of SDN is promisingly feasible, via limiting bandwidth, assigning flows to different queues and/or adapting routing decisions based on network conditions. The experiments conducted throughout the study are the substances of the EC FP7 project OFERTIE and Celtic-Plus project SIGMONA. Here we compared loss rate, latency and the jitter as QoS metrics under several scenarios and results showed that we can flexibly manage the QoS by reducing more than 5% loss rate and more than 50% of latency and jitter.


Proceedings: AACR 106th Annual Meeting 2015; April 18-22, 2015; Philadelphia, PA

Background and Significance: Aggressive Cutaneous Squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) of the face has become the second most common type of skin cancer in the USA due to ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure in tanning booths and sun exposure of our military personnel. UVB is a carcinogen and our previous studies established oral administration of Curcumin C3 complex (C3), a standardized preparation of three curcumonoids - Curcumin (76.07%), Demethoxycurcumin (20.28%) and Bisdemethoxycurcumin (3.63%), delayed UVB-induced tumor onset and multiplicity, but not tumor progression. Accordingly, we sort to determine the preventative efficacy of C3® against UVB-induced photodamage in promotion sensitive JB6 skin keratinocytes and SKH-1 hairless mouse epidermis on the early neoplastic events in the development of UVB-induced skin carcinogenesis.

Methods: SKH-1 mice were either administered vehicle or C3 (100mg/kg/b.w) complex orally for 14 days followed by a single exposure to UVB radiation (180mj/cm2). Mice were euthanized 24 hours after UVB exposure and skin tissues and serum were collected. For in vitro studies, promoter-sensitive JB6 mouse epithelial cells were pre-treated with C3® for 2 h and the effects on UVB-induced early molecular signaling events were assessed.

Results: C3® attenuated UVB-induced epidermal hyperplasia and significantly decreased epidermal and plasma levels of fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2); an important mitogen implicated in proliferation and differentiation of skin keratinocytes. In vitro, C3®blocked UVB-dependent FGF-2 induction and proliferation of cultured keratinocytes via down regulation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-KB) and Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathways.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest C3® has the ability to protect mice from UVB-induced acute damage. Further the photo-preventive effects of C3® are mediated, at least in part, via modulation of FGF-2/mTOR/NF-KB signaling.

Citation Format: Alok R. Khandelwal, Arun Anandharaj, Ekshyyan Oleksandr, Tara Moore-Medlin, Abreo Fleurette, Cherie-Ann O. Nathan. Curcumin C3 ® prevents ultraviolet B radiation-induced acute damage in JB6 keratinocytes and mouse skin via FGF-2/mTOR/NF-KB pathway. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4644. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4644


Over the California Current upwelling system in summer, the prevailing upwelling-favorable winds episodically weaken (relax) or reverse direction for a few days. Near Pt. Conception, California, the wind usually does not reverse, but wind relaxation allows poleward oceanic coastal flow with ecological consequences. To determine the offshore extent and synoptic forcing of these wind relaxations, we formed composite averages of wind stress from the QuikSCAT satellite and atmospheric pressure from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) using 67 wind relaxations during summer 2000–2009. Wind relaxations at Pt. Conception are the third stage of an event sequence that repeatedly affects the west coast of North America in summer. First, 5–7 days before the wind weakens near Pt. Conception, the wind weakens or reverses off Oregon and northern California. Second, the upwelling-favorable wind intensifies along central California. Third, the wind relaxes at Pt. Conception, and the area of weakened winds extends poleward to northern California over 3–5 days. The NARR underestimates the wind stress within 200 km of coastal capes by a factor of 2. Wind relaxations at Pt. Conception are caused by offshore extension of the desert heat low. This synoptic forcing is related to event cycles that cause wind reversal as in Halliwell and Allen (1987) and Mass and Bond (1996), but includes weaker events. The wind relaxations extend 600 km offshore, similarly to the California-scale hydraulic expansion fan shaping the prevailing winds, and 1000 km alongshore, limited by an opposing pressure gradient force at Cape Mendocino.


Approximately 300 samples were collected from Lower to Middle Eocene
sediments of the Avedat Plateau (Central Northern Negev, Israel). Fielddata,
microfacies data - qualitative as well as quantitative with respect to PIB ratios
and frequency distributions of larger foraminifera - and the analysis of some
30 samples with smaller benthonic foraminifera resulted in a detailed reconstruction
of the northern foreslope of the Avedat plateau with special reference
to the paleo-bathymetry of autochthonous and allochthonous sediments.
Biometric data on the outer and inner morphology of Asterocyclina from
about 30 samples and the inner morphology of Discocyclina from 17 samples
were analysed.
The outer morphological data of Asterocyclina suggest an irregular increase
of the test size in the course of the time combined with a relative flattening
of the test.
The inner morphological data prove distinct heterogeneity in Asterocyclina
and Discocyclina. In Asterocyclina two groups are recognized on the basis of
the size of the embryon and the degree of enclosure of the embryonic chambers
(R). The data suggest an increase in the course of the time of R and the size
of the embryon. These parameters serve to subdivide the assemblages into
biometric units: A. taramellii and A. stella in the group with a small embryon;
A. cuvillieri and A. sp. in the group with a large embryon. Furthermore another
"species" cf. Asterophragmina pagoda is separated on the basis of the
reduction of radial chamber walls in the median layer. In Discocyclina three
groups are recognized on the combinations of outer morphological characters
and inner morphology. These are D. varians s.1., D. archiaci and D. sp. None
of them shows evolutionary trends, but there are extreme differences in
morphology between different samples.
The depth profile, the frequency distributions of the larger foraminifera
and the morphological characters of A. taramellii, A stella and D. varians s.l.
were compared. Asterocyclina shows a preference for the upper foreslope
environment. Discocyclina is more frequent in the lower foreslope. The large
overlap in depth range suggests a further niche segregation by means of other
environmental parameters, possibly by means of substrate or vegetation
dependency. In Asterocyclina, and possibly also in Discocyclina the test becomes
more flattened with increasing depth.
The evolution within Asterocyclina is considered as an example ofquantum
speciation. The data suggest that with the change of A. taramellii to A. stella
a change of habitat occurred. D. varians is considered as an "elastic" species, which may adapt to widely different subenvironments and show corresponding
morphological variation.
A hierarchy of morphological features is proposed, which may be used for
discrimination on family, subfamily, genus and species level within the Discocyclinidae.
Lower ranked features become increasingly environment controlled
and may provide information on ecology.
The origin of the Discocyclinidae is discussed. It is suggested that they are
derived from peripheral isolates of Lepidorbitoides minor and L. socialis
which passed the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. A subsequent radiation,
possibly via A. taramellii and D. augustae resulted in at least three different
lineages in the subfamily Asterocyclininae and at least two in the subfamily
Discocyclininae, each with its own rate of evolution.


Relevance of the research. The computer has long been not a luxury product; it is now common for each home to have at least one, if not several. Previously, most affordable computer was fixed, now people move much and want to keep the computer next to them, thus choosing a laptop. Because of their mobility and compactness, currently laptops are particularly popular among students. They can bring them to lectures, the university library. Business people also appreciate notebook mobility as a means of always relevant information, e-mail, and other data at hand. This is one of the main arguments that determine the choice of a laptop computer. This trend is confirmed by computer purchase BIGBANK data (2012), the users tend to buy laptops (31%), and half of them desktop computers (15%). However, R. Tiwari and S. Buse (2006) suggets that not all mobile devices provide access to mobile telecommunication networks. Standard laptops, despite their mobile devices, are often connected to the fixed network or restricted in size, weight and other factors. Laptops are used for optimized microarchitecture, characterized by higher productivity and lower energy consumption, increased working hours, compared to standard systems. The research problem is posed by the question: what factors influence the standard laptop purchase. Research object: factors affecting the standard laptop purchase in Lithuania. Research purpose was to analyse factors affecting the standard laptop purchase. Objectives to achieve the purpose: 1. Perform the statistical analysis of factors influencing the purchase of standard laptops. 2. Develop and analyse binary logistic regression model. Research methods: statistical analysis of the data and binary logistic regression analysis using a statistical package SPSS, scientific literature analysis and synthesis, induction, analogy, questionnaire (survey). Results and conclusions. Statistically insignificant factors were age, sex, social status members (students, workers, pensioners, unemployed). Adjusted binary (binomial) improved logistic regression model was suitable for the data. It was identified that 68.3% of the respondents who bought a standard laptop, and 79.7% of the respondents did not important, which computer would be chosen. The percentage of generally classified cases is 75.0%. Wald test shows that all the factors enhanced the model statistically significantly. According to the research results there is probability that the respondents with managerial status often buy standard laptops than respondents with other social status.Keywords: laptops, purchase, binary logistics regression


The present study was conducted to compare the behavioral problems in children from intact and single parent (mother- headed) families. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling techniques were used to collect data. Sample consisted of 60 children (30 = intact families, 30 = single headed families) with an age range of 8 to 10 years. Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire (Goodman, 1999) was used to assess the behavioral problems among children. Teachers were requested to fill the English version and mothers were asked to fill the Urdu version of the measure. It was hypothesized that children from single parent families would exhibit more behavioral problems as compared to the children from intact families. Results indicated significant mean differences between the two groups in terms of behavioral problems as children from single parent families were perceived as high on behavioral problems by their parents and teachers. In addition, results indicated nonsignificant main effect of gender and nonsignificant gender and family structure interactions showing that gender does not moderate the impact of family structure on children's adjustment. Implications have been discussed.


The watershed is one of the latest segmentation tools developed in mathematical morphology. In order to prevent its oversegmentation, the notion of dynamics of a minimum, based on geodesic reconstruction, has been proposed. In this paper, we extend the notion of dynamics to the contour arcs. This notion acts as a measure of the saliency of the contour. Contrary to the dynamics of minima, our concept reflects the extension and shape of the corresponding object in the image. This representation is also much more natural, because it is expressed in terms of partitions of the plane, i.e., segmentations. A hierarchical segmentation process is then derived, which gives a compact description of the image, containing all the segmentations one can obtain by the notion of dynamics, by means of a simple thresholding. Finally, efficient algorithms for computing the geodesic reconstruction as well as the dynamics of contours are presented.


This paper addresses the problem of locating an acoustic source using a sensor network in a distributed manner, i.e., without transmitting the full data set to a central point for processing. This problem has been traditionally addressed through the nonlinear least squares or maximum likelihood framework. These methods, even though asymptotically optimal under certain conditions, pose a difficult global optimization problem. It is shown that the associated objective function may have multiple local optima and saddle points and hence any local search method might stagnate at a sub-optimal solution. In this paper, we formulate the problem as a convex feasibility problem and apply a distributed version of the projection onto convex sets (POCS) method. We give a closed form expression for the projection phase, which usually constitutes the heaviest computational aspect of POCS. Conditions are given under which, when the number of samples increases to infinity or in the absence of measurement noise, the convex feasibility problem has a unique solution at the true source location. In general, the method converges to a limit point or a limit cycle in the neighborhood of the true location. Simulation results show convergence to the global optimum with extremely fast convergence rates compared to the previous methods.


The claim in recent years of a radical disjunction between the theologies of Calvin and the Calvinists has frequently come to focus on the seminal influence of Calvin's successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza. Scholars who have suggested Beza as the main culprit behind an increasing trend in sixteenth century Reformed theology to a rationalistic, scholastic, predestinarian rigidity include Ernst Bizer, Walter Kickel, Basil Hall, Brian G. Armstrong, Johannes Dantine, Edward A. Dowey Jun., John W. Beardslee III, and R. T. Kendall. Indeed, in order to appreciate Beza's significance we are compelled to see him in comparison with his great predecessor.


How do gene expression patterns change when a cell is perturbed, for example, by exposure to a pathogen or a drug? Although current chip-based methods of transcriptional profiling have provided researchers with a powerful tool for addressing this question, these methods require disruption of cellular architecture, meaning that important information may be lost. By combining elements of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and microarray technology, Levsky et al. have developed a technique that allows them to visualize the transcription of many genes simultaneously inside a single cell--essentially using the cell nucleus as a "chip." J. M. Levsky, S. M. Shenoy, R. C. Pezo, R. H. Singer, Single-Cell gene expression profiling, Science 297, 836-840 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The frequency of micronuclei (MN) in peripheral blood lymphocytes and in buccal epithelial cells was used as a biomarker of genotoxic effects resulting from occupational exposure to pesticides. In addition, the cytokinesis‐block proliferation index (CBPI) was calculated to detect possible variations in the proliferative kinetics of lymphocytes due to pesticide exposure. This study was performed on 84 pesticide‐exposed workers and 65 unexposed controls from Hungary. The pesticide‐exposed workers, classified as moderately and highly exposed, were also evaluated separately. Statistical evaluation of the cytogenetic biomarkers indicated that there were no significant differences between pesticide‐exposed workers and controls, nor between moderately and highly exposed workers. Nevertheless, the statistical analysis revealed that additional factors such as age, sex, ingestion of raw vegetables, and working as a pesticide applicator affected lymphocyte MN frequency. In addition, age, sex, and smoking affected the frequency of MN in buccal cells. Results from the CBPI analysis showed that the proliferation index decreased with pesticide exposure and that this parameter was also affected by smoking and by the gender of individuals. The results of this study indicate no significant increase in MN in this group of Hungarian workers; however, the reduced CBPI in the highly exposed population suggests a possible genotoxic effect of pesticide exposure. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 40:101–109, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We consider the problem of segmentation of autoregressive models with exogenous inputs (ARX models). This problem, where the goal is to determine the parameters of a sequence of ARX models that can explain a given input/output data within some noise bound, has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Most of the recently proposed approaches are based on convex relaxations. Although efficient, these approaches do not necessarily lead to optimal solutions. In the present paper, by exploiting some early results in dynamic programming, we show that an optimal solution can indeed be obtained in polynomial-time. One salient feature of the proposed approach is that exploration of the model complexity/quality of the fit trade-off space comes with negligible additional computational cost. We discuss several other properties of the proposed approach and compare it with existing approaches on numerical examples, which show that the proposed approach is consistently faster.


: Representative democracies require sufficient numbers of citizens to put themselves forward as candidates for political office. Existing studies have shown that the composition of political institutions is not representative of the population as a whole, suggesting that political ambition is not evenly distributed among all potential candidates. We discuss evidence from the first systematic study of political ambition in Britain, examining the question of who is interested in putting themselves forward for political office. We find patterns in the distribution of political ambition that help to explain why British political institutions do not look like the British people as a whole including a gender gap, a social class gap, an education gap, a north-south divide, and a personality gap. We discuss the implications of our findings for political parties, arguing that they need to adjust practices of candidate recruitment in such a way that minimises the effects of these biases.


ABSTRACT During the global pandemic induced economic downturn, the number of people who do freelance work is rapidly increasing. With increased participation, it is important to understand how freelancers are experiencing the online labor marketplace. To shed light on this current phenomenon, we survey 392 U.S. freelancers (both new and experienced) to understand their initial perceptions of the experience. We uncover both negative and positive impacts on freelancers which include more competition, less time to complete work, change in pay, and risk aversion, as well as more time to complete work, new jobs, and more time to attract clients. Future work will explore the impact based on gender, age, work experience, geographic demographics, and wage setting. To better support the rapidly evolving gig economy during the pandemic, we encourage longitudinal evaluation of freelancers in online labor marketplaces. Keywords future of work; online labor marketplaces; freelance work; economic downturn ABOUT THE AUTHOR/S Elizabeth M. Gerber Northwestern University email@example.com Elizabeth Gerber is an Associate Professor of Design and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Human Computer Interaction and Design Center at Northwestern University. More info at www.lizgerber.com. Eureka Foong Northwestern University email@example.com Eureka Foong is a PhD student in the Technology and Social Behavior Program at Northwestern University. More info at www.eurekafoong.com. New Future of Work 2020, August 3–5, 2020 © 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).


This paper is a review of Danmarks Nationalbank's recent analysis of the prospects of implementing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in Denmark. We concur with Nationalbanken's conclusion that CBDC does not add efficiency or further functionality to existing payment solutions. We argue, however, that their analysis fails to take into account the potentials for increased financial stability given the fact that CBDC carries no credit risk. We also find that Nationalbanken's dismissal of CBDC on the grounds that it does not provide new monetary policy tools, since interest rates are bound by the fixed exchange rate regime, fails to consider the value of CBDC in the event of a future crisis. Finally, we argue that the Nationalbanken's views may reflect a primary concern with the preservation of the existing banking sector in its current form over and above the needs of the general public.


ObjectivesMinor cardiac biomarker elevation after percutaneous coronary intervention has long-term prognostic significance. The sirolimus-eluting stent (Cypher) has been reported to require high postinflation pressure for optimal implantation. We examined the incidence of minor cardiac biomarker elevation induced by Cypher implantation. MethodsWe measured the serum concentration of cardiac troponin-I (cTnI) 24 h after stenting and those of creatine kinase isoenzyme MB and creatine kinase before, immediately after, and 6, 12 and 24 h after implantation in patients who underwent Cypher stent (CS group; n=53) or bare metal stent (BMS group; n=57) implantation. ResultsNo significant difference in clinical background was observed between the two groups. When a cutoff cTnI value of 0.50 ng/ml was used, the CS group showed a significantly higher incidence of cTnI elevation (35.8%, 19/53) than the BMS group (14.0%, 8/57) (P<0.05). Similarly, the incidence of cTnI ≥0.03 ng/ml tended to be higher in the CS group (88.7%, 47/53) than in the BMS group (73.7%, 42/57: 0.05<P<0.10). Furthermore, the CS group showed significantly higher cTnI levels than the BMS group (1.32±2.38 vs. 0.34±0.91 ng/ml. P<0.001). Essentially, similar results were obtained for serum creatine kinase isoenzyme MB and creatine kinase. Among clinical, lesion and procedural characteristics, postinflation pressure for stenting was significantly higher only in the CS group (18.2±2.8 atm) than in the BMS group (14.0±2.7 atm) (P<0.001). ConclusionsThe results demonstrated that CS implantation increases the incidence of minor cardiac biomarker elevation compared with BMS. The difference in postinflation pressure could account for the results.


Abstract. In this study, a focused investigation of the potential for the King Salmon (KS) SuperDARN HF radar to monitor high-velocity flows near the equatorial edge of the auroral oval is undertaken. Events are presented with line-of-sight velocities as high as 2km/s, observed roughly along the L-shell. Statistically, the enhanced flows are shown to be typical for the dusk sector (16:00–23:00 MLT), and the average velocity in this sector is larger (smaller) for winter (summer) conditions. It is also demonstrated that the high-velocity flows can be very dynamical with more localized enhancements existing for just several minutes. These short-lived enhancements occur when the luminosity at the equatorial edge of the auroral oval suddenly decreases during the substorm recovery phase. The short-lived velocity enhancements can be established because of proton and ion injections into the inner magnetosphere and low conductance of the ionosphere and not because of enhanced tail reconnection. This implies that some KS velocity enhancements have the same origin as subauroral polarization streams (SAPS).


High mobility, low latency and high throughput requirements in intelligent transport systems (ITS) have paved the way for the development of new wireless communication technologies. Therefore, the 5.9 GHz band has been assigned to ITS applications under two main technologies. Europe's ITS-G5 is one such technology, which is based on IEEE 802.11p. The other alternative technology is 3GPP's cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X). Both of these technologies have their inherent advantages and disadvantages due to dissimilarities in their physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC) layer architectures. Therefore, the applicability of each technology will vary depending on the situation. While previous work has been mainly focused on the comparison of two technologies, in this paper, we investigate the benefit of the co-existence of both of these technologies for a V2I downlink scenario in a road-side unit (RSU) placed at the center of an urban road intersection. We propose an optimization scheme to achieve the best minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) performance for the RSU while providing connectivity to the maximum possible number of vehicles. Our analysis shows that ITS-G5 should be given priority when communicating with larger number of vehicles while C-V2X should be given priority when less number of vehicles are requesting to connect with the RSU.


Reactive oxygen species can give rise to intrastrand cross-link lesions, where two neighboring nucleobases are covalently bonded. Here, we employed LC-MS/MS and demonstrated for the first time that gamma irradiation of a synthetic duplex oligodeoxyribonucleotide can give rise to an intrastrand cross-link lesion G[8-5]C, where the C8 carbon atom of guanine and the C5 carbon atom of its 3'-neighboring cytosine are covalently bonded. We also carried out in vitro replication studies of a substrate containing a site-specifically incorporated G[8-5]C, and our results showed that yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae DNA polymerase eta (pol eta) was able to replicate past the cross-link lesion. Steady-state kinetic analyses for nucleotide incorporation by pol eta showed that the 3'-cytosine moiety of the cross-link did not significantly affect either the efficiency or the fidelity of nucleotide incorporation. The 5' guanine portion of the cross-link lesion, however, markedly reduced both the efficiency and the fidelity of nucleotide incorporation; the insertion of dGMP or dAMP was slightly favored over the insertion of the correct nucleotide, dCMP, which was in turn favored over the insertion of dTMP. The above results support that the oxidative cross-link lesion, if not repaired, can be mutagenic.


History and Objectives: Depression is a debilitating factor in life. Its frequency is estimated to be around 15-20%. It's prevalence among students groups were reported from 10 to 64%. Depression may lead to suicide, drug dependence, low self confidence and may lead to low school performance among students and it will have adverse effect directly and indirectly on the society as a whole. The present study was carried out in order to determine the prevalence of depression among university students in Kashan in 1996-1997. Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was carried out on 310 subjects. Individuals were selected on random basis. A short version of Beck standard questionnaire was given to each student. Personal records were collected. Results: From 307 individuals, the prevalence was 35.8%. Depression was most prevalent among health and hygiene students (42.3%) and the medical students had the lowest prevalence (28.4%). Depression was not related to gender and residency of students. Conclusion: Due to relative high prevalence of depression among students, preventive measures ought to be designed in order to reduce stressful situations.


A new generation of compact and robust ultrashort pulse lasers is currently emerging based on rare-earth doped fiber gain media. This paper reviews the development of high-power fiber technology, which recently has led to millijoule energies and /spl sim/10 W average powers from various femtosecond fiber systems. These results indicate that fiber technology has a significant potential to replace conventional solid-state lasers and promises important advantages both for practical use and for achieving high powers and energies. Chirped pulse amplification and different mode-size scaling techniques compose the foundation of this ultrashort-pulse fiber technology. Mode-size scaling can be achieved either by using multimode core fibers, which can produce a diffraction-limited beam at the fiber amplifier output, or by "mode-cleaning" of multimode core fiber output through saturated optical parametric amplification.


Rapid population growth and negative impacts of human activities result in heightened risks to the safety of urban water supplies. The local councils of Koboko and Yumbe, in cooperation with the Reform of the Urban Water and Sanitation Sector Programme, recognised this risk and decided to establish a quality management system for non-piped drinking water sources. This approach is based on community participation, cost-efficient and reliable monitoring measures as well as on joint capacity development. In this paper, the functioning of the system will be presented in detail and experiences gained thus far will be illustrated.


The Earth's magnetosheath is the region delimited by the bow shock and the magnetopause. It is characterized by highly turbulent fluctuations covering all scales from MHD down to kinetic scales. Turbulence is thought to play a fundamental role in key processes such as energy transport and dissipation in plasma. In addition to turbulence, different plasma instabilities are generated in the magnetosheath because of the large anisotropies in plasma temperature introduced by its boundaries. In this study we use high-quality magnetic field measurements from Cluster spacecraft to investigate the effects of such instabilities on the small-scale turbulence (from ion down to electron scales). We show that the steepening of the power spectrum of magnetic field fluctuations in the magnetosheath occurs at the largest characteristic ion scale. However, the spectrum can be modified by the presence of waves/structures at ion scales, shifting the onset of the small-scale turbulent cascade toward the smallest ion scale. This cascade is therefore highly dependent on the presence of kinetic instabilities, waves, and local plasma parameters. Here we show that in the absence of strong waves the small-scale turbulence is quasi-isotropic and has a spectral index α ≈ −2.8. When transverse or compressive waves are present, we observe an anisotropy in the magnetic field components and a decrease in the absolute value of α. Slab/2D turbulence also develops in the presence of transverse/compressive waves, resulting in gyrotropy/non-gyrotropy of small-scale fluctuations. The presence of both types of waves reduces the anisotropy in the amplitude of fluctuations in the small-scale range.


: A simple biochemical technique is proposed for quantitative estimation of expression of the ADE2 and ADE1 genes, coding for the structure of AIR-carboxylase and SAICAR-synthetase in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The technique is based on determining the enzyme specific activities in the yeast crude extracts. The technique was applied to estimate quantitatively the expression of the ADE2 and ADE1 genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The method is available for identification of mutation in the analogous genes of non-saccharomyces yeasts.


admission. This proportion could already be greater in some parts of the country and may increase if referrals of cases of self-poisoning increase faster than the facilities for their assessment and management. The provision of social work and psychiatric expertise in casualty departments may be one means of preventing unnecessary medical admissions without risk to the patients. Dr Blake's and Dr Bramble's figures do not demonstrate, however, that any advantage would attach to medical teams taking over assessment from psychiatrists except that, by implication, assessments would be completed sooner by staff working on the ward full time. What the figures actually suggest is that if assessment of overdoses were left to house doctors there would be an increase in admissions to psychiatric units (by 19°U), outpatients (by 5O°'), and referrals to social services (by 140o). So for house doctors to assess overdoses would provide no economy for the psychiatric or social services. The study does not tell us what the consequences would have been for the six patients who the psychiatrists would have admitted but to whom the house doctors would have offered outpatient appointments. E J SALTER


In this study, qualitative land suitability evaluation was made for research station of East Azarbaijan, for tomato, potato, onion and bean. The study was done using Simple Limitation Method (SLM), Limitation Method regarding Number and Intensity (LMNI) and Parametric Methods (PM) such as the square root and the Storie methods. The results from different methods indicated that the most important limiting factors are Organic Matter (OM), salinity and sodicity and calcium carbonates, either alone or in combination. Evaluation indicated that the (SLM) and (LMNI) mainly show similar suitability classes, but Parametric methods especially square root method which it's results revealed to be more realistic show different suitability classes in many cases. According to the square root method, the area can be recommended as marginally suitable for cultivation of tomato and potato and expected to yield about 40-65% of optimal production.


While some institutions require their students to spend a semester abroad as a prerequisite to earning a business degree, academics challenge the view that travel abroad helps students become culturally competent. Many students admit that they failed to immerse themselves in a cross-cultural environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the components of exchange study abroad programs (ESP) that facilitate student cross-cultural learning (CCL). Building on transformative learning theory (TLT), we propose and test a conceptual model of relationships between different components of exchange programs and student CCL. The data collected from more than 700 students participating in a semester and two-semester-long programs are analyzed through logistic regression. This research contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of ESP by identifying the key components that maximize positive outcomes for students. By building on TLT, it reveals the importance of getting out of one's comfort zone and providing students with support during the ESP. This study bears practical implications as it provides academic institutions and students with important insights that help maximize student CCL.


Objective: To investigate the role of power Doppler in differentiating septate and bicornuate uterus prior to perform office operative hysteroscopy. Methods: Ten patients with previous hystory of infertility were referred to our US Dept. At the admission, transvaginal US axial scan of the uterus showed that the endometrium was as divided in two parts separated by hypoechoic tissue. B scan alone was unable to differentiate bicornuate from septate uterus. No shows difference could be found in uterine fundal contour. Power Doppler evaluation of uterine vascularization was performed in all patients. All patients were submitted to diagnostic laparoscopy. Results: In six patients the main branches of uterine arteries appeared to converge, at the uterine midline, in a single median arterial vessel flowing between the two emiuteruses, mimicking the greak letter gamma. Irregular vascular spots, at the uterine midline, have been found in the remaining four patients. Laparoscopy revealed that the ã (gamma) sign was peculiar in case of bicornuate uterus. Median irregular vascular spots had been found in case of septate uterus. Conclusions: Power Doppler study of uterine malformations and the presence of the gamma sign seem to be able to differentiate bicornuate uterus from septate uterus.


A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the University of Nairobi


Climate warming affects the rate and timing of the development in ectothermic organisms. Short-living, ectothermic organisms (including many insects) showing thermal plasticity in life-cycle regulation could, for example, increase the number of generations per year under warmer conditions. However, changed phenology may challenge the way organisms in temperate climates deal with the available thermal time window at the end of summer. Although adaptive plasticity is widely assumed in multivoltine organisms, rapid environmental change could distort the quality of information given by environmental cues that organisms use to make developmental decisions. Developmental traps are scenarios in which rapid environmental change triggers organisms to pursue maladaptive developmental pathways. This occurs because organisms must rely upon current environmental cues to predict future environmental conditions and corresponds to a novel case of ecological or evolutionary traps. Examples of introduced, invasive species are congruent with this hypothesis. Based on preliminary experiments, we argue that the dramatic declines of the Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera) in NW Europe may be an example of a developmental trap. This formerly widespread, bivoltine (or even multivoltine) butterfly has become a conundrum to conservationist biologists. A split-brood field experiment with L. megera indeed suggests issues with life-cycle regulation decisions at the end of summer. In areas where the species went extinct recently, 100% of the individuals developed directly into a third generation without larval diapause, whereas only 42.5% did so in the areas where the species still occurs. Under unfavourable autumn conditions, the attempted third generation will result in high mortality and eventually a lost or 'suicidal' third generation in this insect with non-overlapping, discrete generations. We discuss the idea of a developmental trap within an integrated framework for assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change.


BACKGROUND
The contribution of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure to pulmonary morbidity in children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) is poorly understood. We tested the hypothesis that children with SCA and ETS exposure would have an increased prevalence of obstructive lung disease and respiratory symptoms compared with children with SCA and no ETS exposure.

METHODS
Parent reports of ETS and respiratory symptom frequency were obtained for 245 children with SCA as part of a multicenter prospective cohort study. One hundred ninety-six children completed pulmonary function testing. Multivariable regression models were used to evaluate the associations between ETS exposure at different time points (prenatal, infant [birth to 2 years], preschool [2 years to first grade], and current) and lung function and respiratory symptoms.

RESULTS
Among the 245 participants, a high prevalence of prior (44%) and current (29%) ETS exposure was reported. Of the 196 children who completed pulmonary function testing, those with parent-reported infant and current ETS exposure were more likely to have airway obstruction (defined as an FEV1/FVC ratio below the lower limit normal) compared with unexposed children (22.0% vs 3.1%, P < .001). Those with ETS exposure also had a lower forced expiratory flow, midexpiratory phase/FVC ratio (0.82 vs 0.97, P = .001) and were more likely to have evidence of bronchodilator responsiveness (23% vs 11%, P = .03). Current and prior ETS exposure and in utero smoke exposure were associated with increased frequency of respiratory symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
ETS exposure is associated with evidence of lower airway obstruction and increased respiratory symptoms in SCA.


Health care costs in the United States exceed 14 percent of the gross domestic product, far more than in any other nation. Overall costs were $838 billion in 1992, or over $3,000 per person1. Well over 30 million Americans are uninsured, partly because of rising premium costs2,3. We propose an approach to part of this problem that has been neglected, one that focuses on systematically reducing the need and thus the demand for medical services. This approach requires expanding the definitions of "health promotion" and "preventive care," paying selective attention to strategies that have been found to . . .


The idea of securitization started with mortgages more than 30 years ago. The ability to redistribute the risk exposure embedded in a pool of risky mortgage loans by using it as collateral and creating new classes of mortgage-backed securities completely transformed mortgage finance in the U.S. Since then, this powerful concept has been extended in many directions to cover many types of risk, with structures that have become increasingly complex. A major recent growth area has been the securitization of ordinary bonds and loans, in the form of Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), to manage default risk more efficiently. In this article, Laurie Goodman describes another significant step towards separation of risk bearing from ownership of the underlying securities in which that risk is embedded: synthetic CDOs. The special feature of these instruments is that the issuer of the CDO does not own the securities on which it bears the risk. Rather, it acquires risk exposure through a credit default swap. A major purpose of many synthetic CDOs is to optimize regulatory capital treatment for the bank that sets up the structure. If this sounds complicated, it is. Very! Fortunately, Goodman explains it all for us.


Abstract Hypermobility and instability following injury and degenerative joint disease is poorly understood and often not recognized as the cause of the patients symptoms. Routine radiographs should be complemented by flexion/extension studies. Magnetic resonance imaging has been found useful in demonstrating degenerative disc disease, disc herniations, cord impingements and instabilities that are not amenable to diagnosis by myelograms and computed tomography.


SUMMARY . Aim . Clarify how linguistic coevolution and creation are crucial in the theory of psychotherapeutic technique. Method. The paradox of private language, structural coupling and synchronization theory , are introduced in order to high light how multiple components are involved in psychotherapeutic relations. A review and discussion of some relevant stud ies. Results. A therapeutic approach based on coevolution, bipersonal fields, implicit communication and procedural knowl edge can be more effective in modifying different forms of memory. Discussion. This evidence based approach represents a scientific advancement in psychotherapy, including effectiveness of care, personalisation and ethics.


SIR,In your leader under this heading (24 April, p. 1083) I read " recent ingestion of aspirin has been found in several large series of hospital patients admitted for acute gastro-intestinal bleeding." As one who has recently published just such a series' I fear that some may be misled by the rather ambiguous second statement-" in individual patients it is often difficult to prove a connexion between bleeding and taking salicylates." No one, of course, supposes that all aspirin-taking causes overt gastric bleeding, but does your writer mean to imply that he is unconvinced by the connexion between gastric bleeding and aspirin-taking in these long series to which he refers ? Though direct clinical assessment of patients is now held in lowered esteem, what better proof in this matter can we have than that which comes from careful and extended observation ? My conclusion, similar to that of Grossman, Matsumoto, and Lichter2 (" the gun must be loaded for an explosion to occur when salicylates pull the trigger ") was that in many conditions for which aspirin products are commonly taken (nervous headaches, organic and nervous dyspepsias, respiratory infections, etc.) they are particularly liable to erode the gastric mucosa.-I am, etc.,


Nucleoside analogs require three phosphorylation steps catalyzed by cellular kinases to give their triphosphorylated metabolites. Herein, the synthesis of two types of triphosphate prodrugs of different nucleoside analogs is disclosed. Triphosphates comprising: i) a γ-phosphate or γ-phosphonate bearing a bioreversible acyloxybenzyl group and a long alkyl group and ii) γ-dialkyl phosphate/phosphonate modified nucleoside triphosphate analogs. Almost selective conversion of the former TriPPPro-compounds into the corresponding γ-alkylated nucleoside triphosphate derivatives is demonstrated in CEM/0 cell extracts that proved to be stable toward further hydrolysis. The latter γ-dialkylated triphosphate derivatives lead to the slow formation of the corresponding NDPs. Both types of TriPPPro-compounds are highly potent in wild-type CEM/0 cells and more importantly, they exhibit even better activities against HIV-2 replication in CEM/TK- cell cultures. A finding of major importance is that, in primer extension assays, γ-phosphate-modified-NTPs, γ-mono-alkylated-triphosphates, and NDPs prove to be substrates for HIV-RT but not for cellular DNA-polymerases α,γ.


A global integrated water resources model was developed. The model consists of four sub models, a bucket type land surface model, a global river routing model, a process based agricultural model and a reservoir operation model. The model was designed to work with near surface meteorological data and currently available global grid-based digital GIS data. It enable us to conduct 1) monthly or daily assessments of global water supply and demand, 2) numerical experiments concerning the interaction of human activity and land hydrology, 3) analyses on global water balance components in which energy and water balances are perfectly closed. In the former part of this report, the structure of model and the simulation setting are described. In the latter part, the performance and limitation of the model are discussed using the results of a preliminary global simulation.


Growing evidence suggests that many people are surprisingly responsive to unconventional policy tools, such as defaults or choice-framing, yet unresponsive to conventional ones, such as taxes or subsidies. This article studies the optimal choice of policy instrument in settings characterized by such features. We utilize a simple binary-choice model in which decision-makers are either active or passive; active choosers make their decisions by comparing perceived costs and benefits whereas passive choosers select whichever option is the default. From this simple model, a number of results emerge. First, manipulating the default option is preferable to imposing a mandate when active choosers tend to make correct decisions. Second, taxes and defaults are complements, not substitutes; employing the two types of instruments in conjunction can yield better results than utilizing either one alone. Finally, the optimal combination of taxes and defaults is typically preferable to a mandate even in settings where active choosers are prone to biases. The results establish important limits on the range of settings in which mandates are an efficient policy response to decision-maker errors.


Background Accurate scar assessment is crucial in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) candidates, since its presence is a negative predictor for CRT response. Therefore, we assessed the performance of different PET parameters to detect scar in CRT candidates. Methods: Twenty-nine CRT candidates underwent 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG)-PET/computed tomography (CT), resting 13N-NH3-PET/CT and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) prior to CRT implantation. Segmental 18F-FDG uptake, late 13N-NH3 uptake and absolute myocardial blood flow (MBF) were evaluated for scar detection using late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) CMR as reference. A receiver operator characteristic (ROC) area under the curve (AUC) ≥0.8 indicated a good accuracy of the methods evaluated. Results Scar was present in 111 of 464 segments. None of the approaches could reliably identify segments with nontransmural scar, except for 18F-FDG uptake in the lateral wall (AUC 0.83). Segmental transmural scars could be detected with all methods (AUC ≥ 0.8), except for septal 18F-FDG uptake and MBF in the inferior wall (AUC < 0.8). Late 13N-NH3 uptake was the best parameter for transmural scar detection, independent of its location, with a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 92% using a cutoff of 66% of the maximum tracer activity. Conclusions Late 13N-NH3 uptake is superior to 13N-NH3 MBF and 18F-FDG in detecting transmural scar, independently of its location. However, none of the tested PET parameters was able to accurately detect nontransmural scar.


The theory and practice of 'proletarian internationalism' was a vital dimension of the modus operandi of communist parties worldwide. It was a broadly encompassing concept
that profoundly influenced the actions of international communism's globally scattered adherents. Nevertheless, the historiography of the Communist Party of Australia has
neglected to address sufficiently the effect exerted by proletarian internationalism on the party's praxis. Instead, scholars have dwelt on the party's links to the Soviet Union and have, moreover, overlooked the nuances and complexity of the Communist Party's relationship with Moscow. It is the purpose of this thesis to redress these shortfalls. Using an extensive collection of primary and secondary sources, this thesis will consider the impact of a Marxist-Leninist conception of proletarian internationalism on the policies,tactics and strategies of the Communist Party of Australia from 1928-1945. The thesis
will demonstrate that proletarian internationalism was far more than mere adherence to Moscow, obediently receiving and implementing instructions. Instead, through the lens of
this concept, we can see that the Communist Party's relationship with Moscow was flexible and nuanced and one that, in reality, often put the party at odds with the official Soviet position. In addition, we will see the extent of the influence exerted by other aspects of proletarian internationalism, such as international solidarity, the so-called national and colonial questions and the communist attitude towards war, on the
Communist Party's praxis.


[1] The patterns and overall magnitude of energy usage worldwide seem to preclude a single renewable alternative to traditional fossil fuel sources. Still, putting renewable resources to work where they exist, and thereby implementing a widely diversified portfolio of renewable energy recovery, offers the possibility of significantly reducing fossil fuel use on a regional basis. One such resource is the Florida Current, an oceanographic feature that has been the focus of intense study for many decades. Understanding its behavior on the time and space scales required to realize its energy potential, however, is still a work in progress, one that is challenged by a paucity of relevant data and by a range of sensitive environmental considerations.


AbstractOBJECTIVE: To identify what factors men consider important when choosing treatment for prostate cancer, and to assess why men reject watchful waiting as a treatment option.
 PARTICIPANTS: One hundred two consecutive men with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer identified from hospital and community-based urology practice groups.
 MEASUREMENTS: Patients were asked open-ended questions about likes and dislikes of all treatments considered, how they chose their treatment, and reasons for rejecting watchful waiting. The interviews were conducted in person, after the men had made a treatment decision but before they received the treatment.
 MAIN RESULTS: The most common reasons for liking a treatment were removal of tumor for radical prostatectomy (RP) (n=15), evidence for external beam radiation (EBRT) (n=6), and short duration of therapy for brachytherapy (seeds) (n=25). The most frequently cited dislikes were high risk of incontinence for RP (n=46), long duration of therapy for EBRT (n=29), and lack of evidence for seeds (n=16). Only 12 men chose watchful waiting. Fear of future consequences, cited by 64% (n=90) of men, was the most common reason to reject watchful waiting.
 CONCLUSION: In discussing treatment options for localized prostate cancer, clinicians, including primary care providers, should recognize that patients' decisions are often based on specific beliefs regarding each therapy's intrinsic characteristics, supporting evidence, or pattern of complications. Even if patients do not recall a physician recommendation against watchful waiting, this option may not be chosen because of fear of future consequences.


Motivation -- Cameras are increasingly dominating our life, but do these influence our behaviour as well? What are people's emotions and attitude towards camera surveillance? Research approach -- In an exploratory study (n=23) people's emotional reactions to (visible and hidden) cameras were observed. Next, a survey studied people's attitude towards camera surveillance at different places (n=102). Findings/Design -- Results suggest that people are conditioned by cameras, as they react both consciously and unconsciously to cameras. People like to spy other people, while they do not like to be observed. Research limitations/Implications -- The current study is exploratory, which limited generalisation of our findings. Originality/Value -- The research contributes to the public debate on camera surveillance and how people (un)consciously react to cameras. Take away message -- Cameras evoke emotions.


The recently discovered northern giant mouse lemur Mirza zaza has not yet been subject to detailed scientific study. The current fragmented knowledge of the species (morphology, range, microhabitat structure and reproductive ecology) has enabled an IUCN Red List re-assessment and led to a change in status from Data Deficient to Endangered (C. Schwitzer, pers. comm.). Mirza zaza is a small nocturnal primate of only 300 g that lives in north-western Madagascar, including the Sahamalaza Peninsula. The lowland semi-humid forest that occurs in this part of the island is degrading rapidly due to slash-and-burn agriculture, which is a great threat to the wildlife living there. This study investigates the nocturnal movement patterns and genetic structure of the M. zaza population living inside the Sahamalaza – Iles Radama National Park. A minimum of 10 individuals of M. zaza will be caught with live traps and equipped with GPS backpacks to follow their movements during the night. Recapture will enable download of the data and analysis of home range size and movement patterns. Tissue samples will be taken from each caught individual, and microsatellite analysis at the German Primate Centre, Gottingen, will reveal relatedness between individuals. We expect that the lemurs are unable to cross large open spaces between forest fragments and thus that their home ranges are limited by forest fragment size. A consequence of this would be limited genetic exchange, meaning that all individuals within one fragment are more related to each other than to individuals of other fragments. We expect to find different patterns for males and females, as males may move from one group to another for reproduction. The results of this study will contribute to the knowledge of this recently discovered and highly endangered primate species and can guide ongoing and future conservation actions in the region.


In this work, the angular distributions for elastic and. inelastic scattering of fast neutrons in fusion .reactor materials have been studied. Lithium and lead material are likely to be common components of fusion reactor wall configuration design. The measurements were performed using an associated particle time-of- flight technique. The 14 and 14.44 Mev neutrons were produced by the T(d,n} 4He reaction with deuterons being accelerated in a 150kev SAMES type J accelerator at ASTON and in.the 3. Mev DYNAMITRON at the Joint Radiation Centre, Birmingham respectively. The associated alpha-particles and fast. neutrons were detected.by means of a plastic scintillator mounted on a fast focused photomultiplier tube. The samples used were extended flat plates of thicknesses up to 0.9 mean-free-path for Lithium and 1.562 mean-free-path for Lead. The differential elastic scattering cross-sections were measured for 14 Mev neutrons for various thicknesses of Lithium and Lead in the angular range from zero to; 90o. In addition, the angular distributions of elastically scattered 14,.44 Mev .neutrons from Lithium samples were studied in the same angular range. Inelastic scattering to the 4.63 Mev state in 7Li and the 2.6 Mev state, and 4.1 Mev state in 208Pb have:been :measured.The results are compared to ENDF/B-IV data files and to previous measurements. For the Lead samples the differential neutron scattering:cross-sections for discrete 3 Mev ranges and the angular distributions were measured. The increase in effective cross-section due to multiple scattering effects,as the sample thickness increased:was found to be predicted by the empirical .relation ....... A good fit to the exoerimental data was obtained using the universal constant The differential elastic scattering cross-section data for thin samples of Lithium and Lead were analyzed in terms of optical model calculations using the. computer code. RAROMP. Parameter search procedures produced good fits to the·cross-sections. For the case of thick samples of Lithium and Lead, the measured angular distributions of :the scattered neutrons were compared to the predictions of the continuous slowing down model.


A method of determining the transient stability of a multimachine power system through a modified equal-area criterion is proposed. The method determines the first-swing stability limit of the most severely disturbed machine in the system by comparing two integrals or areas called the accelerating and decelerating areas. Unlike the standard equal-area criterion, the proposed method can be directly applied to a multimachine power system without representing the system by an equivalent single-machine infinite-bus model. The proposed method was tested on three power networks for a number of different faults. The critical clearing time obtained by the proposed method in each case was compared with the actual value found by the step-by-step method.


Luther Emmett Holt was born near Rochester, New York on 4 March 1855. Both his father Horace and his mother Sabrah came of New England puritan stock. After education at the Webster Academy and Rochester University, he entered the Medical College of Buffalo University in 1876. Transferring to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York the following year, he graduated in 1880 at the age of 25. Within a year he resolved to devote himself to paediatrics, a specialty that was not then formally recognised. During the next few years he practised both from his own office and also from the North Western Dispensary, the New York Infant Asylum, Mount Vernon, and the New York Nursery and Children's Hospital. In 1889 he was offered the post of physician in charge of the Babies Hospital. Although the hospital was nearly defunct, he accepted the post, obtained financial backing and reorganised it. Over the years that followed, it became the most celebrated children's hospital in the USA.1

Holt was a small man. His voice was quiet and clear and his movements alert and quick. Always immaculately dressed, he rarely smiled or laughed and appeared to be driven by a stern sense of duty (fig 1). Hard working, efficient, thorough and meticulous in his work, he also possessed sound judgment, intellectual honesty, and a total dedication to the welfare of his patients. Children were treated as individuals. He remarked that "the best way to make friends with a child is not to try". He was not interested in speculation, nor was he possessed of an imaginative mind. His approach was always intensely practical and concerned with knowledge that might help to solve problems. Besides being a great clinician, he was also a born teacher. His interests extended beyond the illnesses …


In preparation for this talk, I reviewed the addresses of some of our previous presidents. I was impressed with their concern with both the social and economic influences of American surgery. Their talks collectively trace the evolution of the certifying boards, the appearance of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, the Residency Review Committee, and the early worries about the fragmentation of general surgery. Later, they described the intrusion of the regulatory agencies, with the passage of the Medicare laws, the Professional Standards Review Organization legislation, and then the appearance of the Health Planning agencies. These earlier addresses are a wonderful source of information about influences that society and government have had on American surgical training and practice. This year there is a new array of influences that we must understand and deal with. For some time, I have been fascinated by the relationship between the quality of medical


Functional groups with the capability of hydrogen bonding are widely used in the molecular design and preparation of liquid crystalline supramolecular systems, a rapidly growing area of materials showing a high sensitivity towards external stimuli. A series of novel imidazole-containing Schiff's bases replenishing the family of supramolecular liquid crystals has been synthesised and characterised by proton nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, and elemental analyses. Variation of lengths of the terminal alkyl substituents in the obtained amphiphilic imidazoles within 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 carbon atoms leads to significant changes in their thermal behaviour, micro-segregation and supramolecular self-assembly. Lower homologues were non-mesomorphic, while intermediate members of the homologous series exhibited monotropic bilayered smectic and columnar mesophases. A higher homologue with 16 carbon atoms has an increased trend towards crystallisation of the aliphatic chains and did not exhibit mesomorphism again. The liquid crystalline mesophases were identified and investigated by polarised optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction and thermal emission microscopy methods. According to X-ray diffraction characteristics, the smectic mesophase has a bilayered structure where the hydrophilic imidazole groups form a continuous hydrogen bonded network. The interface curvature created by the second alkyl chain leads to the appearance of columnar nanostructures in homologues with 12 and 14 aliphatic carbon atoms.


SUMMARY: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of vitamin E deficiency and supplementation on body weight and body composition in intact and ovariectomized growing female rats. One hundred and twenty female Wistar rats aged 3 months were ovariectomized (OVX) or left intact (sham-operated). The intact and OVX rats were divided into 6 groups and given different dietary treatments, i.e. vitamin E deficient diets (VED, 75%VED, 50%VED, 25%VED), normal rat chow diet (RC) and rat chow with oral supplementation of 30mg/kg body weight of α-tocopherol (RC+ATF). Body weight of intact and OVX rats in the RC and the RC+ATF groups showed increased significantly after 15 weeks of dietary treatment. Intact and ovariectomized rats fed with VED, 75%VED, 50%VED and 25%VED did not gain weight after 15 weeks. OVX rats had significantly higher body weight than intact rats in the 50%VED, 25%VED, RC and RC+ATF groups. Fat mass of intact rats was increased only in the RC and RC+ATF groups. For OVX rats, fat mass was increased in the VED, 50%VED, RC and RC+ATF groups. OVX groups had significantly higher fat mass when compared with intact groups, however, the significance was greater for the RC and RC+ATF groups. Other parameters of body composition were not significantly affected. In conclusion, vitamin E played an important role in the weight gain of female rats and the gain was primarily due to the increase in fat mass, irrespective of the effect of ovariectomy. Alpha-Tocopherol supplementation conferred little benefit compared to giving RC diet alone in both the intact and ovariectomized female rats. The results also indicate that excessive vitamin


Clinical evaluation has been a problem for nursing educators for many years. Previous attempts to deal with this problem are well documented in the literature. Nursing authors such as Palmer (1962), Slater (1967), and Fivars and Gosnell (1966) describe a variety of approaches to clinical evaluation. The descriptions of the tools they developed were helpful in the initial stages of developing a clinical tool.
 This article describes the development of the clinical evaluation tool used in the second year of the nursing programme at the University of British Columbia. One of the first decisions which had to be made was the design of the tool. There were a number of variables which had to be considered. The design had to meet course requirements and the constraints which accompanied these requirements. It also had to be congruent with the faculty's beliefs and assumptions about evaluation in general, and clinical evaluation in particular. A review of these variables led to the decision that the measurement of clinical competency required the development of a multidimensional tool. This approach agrees with Reilly (1975, p. 145) who states "Clinical practice is complex and of course cannot be evaluated by any single procedure. No form by itself is an appropriate evaluation device."


The COVID-19 pandemic offers an unprecedented natural experiment providing insights into the emergence of collective behavioral changes of both exogenous (government mandated) and endogenous (spontaneous reaction to infection risks) origin. Here, we characterize collective physical distancing -- mobility reductions, minimization of contacts, shortening of contact duration -- in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the pre-vaccine era by analyzing de-identified, privacy-preserving location data for a panel of over 5.5 million anonymized, opted-in U.S. devices. We define five indicators of users' mobility and proximity to investigate how the emerging collective behavior deviates from the typical pre-pandemic patterns during the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze both the dramatic changes due to the government mandated mitigation policies and the more spontaneous societal adaptation into a new (physically distanced) normal in the fall 2020. The indicators defined here allow the quantification of behavior changes across the rural/urban divide and highlight the statistical association of mobility and proximity indicators with metrics characterizing the pandemic's social and public health impact such as unemployment and deaths. This study provides a framework to study massive social distancing phenomena with potential uses in analyzing and monitoring the effects of pandemic mitigation plans at the national and international level.


With the rapid development of social media, online video platform market is growing rapidly. Video analytics are becoming increasingly in demand as they help identify viewership patterns, which enable the solution provider to better understand the behavior of viewers in order to cater to their inclinations. On the basis of homogeneity theory, this paper analyzes the effect of users' similarity network and online social interaction on consumer viewing demand. Based on data from aiqiy.com, we build the dynamic reviewer networks considering their preference similarity. The result reveals that both the density and connection intensity of reviewers' similarity network have negative demand effect, while the average node degree has positive impact. We found empirical evidence that the homogeneity of reviewers has negative effect on video views. Furthermore, we explore the comments generated from reviewers' interaction. We find that the diversity of comments and the volume of comments have positive demand effect.


Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is the most common form of lung cancer and is associated with a high mortality rate worldwide. The majority of individuals bearing NSCLC are treated with surgery plus adjuvant cisplatin, an initially effective therapeutic regimen that, however, is unable to prevent relapse within 5 years after tumor resection in an elevated proportion of patients. The factors that predict the clinical course of NSCLC and its sensitivity to therapy remain largely obscure. One notable exception is provided by pyridoxal kinase (PDXK), the enzyme that generates the bioactive form of vitamin B6. PDXK has recently been shown to be required for optimal cisplatin responses in vitro and in vivo and to constitute a bona fide prognostic marker in the NSCLC setting. Together with PDXK, 84 additional factors were identified that influence the response of NSCLC cells to cisplatin, in vitro including the hepatic lipase LIPC. Here, we report that the intratumoral levels of LIPC, as assessed by immunohistochemistry in two independent cohorts of NSCLC patients, positively correlate with disease outcome. In one out of two cohorts studied, the overall survival of NSCLC patients bearing LIPChigh lesions was unaffected, if not slightly worsened, by cisplatin-based adjuvant therapy. Conversely, the overall survival of patients with LIPClow lesions was prolonged by post-operative cisplatin. Pending validation in appropriate clinical series, these results suggest that LIPClow NSCLC patients would be those who mainly benefit from adjuvant cisplatin therapy. Thus, the expression levels of LIPC appear to have an independent prognostic value (and perhaps a predictive potential) in the setting of NSCLC. If these findings were confirmed by additional studies, LIPC expression levels might allow not only for NSCLC patient stratification, but also for the implementation of personalized therapeutic approaches.


This work aims to improve the quality of spatial error concealment by utilizing the low-rank characteristic of natural image blocks. In contrast with the conventional approaches which usually exploit the correlation between neighbor image blocks and boundary pixels to predict the corrupted pixels, this work regards the error concealment as a matrix completion problem. The proposed approach preserves the local texture information by minimizing the nuclear norm, and thus recovers the corrupted image blocks. Furthermore, this work also proposes the edge discontinuity across the boundary pixels should be diminished in the completed pixel matrix. The simulation results will show that the proposed approach indeed improves the quality of error concealment. Compared with the non-normative spatial error concealment of H.264/AVC, the improving gain is about 2 dB of PSNR.


Volumetric media, popularly known as holograms, need to be delivered to users using both on-demand and live streaming, for new augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. As in video streaming, hologram streaming must support network adaptivity and fast startup, but must also handle large bandwidths, multiple simultaneously streaming objects, and frequent user interaction, which requires a low delay. In this paper, we introduce the first system to our knowledge designed specifically for streaming volumetric media. The system reduces bandwidth by introducing 3D tiles and culling them or reducing their level of detail depending on their relation to the user's view frustum and distance to the user. Our system reduces latency by introducing a window-based buffer, which in contrast to a queue-based buffer allows insertions near the head of the buffer rather than only at the tail of the buffer, to respond quickly to user interaction. To allocate bits between different tiles across multiple objects, we introduce a simple greedy yet provably optimal algorithm for rate-utility optimization. We introduce utility measures based not only on the underlying quality of the representation, but on the level of detail relative to the user's viewpoint and device resolution. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm provides a superior quality compared with the existing video-streaming approaches adapted to hologram streaming, in terms of utility and user experience over variable, throughput-constrained networks.


The HC-pro gene was amplified by RT-PCR from total RNA of tobacco leaves infected with a N strain of Potato virus Y in Shaanxi, and cloned into the PMD 18-T vector. This HC-pro gene is consisted of 1371 nucleotides, encoding 457 amino acids. It shared the sequence homology of 82.5%~96.4 % nucleotide acid and 92.5%~98.0% in amino acids compared to 9 species of PVY N HC-pro abroad.The HC-pro gene was inserted into prokaryotic expressing vector pBV221, to obtain pBVHC recombinant plasmid in E.coli BL21. SDS-PAGE indicated that HC-pro proteins are successfully expressed in E.coli, Western blotting analysis demonstrated that the antibody against the expressed HC-pro can be used to identify the infected plants .


Magmatic Ni-Cu sulphide deposits are commonly associated with mafic rocks within the marginal areas of Archean or Proterozoic cratons. The Kleva Ni-Cu sulphide deposit in southeast Sweden is hosted by gabbro–diorite rocks and is sandwiched between two Palaeoproterozoic magmatic arcs: the Transscandinavian Igneous Belt (TIB) and the Oskarshamn–Jönköping Belt (OJB). Major and trace element data corroborate an arc origin for the Kleva intrusive complex. The variety of rocks and geochemical signatures suggest that it formed from several magmatic pulses. Despite the occurrence of supracrustal xenoliths, there is a lack of trace element evidence for significant assimilation. Mafic intrusions are abundant in southeast Sweden and are generally inferred to be synchronous with the TIB. Of these, Kleva is the only known Ni-Cu deposit, and it is unclear if it is associated with the OJB or TIB. Here, we present zircon and baddeleyite U-Pb dates of 1788 ± 4 Ma, 1788 ± 5 Ma and 1792 ± 3 Ma. We interpret a 1790 Ma date to be the best estimate of the crystallisation age of the Kleva intrusive complex, indicating that the emplacement of mafic magma is coeval with the voluminous arc-related TIB magmatism in the area.


On February 13, 2018, WIII hosted the workshop, "Beyond Intermediary Liability: The Future of Information Platforms." Leading experts from industry, civil society, and academia convened at Yale Law School for a series of non-public, guided discussions. The roundtable of experts considered pressing questions related to intermediary liability and the rights, roles, and responsibilities of information platforms in society. Based on conversations from the workshop, WIII published a free, publicly available report detailing the most critical issues necessary for understanding the role of information platforms, such as Facebook and Google, in law and society today. The report highlights insights and questions raised by experts during the event, providing an insider's view of the top issues that influential thinkers on intermediary liability are considering in law, policy, and ethics. (Nothing in the report necessarily reflects the individual opinions of participants or their affiliated institutions.)

 Key takeaways from this report include the following: Common Misconceptions on Intermediary Liability

Consumers and policymakers often (incorrectly) assume it is easy to determine what content to take down and how to do so efficiently. In reality, these decisions are very difficult and require many levels of human (not AI) review. There is no legal requirement for information intermediaries to be "neutral," but policymakers and the public often assume this incorrectly.

Intermediaries and Global Norms

Information intermediaries play a vital role in protecting free speech, free expression, and access to knowledge globally. This is especially crucial for minorities and political dissidents living under authoritarian regimes. It is difficult, and at times impossible, for information intermediaries to comply with conflicting laws from different countries. This can be a barrier to innovation, disproportionately affecting smaller companies and startups. Policymakers should consider the impact that proposed regulations in one jurisdiction may have on people in the rest of the world. Regulations in democratic countries that restrict free online speech or that mandate content takedowns may provide support for illiberal regimes to call for greater censorship of online content.

Legal and Policy Proposals

Information intermediaries are no longer the companies they were when intermediary liability laws first developed, and the role of platforms in society is changing. The law must find a way to flexibly address these changes. A hybrid model of governance, with a larger role for lawmakers and an opportunity for judicial review and a right of reply in content takedown decisions, might better address the competing issues raised in speech regulation. Creating a transparency safe harbor would allow companies to provide more information to the public about their reasons for removing content. Policymakers could consider enacting different levels of regulations for different types of information intermediaries (infrastructure vs. content platforms, small companies vs. large companies, and so on).


Objective:
 To assess predictors of cognitive dysfunction in a nationwide sample of adults 60 years or older with and without cardiovascular disease (CVD)

 Methods:
 In non-institutionalized US adults randomly selected to participate in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we used the survey-collected digit symbol substitution test (DSST) score as a surrogate of cognitive function. Stratified analysis was performed to sort out the effects of CVD and vascular risk factors on the DSST score. Univariate logistic regression was used to identify significant associations that were used to create an adjusted multivariate analysis.

 Results:
 The studied sample included 1607 participants, mean age 70.1 ± 0.3 years, 43% men, 85% Non-Hispanic Whites, 7% Hispanic and 5% non-Hispanic Black. Vascular risk factors included hypertension (HTN) in 68%, Diabetes (DM) in 16%, Dyslipidemia in 75%, and current smoking in 12%. Cardiovascular disease was reported in 20.8% -- 3.2 % stroke, 16.5 % cardiac disease and 1.1% both. In univariate analysis, statistically significant predictors of a lower DSS score were age (β -0.92 per year), Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Black ethnicities compared to non-Hispanic whites (β -18.1 and β -15.0, respectively), HTN (β -6.1), DM (β -7.6) and CVD (β -7.5); greater education and income both predicted higher DSS scores (β 9.7 and 5.3, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed all associations with the exception of HTN (β -1.4, P=0.08). In this adjusted model, both stroke and cardiac disease were independent predictors of lower DSS score (β -5.3 and -2.2, respectively). Stratifying by CVD status using the same multivariate model, DM was the only modifiable vascular risk factor predicting lower DSS score in those without CVD (β -4.8, P=0.001), whereas HTN was associated with lower DSST score only in those who reported having CVD (β -4.6, P=0.05).

 Conclusion:
 We confirmed the deleterious effects of HTN and DM on cognition in this nationwide sample, but showed that DM was associated with worse cognition in those without reported CVD, while HTN had a significant negative impact on cognition only in those who already had CVD. The mechanisms underlying these differential associations need further study.