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Measuring the various structural aspects of the organizing framework for this volume and relating them to match quality and relevant developmental outcomes is a critical step toward assessing the framework's utility for practitioners, policymakers, and program evaluators. Nakkula and Harris take a step in that direction by exploring core interrelationships between match structure, as defined in the framework, and mentor and mentee experiences of match quality. Central to their findings is the pivotal role of sharing—mentor and mentee discussions of concerns and everyday experiences—as a moderator of fun in the prediction of relationship quality as experienced by both the mentor and mentee, and as a moderator of more growth-oriented emphases in the prediction of instrumental match quality. In short, sharing seems to provide the boost that helps make fun and instrumental orientations more holistically developmental. Training mentors and mentees to share more effectively in their matches may serve to enhance the overall experience of match quality for both partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses the issue of human rights and its relationship to medical care and medical ethics. He is critical of the universality of human rights and suggests that it is time to take the human out of human rights since in the future humanity will look different due to evolution and advances such as stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

The article discusses research on the use of an innovative instructional method, integrative science and technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to develop a house model based solar energy principles. STEM disciplines were incorporated into a project-based design challenge wherein teachers participated in constructing a passive solar house model. Teachers involved in the project became very interested about some of the science behind alternative energy. They were also became interested in some of the energy projects located in their area.

Mutations in the dysferlin gene cause limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B, Miyoshi myopathy, and distal anterior compartment myopathy. Dysferlin mainly localizes to the sarcolemma in mature skeletal muscle where it is implicated in membrane fusion and repair. In different forms of muscular dystrophy, a predominantly cytoplasmic localization of dysferlin can be observed in regenerating myofibers, but the subcellular compartment responsible for this labeling pattern is not yet known. We have previously demonstrated an association of dysferlin with the developing T-tubule system in vitro. To investigate the role of dysferlin in adult skeletal muscle regeneration, we studied dysferlin localization at high resolution in a rat model of regeneration and found that the subcellular labeling of dysferlin colocalizes with the developing T-tubule system. Furthermore, ultrastructural analysis of dysferlin-deficient muscle revealed primary T-tubule anomalies similar to those seen in caveolin-3-deficient muscle. These findings indicate that dysferlin is necessary for correct T-tubule formation, and dysferlin-deficient skeletal muscle is characterized by abnormally configured T-tubules. Muscle Nerve : 166-173, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the arguments of Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu in relation to the ethics of embryo research and the moral relevance of various kinds of potentiality in the U.S. It states that the creation of lotteries offer the only possible chance of life to all participants equally. It emphasizes that individuals who are committed to creation lotteries cannot object to embryo research.

The article discusses the craniomandibular morphology and phylogenetic affinities of Panthera atrox. The cranial, mandibular and denial morphology of Panthera atrox were compared with those of extant lions, jaguars and tigers using bivariate, multivariate and shape analyses. Such analyses found that the skull of Panthera atrox has lion affinities. In terms of mandibular morphology, Panthera atrox is more similar to jaguar and tigers, with their mandible showing a number of traits not present among extant pantherines.

Abstract: A mathematical model is developed for an anti-tank missile and its guidance algorithms. The aerodynamic model is separated into two parts, the airframe and external lifting surfaces in order to model damage to the airframe. Radar data is compared to that of the proposed model and it is shown that the model accurately replicates the true flight dynamics. Two types of field handling damage are modeled, a damaged mid-body wing with 50% of its planform area missing, and an un-deployed mid-body wing. Monte Carlo simulations are performed for each type of damage and the eight possible mid-body wing locations. The results predict that the anti-tank guided missile’s performance in response to damage is extremely sensitive to the radial location of damage. Vertical mid-body wing damage had little effect on performance while damage to horizontal and adjacent mid-body wings resulted in significant failures. The failure mode demonstrated was not a large increase in impact errors, but rather failure of the seeker used for guidance due to excessive roll and yawing of the airframe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Xenophanes (fr. 2) and Euripides (fr. 282) disapprove of the pan-Hellenic custom of granting athletes conspicuous honors, and Xenophanes in particular, with that of publicly funded meals. Both contrast the uselessness of athletes with the civic contributions of δoψoi. Socrates echoes these sentiments in his counter-proposal that he is much more deserving of δiτηδıç έv πρuτavεi'ῳ than any Olympic athlete (P1. Ap. 36b3-37a2). I suggest that Socrates deliberately evokes this topos, but does so with a twist: whereas the earlier passages base their claim to honors on δoψoi , Socrates deliberately deprives δoψoi of its popular meaning, imbuing it with a much more humble and Delphic connotation, thereby making his proposal all the more outrageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a procedure to measure 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25OHD3) and D2 (25OHD2). It involved an automated solid-phase extraction (SPE). Researchers added Internal standard (hexadeuterated 25-hydroxyvitamin D3) to serum or plasma followed by protein precipitation with methanol. They then performed a six-step procedure and the samples were injected into the LC-MS/MS. They found that their sample preparation and SPE method is suitable for the use in a laboratory.

Abstract: Recent studies have implicated the cell surface receptor Programmed Death-1 (PD-1) in numerous models of T cell anergy, though the specific mechanisms by which the PD-1 signal maintains tolerance is not clear. We demonstrate that the depletion of PD-1 with siRNA results in a complete reversal of clonal anergy in the A.E7 T cell model, suggesting that the mechanism by which PD-1 maintains the anergic phenotype is a T-cell-intrinsic phenomenon, and not one dependent on other cell populations in vivo. We have also shown that the neutralization of IL-2 during restimulation abrogates the effect of PD-1 depletion, suggesting that tolerance mediated by PD-1 is wholly IL-2 dependent, and likewise intrinsic to the tolerized cells. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

John Harris has previously proposed that there is a moral duty to participate in scientific research. This concept has recently been challenged by Iain Brassington, who asserts that the principles cited by Harris in support of the duty to research fail to establish its existence. In this paper we address these criticisms and provide new arguments for the existence of a moral obligation to research participation. This obligation, we argue, arises from two separate but related principles. The principle of fairness obliges us to support the social institutions which sustain us, of which research is one; while the principle of beneficence, or the duty of rescue, imposes upon us a duty to prevent harm to others, including by supporting potentially beneficial, even life-saving research. We argue that both these lines of argument support the duty to research, and explore further aspects of this duty, such as to whom it is owed and how it might be discharged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hominin footprints offer evidence about gait and foot shape, but their scarcity, combined with an inadequate hominin fossil record, hampers research on the evolution of the human gait. Here, we report hominin footprints in two sedimentary layers dated at 1.51 to 1.53 million years ago (Ma) at Ileret, Kenya, providing the oldest evidence of an essentially modern human-like foot anatomy, with a relatively adducted haltux, medial longitudinal arch, and media[ weight transfer before push-off. The size of the Ileret footprints is consistent with stature and body mass estimates for Homo ergaster/erectus, and these prints are also morphologically distinct from the 3.75-million-year-old footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania. The Ileret prints show that by 1.5 Ma, hominins had evolved an essentially modern human foot function and style of bipedal locomotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching and learning of Irish in primary school is both an important educational issue and central to the national language revitalization effort. The findings of Irish-language programme evaluations, therefore, are invariably scrutinized very closely by different sectors. This paper examines how the later stages of a major evaluation took account of challenging initial findings and anticipated likely misinterpretations of their implications. It documents how additional analyses, interpretative work, and careful reporting were used to provide a rich contextualization of the findings. In this way, the potential of the evaluation to generate productive debate and effective remedial action was maximized. The paper concludes with recommendations for how language program evaluators can guide the evaluation process in order to maximize contributions to critical decisions on language policy and educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melanocytes in patients with vitiligo possess intrinsic abnormalities that contribute to its pathogenesis. Regazzetti et al. report that CXCL10 expression reflects subtle inflammation in normal-appearing skin but not in stable depigmented lesions, supporting the hypothesis that melanocytes themselves initiate autoimmune inflammation prior to clinically evident disease. In addition, they find that oxidative stress in melanocytes impairs WNT signaling and that targeting this pathway induces melanoblast differentiation. Thus, activating the WNT pathway may serve as an adjunctive strategy to support repigmentation in patients with vitiligo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on surgical operations which include the development of clinical diagnosis to undescended testes using hormone therapy, the history origin of radiotherapy in Australia and the first endarterectomy surgery in stenosis of the abdominal aorta of human heart.

Abstract: The perceived displacement of motion-defined contours in peripheral vision was examined in four experiments. In Experiment 1, in line with Ramachandran and Anstis’ finding [Ramachandran, V. S., & Anstis, S. M. (1990). Illusory displacement of equiluminous kinetic edges. Perception, 19, 611–616], the border between a field of drifting dots and a static dot pattern was apparently displaced in the same direction as the movement of the dots. When a uniform dark area was substituted for the static dots, a similar displacement was found, but this was smaller and statistically insignificant. In Experiment 2, the border between two fields of dots moving in opposite directions was displaced in the direction of motion of the dots in the more eccentric field, so that the location of a boundary defined by a diverging pattern is perceived as more eccentric, and that defined by a converging as less eccentric. Two explanations for this effect (that the displacement reflects a greater weight given to the more eccentric motion, or that the region containing stronger centripetal motion components expands perceptually into that containing centrifugal motion) were tested in Experiment 3, by varying the velocity of the more eccentric region. The results favoured the explanation based on the expansion of an area in centripetal motion. Experiment 4 showed that the difference in perceived location was unlikely to be due to differences in the discriminability of contours in diverging and converging patterns, and confirmed that this effect is due to a difference between centripetal and centrifugal motion rather than motion components in other directions. Our result provides new evidence for a bias towards centripetal motion in human vision, and suggests that the direction of motion-induced displacement of edges is not always in the direction of an adjacent moving pattern. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

When an electron beam is apertured, the transmitted beam current is the integral of the incident beam current density over the aperture area. Space charge forces generally cause an increase in incident beam current to result in an increase in incident beam spot size. Under certain circumstances, the spot size will increase faster than the current, resulting in a decrease in current extracted from the aperture. When using a gridded electron gun, this can give rise to negative transconductance. Here, this effect is explored in the case of an intense beam propagating in a uniform focusing channel. It is shown that proper placement of the aperture can decouple the current extracted from the aperture from fluctuations in the source current, thereby isolating systems downstream of the aperture from upstream current fluctuations. It is also shown that apertures can serve to alter longitudinal space charge wave propagation by changing the relative contribution of velocity and current modulation present in the beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of deaths in England and Wales associated with gastrointestinal pathogens, norovirus in particular, in persons ≥65 years was estimated for 2001-2006. Regression analysis was used to model monthly counts of gastrointestinal pathogens in fecal samples from infected patients against monthly counts of deaths from infectious and noninfectious intestinal diseases. Data came from the Office of National Statistics (death registrations from local registrars) and from the Health Protection Agency (laboratory results). Model results suggest that 20% (13.3%-26.8%) of deaths in persons >65 years of age caused by infectious intestinal disease other than Clostridium difficile were associated with norovirus infection in this period and that 13% (7.5%-18.5%) of deaths caused by noninfectious intestinal disease were associated with norovirus. An estimated 80 deaths each year in this age group may be associated with norovirus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sawtooth waveform inspired pitch estimator (SWIPE) has been developed for speech and music. SWIPE estimates the pitch as the fundamental frequency of the sawtooth waveform whose spectrum best matches the spectrum of the input signal. The comparison of the spectra is done by computing a normalized inner product between the spectrum of the signal and a modified cosine. The size of the analysis window is chosen appropriately to make the width of the main lobes of the spectrum match the width of the positive lobes of the cosine. SWIPE′, a variation of SWIPE, utilizes only the first and prime harmonics of the signal, which significantly reduces subharmonic errors commonly found in other pitch estimation algorithms. The authors’ tests indicate that SWIPE and SWIPE′ performed better on two spoken speech and one disordered voice database and one musical instrument database consisting of single notes performed at a variety of pitches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Cold-induced sweetening (CIS) is a significant postharvest problem in processing potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers. A rise in hexose sugar levels during cold storage results in a brown, bitter tasting and unmarketable product. We tested if potato microtubers (MicroT) can undergo CIS and if this corresponds to the CIS response in field-grown tubers (FieldT) with the hope of fast-tracking breeding programmes using a MicroT system. Using MicroT from potato genotypes representing a range of CIS response levels we have demonstrated that MicroT undergo CIS more rapidly than FieldT. Correlations of glucose:sucrose and hexose:sucrose ratios were highly significant between the two tuber types after cold treatment and these ratios are known to be good predictors of invertase activity, a key regulator of CIS. Correlations of individual sugars were non-significant before and after postharvest cold treatment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Static movement aftereffects (MAEs) were measured after adaptation to vertical square-wave luminance gratings drifting horizontally within a central window in a surrounding stationary vertical grating. The relationship between the stationary test grating and the surround was manipulated by varying the alignment of the stationary stripes in the window and those in the surround, and the type of outline separating the window and the surround [no outline, black outline (invisible on black stripes), and red outline (visible throughout its length)]. Offsetting the stripes in the window significantly increased both the duration and ratings of the strength of MAEs. Manipulating the outline had no significant effect on either measure of MAE strength. In a second experiment, in which the stationary test fields alone were presented, participants judged how segregated the test field appeared from its surround. In contrast to the MAE measures, outline as well as offset contributed to judged segregation. In a third experiment, in which test-stripe offset was systematically manipulated, segregation ratings rose with offset. However, MAE strength was greater at medium than at either small or large (180° phase shift) offsets. The effects of these manipulations on the MAE are interpreted in terms of a spatial mechanism which integrates motion signals along collinear contours of the test field and surround, and so causes a reduction of motion contrast at the edges of the test field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one about the language in Northern Ireland and another about the Irish in the Gaeltacht heartlands in the Republic.

This article outlines the difficulties associated with measuring quantum yields for solid-state samples using a high-pressure mercury arc lamp as the irradiation source. Details are given for the conversion of an inexpensive frequency-doubled neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) diode laser pointer module into a viable irradiation source. The modified Nd:YAG laser was incorporated into a computer-controlled system, which allowed for the simultaneous irradiation and spectroscopic monitoring of the sample. The data obtained with the Nd:YAG diode laser system show far less scatter than data obtained with a high-pressure Hg arc lamp, and consequently the degradation rates obtained with the laser system could be calculated with far greater accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study probed two aspects of the reactivity of geminate radical cage pairs formed by photolysis of (Cp′=η5-C5H4CH3). The first aspect studied examined whether the bulk viscosity has any predictive power in determining the magnitude of the cage recombination efficiency (F cP). Although there is a clear relationship between the magnitude of F cP and viscosity for systems where the bulk viscosity of the solution is altered by the addition of a non-macroscopic viscosity enhancer, the relationship is unclear for systems where the bulk viscosity is altered using polymeric viscosity enhancers. For this investigation, F cP values were measured using femtosecond pump–probe transient absorption spectroscopy. The results clearly indicate that bulk viscosity can change drastically without affecting F cP in systems containing small amounts of added polymers. The bulk viscosity is thus a poor parameter for predicting the cage effect in such systems. The second investigation looked at the effect of the photochemical excitation energy on F cP for the [Cp′(CO)3Mo , MoCp′(CO)3] cage pair in hexane. The results showed that F cP increased when the wavelength of irradiation was changed from 546nm to 436nm, and then remained constant as the wavelength of irradiation was changed from 436nm to 404nm to 366nm. These results are somewhat surprising because the recombination efficiencies for diatomic and triatomic molecules have been shown to decrease monotonically with increasing excitation energy. Two explanations are offered for the reverse wavelength dependence observed in this study. The first explanation invokes the different dynamic behaviors of the two excited states involved at the selected wavelengths, and the second invokes the different speeds of radical separation following irradiation at the selected wavelengths. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This investigation explored whether there is a spin barrier to recombination of first- and second- row transition metal-centered radicals in a radical cage pair. To answer this question, the recombination efficiencies of photochemically generated radical cage pairs (denoted as FcP) were measured in the presence and absence of an external heavy atom probe. Two methods were employed for measuring the cage effect. The first method was femtosecond pump-probe transient absorption spectroscopy, which directly measured FcP from reaction kinetics, and the second method (referred to herein as the steady-state" method) obtained FcP from quantum yields for the radical trapping reaction with CCl4 as a function of solvent viscosity. Both methods generated radical cage pairs by photolysis (λ = 515 nm for the pump probe method and λ = 546 nm for the steady-state method) of Cp'2Mo2(CO)6 (Cp' = η5-C5H4CH3). In addition, radical cage pairs generated from Cp'2Fe2(CO)4 and Cp*2TiCl2 (Cp* = η5-C5(CH3)5) were studied by the steady-state method. The pump-probe method used p-dichlorobenzene as the heavy atom perturber, whereas the steady-state method used iodobenzene. For both methods and for all the radical caged pairs investigated, there were no observable heavy atom effects, from which it is concluded there is no spin barrier to recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presentation is given in honor of Walter Greiner's 70th birthday, in recognition of the pioneering work of his "Frankfurt School" and their contributions to the field of heavy ion physics. Ultra-relativistic collisions of heavy nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) form an extremely hot system at energy densities greater than 5 GeV/fm3, where normal hadrons cannot exist. Upon rapid cooling of the system to a temperature T ~ 175 MeV and vanishingly small baryo-chemical potential, hadrons coalesce from quarks at the quark-hadron phase boundary predicted by lattice QCD. A large amount of collective (elliptic) flow at the quark level provides evidence for strong pressure gradients in the initial partonic stage of the collision when the system is dense and highly interacting prior to coalescence into hadrons. The suppression of both light (u,d,s) and heavy (c,b) hadrons at large transverse momenta, that form from fragmentation of hard-scattered partons, and the quenching of di-jets provide evidence for extremely large energy loss of partons as they attempt to propagate through the dense, strongly-coupled, colored medium created at RHIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We have combined an echo state network (ESN) with a competitive state machine framework to create a classification engine called the predictive ESN classifier. We derive the expressions for training the predictive ESN classifier and show that the model was significantly more noise robust compared to a hidden Markov model in noisy speech classification experiments by 8±1 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The simple training algorithm and noise robustness of the predictive ESN classifier make it an attractive classification engine for automatic speech recognition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We argue in this essay that (1) the embryo is an irredeemably ambiguous entity and its ambiguity casts serious doubt on the arguments claiming its full protection or, at least, protection against its use as a means for stem cell research, (2) those who claim the embryo should be protected as “one of us” are committed to a position even they do not uphold in their practices, (3) views that defend the protection of the embryo in virtue of its potentiality to become a person fail, and (4) the embryo does not have any rights or interests to be protected. Given that many are willing to treat the embryo as a means in other practices, and that human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research holds great potential to benefit many people, one cannot but conclude that hESC research is permissible and, because of its immense promise for alleviating human suffering, even obligatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of temperature on the degradation quantum yield of a poly(vinyl chloride) polymer with CpMo(CO) units incorporated into its chains was studied (Cp = cyclopentadienyl). The polymer is photochemically reactive in the absence of oxygen because the CpMo(CO) radicals formed by photolysis of the Mo-Mo bonds react with C-Cl bonds to form CpMo(CO)Cl units. Quantum yields as a function of temperature were obtained for this polymer and for two control systems, Cp′Mo(CO)dispersed in PVC and Cp′Mo(CO) in hexane/CCl solution (Cp′ = η-CHCH). The quantum yields of the two control systems showed only slight increases with an increase in temperature. For the reaction in hexane/CCl, this temperature dependence is attributed to the decrease in viscosity of the solution and the subsequent decrease in the radical-radical recombination efficiency. For the Cp′Mo(CO)dispersed in PVC, the small temperature dependence is attributed to an increase in free volume as the temperature increases. In contrast to these results, the temperature dependence of the quantum yield of the PVC polymer with CpMo(CO) units along its chains is relatively large. It is proposed that an increase in temperature facilitates the polymer chain relaxation processes (involving recoil and rotation) following photolysis of the Mo-Mo bond. The radical-radical recombination efficiency is subsequently decreased, which leads to a net increase in chain cleavage and degradation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Transmission in spinal reflex pathways from the toes to the ankle flexor tibialis anterior (TA) and to the knee flexor semitendinosus (ST), and from the heel to the ankle extensor medial gastrocnemius (MG), has been studied during antigen-induced inflammation due to subcutaneous injection of ovalbumin at the heel or at the toes in pre-immunized, pentobarbitone-anesthetized rabbits. The ovalbumin challenge induced a mild swelling at the injection site that developed over 6 h. Inflammation at the toes facilitated both flexor reflexes evoked from the toes and inhibited MG extensor responses to stimulation at the heel, with effects usually developing within 75 min of the initial injection and persisting to the end of the 6 h post-injection recording period. When inflammation was induced at the heel, the heel–MG and toes–ST reflexes were enhanced, whereas the toes–TA reflex was inhibited. The findings support the view that long-lasting changes in reflexes evoked by noxious stimuli have evolved to enhance reflex protection of an injured site. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We use recoupling theory to study the Kauffman bracket skein module of the quaternionic manifold over ℤ[A±1] localized by inverting all the cyclotomic polynomials. We prove that the skein module is spanned by five elements. Using the quantum invariants of these skein elements and the ℤ2-homology of the manifold, we determine that they are linearly independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gridded guns are useful for producing modulated electron beams. This modulation is generally limited to simple gating of the beam but may be used to apply structure to the beam pulse shape. In intense beams, this structure spawns space-charge waves whose dynamics depend in part on the relative strengths of the velocity and density variations which comprise the initial current modulation. In this paper, the strengths of beam current and velocity modulation produced in a gridded electron gun are calculated, and it is shown that under normal conditions, the initial modulation is dominated by density variation rather than velocity variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Phonotactic restrictions reflect preferences in the way the carrier signal in speech is modulated from one moment to the next. This effect is largely unaccounted for in sonority-based analyses of phonotactics. The phonetic specification of sonority remains in any case controversial. However, treating it as an independently phonological entity is not an appealing option. Unlike distinctive features, sonority makes no contribution to the core of phonological knowledge that enables listener-talkers to attach linguistic meaning to modulations of the speech signal. Modulations carry the linguistic message, while the carrier enables the message to be heard. The sonority proposal attempts to characterise how messages are heard and has little to say about how they are understood. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We propose a method of predicting intrauterine pressure (IUP) from external electrohysterograms (EHG) using a causal FIR Wiener filter. IUP and 8-channel EHG data were collected simultaneously from 14 laboring patients at term, and prediction models were trained and tested using 10-min windows for each patient and channel. RMS prediction error varied between 5–14 mmHg across all patients. We performed a 4-way analysis of variance on the RMS error, which varied across patients, channels, time (test window) and model (train window). The patient-channel interaction was the most significant factor while channel alone was not significant, indicating that different channels produced significantly different RMS errors depending on the patient. The channel-time factor was significant due to single-channel bursty noise, while time was a significant factor due to multichannel bursty noise. The time-model interaction was not significant, supporting the assumption that the random process generating the IUP and EHG signals was stationary. The results demonstrate the capabilities of optimal linear filter in predicting IUP from external EHG and offer insight into the factors that affect prediction error of IUP from multichannel EHG recordings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Previous studies have documented phenomena involving the modification of human speech in special communication circumstances. Whether speaking to a hearing-impaired person (clear speech) or in a noisy environment (Lombard speech), speakers tend to make similar modifications to their normal, conversational speaking style in order to increase the understanding of their message by the listener. One strategy characteristic of the above speech types is to increase consonant power relative to the signal power of adjacent vowels and is referred to as consonant–vowel (CV) ratio boosting. An automated method of speech enhancement using CV ratio boosting is called energy redistribution voiced/unvoiced (ERVU). To characterize the performance of ERVU, 25 listeners responded to 500 words in a two-word, forced-choice experiment in the presence of energetic masking noise. The test material was a vocabulary of confusable monosyllabic words spoken by 8 male and 8 female speakers, and the conditions tested were a control (unmodified speech), ERVU, and a high-pass filter (HPF). Both ERVU and the HPF significantly increased recognition accuracy compared to the control. Nine of the 16 speakers were significantly more intelligible when ERVU or the HPF was used, compared to the control, while no speaker was less intelligible. The results show that ERVU successfully increased intelligibility of speech using a simple automated segmentation algorithm, applicable to a wide variety of communication systems such as cell phones and public address systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The development of new drugs for cancer is extremely complex and expensive, and poses ethical problems. In this article we will review issues in clinical trials for cancer drugs that will cast new light on the doctor-patient relationship and their interaction with industry, the health service, academic and administrative organizations. We show that the Declaration of Helsinki cannot be applied to cancer trials as it is currently written, that patients do not and perhaps cannot give fully informed consent to participate, and that the results of clinical trials do not translate into daily practice in a way that patients might expect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current automatic acoustic detection and classification of microchiroptera utilize global features of individual calls (i.e., duration, bandwidth, frequency extrema), an approach that stems from expert knowledge of call sonograms. This approach parallels the acoustic phonetic paradigm of human automatic speech recognition (ASR), which relied on expert knowledge to account for variations in canonical linguistic units. ASR research eventually shifted from acoustic phonetics to machine learning, primarily because of the superior ability of machine learning to account for signal variation. To compare machine learning with conventional methods of detection and classification, nearly 3000 search-phase calls were hand labeled from recordings of five species: Pipistrellus bodenheimeri, Molossus molossus, Lasiurus borealis, L. cinereus semotus, and Tadarida brasiliensis. The hand labels were used to train two machine learning models: a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) for detection and classification and a hidden Markov model (HMM) for classification. The GMM detector produced 4% error compared to 32% error for a baseline broadband energy detector, while the GMM and HMM classifiers produced errors of 0.6±0.2% compared to 16.9±1.1% error for a baseline discriminant function analysis classifier. The experiments showed that machine learning algorithms produced errors an order of magnitude smaller than those for conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lake Turkana itself is a geologically recent phenomenon, but what is now the Lake Turkana basin has an archaeological record that stretches back 2.5 million years and a paleontological record that extends back to the Cretaceous Period. Vertebrate fossils were first discovered in the lower Omo Valley at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the first multidisciplinary international expedition to investigate the region was that of the International Omo Research Expedition in 1967. The National Museums of Kenya participated in the first IORE but thereafter mounted their own multinational and multidisciplinary expeditions to the Kenyan part of the Lake Turkana basin. The Koobi Fora sand spit on the east side of the lake served as the National Museums' field headquarters for the Koobi Fora Research Project on that side of the lake, the subsequent West Turkana Project, more recent fieldwork at Lothagam and Kanapoi, and ongoing field research today. The fossils and artifacts recovered from the Lake Turkana basin have contributed much to our current understanding of early human origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the work of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence of Great Britain with respect to resource allocation and its use of quality adjusted life years in health economic evaluation. Ways in which quality adjusted life years may be used; Cases in which quality adjusted life years could benefit older patients in a range of treatments; Confusion in the dimensions of quality adjusted life years when choosing between patients rather than treatments.

Freshwater mussel beds of the lower 68 km of the Cache River, AR, were delineated and sampled using diving and stratified random sampling methodology to determine species richness, density, size structure, and population and community numerical standing crop (CNSC). A total of 38 mussel beds were delineated, including 14 major beds (M/beds) and 24 minor beds (mbeds). Twenty six species were collected, four of which were previously unknown from the Cache River. Amblema plicala, Megalonaias nervosa, and Plectomerus dambeyanus were the most abundant. Estimates of CNSC ranged from 370 ± 1908 to 122.1 15 ± 24.194 individuals in Mbeds with mean densities ranging from 6.2 to 44.1 mussels/m². Nine of 16 species with > 10 individuals had a unimodal size frequency distribution and the other seven had multi-modal distributions. This study found impressive mussel assemblages in the lower Cache River, previously thought to contain only refugial pockets of mussel assemblages. Further monitoring of some species is recommended based on lack of recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a debate concerning the contradictions in personhood theory which bear on the question of the right to die. It discusses the alleged paradox of the personhood theory of Mary Ford stating that anyone possessing the qualities of rationality, autonomy and self-awareness is unequivocally a person. Ford claims that voluntary euthanasia is not the only way to avoid problem.

This paper argues that the HFEA's recent report on sex selection abdicates its responsibility to give its own authentic advice on the matters within its remit, that it accepts arguments and conclusions that are implausible on the face of it and where hey depend on empirical claims, produces no empirical evidence whatsoever, but relies on reckless speculation as to what the "facts" are likely to be. Finally, having committed itself to what I call the "democratic presumption", that human freedom will not be constrained unless very good and powerful reasons can be produced to justify such infringement of liberty, the HFEA simply reformulates the democratic presumption as saying the opposite-namely that freedom may only be exercised if powerful justifications are produced for any exercise of liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author offers criticisms to the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) report "Sex Selection: options for regulations." He considers flow cytometry as a method of sex selection. A discussion on the development of legislative and regulatory options governing sex selection is highlighted.

The following article offers an insight into the experiences of female football players at a college of higher education in the south of England. Its principal focus is the image of the game and, in particular, how the women themselves interpret and define their involvement in the sport Using an interpretive, inductive approach, the study highlights the struggles of heterosexual women in explaining and making sense of their participation in a traditionally male activity. Because of the game's perceived association to lesbianism, a number of the foot ballplayers have to make explicit their own sexuality and some embark on a process of identity management The study explores the complex relationship between women and football and provides an alternative insight into the game and the people who play it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freshwater mussel beds of the lower 68 km of the Cache River, Arkansas, were delineated, sampled using dive techniques and a stratified random sampling methodology and analyzed for density and species richness. A total of 38 mussel beds were delineated, 14 major beds (Mbeds) and 24 minor beds (mbeds), and defined by areal extent and mussel density. Analysis of our sampling precision indicated 80% or better confidence levels for a majority of our sites and suggested that a sample size of 15 1-m² quadrats is sufficient to obtain 80% or better confidence. Our large river diver-assisted sampling methodology has been shown to be a useful and appropriate methodology for obtaining large geographic scale baseline distribution (bed and species), species richness, density and population and community numerical standing crop estimates information where tradeoffs are required in order to complete a project within time and budget constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges and seeks to reverse the presumption against medical research. Examples of extreme medical arrogance and paternalism; Knowledge of connections between diet, exercise, and heart disease; Concept of mandatory contribution to public goods.

Cameron and Williamson have provided a provocative and timely review of the ethical questions prompted by the birth of Dolly. The question Cameron and Williamson seek to address is "In the world of Dolly, when does a human embryo acquire respect?" Their initial discussion sets the scene by providing a valuable overview of attitudes towards the embryo, summarising various religious, scientific, and philosophical viewpoints. They then ask, "What has Dolly changed?" and identify five changes, the first being that fertilisation is no longer required to create an embryo. Following this analysis they then ask when an embryo created other than by fertilisation begins to acquire respect. This paper explores the ethical and legal issues highlighted by Cameron and Williamson's paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]