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Description: Verapamil (sold under various trade names such as: Calan, Cordilox, Dexverapamil, Falicard, Finoptin, Hydrochloride, Verapamil, Iproveratril, Isoptin, Isoptine, Izoptin, Lekoptin) is a selective and potent L-type calcium channel blocker in the phenylalkylamine class, it is an FDA approved medication used for the treatment of high blood pressure, angina (chest pain from not enough blood flow to the heart), and supraventricular tachycardia. It may also be used for the prevention of migraines and cluster headaches. It is given by mouth or by injection into a vein.. Verapamil hydrochloride blocks the L-type Ca2+ channels in smooth and cardiac muscle cells. Verapamil is an antiarrhythmic agent and vasodilator known to reduce the renal clearance of digoxin and induce apoptosis in primary and metastatic colon adenocarcinoma human cell lines in vitro. It has been observed that verapamil can induce currents by itself, presumably by acting on the potassium and chloride leakage. References: Drug Metab Pharmacokinet. 2013;28(6):468-74; PLoS One. 2013 Aug 12;8(8):e71567. Related CAS: 52-53-9 (free base); 67812-42-4 (Norverapamil HCl); 16662-47-8 [Gallopamil (Methoxyverapamil)]; 123932-43-4 (Arverapamil, a chiral metabolite of Verapamil) Mass (g) = Concentration (mol/L) × Volume (L) × Molecular Weight (g/mol) Concentration (start) × Volume (start) = Concentration (final) × Volume (final) This equation is commonly abbreviated as: C1V1 = C2V2 In vitro activity: The enzyme hydrolase activity of recombinant CES2 is substantially inhibited by diltiazem and verapamil (Ki = 0.25 ± 0.02 and 3.84 ± 0.99μM, respectively). Cell Assay: Cells (1×105) are treated with 10 nM Bortezomib and/or 70 µM Verapamil for 16 hours and incubated for another 4 hours with Alamar-Blue. Activity of the mitochondrial dehydrogenase results in conversion of the coloring, which is followed by measurement of the absorption using a spectrophotometer.

https://www.invivochem.com/verapamil-hcl.html

Microsomal enzymes responsible for metabolism are mainly located in the liver and kidneys. The rates of metabolism in the human body are approximately 10 to 20 per cent for halothane, 2.5 per cent for enflurane, about 0.2 per cent for isoflurane, and zero per cent for nitrous oxide.Approximately 3% of the absorbed dose of sevoflurane is metabolised. It undergoes hepatic metabolism by cytochrome P450 (isoform 2E1). Hexafluoroisopropanol and inorganic fluoride (know to cause renal toxicity) are produced. When sevoflurane is administered in a circle system using soda lime or baralyme, a number of compounds are produced. Compounds A, B, C, D and E have all been identified, although only compounds A and B (the latter being less toxic) are present in sufficient quantities to make analysis feasible. The lethal concentration in 50% of rats is 300-400 ppm after 3 hours' exposure. Extrapolation of these and other animal studies suggest a human nephrotoxic threshold of 150-200 ppm. Recent work suggests that even with flow rates of 0.25 L/min for 5 hours, the level of compound A peaks at less than 20 ppm and is not associated with abnormal tests of renal function. 0.02% of an administered dose of desflurane is metabolised, predominantly to trifluoroacetic acid.The amount of anaesthetic removed from the body by metabolism is small compared with the amount exhaled. Induction and recovery from anaesthesia with volatile anaesthetics differ somewhat from each other. On induction, all tissue partial pressures are zero. During recovery, different tissues in the body have a different partial pressure of the inhaled anaesthetic. Therefore, recovery is not as controllable as induction of anaesthesia. In addition, increasing minute ventilation and concentration of the inspired anaesthetic mixture can significantly accelerate induction. Increasing minute ventilation with high inspiratory oxygen concentration will increase the gradient of the inhaled anaesthetic between pulmonary venous blood and the alveolar space, and therefore increase the elimination of the gas. Forgot your password?

https://www.anaesthesiauk.com/article.aspx?articleid=100340

After an overnight stay at the Geraer Hut the alarm clock rings very early. After breakfast we start on the path to the Fußstein Hüttengrat. In 1.5 hours we reach the start of the climbing route: Along the famous ridge (difficulty level 4) we reach the summit of the Fußstein (3380 m) in about 4 hours. Also the descent requires full concentration, as climbing down consists of sections in difficulty level. There are also several rappelling points at the descent. After this challenging part we take a well-deserved break at the Geraer Hut before we descend back to the valley. The meeting point for this tour is in the village center of St. Jodok.

https://www.bergfuehrer-wipptal.at/en/alpine-klettertour-fussstein/

Early treatment of Acanthamoeba keratitis reduces long-term visual sequelae. Unfortunately, treatment of well-established Acanthamoeba keratitis remains frustrating, since diagnosis of the condition is frequently elusive. Too frequently, patients endure weeks of topical steroid therapy prior to diagnosis. The possibility of visual loss despite months of continued topical therapy is an unfortunate potential outcome. While emerging therapies such as alkylphosphocholines (Miltefosine), new guanadines, other antibiotics, and other chemotherapeutics offer promise for difficult to treat infections (Eye. 2003;17:893-905), many of these remedies have not been well described, nor are they currently available to the practicing ophthalmologist. Consequently, a combination of topical biguanide and diamidine therapy remains the mainstay of Acanthamoeba keratitis treatment. The emergence of Acanthamoeba keratitis as a serious pathogen in ophthalmology coincided with the expansion of soft contact lens use in the 1980s. Acanthamoeba usually gains access to the cornea secondary to contact lens associated epithelial compromise and has been shown to grow in contact lens cases and some contact lens solutions. Acanthamoeba has been detected in contaminated water supplies, hot tubs and swimming pools. Culture, staining, confocal microscopy, polymerase chain reaction, and clinical suspicion can be used to achieve a diagnosis. Although scrapings and cultures may be negative in disease largely limited to the stroma, epithelial debridement is nevertheless extremely useful. When confined to the epithelium, debridement with a Kimura spatula or other suitable instrument decreases amebic load and is therapeutic. Because a portion of initial biopsies and cultures are inconclusive, larger specimens aid in diagnosis. Specimens should be cultured on non-nutrient agar with E. coli (or other coliform) overlay. Corneal scrapings should also be sent for microscopy. Scrapings can be stained with Giemsa or calcafour white. Topical therapy begins immediately after debridement. When questioning if the endpoint of treatment has been reached, repeat cultures and scrapes are invaluable. Trophozoites, the active and mobile form of the protozoan, are responsive to many therapies. On the other hand, cysts, the dormant form of Acanthamoeba , are encased in a tough proteoglycan coat, making them difficult to treat. Cysts can remain viable almost indefinitely in extremely adverse conditions; treatment should therefore be cysticidal. A combination of cationic antiseptics and diamidines has been shown to be most effective in treating Acanthamoeba keratitis (Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2003;1:205-208). Commonly used in dental preparations, the cationic antiseptics (chlorhexidine digluconate and polyhexamethyline biguanide [PHMB]) are essentially swimming pool sanitizers. Meanwhile, the diamidines (propamadine isethionate and hexamidine isethionate) are available outside the United States as over-the-counter remedies for conjunctivitis and red eye. Neither the cationic antiseptics nor the diamidines are commercially available in the U.S. PHMB and chlorhexidine are known collectively as steric biguanides. They are prepared for medical use by compounding pharmacists. Various concentrations of biguanides are used. Starting strength is usually 0.02% of chlorhexidine or PHMB; this can be decreased, if toxicity develops, or increased, if there is an inadequate response to therapy. Use of chlorhexidine and PHMB in concentrations greater than 0.02% is untested, so higher concentrations should be used carefully. In the event that the above therapy fails, Charles Leiter, Pharm.D. has said that the medications may be increased from a starting dose of 0.02% up to 0.06% for chlorhexidine or PHMB. Both chlorhexidine and PHMB are effective against trophozoites with variable efficacy against cysts. While PHMB and chlorhexidine have both been used to effectively treat Acanthamoeba keratitis (Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2003;1:205-208), emerging evidence has shown a disconnect between in vivo and in vitro sensitivities (Ophthalmology. 2003;110:1593-1600). Specifically, PHMB is more effective in vitro than in vivo. Initial therapy for Acanthamoeba keratitis should begin with diagnostic epithelial debridement for culture and staining followed by immediate topical therapy (Table 1). Topical dual therapy should start with chlorhexidine 0.02% and propamidine 0.1% every hour around the clock for 2-3 days. Following this, the treatment can be reduced to waking hours only for approximately 3 days. Therapy is then tapered to 4 times a day. For disease limited to the epithelium, therapy may be discontinued after 2-4 weeks. With frequent use, propamidine is relatively toxic, but in combination therapy with biguanides toxicity is usually limited to reversible epitheliopathy. Table 1. Guidelines for treatment of Acanthamoeba keratitis. Initial Therapy Concentration Frequency Chlorhexadine combined with Brolene 0.02% (200 ug/ml) 0.1% (1000 ug/ml) q1 hour x 2-3 days around the clock, then q1 hour while awake x 3 days, then tapered to qid. Second Line Therapies PHMB 0.02%-0.06% Hexamidine 0.1% Pentamadine Third Line Therapies Imidazoles 1% (10,000 mg/l) and po Anti-fungals are used as frequently as q1 hour initially. Neomycin 10 mg/ml Neomycin must be titrated based on toxicity and response. Adjunctive Therapies NSAIDs Topical and po bid-qid Predniselone 1% Avoid if possible Stromal disease requires longer therapy. Realizing that response to therapy, especially in established infections, can take 2 weeks to be appreciated, therapy may be reduced to every 4 hours while awake once control is established. For extensive disease, topical therapy may continue from 3 weeks to 6 months or longer depending on patient response. Serial photographs are helpful in following response to therapy. Hexamadine 0.1% or pentamidine isethionate 0.1% (Pentam 300) may be substituted for propamadine. Anti-fungals have been used with some success, but concentrations of itraconazole and ketoconazole may not reach cysticidal levels in the cornea (Eye . 2003;17:893-905). If attempted, topical ketaconazole or fluconazole should be used at a 1% concentration but only in combination with PHMB or chlorhexidine. Topical neomycin (10mg/ml) was once used as a primary therapy. Unfortunately, it is rarely cysticidal, can be severely toxic, incite hypersensitivity, and is of limited therapeutic value (Eye. 1994;8:555-563). Secondary keratoneuritis, scleritis, or episcleritis can be extremely painful. An inflammatory response after initiation of therapy further complicates this picture. Topical cycloplegics may be appropriate. Pain control may be necessary with topical or oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and possibly oral narcotics. Topical steroids, when used with great caution, may be helpful in relieving otherwise intractable pain. The use of topical steroids to treat Acanthamoeba keratitis is controversial and strongly discouraged by many clinicians. Acanthamoeba cysts exposed to dexamethasone have increased pathogenicity with increased numbers of trophozoites through excystment and proliferation (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2001;42:2885-2893.) Not surprisingly, topical steroids have been associated with longer treatment times (Cornea. 1997;16:277-283). Caution must be exercised in cases where steroids are used. They should only be employed while the patient is using antiamoebic therapy, and antiamoebic therapy should continue for 2-4 weeks after discontinuing steroids. In rare instances when a patient is unresponsive to medical therapy with impending perforation, combined penetrating keratoplasty and medical therapy may be employed. The surgeon must remain cognizant that the remaining host bed is likely inundated with organisms and will certainly require a long therapeutic course. As suggested above, the need for post-operative steroids will increase the pathogenicity of the organism. Ideally, surgical therapy should be postponed until the disease is under sufficient medical control. References The author states that he has no financial relationship with the manufacturer or provider of any product or service discussed in this article or with the manufacturer or provider of any competing product or service. He would like to thank Erica C. Tryon, MA for her help in editing this manuscript.

https://www.aao.org/current-insight/acanthamoeba-keratitis-treatment

- Melting Point: - -48 °C - Boiling Point: - 80 - 82 °C - Density: - 0.781 kg/l - Refractive Index: - 20/D 1.344 - Physical Description: - liquid - Product Code: - 701881 - Product Name: - Acetonitrile for LC-MS - Quality Name: - for LC-MS - Specifications: - Minimum assay (G.C.): 99.9% Identity: IR passes test Density 20/4: 0.779-0.783 Suitability: for LC-MS: passes test Maximum limit of impurities APHA colour: 10 Acidity: 0.0003 meq/g Alkalinity: 0.0001 meq/g Non-volatile matter: 0.0001 % Base line drift (210 nm): 10 mUA Water (H2O): 0.01 % Gradient at 210 nm: 1 mUA Gradient at 254 nm: 0.2 mUA Fluorescence at 254 nm (as quinine): 1 ppb Fluorescence at 365 nm (as quinine): 0.5 ppb UV Spectrum (1cm cell; Ref.: water): Transmittance at 190 nm: ≥30% Transmittance at 193 nm: ≥60% Transmittance at 195 nm: ≥80% Transmittance at 200 nm: ≥90% Transmittance at 230-400 nm: ≥98% Metals [in mg/Kg (ppm)] Ag: 0.05 Al: 0.5 Ba: 0.1 Ca: 0.05 Cd: 0.05 Co: 0.02 Cr: 0.02 Cu: 0.02 Fe: 0.1 K: 0.1 Mg: 0.1 Mn: 0.02 Na: 0.1 Ni: 0.02 Pb: 0.1 Sn: 0.1 Zn: 0.1 Microfiltered product (0.2 μm) and bottled under nitrogen atmosphere. - Hazard pictograms - - UN: - 1648 - Class/PG: - 3/II - ADR: - 3/II - IMDG: - 3/II - IATA: - 3/II - WGK: - 2 - Storage: - Room Temperature. - Signal Word: - Danger - GHS Symbols: - GHS02 GHS07 - H Phrases: - H225 H332 H312 H302 H319 - P Phrases: - P210 P233 P240 P241 P242 P243 P261 P270 P271 P280 P301+P330+P331 P303+P361+P353 P304+P340 P305+P351+P338 P312 P322 P363 P370+P378 P501 P337+P313 - Master Name: - Acetonitrile - Synonyms Long Text: - Cyanomethane, Ethanenitrile, Methyl Cyanide - EINECS: - 200-835-2 - CS: - 2926 90 70 - Index Nr.: - 608-001-00-3 Documents Inquiry CommentsAbout Acetonitrile Occurrence The emission lines of acetonitrile were detected by radio telescope in the nucleus of comet C/1973 E1 (Kohoutek) on December 1, 1973. Astronomers at ESO, with the help of the ALMA telescope, detected larger amounts of acetonitrile around the young star MWC 480 for the first time in April 2015. Production Possibilities for production are nucleophilic substitution reactions of e.g. bromomethane with sodium cyanide (NaCN). Industrially, acetonitrile is produced in relatively small quantities as a by-product in the manufacture of acrylonitrile. Price and availability are therefore linked to the production of polyacrylonitrile. Properties When heated to high temperatures and in the event of fire, acetonitrile gives off toxic gases such as hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides. Explosive mixtures are formed with air. Acetonitrile attacks rubber and dissolves many polymers. When in contact with sulfuric acid under heat, explosive polymerization may occur. Acetonitrile forms with water an azeotropic mixture of 83.7 wt.% acetonitrile to 16.3 wt.% water and a boiling point of 76.5 °C, 5.5 K below the boiling point of pure acetonitrile. Safety characteristics Acetonitrile forms highly flammable vapor-air mixtures. The compound has a flash point at 2 °C. The explosion range is between 3.0% by volume (50 g/m3) as the lower explosion limit (LEL) and 17% by volume as the upper explosion limit (UEL). The limiting oxygen concentration is 12.7 vol% at 25 °C. The limiting gap width was determined to be 1.5 mm. This results in an assignment to explosion group IIA. The ignition temperature is 525 °C. The substance thus is assigned into temperature class T1. The electrical conductivity is rather low at 6-10-8 S-m-1. Use Acetonitrile is a common solvent in the laboratory, in chemical analysis (e.g. HPLC) and in technical chemistry, mainly for the extraction of 1,3-butadiene. Acetonitrile is used as a solvent for conducting salts in double-layer capacitors. Acetonitrile-d3 Fully deuterated acetonitrile (acetonitrile-d3) - in which all three hydrogen atoms have been replaced by deuterium - is used as a solvent in NMR spectroscopy. Safety information Acetonitrile is an irritant. It is harmful by inhalation, ingestion and skin contact. Acetonitrile is absorbed through the skin (percutaneously) and acts as a blood poison in the body. Acetonitrile exhibits low toxicity at low doses. It is metabolized to hydrogen cyanide, which is the cause of the observed symptoms. Symptoms are usually delayed (between 2 and 12 hours) because it takes some time for the body to metabolize acetonitrile to cyanide. Cases of poisoning by inhalation, oral ingestion, or skin absorption in humans are rare but not unknown. Symptoms that do not appear until several hours after exposure include difficulty breathing, low pulse, nausea, and nausea. In serious cases, convulsions and coma may occur, followed by death from respiratory failure. Countermeasures are as for cyanide poisoning.

https://www.itwreagents.com/united-states/en/product/acetonitrile+for+lc-ms/701881

The impact of a good night’s sleep on maintaining younger-looking skin is often overlooked. A recent study found that sleep quality strongly affects skin function and aging, concluding that: “Chronic poor sleep quality is associated with increased signs of intrinsic aging, diminished skin barrier function, and lower satisfaction with appearance.”1 The skin-rejuvenating effects of sleep are partially attributed to the hormone melatonin, which exerts a wide range of anti-aging benefits.2-6 As melatonin output decreases with age,7 many people become more vulnerable to sleep disturbances that fail to adequately repair aging and photodamaged skin. Research has revealed that topical melatonin, along with additional compounds, restores youthful reparative processes during the night to produce visible and long-lasting improvements in the health and appearance of skin. Melatoninergic Antioxidative System: Your Skin’s Internal Ultraviolet Defense Derived from the amino acid tryptophan, melatonin is a hormone produced mainly by the brain’s pineal gland, where it regulates our internal biological clock.8 Melatonin secretion is triggered in response to darkness, and diminished in the presence of light. Over the past decade, accumulating evidence indicates that melatonin offers health-promoting benefits that extend beyond regulating circadian rhythms. For example, it provides significant protection against UV-induced skin aging (photoaging).9 When melatonin attaches to receptors on various skin cells,10,11 it suppresses oxidative stress from sun exposure.4 Melatonin is known to: - Act as a free-radical scavenger.12 After interacting with free radicals, melatonin is degraded to N1-acetyl-N2-formyl-5-methoxykynuramine (AFMK) and N1-acetyl-5-methoxykynuramine (AMK)—both of which possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects themselves.13,14 This antioxidant cascade is known as melatoninergic antioxidative system of the skin.15 - Activate intracellular antioxidant systems including superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and catalase (CAT).16-19 Melatonin’s versatility as a free-radical scavenger attenuates lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation, and DNA damage to promote the survival of healthy skin cells.2,4 Dermal fibroblasts are cells that manufacture collagen and elastin, which are structural proteins that keep skin young, strong, and resilient. When dermal fibroblasts were treated with melatonin before sun exposure, they showed a survival rate of 92.5% compared to just 56% in those untreated.20 By protecting against damage caused by photoaging, melatonin combats a prime culprit behind wrinkles, fine lines, loss of tone, and skin cancer, and is therefore an important ally for retaining a youthful appearance. *Interested in increasing your intuition and awareness in a safe and effective way? Check out Demivolve Mind Enhancing Supplement. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Topical Melatonin Enhances Nightly Skin Repair and Renewal - The skin rejuvenation effects of a good night’s sleep are mediated by the broad and extensive antioxidant properties of the hormone melatonin. - Melatonin secretion declines with age, increasing the likelihood of sleep debt that impairs the skin’s ability to bounce back from external assaults, especially ultraviolet radiation. - Topical melatonin has been shown to penetrate the stratum corneum and accumulate, to initiate nightly repair and renewal. - Other topical agents including ectoin, acetyl-tetrapeptide-22, and coconut amino-acid complex, work through different modes of action to protect and repair damaged skin. - The result is healthier, younger-looking skin and a marked reduction in wrinkles, fine lines, and uneven pigmentation. Why We Need Topical Melatonin Melatonin secretion gradually declines over time, increasing our susceptibility to sleep debt that diminishes the skin’s capacity to recover from external insults.21,22 Oral ingestion of melatonin does not always provide optimal skin protection.23A more effective method is to apply melatonin topically, where it penetrates the stratum corneum and accumulates to initiate nightly repair and renewal.24,25 A review of human studies found that topically applied melatonin safeguards against sun-induced erythema by reducing cell death, DNA damage, and oxidative stress.26 Let’s now take a look at how three other topical agents provide photoprotection, while repairing and regenerating damaged skin. Ectoin: Natural Skin-Cell Protection Ectoin is a natural substance found in halophilic bacteria that allows them to withstand harsh environmental stressors such as cold temperatures, sweltering UV rays, and droughts.27,28 Researchers have discovered that ectoin behaves like a sponge to bind and trap water molecules around skin structures, forming large hydration shells that protect against premature cell damage from extrinsic factors.29 In a controlled study, human volunteers with crow’s feet topically applied ectoin or a placebo twice daily for four weeks. Compared to the subjects on placebo, participants in the ectoin-treatment group experienced a mean reduction in wrinkle depth of 32%, deepest wrinkle by 17%, and wrinkle volume by 40%.30 In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, topical application of ectoin twice daily for four weeks in 24 women aged 30-60 significantly increased skin elasticity by 82.4% over a placebo.29 Ectoin enhances the skin’s ability to retain moisture, making it visibly softer and smoother. In another double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, a topical cream with ectoin increased skin hydration by up to 200% compared to a placebo after 12 days.29 This increased hydration level of the skin was preserved for the next seven days without treatment, thereby demonstrating the sustained moisturizing effect of Ectoin. Acetyl Tetrapeptide-22 Stimulates Stress-Responsive Heat-Shock Proteins The skin relies on heat-shock proteins, which act as a clean-up crew for the cellular damage induced by stressful stimuli.31,32 When inside the cell, heat-shock proteins assist in the recovery of damaged proteins, while degrading others to halt protein aggregates that impair normal cellular processes.33,34 The age-related decline in heat-shock proteins—notably heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70)—diminishes the skin’s natural stress response and accelerates aging. A novel peptide called acetyl tetrapeptide-22 has been developed to boost HSP70 levels in the skin with or without prior stress, in turn maintaining protein homeostasis and increasing cell viability to slow down aging.35 Coconut Amino-Acid Complex Soothes Sensitive Skin The combination of coconut amino acids and minerals (potassium and magnesium) has been shown to improve the skin’s moisture barrier and modulate the UV-induced inflammatory response in epidermal keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts.36 This anti-inflammatory action helps soothe sensitive and irritated skin. One research team found that coconut amino acid complex reduced the sensation of discomfort from lactic acid in humans with hypersensitive skin. They observed that coconut amino-acid complex decreased the stinging intensity of lactic acid by 46% immediately after topical application, and by 90% after one minute.36 Summary Our skin is under attack from external forces like ultraviolet radiation that create damaging free radicals and oxidative stress, leaving behind a path of wrinkles, age spots, and mutations. Research shows that topical compounds—including melatonin, ectoin, acetyl tetrapeptide-22, and coconut amino-acid complex—work through distinct and complementary mechanisms to offset the harmful effects of sunlight and enhance nightly repair of damaged skin to enable a younger-looking appearance.

http://www.awakenedminds.life/tie-nutrition/topical-melatonin/

Wrinkles are a natural part of the aging process. They occur most frequently in areas exposed to the sun, such as the face, neck, back of the hands and forearms. Over time, skin gets thinner, drier and less elastic. Ultimately, this causes wrinkles – either fine lines or deep furrows. In addition to sun exposure, premature aging of the skin is associated with smoking, heredity and skin type (higher incidence among people with fair hair, blue-eyes and light skin). Treatment for wrinkles runs the gamut from topical creams and moisturizers to cosmetic procedures. The most common topical treatments are: - Alpha-hydroxy acids, preparations made from “fruit acids” that produce subtle improvements in the appearance of wrinkles. - Antioxidants, creams consisting of Vitamins A, C and E and beta-carotene that improves the appearance of wrinkles and provides some additional sun protection. - Moisturizers, which temporarily reduce the appearance of wrinkles. - Vitamin A Topical, which helps alleviate some of the signs of aging, including mottled pigmentation (e.g., liver spots), roughness and wrinkling. Cosmetic procedures include: - Chemical peels - Botox Injections - Fillers (Restylane and Sculptra) - Laser – Photorejuvenation - Plastic surgery The best prevention for wrinkles is to keep the skin moisturized and use sunscreen and sunblock to prevent additional damage from the sun.

https://www.wilsonderm.com/services/wrinkles/

Excessive exposure to the sun can make a person look older than he or she really is. Sun damage affects everyone. Premature wrinkles and skin damage from the sun is called photoaging. Unlike natural aging, photoaging results in coarse, dry skin; freckling and skin discoloration; enlarged pores, leathery skin; deep wrinkles and age spots. Sun damage can also result in skin cancers. Acute sun damage results in sunburn. Chronic sun damage occurs gradually a a result of long-term, unprotected exposure to harmful UV rays. Sunburns and tanning are of special concern for children and teenagers. An estimated 2.3 million teenagers tan indoors each year. Minors under age 18 who use tanning beds increase their risk of skin cancer by 59 percent. River Ridge Dermatology provides treatments that protect, repair, and rejuvenate your sun-damaged skin.

https://www.riverridgederm.com/library-articles/2015/5/15/sun-damage

- Washing the face: The face should be washed with warm water twice a day, one in the morning and the other before bed, and use a mild creamy cleanser, and gently dry the face with tomato using a soft cloth, taking care not to rub the face when drying it, and hands should be washed before washing the face to prevent transmission Bacteria, and if the skin is oily or acne prone, you can use an antiseptic that contains salicylic acid or sulfur, and be careful not to use types of antiseptics that contain benzoyl peroxide because it is not suitable for the skin. - Toner: It is advised to use alcohol-free toner for the skin to rebalance the acidity levels in it, which may change after washing the face, and the toner is applied after a few minutes of washing the face using a cotton swab dipped in the toner, then wipe the face using it while avoiding the eye area; Because the skin is sensitive in that area, taking into account not to wash the skin after toner. - Moisturizing the skin: Moisturizing the skin is an essential step after washing the face and applying toner, as a thin layer of moisturizer is placed on the skin to moisturize it, and reduce fine lines and wrinkles. As it may cause premature aging of the skin, such as wrinkles. People who have oily skin are advised to use a mild moisturizer free from oils, and people who have sensitive or dry skin can use heavy cream moisturizers. - Removing make-up before bed: As sleeping without removing make-up may cause chronic skin inflammation and irritation, as it may lead to skin damage, so make-up must be removed before sleep, and it is worth noting that it is advisable to reduce the use of make-up at the age of forty; this is considered beneficial For healthy skin, because the makeup includes fine lines and wrinkles, and thus it may increase its visibility remarkably. - Peeling skin: It is peeling skin important to rid them of the dry spots and scaly, and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and pores, and advised peeling using gentle exfoliator once a week only; because peeling more is harmful to the skin, but the owners are advised to sensitive skin consult a doctor skin before peeling skin. - Eye Cream and Night Cream: It is recommended to use a gel or cream under the eyes to nourish the skin under the eyes and get rid of fine lines and wrinkles during sleep, and a moisturizing night cream can be applied after washing the face with a mild cleanser before bed; where the use of a regular night cream contributes to moisturizing the skin during sleep and waking up With smooth and supple skin. A recipe for making a mask for the skinThe masks hydrating skin one of the easiest ways to hydrate the skin, which can be manufactured domestically, where you can follow this simple recipe suitable for all skin types, namely: - the ingredients: - One banana. - Two teaspoons of yogurt . - Half a teaspoon of honey. - How to prepare: - Mash bananas for a puree mash. - Mashed banana is mixed with yogurt and honey. - The mask is applied to the face and neck, and left to dry completely on the skin. - The skin is washed with warm water, and dried in a fresh way. Lifestyle changes to skin care at the age of fortyHealthy eating habits can be established for the skin, including: - Getting sufficient sleep: Taking enough sleep and rest is important for the skin; sleeping is recommended for 7-9 hours; this may help delay the onset of signs of aging on the skin, and reduce the tension that leads to premature skin aging In addition, lack of sleep may lead to pallor of the skin, make it lacking in vitality, and may lead to the emergence of skin problems such as acne. - Drinking water: It is recommended to drink 9 cups of water for women, and 13 cups of water for men every day to moisturize the skin. As the skin ages, it reduces the production of natural fats in it, and it is also possible to eat foods containing liquids such as watermelon and fruit juices. - Protecting the skin from the sun: By using a sunscreen to protect the skin from the sun's rays, because it causes damage to the skin and accelerates aging, in addition to that, it is recommended to wear protective clothing, sunglasses and caps with wide rims. - Avoid smoking: it may cause smoking drier and paler in the skin, especially around the mouth, and may lead to premature aging of the skin, and reduces flexibility. - Consult a dermatologist: the dermatologist can determine the type of skin, provide appropriate solutions to the problems you are experiencing, and prescribe the medications needed to treat it.

http://www.gbuzz.space/2020/03/how-do-i-take-care-of-my-skin-at-age-of.html

Before there were lasers, there was aging skin Few things in life are certain – aging is one of these certainties. Aging is unavoidable. Around the age of 30, we begin to lose 1% of our collagen each year. By the time we have turned 40, we have lost 10% of our total collagen content. This is due to a genetically predetermined process commonly referred to as intrinsic aging. Simply put, the balance between active matrix metalloproteinases (enzymes that digest collagen) and neocollagensis (the production of collagen) shifts towards overall collagen loss. There are also extrinsic factors that lead to aging of the skin, these include UV exposure (from the sun), gravity, environmental pollutants, and smoking. Sun damage (UV damage), is one of the most harmful, yet preventable factors leading to visible aging (not to mention skin cancer). UV exposure has been shown to increase wrinkles, causes thinning of the skin, hyperpigmentation, and sun spots (lentigines). These extrinsic factors lead to the production of oxidative stress, which is an overproduction of free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage protein, DNA, and lipids. Together, these factors cumulatively lead to undesirable changes to the skin. References 1) Farage MA, Miller KW, Elsner P, Maibach HI. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors in skin ageing: a review. Int J Cosmet Sci 2008 Apr;30(2):87-95 Scharffetter–Kochanek K, Brenneisen P, Wenk J, Herrmann G, Ma W, Kuhr L, et al. Photoaging of the skin from phenotype to mechanisms. Experimental Gerontology 2000 May;35(3):307-316. Laser Treatments There are many different lasers and energy based devices on the Canadian market. Laser therapy can be used to treat many conditions in the field of medical dermatology and also have beneficial effects in the field of cosmetic dermatology as well. Different modalities of energy based devices include: intense pulse light therapy, fractionated laser, unfractionated laser, ablative laser, and non-ablative laser – all existing at different specific wavelengths or wavelength spectrums. Different chromophores in the skin absorb and react to different wavelengths of energy. Therefore, there is no one single laser that exists as a “one type treats all” . At Hemingway Medical Spa, we offer laser treatments for: - Fine lines and wrinkles - Redness (dilated vessels and telangiectasias) - Age spots (solar lentigines) - Scarring - Acne Scarring - Acne - Stretchmarks - Fat reduction Due to loose standards in Canada, many laser and energy devices can be found in aesthetician offices and salons, which offer little (if any) medical supervision. If you are considering a laser treatment, we recommend that you select a licensed medical professionals clinic. At Hemingway Medical Spa, all of our laser procedures are overseen by Dr. Olesen. Frequently Asked Questions: What is IPL? IPL stands for Intense Pulsed Light. This is not technically a laser, as it a wave-length spectrum, whereas a true laser is only one wave-length. IPL is commonly referred to as a “photo-facial”. What can IPL be used to treat? IPL can be used to treat vascular lesions (like small veins and telangiectasias), sun spots, and freckles. Some IPL devices contain a spectrum of wavelength that is beyond the visible spectrum that can also stimulate collagen production. What is the difference between a fractionated and non-fractionated laser? A fractionated laser delivers small ‘micro-beams’ which preserves the integrity of surrounding tissue, similar to aerating a lawn. Where as a non-fractionated laser causes thermal injury to the entire tissue. What is the difference between an ablative laser and a non-ablative laser? Ablative lasers essentially vaporize the entire layer of skin from the outermost of the skin all the way down to the end point. Non-ablative lasers preserve the outer layer of skin (epidermis) and only cause thermal injury to the underlying skin tissue. What laser is right for me? This is a question that you should not be answering on your own. There are advantages and disadvantages to all laser options. One needs to consider treatment objectives while balancing how much down-time you can afford. A medical professional can help you understand your options. What does it feel like like? IPL treatments typically feel like an ice-cube is being held to your face with an “intermittent and abrupt snapping sensation, like being flicked with an electric rubber band” (Dr. Olesen). A non-ablative laser treatment feels like a wave of warming which peaks after the treatment. Immediately after, the skin has been described as feeling like a mild sunburn. You will likely experience some redness and may experience minor swelling. The redness and swelling is usually resolved in 24 hours. Can laser treatments be combined in a single session? Yes, at Hemingway Medical Spa we offer a combination of IPL followed by a 1540 non-ablative fractionated laser. This treatment is known as the ThreeForMe™ as it targets: facial veins, age spots, and wrinkles. How long does the treatment take? You should plan for 60 minutes to account for time for the topical anesthetic application and effect. The procedure itself usually takes about 15 – 20 minutes. You will be able to drive home after the procedure. How long before I can resume normal activities? You should plan to take the rest of the day off, but the procedure wouldn’t preclude you from doing essential errands or activities – you might just be a little red. Is the treatment safe? When used appropriately there is minimal risk of adverse outcomes. At Hemingway Medical Spa we use a Skintel® Melanin Reader™ which measures the amount of melanin in the skin, which contributes to more accurate assessment and laser settings.

https://hemingwaymedicalspa.com/laser-resurface/

As we age, the body undergoes many natural changes associated with aging skin. Genes determine the natural aging process (intrinsic aging), which cannot be altered, but there is a lot we can do to minimize the effects of premature skin aging (extrinsic aging) caused by our environment and lifestyle. Intrinsic aging is characterized by decreased production of collagen and elastin (which give skin its strength and elasticity), decreased skin cell turnover (shedding of dead cells), and loss of fat beneath skin. These changes manifest as fine wrinkles, thin skin, hollowed cheeks and eye sockets, and sagging dry skin that may itch. These changes usually begin in our 20s, but they do not become noticeable until much later in life. There is little we can do to alter this process. Extrinsic aging, on the other hand, is usually caused by the effects of the sun. It is also known as photoaging. These changes resemble the natural aging of skin, only that they appear much earlier in life. The damage caused by the sun is cumulative, meaning that your skin never forgets your tans and burns - even from your childhood! Your degree of premature skin aging thus depends on the total amount of sun you've received over the years. Smoking can also age skin by producing oxygen free radicals that cause premature wrinkles.

http://bodyandhealth.canada.com/channel/healthy-skin/younger-looking-skin/aging-skin-common-issues

WRINKLES AND FINE LINES This is the most common sign of aging where the skin gets thinner ,less elastic and sluggish cell turnovers. This is worsened with poor lifestyle habits, excessive sun exposure, smoking, lack of sleep, poor hydration etc. Wrinkles can be divided into static and dynamic wrinkles. Both of which, the solutions can be treated with proper aesthetic treatments. Dynamic wrinkles appear when the corresponding muscles contract whilst static wrinkles appear irrelevant to movement. At Renee Clinic, we look into the cause of the individual wrinkles and fine lines and give corresponding treatments. For example, if one has hyperactive mimicking muscle causing premature dynamic wrinkle, we would recommend some Botulinum Toxin A to relax the muscle, therefore reducing the wrinkles. If the skin quality is bad causing sagging and static lines, we would recommend a series of treatment to improve the elasticity of the skin and therefore reducing the lines. At Renee Clinic, we do not believe in one fits all treatment.

https://www.rjclinic.my/wrinklefinelines

Warning: more... Fetching bibliography... Generate a file for use with external citation management software. Aging of the skin is a composite of actinic damage, chronologic aging, and hormonal influences. The majority of changes associated with aging, such as wrinkles and solar lentigines ("liver spots"), are due to photoaging and reflect cumulative sun exposure as well as skin pigmentation. Classically, chronologic aging includes those cutaneous changes that occur in non-sun-exposed areas, such as the buttocks, and are observed in both men and women. A clinical example would be soft tissue sagging due to elastic fiber degeneration. In women, investigations into the effect of hormones on aging of the skin have concentrated on estrogens; in men, there have been a limited number of studies on the influence of testosterone. The latter have shown an age-dependent decrease in tissue androgens in pubic skin, but not scrotal or thigh skin. To date, age has not been shown to have an effect on androgen receptor binding, although a decrease in foreskin 5 alpha-reductase activity with increasing age has been described. In fibroblast cultures from foreskins, there have been conflicting results as to whether 5 alpha-reductase activity decreases in an age-dependent manner. Some of the skin changes that have been categorized as secondary to chronologic aging, such as decreased sebaceous gland activity and decreased hair growth, may actually represent a decline in the concentration of tissue androgens with increasing age. The influence of androgens on age-related changes in keratinocyte and fibroblast function remains speculative. National Center for Biotechnology Information,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7825648?dopt=Abstract

# Tretinoin Tretinoin, also known as all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), is a medication used for the treatment of acne and acute promyelocytic leukemia. For acne, it is applied to the skin as a cream, gel or ointment. For leukemia, it is taken by mouth for up to three months. Topical tretinoin is also the most extensively investigated retinoid therapy for photoaging. Common side effects when used as a cream are limited to the skin and include skin redness, peeling, and sun sensitivity. When used by mouth, side effects include shortness of breath, headache, numbness, depression, skin dryness, itchiness, hair loss, vomiting, muscle pains, and vision changes. Other severe side effects include high white blood cell counts and blood clots. Use during pregnancy is contraindicated due to the risk of birth defects. It is in the retinoid family of medications. Tretinoin was patented in 1957, and approved for medical use in 1962. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Tretinoin is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 230th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 2 million prescriptions. ## Medical uses ### Skin use Tretinoin is most commonly used to treat acne, both inflammatory and noninflammatory. Multiple studies support the efficacy of topical retinoids in the treatment of acne vulgaris. It is sometimes used in conjunction with other topical acne medications to enhance their penetration. In addition to treating active acne, retinoids accelerate the resolution of acne-induced postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. It is also useful as maintenance therapy for people who have responded to their initial treatment, reducing the prolonged use of antibiotics for acne. ### Leukemia Tretinoin is used to induce remission in people with acute promyelocytic leukemia who have a mutation (the t(15;17) translocation that gives rise to the PML::RARα fusion gene). It is not used for maintenance therapy. The evidence is very uncertain about the effect of tretinoin in addition to chemotherapy for patients with an acute myeloid leukemia on diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting and heart-related toxicity grades III/IV. Furthermore, tretinoin in addition to chemotherapy probably results in little to no difference in the mortality, relapse, progress, mortality during the trial and infections grade III/IV. ### Photoaging Photoaging is premature skin aging resulting from prolonged and repeated exposure to solar radiation. Features of photoaging include fine and coarse wrinkles, change in skin pigmentation, and loss of elasticity. In human skin, topical retinoids increase collagen production, induce epidermal hyperplasia, and decrease keratinocyte and melanocyte atypia. Topical tretinoin is the most extensively investigated retinoid therapy for photoaging. Topical tretinoin can be used for mild to severe photoaging in people of all skin types. Several weeks or months of use are typically required before improvement is appreciated. The benefits of topical tretinoin are lost upon discontinuation. Although it has only been studied for a duration of two years, it may be continued indefinitely. A long-term maintenance regimen with a lower concentration or less frequent application may be an alternative to continued use. ## Side effects ### Skin use Topical tretinoin is only for use on the skin and should not be applied to eyes or mucosal tissues. Common side effects include skin irritation, redness, swelling, and blistering. If irritation is a problem, a decrease in the frequency of application to every other or every third night can be considered, and the frequency of application can be increased as tolerance improves. The fine skin flaking that is often seen can be gently exfoliated with a washcloth. A non-comedogenic facial moisturizer can also be applied if needed. Delaying application of the retinoid for at least 20 minutes after washing and drying the face may also be helpful. Topical retinoids are not true photosensitizing drugs, but people using topical retinoids have described symptoms of increased sun sensitivity. This is thought to be due to thinning of the stratum corneum leading to a decreased barrier against ultraviolet light exposure, as well as an enhanced sensitivity due to the presence of cutaneous irritation. ### Leukemia use The oral form of the drug has boxed warnings concerning the risks of retinoic acid syndrome and leukocytosis. Other significant side effects include a risk of thrombosis, benign intracranial hypertension in children, high lipids (hypercholesterolemia and/or hypertriglyceridemia), and liver damage. There are many significant side effects from this drug that include malaise (66%), shivering (63%), hemorrhage (60%), infections (58%), peripheral edema (52%), pain (37%), chest discomfort (32%), edema (29%), disseminated intravascular coagulation (26%), weight increase (23%), injection site reactions (17%), anorexia (17%), weight decrease (17%), and myalgia (14%). Respiratory side effects usually signify retinoic acid syndrome, and include upper respiratory tract disorders (63%), dyspnea (60%), respiratory insufficiency (26%), pleural effusion (20%), pneumonia (14%), rales (14%), and expiratory wheezing (14%), and many others at less than 10%. Around 23% of people taking the drug have reported earache or a feeling of fullness in their ears. Gastrointestinal disorders include bleeding (34%), abdominal pain (31%), diarrhea (23%), constipation (17%), dyspepsia (14%), and swollen belly (11%) and many others at less than 10%. In the cardiovascular system, side effects include arrhythmias (23%), flushing (23%), hypotension (14%), hypertension (11%), phlebitis (11%), and cardiac failure (6%) and for 3% of patients: cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, enlarged heart, heart murmur, ischemia, stroke, myocarditis, pericarditis, pulmonary hypertension, secondary cardiomyopathy. In the nervous system, side effects include dizziness (20%), paresthesias (17%), anxiety (17%), insomnia (14%), depression (14%), confusion (11%), and many others at less than 10% frequency. In the urinary system, side effects include chronic kidney disease (11%) and several others at less than 10% frequency. ## Mechanism of action For its use in cancer, its mechanism of action is unknown, but on a cellular level, laboratory tests show that tretinoin forces APL cells to differentiate and stops them from proliferating; in people there is evidence that it forces the primary cancerous promyelocytes to differentiate and mature into neutrophils, allowing normal cells to repopulate the bone marrow. A recent study showed that ATRA inhibits and degrades active PIN1. For its use in acne, tretinoin (along with other retinoids) are vitamin A derivatives that act by binding to two nuclear receptor families within keratinocytes: the retinoic acid receptors (RAR) and the retinoid X receptors (RXR). These events contribute to the normalization of follicular keratinization and decreased cohesiveness of keratinocytes, resulting in reduced follicular occlusion and microcomedone formation. The retinoid-receptor complex competes for coactivator proteins of AP-1, a key transcription factor involved in inflammation. Retinoids also down-regulate expression of toll-like receptor (TLR)-2, which has been implicated in the inflammatory response in acne. Moreover, tretinoin and retinoids may enhance the penetration of other topical acne medications. The combination of the 10% benzoyl peroxide and light results in more than 50% degradation of tretinoin in about 2 hours and 95% in 24 hours. This lack of stability in the presence of light and oxidizing agents has led to the development of novel formulations of the drug. When microencapsulated tretinoin is exposed to benzoyl peroxide and light only 1% degradation takes place in about 4 hours and only 13% after 24 hours. ## Biosynthesis Tretinoin is synthesized from beta-carotene. The beta-carotene is firstly cleaved into beta-carotene 15-15'-monooxygenase through site 1 double bond oxidized to epoxide. The epoxide is attacked by water to form diol in site 1. NADH, as a reduction agent, reduce the alcohol group to aldehydes. ## History Tretinoin was co-developed for its use in acne by James Fulton and Albert Kligman when they were at University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s. Phase I trials, the first conducted on human subjects, were performed on inmates at Holmesburg Prison during a long-running regime of non-therapeutic and unethical testing on prison inmates at Holmesburg. The University of Pennsylvania held the patent for Retin-A, which it licensed to pharmaceutical companies. Treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia was first introduced at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai by Wang Zhenyi in a 1988 clinical trial. ## Etymology The origin of the name tretinoin is uncertain, although several sources agree (one with probability, one with asserted certainty) that it probably comes from trans- + retinoic + -in, which is plausible given that tretinoin is the all-trans isomer of retinoic acid. The name isotretinoin is the same root tretinoin plus the prefix iso-. Regarding pronunciation, the following variants apply equally to both tretinoin and isotretinoin. Given that retinoic is pronounced /ˌrɛtɪˈnoʊɪk/, it is natural that /ˌtrɛtɪˈnoʊɪn/ is a commonly heard pronunciation. Dictionary transcriptions also include /ˌtrɪˈtɪnoʊɪn/ (tri-TIN-oh-in) and /ˈtrɛtɪnɔɪn/. ## Hair loss Tretinoin has been explored as a treatment for hair loss, potentially as a way to increase the ability of minoxidil to penetrate the scalp, but the evidence is weak and contradictory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATCvet_code_QL01XX14

Skin is one of the most complicated organs in the human body when it comes to structure and function. It serves as a physical barrier, prevents electrolyte and water loss, regulates body temperature, and aids the immune system in fighting pathogens. There are several receptors, such as autonomic and sensory receptors, that respond to various exogenous stimuli including vibration, touch, temperature, pressure, itch, and pain. There are 3 main layers in the skin named epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis, from the outermost to the innermost, respectively, and each is divided into several other layers themselves (Fig. 1 and 2). The condition of the skin reflects very much on one’s general state of health and is relatively malleable. This article will summarize ways in which the reader can keep their skin healthy as they age. What Happens to the Skin with Aging? Aging is mainly characterized by intrinsic (chronologic) and extrinsic processes. Chronologic aging is considered genetically driven, a process that is irresistible and followed by laxity and exaggerating expression lines (Khavkin and Ellis 2011). In addition, a combination of factors such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation, high alcohol consumption, tobacco, low body mass index (BMI), air pollution, and lower socioeconomic status contribute to skin aging (Goodman et al., 2019). Skin aging is a natural process that presents as laxity, wrinkling, and pigmentation changes (Khavkin and Ellis 2011). Wrinkles (rhytids) develop at fault lines in aged skin. Although the mechanisms differ, the lines are a consequence of facial expressions and possibly skin deformity caused by mechanical compression during sleep. Shear, stress forces, and compression affect the face in lateral or prone sleep positions (Anson et al. 2016). Flattening of the dermal-epidermal junction leads to a thinner epidermis. Surface area loss of dermal-epidermal interface results in higher fragility and lowered transfer of nutrients through dermis and epidermis. Slower wound healing, as well as less functional desquamation, happens due to a decreased epidermal cell turnover. Changes lead to skin atrophy, reduced fibroblasts, and subdermal adipose tissue. Collagen fiber bundles reduce with age and lead to a decreased collagen type III/I ratio. External factors, in particular sun exposure, contribute to extrinsic aging. Photoaging manifests as rhytids, dryness, irregular pigmentation, telangiectasias, loss of elasticity, and purpura. Histological features of aged skin include elastin accumulation below the dermal-epidermal junction or elastosis in addition to epidermal atrophy, collagen, and elastic fibers fragmentation (Khavkin and Ellis 2011). Fig 1. The 3 layers of the skin: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis (Wikimedia) Fig. 2: Layers of the epidermis (hematoxylin-eosin 10x) (Wikimedia) Factors that Contribute to Aging of the Skin We might not be able to stop the clock on the aging of our skin, but we can influence the velocity of the change. Below are seven factors that contribute to skin health. Knowledge of these factors can help you maintain healthy and glowing skin well into your older years. 1. Diet and Hydration Diet is a critical player in the treatment and prevention of many diseases, including dermatological disorders. Acne, skin cancer (e.g., NMSC), skin aging, and psoriasis are examples of skin diseases that might benefit from a rich and healthy diet (Rezaković et al., 2014). If you have a skin disorder, it is a good idea to take a closer look at your diet and determine which foods may be playing a role. Lifestyle and dietary modifications can help improve many skin disorders manifestations and their severity, namely acne, psoriasis, and even the aging process (Katta and Desai 2014). Inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis (AD), acne vulgaris (AV), and psoriasis benefit from a healthy and nutrient-rich diet. Healthy foods may decrease skin findings and reduce inflammation. The goal is to follow a lower glycemic index (GI) by avoiding bread, rice, pasta, and cereal and using acids such as lemon juice or vinegar to lower AGEs to 50% (Prussick 2019). To conclude, diet and food intake are involved in preventing several diseases such as systemic and dermatological disorders and impacting one’s health. Here is an article with more information on healthy carbohydrate options and dietary suggestions. Hydration status is important not only to maintain good skin health but for general health. The skin contains about 30% water and is a barrier to water loss. It is, however, semi-permeable, with water exiting through the sweat glands. Outdoor exposure to high-intensity sunlight can accelerate dehydration. Hydration maintains thermoregulation, organ function, proper vascular mechanics, and healing. Some studies have shown improvement in wound healing when hydration status is optimal. Contrary to popular opinion, adequate hydration will not ward off wrinkles. Fig. 4: Food can effect level of blood sugar and consequently impact the skin 2. Exercise Exercise is beneficial for skin health and can reduce the changes of aging. According to the literature, impaired mitochondrial metabolism results in the changes seen in aging skin. Based on a paper published by Crane et al., exercising regulated the expression of IL-15 via skeletal muscle AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). Muscle AMPK eradication leads to skin degeneration thus low doses of IL-15 treatment might be a favourable option to diminish skin aging besides improving wound healing (Crane et al. 2015; Wong et al. 2019). Additionally, advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) increase with aging and are involved in metabolic disorders and tissue modifications. Hence, long-term exercise reduces glycation and improves Achilles tendon size, preventing injury (Hjerrild et al. 2019). Facial skin aging is linked to weakened and depleted mimetic muscles. Therefore, one practical tactic is resistance training of facial mimetic muscles to tackle skin aging. Kyunghee facial resistance program (KFRP) results in a more firm and elastic skin and represents a positive role in facial and neck skin elasticity and mechanical properties. This exercise program is isometric and includes five resistant movements using fingers (Kim et al. 2016). Continued exercise training affects the skin blood flow in response to exercise, along with cutaneous microvascular reactivity changes (Simmons et al., 2011). 3. Sleep Skin sleep wrinkles occur due to sleep position and site of superficial muscular aponeurotic system (SMAS) condensation. Sleeping on the side or prone will put facial tissues at the risk of tensile, shear, and compression mechanical forces (Fig. 6). Sleeping duration and position significantly affect these forces and their consequences. Supine (back) sleeping is recommended, even though we unconsciously change our position during our sleep, and it might take a long time (4 weeks) to adjust to changes in sleeping routines (Anson et al., 2016). Based on another study, persistent poor-quality sleep increases the signs of diminished skin barrier function, intrinsic aging, and lower appearance satisfaction. In addition, poor sleepers have higher levels of uneven pigmentation, fine wrinkling, skin laxity, benign skin growth, and loss of subcutaneous fat compared to good sleepers. Therefore, good sleep quality aids skin recovery from UV-induced erythema and improves the self-perception of general appearance. Acute sleep deprivation and stress are possible factors in damaging the integrity of human skin. Decreased skin barrier function recovery is an outcome of acute sleep loss. Moreover, the risk of obesity is higher in chronic sleep deficiency (Oyetakin-White et al. 2015). As it has been stated in the literature, sleep disorders may be associated with dermatological disorders, including eczema, psoriasis, and skin cancer (Walia and Mehra 2016). Common expression wrinkles. 4. Substance Use: Smoking and Alcohol Smoking and alcohol consumption are well-documented to affect the skin and prematurely age the skin. Smoking is associated with cutaneous microvascular constriction. This is induced by the amount and duration of the exposure to smoking. Alcohol consumption impacts the skin’s antioxidant defense system as it decreases carotenoid concentrations in the dermis. Alcohol also leads to peripheral vasodilation that results in facial capillaries becoming dilated. Under-eye puffiness, wrinkles, uneven skin tone, as well as losing volume under the eyes, lips, and midface are possible manifestations of age (Goodman et al. 2019). Several subtypes of the nicotinic class of acetylcholine receptors, such as the α7 receptor, are present and expressed on all skin cell types. Neither wrinkles nor colors disappear when the lesion is stretched. The longer the habit, the higher the degree. Cessation of the habit, especially if it is not of long duration, eventuates in the disappearance of the lesion (Ortiz and Grando 2012). 5. Skin injury and sunburn UV radiation can be both beneficial and harmful to the human skin. UV exposure results in immunosuppression, sunburn, carcinogenesis, and skin aging. Thus, photoprotection is highly recommended. UV radiation may also assist in the diagnosis and treatment of many skin disorders. Photobiology is mainly focused on the UV spectrum, which can be both therapeutic and harmful in dermatology. UV can harm the skin via sunburn, UV-induced skin cancers, and premature skin aging. It also plays a role in cutaneous disease treatment, including atopic dermatitis (AD), T-cell lymphoma, psoriasis, and diagnosis of several other diseases. Generally, short-wavelength light is used to treat epidermal diseases, and long-wavelength light targets deeper layers, for instance, thicker lesions and even sebaceous glands. UV light is subdivided into 4 types based on their wavelength ranges, such as UVC (200-280 nm), UVB (280-320 nm), UVA2 (320-340 nm), and UVA1 (340-400 nm). UVA can penetrate the deep dermis, and UVB is absorbed in the epidermal layer. The area of the electromagnetic spectrum which has the highest impact on cutaneous health and disease is called UVR. Thus, post-UVR exposure acute changes like tanning, sunburn, epidermal hyperplasia, proinflammatory and immunosuppressive modifications, and synthesis of vitamin D. Besides, other chronic changes may manifest upon UV radiation such as photoaging and photocarcinogenesis. As such, photoprotection is crucial in UVR exposure. Various skin disorders, including AD, psoriasis, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), scleroderma, vitiligo, facial rejuvenation, and acne (Christensen et al., 2017). 6. Anti-aging topical skin treatments UV radiation plays a crucial role in skin sunburn and might also lead to harmful products that develop skin aging through reactive oxygen species (ROS). Several pharmaceutical dosage forms, for instance, creams supplemented with antioxidants, prevent the unwanted outcomes of UV exposure by ROS quench. Herbal creams consisting of Phytoextracts fight against UV exposure injuries. Some examples of these herbals are Acacia nilotica, Benincasa hispida, Calendula officinalis, Camellia sinensis, Camellia sinensis, Nelumbo nucifera, Capparis decidua, Castanea sativa, Coffea arabica, Crocus sativus, Emblica officinalis Gaertn, Foeniculum vulgare, Hippophae rhamnoides, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, Malus domestica, Matricaria chamomilla L., Moringa oleifera, Morus alba, Ocimum basilicum, Oryza sativa, Polygonum minus, Punica granatum, Silybum marianum, Tagetes erecta Linn., Terminalia chebula, Trigonella foenumgraecum, and Vitis vinifera. In addition, flavonoids and phenolic acids play a role in skin protection against UV-induced damage. Although, more research and studies are required to confirm their anti-aging effects (Jadoon et al., 2015). Several other supplements, both internal and topical, help as anti-aging compounds, including curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) content in the green tea, collagen, CoQ10, Crocin, theanine, Rhodiola, garlic, astragalus, fisetin, resveratrol (Kubala and Seitz 2020) . 7. Skin and the microbiome The role of the skin microbiome in skin aging has been well-documented in the literature. The skin has a variety of microenvironments for bacteria, depending on the pH, gender, moisture, temperature, and products secreted in specialized areas of the skin. Extrinsic factors include clothing worn, creams applied, cosmetics, and antibiotics. Changes associated with aging shift the microbiome of the skin. For instance, adolescent changes in sebum production lead to the colonization of the yeast Malassezia. Several predominating microbial communities exist on the skin, including, i.e., Cyanobacteria, Staphylococcus, Cutibacterium (formerly Propionibacterium acnes), Lactobacillus, Corynebacterium, Streptococcus, Neisseria, Candida, and Malassezia. Interestingly, the condition of the microbiome of the skin and gut may impact the process of aging in the skin. A greater understanding of the microbiome will allow a more predictive assessment of the status of human health. Other factors that affect skin aging include resistance to UV radiation, immune response modifications, metabolism, and the biosynthesis of substances related to age (Li et al. 2020). Summary Skin changes with aging are variable and modifiable to some extent. The human body interacts on all levels, the skin being the tip of the iceberg. When care is taken with lifestyle choices, including diet, exercise, sleep, stress, it can have benefits on the health of your skin. Shahrzad Alimohammadi is a Pharm.D. and currently a junior research fellow at the Department of Immunology, University of Debrecen. She is a Ph.D. candidate, and her research mainly focuses on the skin’s immune cells, including Langerhans cells and dendritic cells and their possible roles in the skin! Pharmaceutical technology, as well as dermatology, are her favorite topics when it comes to research. In the dermatological field, Shahrzad is interested in inflammatory and immune-related skin diseases and cosmetic dermatology. References Anson G, Kane MAC, Lambros V. Sleep Wrinkles: Facial Aging and Facial Distortion During Sleep. Aesthet Surg J. 2016;36(8):931–40. Christensen L, Suggs A, Baron E. Ultraviolet Photobiology in Dermatology. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2017;996:89–104. Crane JD, MacNeil LG, Lally JS, Ford RJ, Bujak AL, Brar IK, et al. Exercise-stimulated interleukin-15 is controlled by AMPK and regulates skin metabolism and aging. Aging Cell. 2015;14(4):625–34. Goodman GD, Kaufman J, Day D, Weiss R, Kawata AK, Garcia JK, et al. Impact of Smoking and Alcohol Use on Facial Aging in Women: Results of a Large Multinational, Multiracial, Cross-sectional Survey. J Clin Aesthet Dermatol. 2019;12(8):28–39. Hjerrild JN, Wobbe A, Stausholm MB, Larsen AE, Josefsen CO, Malmgaard-Clausen NM, et/ al. Effects of Long-Term Physical Activity and Diet on Skin Glycation and Achilles Tendon Structure. Nutrients. 2019;11(6). Jadoon S, Karim S, Bin Asad MHH, Akram MR, Khan AK, Malik A, et al. Anti-Aging Potential of Phytoextract Loaded-Pharmaceutical Creams for Human Skin Cell Longetivity. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2015;2015:709628. Khavkin J, Ellis DAF. Aging skin: histology, physiology, and pathology. Facial Plast Surg Clin North Am. 2011;19(2):229–34. Kim K, Jeon S, Kim J-K, Hwang JS. Effects of Kyunghee Facial Resistance Program (KFRP) on mechanical and elastic properties of skin. J Dermatolog Treat. 2016;27(2):191–6. Kubala and Seitz J Adrienne. The 12 Best Anti-Aging Supplements [Internet]. Healthline. 2020 [cited 2021 Jun 7]. Available from: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/anti-aging- supplements. Li Z, Bai X, Peng T, Yi X, Luo L, Yang J, et al. New Insights Into the Skin Microbial Communities and Skin Aging. Front Microbiol. 2020;11 Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7649423/ Ortiz A, Grando SA. Smoking and the skin. Int J Dermatol. 2012;51(3):250–62 Oyetakin-White P, Suggs A, Koo B, Matsui MS, Yarosh D, Cooper KD, et al. Does poor sleep quality affect skin ageing? Clin Exp Dermatol. 2015;40(1):17–22. Simmons GH, Wong BJ, Holowatz LA, Kenney WL. Changes in the control of skin blood flow with exercise training: where do cutaneous vascular adaptations fit in? Exp Physiol. 2011;96(9):822–8. Walia HK, Mehra R. Overview of Common Sleep Disorders and Intersection with Dermatologic Conditions. Int J Mol Sci. 2016;17(5).

https://yourhealthforumbydrcirino.org/2021/06/08/protect-your-skin/

What are wrinkles? Wrinkles are creases and lines on the skin. These lines may appear around the eyes, mouth, cheeks, forehead, and even the neck. When these lines are wider and deeper, they are called furrows or folds. On the face, the earliest areas to forms wrinkles are around the eyes and mouth. Lines and wrinkles begin for form around the age of 30. What are the causes of wrinkles? There are two types of wrinkles, resting wrinkles and movement wrinkles. Resting wrinkles result from: - Intrinsic aging: Over time, loss of both quality and quantity of connective tissue components elastin and collagen produce resting wrinkles - Sun exposure: frequent, prolonged, and repeated solar irradiation accelerate the natural changes to the connective tissue components, resulting in premature wrinkling and other skin changes such as skin growths and skin cancers. - Smoking: Another frequent but completely preventable source of accelerated aging is tobacco smoking. Lines around the mouth can be a sign of this pollutant. - Other factors: injuries from trauma, surgery, acne, and inflammation can also cause wrinkling. - Skin dryness : Excessive dryness of the skin, from imbalance of water and lipid soluble contents in the natural skin barrer, can create the appearance of crakes on the skin, creating an illusion of fine lines and wrinkles. Movement wrinkles result from: - Facial movement: repeat movement, especially around the eyes, mouth, forehead causes increasing deep movement wrinkles. When movement wrinkles are prolonged, these wrinkles may even become apparent even at rest, exaggerating resting wrinkles. What are the treatments for wrinkles?

https://aacplasticsurgery.com/conditions/wrinkles/

Cream restores the natural hydro-balance of the skin, improves its elasticity and smoothes fine lines. Helps prevent premature aging of cells and activate the synthesis of collagen and elastin. Strengthens the capillaries of the skin and makes them more flexible.The universal formula of the cream can be used for softening and moisturizing the skin of the body. Shea butter provides moisturizing and regenerative effects. Slows down the aging of the skin, smooths wrinkles. Mango butter eliminates wrinkles and age spots, pores, peeling, it helps to restore damaged skin. Has regenerating, anti-inflammatory properties, improves skin elasticity.

http://www.sweetcorea.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1004138

What are Peptides? The word peptide is derived from the Greek word peptos. They are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. The simplest forms of peptides include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. Another form of peptide is a polypeptide. It is a long, continuous and unbranched peptide chain. Peptides are exclusively formed from proteins and are based on size; all peptides contain up to 50 amino acids. Peptides can be classified according to their sources and function. There are organisms that produce peptides as hormones and signaling molecules while others produce peptides as antibiotics such as microclines. It often has posttranslational modifications, which is a biochemical modification that can occur to the amino acids. Examples of organisms that experience posttranslational modifications include phosphorylation, hydroxylation, sulfonation, palmitoylation, and glycosylation and disulfide formation. Non-ribosomal peptides are assembled by enzymes. Glutathione is a common non-ribosomal peptide. It is a component of antioxidant defenses of the most aerobic organisms. What do Peptides Do? Peptides work within our bodies to help with various necessary functions. Many of these peptides see a reduction as we age so it is important that we replenish them. Some examples of the functions that peptides have include: Help with wound healing. Muscle growth and reparation. Reduce fine lines and wrinkles Assist with sleep cycles Boost immune health Reduce soreness after a hefty workout They can kill microbes. Reduce high blood pressure. Reduce inflammation Act as antioxidants Prevent the formation of blood clots Sources of Peptides Most peptides come from animal sources of protein, such as eggs, milk, fish or shellfish, beans and lentils, oats, flaxseed, and more. They are typically found in the human body and are produced in various organs. Based on nutritionists, bioactive peptides have more beneficial effects within the human body. However, synthetic peptides are a common way to increase the instance of peptides in an individual’s system and some peptides that are commonly used include: Collagen peptides which reverse the effects of aging and are beneficial for your skin. Creatine peptides that build strength and increase muscle mass. Peptides hormones which are responsible for an enhancement in athletic activity. More Information on How Peptides Work Improve Immune System There are some peptides that increase the amount of T cells that are produced to fight or aid with attacking and destroying viruses such as the flu. Slows the Ageing Cycle Hair and nails are the product of collagen. Collagen, like many other peptides, reduces naturally as we age making fine lines and wrinkles what we must look forward to. However, studies indicate that collagen rich food supplements can improve skin elasticity, skin wrinkles, and skin hydration. Peptides may incite the production of melanin, which acts as a skin’s protector against harmful sunlight radiation. Improve the Wound Healing: There are many peptides which can facilitate faster wound healing through an array of methods. Bioactive peptides can reduce inflammation, which can aid in quick healing. In contrast, excess or reduced levels of antimicrobial peptides may enhance skin diseases such as psoriasis, eczema, and rosacea, etc. Boost up your Strength and Muscle Mass: Research has shown that peptides can boost your strength and muscle mass. Creatine peptides are one known variety of peptides that are known to boost strength and help to build muscle. Collagen and creatine peptides are easy to digest and less responsible for digestive problems. Prevent Age Induced Bone Loss: Scientists have found that collagen peptides may increase bone mass in rats which is a positive outlook if it can be replicated in humans. Another study done with animals found that peptides are useful in restricting the loss of bone mass due to age. In case of humans, more research data is still needed.

https://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/peptides-a-general-understanding-of-what-they-are-and-how-they-work

Photoaging is premature aging of the skin caused by repeated exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV) primarily from the sun, but also from artificial UV sources.”Photo” is derived the Greek word “phos” which means “light”. So, aging of the skin caused by light. Photoaging is different from chronologic aging, as the damaging effects of UV rays from the sun (or artificial tanning sources) alter the normal structures of the skin.

https://www.drpaulcohen.com/conditions-treatments/photoaging/

Photo rejuvenation/ Photo facial is a skin treatment that uses lasers, intense pulsed light, or photodynamic therapy to treat skin conditions and remove effects of photoaging such as wrinkles, spots, and textures. The process induces controlled wounds on the skin, prompting it to heal itself by creating new cells. This process reverses the signs of photoaging to a certain extent by removing appearances of damage. After your first treatment, you can expect to see some redness, darkening of brown spots, and slight swelling. These symptoms will resolve in several hours to one week. Makeup can be immediately applied, if desired. After the treatment, your skin will feel smoother and have a more even tone. Depending on which part of your body is being treated and how large the area is, the treatment should take 20 to 30 minutes. To get the results you want, you may need to have three to six treatments.

http://lasersandfacials.com/photorejuvenation-photofacial/

Background: Social media has become widely used by individual researchers and professional organizations to translate research evidence into health care practice. Despite its increasing popularity, few social media initiatives consider the theoretical perspectives of how social media works as a knowledge translation strategy to affect research use. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework to understand how social media works as a knowledge translation strategy for health care providers, policy makers, and patients to inform their health care decision-making. Methods: We developed this framework using an integrative approach that first involved reviewing 5 long-standing social media initiatives. We then drafted the initial framework using a deductive approach by referring to 5 theories on social media studies and knowledge translation. A total of 58 empirical studies on factors that influenced the use of social media and its messages and strategies for promoting the use of research evidence via social media were further integrated to substantiate and fine-tune our initial framework. Through an iterative process, we developed the Social Media for ImpLementing Evidence (SMILE) framework. Results: The SMILE framework has six key constructs: developers, messages and delivery strategies, recipients, context, triggers, and outcomes. For social media to effectively enable recipients to use research evidence in their decision-making, the framework proposes that social media content developers respond to target recipients' needs and context and develop relevant messages and appropriate delivery strategies. The recipients' use of social media messages is influenced by the virtual-technical, individual, organizational, and system contexts and can be activated by three types of triggers: sparks, facilitators, and signals. Conclusions: The SMILE framework maps the factors that are hypothesized to influence the use of social media messages by recipients and offers a heuristic device for social media content developers to create interventions for promoting the use of evidence in health care decision-making. Empirical studies are now needed to test the propositions of this framework.

https://researchnow.flinders.edu.au/en/publications/social-media-for-implementing-evidence-smile-conceptual-framework

The proposed study will examine how mock juries assess testimony and evidence in a drug conspiracy trial. To fully understand how such juror instructions shape decision-making, the proposed research will administer scientifically-based instructions to randomly assigned jury groups in a courtroom setting. This research will inform policy regarding the use of informants and promote effective strategies to enhance the credibility of witnesses and contribute to the overall fairness in the criminal justice process.

https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/awards/2017-ij-cx-0044

Informatics experts see Digital Health, NEST as next frontier for policy development and public-private collaboration (BETHESDA, MD) — In conjunction with a public meeting held today, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) submitted comments supporting the direction of FDA’s Medical Device User Fee Amendments, known as MDUFA IV, which was published in late October. The nation’s biomedical informaticians view policy development around the formation of a National Evaluation System for health Technology (NEST) and a framework for Digital Health, as critical areas to focus in the coming months. During today’s meeting, officials from the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) discussed proposed performance goals and procedures to assure more timely access to safe and effective medical devices. The MDUFA IV commitment letter, produced as the result of long negotiations with regulated industry, will dictate how user fees are spent to improve the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of device reviews. Specifically, AMIA supports FDA’s commitments to enhance use of consensus standards; develop patient engagement strategies and improve the science of patient input; utilize real world evidence (RWE) to improve regulatory decision-making and in support of a National Evaluation System for health Technology (NEST); and development of a policy framework for Digital Health, which includes Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) and Software inside of Medical Devices (SiMD). “Historically, AMIA has not engaged with FDA over its priorities for medical device review,” the organization said in comments. “However, recent FDA musings on evidence generation, along with several recent guidance documents, signal clear interest by the Administration to leverage informatics tools and methodologies to augment regulatory decision-making. We fully support these efforts and believe AMIA members are well-positioned to help FDA realize the tremendous value of real world data to inform medical device reviews and surveillance.” The development of a National Evaluation System and formation of a policy framework for Digital Health are among the more interesting aspects of MDUFA IV, and will require strong collaboration among policymakers, industry, patients and researchers, AMIA said. “The merging of software and medical devices is a truly exciting, and somewhat daunting, area for policy development. We fully support this development and offer our members’ informatics expertise to help FDA supplement its competencies in this space.” The full MDUFA IV letter can be viewed here. ### AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, is the center of action for 5,000 informatics professionals from more than 65 countries. As the voice of the nation’s top biomedical and health informatics professionals, AMIA and its members play a leading role in assessing the effect of health innovations on health policy, and advancing the field of informatics. AMIA actively supports five domains in informatics: translational bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, clinical informatics, consumer health informatics, and public health informatics.

https://www.amia.org/news-and-publications/press-release/amia-supports-fda-commitments-mdufa-iv

Management World is supervised by Development Research Center of The State Council, and sponsored by Development Research Center of The State Council. It aims to reflect the multi-field and multi-disciplinary research on China’s economic and social management issues, and to provide services for China’s economic reform and development. Its scope covers fiscal and financial research, rural economics, macroeconomic management, public management, business management, industrial and regional development. The journal, included in CSSCI and JST, has been in the top list in the field of economic management for many years, and achieved a very high reputation from readers all over the world. - Editor-in-Chief Li Kemu Deputy Editor-in-Chief Tian Yuan,He Shaohua, Lu Jian, Jiang Dongsheng Editorial Board Ma Xiaogang, Qiao Renyi, Li Jiping, Li Menggang, Li Peiyu, Zhang Xinmmin, Shen Bainian, Chen Dongsheng, Cheng Quansheng, Zhao Jie,Tuo Zhen Performance of state-owned enterprises carrying out employee stock ownership plan: incentive compatibility or deficiency? Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is the key in the mixed ownership reform of SOEs. It is of great significance to optimize the layout of national economy and promote the expansion of state-owned capital. According to the analytical framework of “management incentive—corporate governance—incentive effect,” this paper empirically tested the impact path of ESOP on the operating performance of SOEs. The findings are as follows. (1) The average participation proportion of management in ESOP is 22% and the proportion in private enterprises is 27%. The proportion in SOEs is significantly lower than that in private enterprises. (2) Compared with private enterprises, SOEs implementing ESOP have no significant improvement in corporate governance in terms of reducing agency costs, improving investment efficiency and reducing excessive employment. (3) The operating performance of SOEs implementing ESOP is poorer than that of private enterprises. In terms of market response, the short-term announcement effect of SOEs is not different from that of private enterprises, but the long-term announcement effect is significantly lower than that of private enterprises. In addition, in comparison with private enterprises, the growth of financial performance of SOEs is also hindered. However, the gap in financial performance between SOEs whose stock are from non-public offering and private enterprises has narrowed. In order to deepen the mixed ownership reform of SOEs, it is suggested that SOEs should increase the proportion of management participation and strengthen the performance appraisal and supervision mechanism at the system design level of ESOP. At the same time, SOEs should be encouraged to implement the ESOP through the issuance of new shares. The effect of value-added tax rate on firm value: evidence from the reaction of stock market Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 The logic of the VAT rate affecting the firm is quite different from that of other taxes. However, the research has not paid enough attention to the impact of the VAT rate. Using China’s reforms in April 2017 to reduce the 13% VAT rate to 11%, and based on the event study, this paper found that compared with other firms, shareholders of firms with reduced VAT rates increased their wealth by an average of about 0.3% in the [0, 1] event window period, which is equivalent to an increase in the total wealth of the 37 billion shareholders. The following empirical analysis examines the two paths of VAT rate affecting firm value: “price effect” and “tax burden effect.” We have further identified specific sources of “tax burden effects.” In addition, we found that the “tax burden effect” has a greater impact than the “price effect” comparatively. Finally, the value effect of the VAT rate mainly exists in non-state-owned firms; the existence of export tax rebate policy makes non-export firms more affected by the VAT rate. This paper provides empirical evidence of the value effect of VAT rate, and systematically reveals the specific source of the value effect of VAT rate and the relative importance of each source, which makes the conclusion of this paper have important theoretical value and policy implications. Bank loan availability and corporate trade credit: quasi-natural experiment evidence from interest rate liberalization of China Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 Taking the loan interest rate liberalization reform in China’s financial market as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper comparatively examines how the exogenous impact of liberalizing loan interest rate cap and lower limit on the bank loan availability of firms influences corporate trade credit. The results show that, compared with low-risk firms, high-risk firms significantly reduce more trade credit after loan interest rate cap is liberalized and increase more trade credit after the loan interest rate lower limit is liberalized. The test results of cross-sectional differences show that the influence of interest rate liberalization on corporate trade credit mainly exists in regions with a relatively low level of financial development, regions with a relatively high level of trust, and firm groups with relatively strong bargaining power. This paper has provided new empirical evidence from China’s interest rate liberalization for the substitution between loan availability and corporate trade credit, which is of great significance for understanding the financing function of corporate trade credit and how interest rate liberalization reform influences the financial decisions of micro firms. “Helping to get onto horseback and escorting for a while”: an empirical study of intergenerational succession and strategy change from the perspective of paternalism Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 The Chinese proverb, “helping to get onto horseback and escorting for a while,” means that successors need their predecessors’ help to not only ascend but overcome the obstacles during the succession turmoil. The phenomenon is very common during parent-child co-governance in family business, but its strategic motive is not clear yet. Based on the logic of paternalism, this paper studied the strategy changes in different stages of succession. Through the sample of Chinese listed family businesses from 2006 to 2015, we found a significant strategy change before the second generation to take over family business, but the effect may fade after the second generation takes real power. In addition, closer kinship between two generations means more remarkable strategy change in the preparation stage. The cognitive differences between two generations are negatively associated with the strategy change after the succession. Further study found that if a parent completely resigns from a firm, the second generation’s succession has no significant effect on strategy change. All in all, although the second generation does not dominate the strategic decision-making of family business, the parents will carry out strategy changes to pave the way for the second generation’s succession. However, the paternalism underlying strategy changes will be at the price of decrease in firm performance in the short run. Choosing in the fog: research on managers’ paradox coping strategies and paths in the context of innovation Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 With the continuous deepening of enterprises’ innovation activities, the issue of how managers perceive and respond to paradoxes, so as to conduct effective exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation has been unresolved. From the perspective of sense-making, this paper takes the Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security as the case study object, analyzes and constructs the specific process of strategy selection of managers’ paradox coping through grounded theory. The study has found the following: (1) When dealing with contradictions, the managers can adopt two strategies of integration and separation. (2) The attention allocation of the managers on competing demands affects paradox coping strategy choices. When the attention allocation of the managers to competing demands is unbalanced, the separation strategy will be adopted; and when it is balanced, the strategy choices are affected by the degree of resource redundancy. (3) When the attention allocation is balanced, the choice of managers’ paradox coping strategies is subject to resource redundancy or resource scarcity, and there are two types of coping strategies. When organizational resources are redundant, the managers’ paradox perception is relatively weak, and the separation strategy will be formed. When resources are scarce, the managers will have a strong perception of organizational paradox, but the coping strategies adopted are influenced by paradoxical thinking. (4) When the managers’ paradox perception is strong, if the managers have paradoxical thinking, and tend to cope actively, the integration strategy will be adopted. If the managers do not have paradoxical thinking, defensive tendency will be generated, and the separation strategy will be adopted. The research results in this paper enrich the theory of leader behavior, and can be instructive for managers coping with organizational paradoxes at the same time. Impact of board informal hierarchy on decision-making process: political behaviors or procedural rationality Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 This paper explored the process mechanism for the informal relationship between directors affecting the strategic decision-making of the board of directors in the transitional environment of China. The mechanism for the influence board informal hierarchy on the decision-making process in Chinese cultural background was investigated based on the data related to the decision-making process of board of directors of listed companies from cooperative survey with China Association for Public Companies and the data from the database of listed companies. The research found that the board informal hierarchy increases PB and reduces PR in the decision-making process. After further subdividing the PB and PR, this paper found that the board informal hierarchy increases the PB by improving the self-consciousness and individual influence of directors and reduces the PR by reducing the information searching and processing in the decision-making process. The result of the paper reveals the differentiation and competition functions of the board informal hierarchy in the transitional environment, opens up the “black box” of the decision-making process of board of directors to some extent, and enriches the research of the decision-making process, which contributes to the research of corporate governance behavior in the transitional environment and also enlightens the practice of corporate governance in China. Comprehensive research report on China Livelihood Survey 2018: ensuring people’s livelihood in the new era Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government has committed to a people-centered approach of development, and placed people’s access to childcare, education, employment, medical services, elderly care, housing and social assistance as the core of people’s livelihood work. Focusing on the improvement of people’s livelihood, we continued the expansion in funding, deepened reforms and improved our work in all areas, and people’s satisfaction on livelihood constantly improved. From the annual survey result of the Research Group of China’s livelihood index, from 2013–2017, a marked number of about 90% of urban and rural residents were‘ very satisfied,’ ‘satisfied’ or ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’ with their overall living situation; people also had strong confidence in future life, which continuously increased in 2016 and 2017. In 2017, the proportion of people feeling ‘very confident,’ ‘confident’ or ‘neither confident nor unconfident’ reached 90%. Meanwhile, urban and rural residents’ degree of satisfaction with each aspect of livelihood was constantly improved. People’s satisfaction with public security, food safety and living environment grew rapidly; the growth in the section of employment, housing, community public service, judicial fairness and transportation was also fast; the satisfaction on social welfare, government service, healthcare and education also improved steadily. With food safety governance and ecological civilization construction driving forward, the degree of satisfaction with food safety and environmental protection, in particular, improved dramatically, and the short board of people’s livelihood was largely filled. New features also showed in the concerns and demands of urban and rural residents’ livelihood as social principal contradiction kept changing. In the survey result of 2017, the prior concern of domestic life was income, consisting of 29.2%, up by 0.9 percentage point than 2016. Medical service was in the second place with a number of 12.2%, down by 2.3 percentage point than last year; the third was housing and elderly care. In terms of social environment concerns, the top two were food safety and environmental pollution. In 2017, the satisfaction on these two sections was improved, but further improvement in food safety and environmental pollution governance were still strong concerns of urban and rural residents; the improvement in transports ranked the third. The public had specific concerns and demands in employment, healthcare, education, housing, environment protection, food security, elderly care, government service etc. From the result of people’s livelihood index, there were wide differences between various provinces in livelihood improvement. The regional gap of the people’s livelihood index continued to narrow, while the range of the narrowing was shrinking. The equalization of public service lost momentum, while better improvement was achieved in developed regions; part of the eastern coastal regions experienced more remarkable improvement in public security. In terms of living environment, the improvement in the eastern coastal and north-eastern provinces was more significant than that in other regions. In the new era, on the basis of scientifically upholding the changes of people’s livelihood satisfaction and concerns, we need to respond positively to people’s specific livelihood demands, devote great energy to addressing development’s unbalances and inadequacies, and continuously improve urban and rural residents’ sense of fulfilment, happiness and security. Cognitive bias of myopia, provision of public goods and social moral aid: how to rebuild our social order? Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 An awkward position confronting transition China is that the dwindling moral aid have got people into a crisis of moral decline. How to explain this phenomenon and rebuild our social order? Combining the classical behavioral economics with the problem of public goods provision, this paper analyzes the decision-making process of moral aid and its change with times. We find that the discordance between imagination and action due to the prevalence of myopia leads to the supply bias of moral aid, where as its quasi-public property generates free rider problems and the inconsistent benefits between society and individuals aggravate the insufficient provision, making the whole society suffering from the “moral apathy syndrome.” In combination of typical characteristics of transition of China, we extend our benchmark model, in terms of inter-linking reciprocity, legislation changes and false accusation, to explore the evolution path of good Samaritan’ acts in china. We also study the significance of traditional culture in helping behavior. This paper can well interpret the vicissitude of moral aid and provide important enlightenment on curbing the moral decline as well as promoting traditional virtues. How entrepreneurs develop entrepreneurial competence through events? A serial entrepreneur case study based on event system theory Management World,2018,Vol 34,No. 11 This paper reports a longitudinal study on the entrepreneurial competence development process through events of serial entrepreneurs in order to explore the influence of event differences, self-efficacy, entrepreneurial cognition and entrepreneurial learning. The results show the following findings. (1) Event strength and spatial direction influence the cognition mode of serial entrepreneurs. In passive events, serial entrepreneurs identify marketing opportunity through intuitive cognitive mode and discover key resources through analytic cognitive mode. At the same time, serial entrepreneurs create active events to take the opportunity through active learning, and utilize and manage resources through experience learning. (2) Self-efficacy moderates the change of entrepreneurial cognitive mode, and entrepreneurial learning enhances the promoting effect of active event on entrepreneurial competence. (3) The interactive impact between active and passive events facilities the development of entrepreneurial competence. Through the serial entrepreneurial process, active events increase, passive events decline, and entrepreneurial competence is enhanced. The research conclusion has certain enlightenment and guiding significance for entrepreneurs in terms of improving their entrepreneurial competence in a complex event environment.

https://jtp.cnki.net/bilingual/Navi/Detail?pykm=GLSJ&year=2018&issue=11

This is the fallacy of asking to be given an exemption to a rule that others are held to. It's typically used as [[ScrewThisIndexIHaveTropes an excuse for special treatment others don't receive]], or to win arguments by claiming to have special insights others don't have. -> "I'm a judge, so I shouldn't have to stop at red lights." This is fallacious because even if someone has certain expertise or is part of a specific group, they still have to provide evidence and cogent reasons for their position. A fairly well-known example is the common argument that the universe must logically have a creator. This goes: ->Everything that has a beginning has a cause\\ The universe has a beginning\\ Therefore the universe has a cause. The special pleading here is that it's insisted that an ultimate cause exists; to avoid the infinite regress, it's claimed that this cause is the sole exception and does ''not'' require a beginning, and therefore does not itself require a cause. The proponents naturally try to justify this (for instance, arguing infinite regress is impossible, and thus the "uncaused cause" necessarily must exist) though this simply creates another case of special pleading (as there is no reason to believe an uncaused cause is more able to exist than an infinite regress): there's a reason this gets called the "existence paradox." !!! Looks like this fallacy, but isn't: * When there really is a reason why someone should be given special treatment. For example, an exemption for murder is often granted for someone acting in self-defense. Or, to link to an example above, "I'm an ambulance driver on duty, so I shouldn't have to stop at red lights". * Mitigating circumstances not admitted in trial may be considered in sentencing; after the court has established guilt, it seeks to determine what penalty the particular case warrants. * The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard strikes some--especially atheists--as a kind of special pleading, since it is based on the idea of the "leap of faith", used as a justification for believing in things like miracles (which are special pleadings to the laws of nature). However, Kierkegaard's philosophy--and most sane theology since then--is essentially ''irrational'': it explicitly argues that the rules of logic simply do not work when exploring the deeper questions of human experience. Whether or not you agree, it is highly important to understand this about that area of philosophy, and attempting to make an attack on it on the grounds of this particular logical fallacy is rather like critiquing pop music for ignoring the rules of polyphony. Of course, many people also reject such arguments precisely on the basis that they ''are'' irrational.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/folderizer.php?target=Main.SpecialPleading

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder We usually think of war injuries as being physical, although one of the most common war injuries is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the effects can be devastating. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an emotional illness classified as an anxiety disorder and usually develops because of a terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe event, often experienced in combat. Although this condition has likely existed since humans have endured trauma, PTSD has only been recognized as a formal diagnosis since 1980 and statistics regarding this illness indicate that approximately 7%-8% of people in the United States will likely develop PTSD in their lifetime, with the lifetime occurrence in combat veterans ranging from 10% to as high as 30%. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can effect a soldier in many ways; both mentally and physically and it can have a profound effect on their lives and others around them. Although the symptoms and degrees of severity of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may differ from case to case, the effect can still be life altering. The symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may occur immediately following a traumatic experience, weeks, months or even years later. PTSD can disrupt a soldiers functioning, interfering with their ability to meet daily needs and perform the most basic tasks. Symptoms of PTSD can include but are not limited to flashbacks, or reliving the traumatic event for minutes or even days at a time. Shame or guilt, upsetting dreams about the event, trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event, feeling emotionally numb, irritability or anger. Furthermore, poor relationships, self-destructive behavior, hopelessness about the future, trouble sleeping, memory problems, trouble concentrating, not enjoying activities they once enjoyed, and hearing or seeing things that are not there. Chief complaints in patients diagnosed with PTSD include two major symptoms: anxiety, which causes an abnormal reaction to loud noises and difficulty sleeping due to repeated nightmares. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can have a devastating effect on a soldier’s personal, social and professional life. Soldiers who suffer from PTSD can relive the life-threatening experiences they have suffered with visual, auditory and/or somatic reality, reacting in mind and body as though the events were still occurring. These soldiers tend to avoid places, people, things that remind them of the event, and are highly sensitive to normal life experiences. Soldiers who are involved in a traumatic event may have a difficult time adjusting. A soldier may experience the inability to experience pleasure, isolation, and a reduced interest in activities. In many cases, however, the symptoms can get progressively worse, sometimes, even completely disrupting one's life. A soldier can develop and show signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that may cause behavioral...

https://brightkite.com/essay-on/what-exactly-are-the-results-of-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-on-a-soldier

What Is the Connection between PTSD and Anxiety? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a serious mental disorder suffered by people who have experienced a horrific, often life-threatening, event. Anxiety is a key component of PTSD, and some of the symptoms of PTSD and anxiety disorder overlap. Treatments for these disorders can be similar as well. PTSD and anxiety often go hand in hand, and some symptoms of PTSD and anxiety disorder are commonly shared. These overlapping symptoms include irritability, jumpiness, muscle tension, sleep disturbances and increased startle response, which can all be symptoms of an anxiety disorder. People suffering from PTSD, however, experience additional symptoms, such as obsessive memories of the event, nightmares, and emotional numbness. Victims of PTSD may avoid situations that remind them of the traumatic event and can become depressed, withdrawing from people and aspects of everyday life. One of the most distressing symptoms of PTSD is having flashbacks — a hallucinatory condition in which the person relives the event as if it were happening again. Treatments for PTSD and anxiety can be similar. Psychotherapy is recommended, and anti-depressants are sometimes prescribed to treat the depression and anxiety that can result from a traumatic event and PTSD. Early diagnosis and treatment of PTSD can result in a more positive outcome. PTSD is a serious mental condition that can occur in people who have experienced the threat of death, sexual assault or physical assault. Occurrences that might trigger PTSD and anxiety include being robbed, physically assaulted or raped as well as being involved in a car or plane crash. A news report indicated that a woman decided to sue an airline, claiming that an extremely turbulent flight caused her to develop PTSD. Developing PTSD can happen among those who serve in the military as well as those who work in law enforcement or emergency care. The death of a loved one, especially a violent death, can trigger PTSD in some people, although those who have directly experienced a physical threat or sexual assault are more likely to be victims of this disorder. Naturally, these events could generate large amounts of anxiety in anyone, but not everyone responds by developing PTSD. Women are more likely than men to experience PTSD. People with a history of life trauma are more susceptible, possibly because experiencing a number of life traumas can wear down a person’s resilience. A pre-existing mental illness can increase the likelihood of PTSD in persons who have experienced a terrible event. Those who lack a supportive social network of friends and family are also more apt to suffer from this disorder.

https://www.wisegeek.net/what-is-the-connection-between-ptsd-and-anxiety.htm

This book uniquely combines CBT with the Department of Health stepped care model to provide the first comprehensive case study-approach textbook. A step-by-step guide to using CBT, the book is structured around case examples of clients who present with the most commonly encountered conditions; from mild depression and GAD to more complex, enduring symptoms and diagnosis like OCD, personality disorder and social phobia. The distinctive practical format is ideal in showing how to put the principles of CBT and stepped care into effect. As well as echoing postgraduate level training, it provides an insight into the experiences the trainee will encounter in real-world practice. Each chapter addresses a specific client condition and covers initial referral, presentation and assessment, case formulation, treatment interventions, evaluation of CBT strategies ... Chapter 10: Client Presenting with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Client Presenting with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Diagnostic Criteria The DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) code 309.81 diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reflect the diversity of this condition. The major criteria for the diagnosis of PTSD in clients who have been exposed to traumatic events include re-experiencing, avoidance, numbing and hyper-arousal. Each of these symptoms, alone or as a group, should have ... - Loading...

https://sk.sagepub.com/books/cognitive-behaviour-therapy-case-studies/n10.xml

Exploring the Complicated Nature of PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of those terms you hear bandied about, even as a joke, with relatively reckless abandon. It’s when PTSD hits close to home that you realize the severity of its nature. While we often associate this condition with war veterans, this affliction can affect our children. In fact, information from the National Center of PTSD shows that 15% to 43% of girls and 14% to 43% of boys experience at least one trauma. Out of those numbers, 3% to 15% of girls and 1% to 6% of boys develop PTSD. Our firm frequently navigates the turbulent waters of PTSD diagnoses. We’ve had to develop a thorough working knowledge of what it all means. This way, we can superiorly defend clients that have been wrongly accused of mentally abusing their child based on such a diagnosis. (It’s worth noting that from the study cited above, only 7% of PTSD cases in children result from mental abuse.)Recent Changes in PTSD Criterion For over 25 years, the PTSD criteria adhered primarily to what’s referred to as the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R). (See Frank W. Weathers, Brian P. Marx, Matthew J. Friedman, Paula P. Schnurr, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in DSM-5: New Criteria, New Measures, and Implications for Assessment, Psychol. Inj. And Law (2014) 7:93-107.) During this phase, research and observations about traumatic stress came to light that called for further amendments. Professionals in the field began to raise questions about how trauma and PTSD were conceptualized. Eventually, this led to DSM-5, which is the current standard-bearer for PTSD criteria. The most impactful updates in this revision declassified PTSD as an anxiety disorder and making it a stress-related condition. New symptoms were added to what necessitates PTSD, such as: - Persistent negative emotional state - Continually distorted cognitions regarding the cause or consequences of the trauma leading to self-destructive behavior Also, separate criteria were established for preschool children. Lastly, there was also a dissociative subtype (see also here).What Do These Changes Mean? The revisions in the DSM and evolution in how PTSD diagnostic criteria are understood come with quite a lot of confusion among mental health professionals. There are issues regarding the vagueness of definitions and debates of clarity with the new PTSD criteria. Much of this paradigm-shift flies in the face of what clinicians believed to be good practice. While the DSM provides a degree of direction to clinicians on how to evaluate and diagnose PTSD, many CPS social workers are unfamiliar with the criteria and have little or no working knowledge of how diagnoses are made (and therefore how valid a diagnosis is). From there comes the need for improved and updated testing and measurements for PTSD symptoms, to make the diagnosis more objectively sound, rather than subjective.Why Was PTSD Reclassified? The way post-traumatic stress presents itself is incredibly diverse and multi-layered. While symptoms do include fear and anxiety, PTSD isn’t mutually exclusive to those outcomes. Other predominant symptoms include dysphoria and anhedonia. Also included are excess anger, aggression, guilt, shame, and dissociation. Often, these are all combined when someone experiences PTSD.Concerns With Excessive Broadening and Narrowing of Descriptions In the article referenced above and being discussed here, despite the necessary amendments being made to how we conceptualize and diagnose PTSD, there are still issues with vagueness. Namely, some of the stressor criterion used for diagnoses present issues with narrowing and broadening PTSD classification. Of course, if the definition of PTSD is too broad, it presents problems with forensic investigations. For example, a sloppy diagnosis could be used to incriminate someone who is innocent. On the other hand, if the definition of PTSD is too narrow, then many individuals won’t receive the treatment they need to get better.A Multi-Layered Diagnosing Process If someone is to be diagnosed with PTSD, the article in question suggests that PTSD assessments should rely on multiple sources to provide information. This process should include the following: - Diagnostic interview - Psychometric testing - Review of medical records Adding these multiple layers to the diagnostic approach will remove much of the bias and subjectivity from the evaluation process conducted by the mental health professional. When it comes to child abuse, it’s all too easy for emotions to come into play. Even though someone is a professional, they might be susceptible to half-truths and exaggerations due to the delicacy of the situation. After all, it’s in our nature to believe and want to protect children, especially if they’re claiming to have been victimized. The most reliable PTSD diagnosis is going to come from the most thorough testing and attention to detail…not from someone who is wrapped up in personal bias and jumps to conclusions.Why is it Important to Understand PTSD and How it’s Diagnosed? Based on a PTSD diagnosis being used as evidence against them, falsely accused parents can end up on the Child Abuse Central Index. That means it’s crucial to understand PTSD to help your child manage the symptoms and mitigate untrue allegations that can tear your family apart.

https://www.cacilawyer.com/exploring-the-complicated-nature-of-ptsd.html

Lee-Anne Bac | Director | Advisory Services | Grant Thornton | mail me | But no women at all in senior roles in 20% of South African businesses, is concerning. Although almost one third (29%) of senior roles in South Africa are now filled by women, one in five local businesses (20%) still have no women at all in senior positions. These are among the findings of the 2018 Grant Thornton International Business Report focused specifically on research regarding Women in Business. The report, drawn from 4,995 interviews conducted between July and December 2017, is published to coincide with International Women’s Day 2018 on March 8. The trend in SA is encouraging. The percentage of women in senior management teams has, on average, been rising slowly but steadily from 26% in 2014. There are still too many businesses without a single woman in their senior management team, however, and this needs to be addressed. There is a wealth of research investigating the commercial impact of women in leadership. For example, Grant Thornton’s Value of Diversity report published in 2015 suggests that the profit foregone by companies with male only boards in India, the UK and the US is a staggering $655 billion. Peter Bodin, global chief executive officer, Grant Thornton International Ltd, notes that gender balanced businesses will be able better to handle the disruption facing every sector. More diverse teams make better decisions and are more resilient. Businesses with all-male leadership teams need to act fast if they are to stay competitive. The global position Globally, the percentage of businesses with no women in senior management has dropped from 34% in 2017 to 25% in 2018. The proportion of senior roles held by women, however, has marginally fallen from 25% to 24% over the same timeframe. Women are, therefore, spread more thinly than before across the world. This suggests businesses are concentrating on box-ticking at the expense of meaningful progress and means they will not gain from the benefits of true gender diversity. Progress on the number of businesses with women in senior management has primarily been driven by emerging economies such as Africa (where 89% of businesses have at least one woman in senior management) and Eastern Europe (87%), while Latin America has seen the biggest increase (from 52% to 65%). But there has also been a significant increase in some developed regions such as North America (from 69% to 81%) and the European Union (EU from 64% to 73%). Emerging economies also continue to see the highest proportion of women in senior roles, including Eastern Europe (36%), Latin America (30%) and Africa (30%). Gender equality practices Grant Thornton’s report investigated the role of both business and government policy in bringing about change. It found that globally, business policy is abundant; equal pay, paid parental leave, flexible hours and other policies are common around the world. But those countries in which businesses have the most policies in place are not necessarily those that demonstrate the most gender diversity. Policy alone, it seems, does not create real progress. Most South African firms did not score favourably on a number of gender equality practices, including senior management pay linked to progress on gender diversity (14%); part-time working (39%); remote working (37%) and subsidised childcare (5%). On the other hand, 93% of local companies said they pay men and women equally for the same roles, 88% had non-discrimination policies for recruitment, 71% offered paid parental leave and just over half (51%) offered flexible working hours. This poses an important question: if policy is not driving more women to the top, despite widespread use, then what will? The report highlights that the businesses who are succeeding are those whose policies and practices are rooted in a genuine conviction of the benefit of gender diversity. Interviews conducted with business leaders around the world suggested that the businesses creating real change are those who truly believe in diversity. Their leaders recognise the advantages of gender diversity and create inclusive cultures in which a wide range of voices are listened to. This is about behavioural change rather than a checkbox exercise.

https://www.bbrief.co.za/2018/03/08/percentage-of-women-in-senior-roles-in-south-africa-creeps-up/

We are a non-profit organisation from the UK. All of our roles are entirely virtual and therefore roles are not limited to UK applicants. Our goal is to improve education for disadvantaged children and to increase the representation of BAME cultures in education. About the Role This role is all about having a fine eye for detail. You will be editing, drafting and creating written content which will go live on our website. Each page is unique on our website. You will need careful consideration and versatility of writing style to cater to the needs of our audience who engage with our site. Our main focus is ensuring Beards and Books’ social aims, values, services and work are being accurately conveyed through our website. Skills You Will Need - Strong written communication, excellent knowledge of grammar and a good vocabulary. - Organisation. - Commitment. What You Will Gain - Experience editing a website. - Opportunity to enhance your CV. - Transferable skills. - Contribution to a small social enterprise that aims to improve the education of disadvantaged children and increase visibility of BAME cultures in education. Training and Support - You will be given induction training. - You will be supervised throughout your volunteering experience. - You will be given feedback and coaching throughout your volunteering. Diversity and Inclusion Statement As an organisation we are dedicated to creating an inclusive workplace in which all volunteers feel accepted, appreciated and supported. We value diversity and welcome all people to volunteer with us regardless of age, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, religion, disability and socio-economic status. We will not stand for prejudice and discrimination of any kind. 9 More opportunities with Beards & Books Opportunities About Beards & Books Location: Hallam i-Labs, Sheffield, S1 2GB, GB Mission Statement One of Beard’s & Book’s key social aims is to increase the representation of BAME communities in education through the use of multicultural books from its vast pop-up library, as well as several services including storytime events; a mentoring; a tuition service with a high proportion of BAME tutors; producing online educational content; book subscription boxes which we sell to the public. Our endeavours seek to encourage children to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse range of cultures that make up modern-day British society, in particular the BAME community. Description Beards & Books is an educational programme designed to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of children across the U.K. The organisation has expanded its curriculum over time to teach children about positive life skills with the hope of moulding students into confident, informed citizens. Currently, our curriculum covers important topics such as healthy nutrition, critical thought, and culinary skills. WHEN WHERE This is a Virtual Opportunity with no fixed address. DATE POSTED August 24, 2021 SKILLS - Basic Computer Skills - Organization - Verbal / Written Communication GOOD FOR N/A REQUIREMENTS - Must be at least 18 - 2-4 hours per week.

https://www.volunteermatch.org/search/opp3399585.jsp

At KPMG New Zealand, we are committed to creating a safe workforce built on trust; where our people can bring their true authentic selves to the workplace and feel valued and are rewarded for their unique contributions and perspectives. We are actively working to close our gaps and we are proud of the progress we have made to date. We continue our journey to build an inclusive and equitable environment that reflects our diverse communities of Aotearoa. An environment where all our whānau can succeed together. Below, we set out the methodology for how we measure our gender and ethnicity pay gaps at KPMG New Zealand. Our data and analysis are accurate as of 1 October 2021. Understanding our data - KPMG New Zealand’s gender pay gap is a measure of the percentage difference between the median salary of all wāhine (women) and the median salary of all tāne (men) within the firm. - All employees are included in the gender pay gap data (regardless of whether they provided an ethnicity). - The Māori and Pasifika pay gaps are a measure of the percentage difference between the median salary for everyone in a specific ethnic group and the median salary of all other ethnic groups. Read more about our data further below* Our pay gaps Pay gaps are an important consideration that guide us on our journey to achieve our vision. - The gender pay gap for all employees (excluding partners) = 3.0% - The gender pay gap for partners = 23.7% - The ethnicity pay gap for Māori employees = 4.4% - The ethnicity pay gap for Pasifika employees = 20.6% Our gender pay gap - Our current gender pay gap primarily reflects an increase in women joining the firm across all roles, the impact of internal promotions, along with the impact of attrition across the business. We have been actively working to close this gap as our current data suggests - Our current partner gender pay gap reflects a higher proportion of men who have been in the partnership for longer and hold more senior roles and responsibility. This profile is changing as the percentage of female partners increases and we benefit from greater gender diversity in our executive and our board. Our Māori and Pasifika pay gaps - Our current Māori and Pasifika pay gaps are a result of more Māori in senior roles compared to Pasifika. As tangata whenua, we have invested in Māori recruitment and career development for some time. - While our number of Pasifika has increased in recent years, our current Pasifika pay gap reflects a higher proportion in junior roles. We expect this to change as we invest in career development for both Māori and Pasifika and build confidence in the cultural competency of all our whānau. Equal pay analysis - Equal pay (which is different from pay gaps), compares the salary of people in the same or similar roles. Our most recent equal pay analysis has revealed that there is no evidence of any type of bias for people working in like-for-like roles. - We review salaries annually for all employees to ensure alignment with market expectations as well as scanning for any systematic biases. *More about our data - At KPMG New Zealand we recognise and respect that gender is not binary. Due to current data limitations, the calculation of our gender pay gap is the difference between those who identify as tāne or wāhine. - Calculations for Māori and Pasifika pay gaps are based solely on the population that have voluntarily provided an ethnicity (self-identified). We have not made assumptions for people who have not provided their ethnicity and therefore have been excluded. - We recognise that many people identify with more than one ethnicity, so we have included anyone that has identified as Māori or Pasifika in our ethnicity pay gap calculations.

https://home.kpmg/nz/en/home/about/inclusion-and-diversity/pay-gaps-and-equal-pay.html

Statement from the NDP Women’s Arm President in Celebration of International Women’s Day 2022 It is indeed an honour to join with women around the world to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022. The theme, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow” #BreakTheBias, is most fitting given the global impact the Covid-19 pandemic is having on everyone, particularly women. It is also timely as our world is currently facing many challenges including climate change, high rates of unemployment, inequity, armed conflicts, and the erosion of women’s rights. Indeed, many more of our women are struggling to survive having lost their sources of subsistence. Gender equality is a critical human right. All humans, regardless of gender, are equal in the sight of God. Why then, should we treat each other differently? Women and men must enjoy the same benefits based on their roles in society. This can yield many positives including the promotion of respect for basic rights and social justice for all. Furthermore, the eradication of job discrimination and closing gender gaps in employment can maximize the use of talents and skills from a larger pool of more diverse and innovative ideas. It is true that in the past women may have shied away from such fields as politics, private sector leadership, science, medicine, law, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, today’s women have made tremendous strides in these areas. They have proven themselves as equally intelligent, functional, innovative, and competent co-workers alongside their male counterparts. Nevertheless, despite these gains, research shows that political representation by women in parliaments around the world stands at less than 25%. This must change. Research has also shown that bias contributes to women’s sufferings as they are often bypassed for jobs and promotions. Three out of four women experience bias at the workplace. Black women, especially those who are physically challenged, are at an even greater disadvantage. Unfortunately, some of our men continue to sit in silence when women speak out and make valuable contributions on issues like gender inequality. We need men to help us change the negative mindsets that enable physical abuse, sexual harassment, and facilitate other unfair practices perpetrated against our women. The world is rapidly changing and expects diversity, equity, and inclusion. Therefore, women must ensure that they equip themselves with the necessary knowledge and skills to confront these challenges.

https://onenewsstvincent.com/2022/03/08/ndp-women-release-iwd-statement/

Citation: Author: Katy Jenkins Abstract: This critical review argues that the experiences and perspectives of women in relation to the extractive industries have often been absent from analysis of the impacts of mining in the global South. This paper therefore explores the ways in which women in developing countries are affected by the expansion of extractive industries, bringing together a dispersed literature, scattered across disciplines and relating to geographically diverse locations, in order to provide a comprehensive overview of key debates in relation to women and mining, and generate momentum for a new research agenda in this area. The review concentrates on four key intersecting areas – women as mineworkers; the gendered impacts of mining, and specifically the disproportionately negative impacts on women; women's changing roles and identities in communities affected by mining; and finally gendered inequalities in relation to the benefits of mining. Keywords: women, mining, gendered inequalities, mining impacts, development Topics: Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Year: 2014 © 2021 CONSORTIUM ON GENDER, SECURITY & HUMAN RIGHTSLEGAL STATEMENT All photographs used on this site, and any materials posted on it, are the property of their respective owners, and are used by permission. Photographs: The images used on the site may not be downloaded, used, or reproduced in any way without the permission of the owner of the image. Materials: Visitors to the site are welcome to peruse the materials posted for their own research or for educational purposes. These materials, whether the property of the Consortium or of another, may only be reproduced with the permission of the owner of the material. This website contains copyrighted materials. The Consortium believes that any use of copyrighted material on this site is both permissive and in accordance with the Fair Use doctrine of 17 U.S.C. § 107. If, however, you believe that your intellectual property rights have been violated, please contact the Consortium at info@genderandsecurity.org.

https://genderandsecurity.org/projects-resources/research/women-mining-and-development-emerging-research-agenda

Getting the balance right The Director of Workforce Race Equality Standard Implementation for NHS England and Deputy President of the Royal College of Nursing marks International Women’s Day 2019: From time to time people ask me whether I consider myself a black woman or a woman that is black. It’s an interesting question and one I find impossible to answer because for me the two are inextricably linked. Yes, I am a woman but my experiences as a black woman are different to that of my white counterparts, therefore I have more in common with some women than with others, as I often say to people when they talk about equality for women. The name for this was coined by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw and is known as intersectionality. This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is gender balance. The saying goes that a gender balanced world is a better and fairer world and this is of course is true. The rise of women is not about the fall of men, neither is the rise of black women about the fall or at the expense of white women. As women we have a duty to support and value each other, our many similarities, but also acknowledge, understand and appreciate our many differences. The joy of being a woman from any background cannot be underestimated, we are wives, mothers, sisters, grandmothers and regardless of background, those things bring us happiness and delight in various measures. We are not only important people in our homes and families but in the work place. Women in the 21st century are told they can do and be anything, yet, we know that for some women it is truer than for others, and for women it isn’t as true as it is for some men. Women are well educated these days and hold down very demanding and high-powered jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Theresa May, Nicola Sturgeon and Michelle Obama to name but a few. These women are at the top of their game and are role models to thousands of women all over the world, their achievements give us all hope of a more evenly balanced and fair world, yet we know that there is a gender pay gap with women, on the whole, making less money than men. There are four main reasons for this gap: There are more men in senior positions than women, caring responsibilities meaning women are in more part time roles, more women in lower paid roles, women being paid less than men for the same role. This year International women’s day is about balance for better, we all need to pay attention to the fact that we cannot as women achieve equity with men unless they act as our advocates and supporters, we need our male allies. We need men to speak up for the unfairness and inequity in this gap and at the same time we need white women to speak up for their black and minority ethnic (BME) sisters, because across the board BME people earn less than their white counterparts, this is the race equality pay gap. It must be said that we have come a long way with equality issues from the days when women did not have the vote and were expected to stay at home and look after the children. However, as a society we still have work to do and a long way to go. Thankfully stereotypes are constantly being challenged and there is a little more acceptance of difference, however there is still work to be done. Many people need to change their views and attitudes about women working in some roles like being a firefighter, crane driver or builder and, similarly, to ensure gender equity we need to see many more men in traditionally ‘female roles’ like teaching and nursing. Remembering the role of all women in our society during International Women’s Day is positive. But we need to remember that we need men and women of all backgrounds to work together and support each other to gain gender balance and equity.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/getting-the-balance-right/

The wonderful ocean harbours magnificent organisms, one such example is the Periclimenes brevicarpalis you see here. TL;DR (Too long dont read) option: have a brief overview of this shrimp through a video! Video adapted from Youtube. Creative commons. 1. Introduction This page will introduce you to the Periclimenes brevicarpalis, otherwise locally known as the five-spot anemone shrimp (which also goes by many other names as you will see later). Anemone shrimp refers to a broad list of species inhabiting cnidarian (anemone) hosts. Its local common name, five-spot anemone shrimp may have been given due to its five orange spots outlined in black colour on its caudal fin (aka tail). This shrimp is known for its transparent body and association with anemones and can be encountered during inter-tidal walks on our local shores in areas such as Chek Jawa or Changi Beach Park. For the hobbyist, unfamiliar words will be explained in common terms. Otherwise a link will be provided so you will be brought to a page which further explains the technical term. For the scientist, this page will hopefully cater to your scientific desire. Information on this page can be for everyone, however towards the end of the page it might get more technical. Please navigate to a section of your interest with the navigation panel on the right! Enjoy your stay! 2. Biology 2.1 Symbiotic interactions with invertebrate hosts Adults of the P. brevicarpalis have been found inhabiting sea-anemones belonging to the genus Thalassianthus, Stichodactyla, Entacmaea, Heteractis, Parasicyonis, and rarely on the coral Acropora. The anemones may also host other shrimps or fishes such as Amphiprion and also porcellanid crabs. P. brevicarpalis, being a generalist, can be found on at least 8 different tropical anemone host. A single anemone often hosts a pair of P. brevicarpalis, and often one of each sex. On the right is a pair of P. brevicarpalis inhabiting the Haddon's carpet anemone (Stichodactyla haddoni). According to Holthuis (1952), the youngs of the species are found among weeds on high sea. By this method, the larvae can travel great distances before settlement, helping in dispersal. |Image by Pwa Keay Hoon.| P. brevicarpalis on a Magnificent anemone (Heteractis magnifica) on the left and on a Giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) on the right. Other commensals such as the Amphiprion fish (aka Clownfish) also shares its home, as shown on the right. Images by Ria Tan 2.1.1 A toxic relationship? The relationship between these shrimps and their host is at present known to be symbiotic (interdependent), since studies have yet to prove if cnidarian hosts confers protection to the shrimp or if the shrimps are harmful to their host. However, the P. brevicarpalis has been documented to clip off the tentacles of the host therefore its relationship may be termed as parasitic (causing harm), although no serious damage can be found on the anemone in-situ (in the field). On the contrary, similar host associated shrimps of other genus have been found to benefit (in the case of Alpheus armatus) the host by protecting it from predation from annelid worms instead. This may be an instance of a love-hate relationship (except being immobile, the anemone cannot run away from a toxic relationship). 2.1.2 Just a home or more? Cnidarian hosts are often perceived as protection from predators for the shrimp in the wild. However, in laboratory experiments, P. brevicarpalis had reduced growth, longevity and fecundity without the presence of a host (despite being fed with other food sources). P. brevicarpalis larvae were also unable to develop ovaries in the absence of a host for settlement. This may suggest a more obligatory relationship of the host association in the P. brevicarpalis than only for protection from predation (aka being eaten up). 2.2 Feeding habits Periclimenes brevicarpalis being commensals (a relationship where one feeds off the other, much like in some romantic human relationships), feeds on the leftover food particles of the host. Although when food is scarce, this shrimp also feeds on the host it associates with. In the day, they can be found most often on the periphery of oral disc (top part of the anemone you most often see) on the anemone, clipping and eating its outer tentacles . In the wild, this behaviour has not been observed to be especially harmful to the anemone as they often still retain their long and numerous tentacles . Periclimenes brevicarpalis, although graceful and magnificent looking, also feed on each other. This behaviour is most noticeable after molting and in ex-situ (out of field) conditions when they were reared together in a tank. Cannibalism may not occur in the wild due to the fact that these shrimps are often only found in pairs on a single anemone. Or they may have already eaten the previous residents, who knows! 2.3 Reproduction Ovigerous females can carry up to 4000 oval shaped eggs until they hatch. However insufficient space for accomodation of the clutch, as well as environmental stressors may induce brood loss.The association with an anemone may reduce brood loss during embryogenesis as it provides favourable conditions for embryo development . This species has been observed to release approximately 300 youngs at once. The larvae of this species has a long pelagic larvae duration (PLD) and may settle only 35 days after hatching. While other species of Palaemonidae shrimps undergoes mark-time moults (where zoeal stage larvae moults multiple time without change in morphology but only in size) and sometimes skip stages, the development of P. brevicarpalis is noted to be much more regular. 2.3.1 Life stages This table summarises the different life stages of the P. brevicarpalis days after hatching, with illustration for the last zoea stage to the first juvenile stage to show its transformation into an immature adult from a pelagic larvae. Stages 1st zoea 2nd zoea 3rd zoea 4th zoea 5th zoea 6th zoea 7th zoea 8th zoea 9th zoea Decapodid stage First juvenile stage Days after hatching 1-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-14 12-17 14-20 16-27 18-31 20-35 Illustrations by Nagai and Shokita, 2003. Pending permission. 3. What may threaten the survival of this species? Marine tropical decapod crustaceans are among the most popular invertebrate species in the aquarium trade industry. Due to its attractive colouration and its interesting host association, this species is an ornamental species. Some aquariums also promote them as having a peaceful temperament and being easy to care for, which may attract more buyers, increasing demand and eventually increasing harvesting from the wild. A google search will these shrimps at attractive prices below SGD20 and sometimes even with free shipping. While it is not known whether our local populations are being poached, other countries heavily involved in the aquaculture trade industry may be. Given the lack of understanding for culture techniques of these ornamental species and their obligatory host association, they are often harvested from the wild. This practice not only endangers the organism, but is also likely to impact the ecosystem due to their associative behaviours with other organisms. Sustainable management of the collection of ornamental species such as this will need to be implemented for their conservation . Another sustainable solution is to convince marine aquarium hobbyists to rear shrimps which can be artificially cultured instead. Picture missing 4. How do you tell if you are looking at the right species? 4.1 How to tell it apart from closely related species This species closely resembles Periclimenes inornatus and Periclimenes ornatus, however it may be distinguished by its size and position of the dorsal and terminal spines of the telson . For example in the P. brevicarpalis, dorsolateral spine of the telson is on the proximal half of the telson length while that of P. ornatus is on a third of the telson length . |Adapted from image by Pwa Keay Hoon, illustrating the region where dorsal telson spines are found and indicating the location of the terminal telson spines.| |P. inornatus versus P. brevicarpalis, bearing some resemblance to each other. Image by Ole Johan Brett (on the left) and Ron Yeo (right). Permission granted.| 4.2 Detailed description of the organism's appearance |Images of a female specimen in Bali, Indonesia.| Image by Florent Charpin, pending permission. |Image of a male specimen in Dumaguete, Philippines.| Image by Florent Charpin, Pending permission While the life colouration and overall size of the two sexes may differ, there are some taxonomic characteristics which maintains in both sexes. Note that this section is catered for those with expertise in shrimp taxonomy, as some of the jargon may require prior knowledge to understand. If you are inexperienced in this area, or are just looking for a general identification method, please move on to section 3.3 on the species' life coloration. If you wish to continue, below is an illustration of basic shrimp anatomy to help you along! For the shrimp taxonomists, here are some of the key characteristics for the identification of the Periclimenes brevicarpalis according to a taxonomic key by Chace and Bruce (1993) : - Carapace without supraorbital or postorbital tooth - Second pereopod without acute distal tooth on flexor margin merus - Posteriormost tooth of dorsal rostral series not widely separated from rest of series - Hepatic spine not extending beyond anterior margin of carapace - 3rd pereopod without denticulate lobe on flexor margin of dactyl - Third pereopod with dactyl simple, not biunguiculate - Rostrum with midrib nearly horizontal, directed more anteriad than anteroventrad - Rostrum with dorsal margin distinctly convex - First pereopod with fingers pectinate on opposable margins - 2nd pereopod with fingers nearly as long as palm, carpus 1.5 times as long as distal width For an accessible description of this species, please refer to the original paper by Chace and Bruce . 4.3 Color in life |Illustration of the live colouration description on a female specimen. Texts highlighted in red are characteristics unique to the females only. Adapted image by Dr Paddy Ryan.| Specimens are almost transparent, save for some pigmented areas which differs between the male and female. Original description by Kemp (1922). Ovigerous (bearing eggs) females in life are almost transparent except for pigmented areas as follows: - Each articulated part of all the pereopod (walking limbs) is dark blue. - The carapace (head shield) has the pure white markings on either side and on the dorsal (upperside) portion where the gonad is placed. - In addition, the eyestalk and the part just behind the rostrum (forwards projecting spikey horn) on the dorsal side of the carapace are also white. - The dorsal and lateral sides of the abdomen is covered with two pairs of the large, oval and white patches outlined by black bands laterally and the broad white patch situated on the posterodorsal (upperside and towards the end) side. Lateral patches are not seen in males. - On the proximal half of the telson and each of the uropods there is a white, circular and broad ring followed by an orange eye-spot which is bordered by a dark, brown band. This is what gives the species its common name of the 5 spot anemone shrimp! According to Kemp and others, considerable variations in the colour among the individuals are generally found. For example in the above image, the female from Bali, Indonesia does not have a posterodorsal white patch. The female of this species grows to about 5cm long, while the males are smaller at 3cm. |A closer view of the white eyestalks. Image by Dr Paddy Ryan.| 5. Where can you find them? This species can be found in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, including Australia. This species has been recorded throughout the Indo-West Pacific region (Miyake and Fujino, 1968). |Distribution of P. brevicarpalis worldwide. Image adapted from Encyclopedia of Life. Creative commons.| 5.1 Where are they found in Singapore? Periclimenes brevicarpalis has been found on local large sea anemones like the Giant carpet anemones (Stichodactyla gigantea), Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni), Magnificent anemones (Heteractis magnifica), Leathery anemone (Heteractis crispa) and Pizza anemone (Cryptodendrum adhaesivum). A Periclimenes brevicarpalis wandering around its apartment located at Cyrene Reefs, right in our backyard! 6. What do scientists and layman call it? Binomial (a two part Latin name of an organism consisting of genus followed by its specific epithet): Periclimenes brevicarpalis (Schenkel) 1902 Synonyms (scientific names that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name): Ancylocaris brevicarpalis Schenkel, Periclimenes (Harpilius) brevicarpalis Vernacular (aka common names) : Five-spot anemone shrimp, Peacock tail anemone shrimp , Glass Anemone Shrimp, pacific clown anemone shrimp, White Patched Anemone Shrimp Original description (for the taxonomists out there): not available online 7. Where is the original specimen of this species? Species description and name of this species are given based on this type specimen. These specimens are usually stored in a museum so that scientists all over the world can come look at it, to compare with the specimens they have on hand. The morphological vouchers of Periclimenes brevicarpalis are housed at Ocean Genome Legacy 8. Phylogenetic information Warning for the layman: section ahead may get too deep if you have no prior understanding, however may still be an interesting read if you want to expand your knowledge as common layman words are used to the best of my ability, otherwise links are provided for a deeper understanding. Enjoy! |Kingdom||Animalia| |Phylum||Arthropoda| |Subphylum||Crustacea| |Superclass||Multicrustacea| |Class||Malacostraca| |Subclass||Eumalacostraca| |Superorder||Eucarida| |Order||Decapoda| |Suborder||Pleocyemata| |Infraorder||Caridea| |Superfamily||Palaemonoidea| |Family||Palaemonidae| |Genus||Periclimenes| |Species||Periclimenes brevicarpalis| Periclimenes shrimps may be found in both deep and shallow waters, with taxonomic differences such as number of dorsal telson spine differing in species belonging to each depth. This genus of shrimp has also adapted to associating with many different kinds of host, including Echinodermata (starfish, brittle star, sea urchin, feather star, sea cucumber), Mollusca (gastropods, bivalves, cephalopods etc.), Porifera (sponges), Ascidiacea (e.g. sea squirts), Polychaeta (annelid worms) on top of cnidarians. Symbioses with cnidarians however, was most likely the ancestral state of the host associations in symbiotic shrimps, which explains why association with cnidarians are most numerous . Each species of Periclimenes has adapted to a group of specific hosts, developing characteristics such as laterally compressed bodies to fit in narrow spaces within branching corals or having unarmed rostrum (a protrusion at the top of the carapace, usually with dorsal and ventral teeth) to preventing irritating the soft body of the host in the case of mollusk . |An example of the array of organisms shrimps in the genus of Periclimenes can associate with. All images adapted from Wikipedia, Creative commons.| The species Periclimenes brevicarpalis (Schenkel, 1902) is closely related to Ancylomenes. The abdomen of the P. brevicarpalis is slightly humpbacked (and this can be observed in the above images of the 9th zoeal stage) which is a characteristic of Ancylomenes. For the taxonomists, a few other similar characters between these two genus according to Kou et al (2015) are as follows: - subcylindrical body - well-developed palaemonoid rostrum - non-ovate inferior orbital angle - feeble biungulate dactyls of the last three pereopods - generally transparent body with mottled spots |Phylogenetic tree obtained by maximum likelihood analysis of three nuclear protein-coding genes, enolase, PEPCK and NaK, in addition to 16S rRNA. The branches strongly supported by both Maximum likelihood (BP ⩾ 60) and Bayesian inference (PP ⩾ 0.95) are indicated by thick black lines; the branches only strongly supported by one of the analyses are indicated with thick gray line. The branches with support both BP < 60 and PP < 0.95 are indicated by thin black lines. The Periclimenes species are marked in red. Image obtained from Kou et al. (2013), pending permission from publishers.| 9. Molecular information Mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I Sequence of voucher specimen: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KU064990.1 10.External links Local information on of Periclimenes brevicarpalis on Wild Singapore by Ria Tan Taxonomic details of Periclimenes brevicarpalis on World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) Compilation of Periclimenes brevicarpalis information on Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) 11. Literature and References |1.|| 1 | Suzuki, K., & Hayashi, K. I. (1977). Five caridean shrimps associated with sea anemones in central Japan. |2.|| 1 | Khan, R. N., Becker, J. H., Crowther, A. L., & Lawn, I. D. (2004). Spatial distribution of symbiotic shrimps (Periclimenes holthuisi, P. brevicarpalis, Thor amboinensis) on the sea anemone Stichodactyla haddoni. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, 84(01), 201-203. |3.|| 1 | Fautin, D. G., Guo, C. C., & Hwang, J. S. (1995). Costs and benefits of the symbiosis between the anemoneshrimp Periclimenes brevicarpalis and its host Entacmaea quadricolor. |4.|| 1 | Gopalan Nayar, S. (1947). The newly hatched larva of Periclimenes (Ancylocaris) brevicarpalis (Schenkel). Proceedings: Plant Sciences, 26(4), 168-176. |5.|| 1 | Azofeifa-Solano, J. C., Elizondo-Coto, M., & Wehrtmann, I. (2014). Reproductive biology of the sea anemone shrimp Periclimenes rathbunae (Caridea, Palaemonidae, Pontoniinae), from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. ZooKeys, 457, 211. |6.|| 1 | Calado, R., Lin, J., Rhyne, A. L., Araújo, R., & Narciso, L. (2003). Marine ornamental decapods—popular, pricey, and poorly studied. Journal of crustacean biology, 23(4), 963-973. |7.|| 1 | Miyake, S., & Fujino, T. (1968). Pontoniid shrimps from the Palau Islands (Crustacea, Decapoda, Palaemonidae). Journal of the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 14(3), 399-431. |8.|| 1 | Lee, K. H., & Ko, H. S. (2014). Occurrence of Pontoniine Shrimp, Periclimenes brevicarpalis (Decapoda: Caridea: Palaemonidae) in Korean Waters. Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity, 30(4), 319. |9.|| 1 | Chace Jr, F. A. AJ Bruce. 1993. The Caridean shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda) of the Albatross Philippine Expedition 1907-1910, Part 6: Superfamily Palaemonoidea. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 543, 1-152. |10.|| 1 | Tan, R. (2016, Oct). Five-spot anemone shrimp. Retrieved from http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/crustacea/othercrust/shrimp/brevicarpalis.htm |11.|| 1 | Glass Anemone Shrimp - Periclimenes brevicarpalis - Pacific Clown Anemone Shrimp (2016). Retrieved from http://www.freshmarine.com/glass-anemone-shrimp.html |12.|| 1 | Horká, I., De Grave, S., Fransen, C. H., Petrusek, A., & Ďuriš, Z. (2016). Multiple host switching events shape the evolution of symbiotic palaemonid shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda). Scientific reports, 6, 26486. |13.|| 1 | Kou, Q., Li, X., Chan, T. Y., Chu, K. H., Huang, H., & Gan, Z. (2013). Phylogenetic relationships among genera of the Periclimenes complex (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pontoniinae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 68(1), 14-22.

https://wiki.nus.edu.sg/display/TAX/Periclimenes+brevicarpalis+-+Five-spot+anemone+shrimp

Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809-April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist who revolutionized scientific thought with his theory of ____________________ and natural selection. After studying at Cambridge ____________________, Darwin served as ____________________ on the ship HMS ____________________ (captained by Robert Fitzroy) during its five-year ____________________ around the world traveling west ( December 27, 1831-October 2, 1836). On this trip, Darwin ____________________ a tremendous variety of ____________________ and animal life. Darwin's ____________________ called "Origin of the Species" was published on November 24, ____________________ (and sold out in one day). This world-shaking book outlined the ____________________ change in a species from generation to generation through natural selection. Alfred Lord Wallace independently proposed the theory of evolution at the same time as Darwin. In 1871, Darwin published "The Descent of ____________________," which focused on the origins of people. The theory of evolution has been ____________________ since it was proposed, but most scientists accept evolution and natural selection as the method of species formation and the foundation of biology.

https://enchantedlearning.com/science/scientists/darwin/darwincloze/

SUBTITLES: Subtitles prepared by human 00:00 Hey! Kallie here. Today’s episode was made in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Blake and I were lucky enough to visit the museum's Deep Time Hall during its renovation and that’s not all! On Friday June 15th, I will be back in the Deep Time Hall, hosting a livestream We’ll be getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the exhibit and an expert from the Smithsonian will be answering your questions. More information on where to watch the stream will be in the description. Now let’s talk about evolution. The story of life on Earth is a story of change. Living things have changed the atmosphere and the climate. They’ve endured the movements of the continents, and the rise and fall of the seas. And they’ve responded to these changes, over the long course of Earth’s history, through a process that still continues today: evolution. This powerful force is, in the simplest terms, just change over time. And it’s responsible for the shape of the tree of life, and for generating the diversity that we see in the fossil record as well as in modern ecosystems. 01:03 It’s the very foundation of our understanding of biology, and it continues to help us make sense of the world around us. As a scientific concept, evolution was revolutionary when it was first introduced. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace were the first to put all of the pieces together into a unified explanation that would radically alter our understanding of life on our planet. But our understanding of evolutionary theory didn’t stop there. We’ve learned a lot -- and we’re still learning. In the last 160 years, we’ve learned what Darwin and Wallace didn’t know, and we’ve figured out a lot about how evolution actually works - like how it can produce the incredible array of animals you see here, and how we know they’re all related. When the Smithsonian opened its first exhibit of fossil animals in the early 1900s, it was called the Hall of Extinct Monsters. Today, Kallie and I are in a space that’s completely renovated and re-imagined: the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils: Deep Time, also known as the Deep Time Hall. And it depicts, more vividly than ever, the staggering variety of animal forms that have arisen and disappeared over time. 02:05 A monument to the fact that, as Darwin himself put it, “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace were both British naturalists whose thinking about the natural world was deeply shaped by long voyages of exploration. Darwin famously traveled to South America and the Galapagos Islands, and Wallace went to South America and Southeast Asia. And together they observed an incredible diversity of life. They saw first-hand how very similar organisms seemed to be slightly modified in ways that made them ideally suited to their environments. For Darwin, he saw this in the different shapes in the beaks of finches on the different islands of the Galapagos archipelago. For Wallace, it was the differences between monkeys living on different riverbanks in the Amazon. And they both realized that the patterns they observed meant that these species all probably arose from the same place - a common ancestor. The bodies of these animals, they realized, had been shaped over time by the conditions in their environments, resulting in the different forms they found on different islands and riverbanks. But, in addition to being well-traveled, Darwin and Wallace were also well-read. 03:10 And their ideas were deeply influenced by other, earlier thinkers, in natural history, geology, and even economics. Scholars like Georges Cuvier, Charles Lyell, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and Thomas Malthus helped establish the ideas that were critical to evolutionary thinking -- namely, that the Earth was very old, that species seemed to change and go extinct over time, and that individuals competed over limited resources. Darwin and Wallace used these insights -- along with their own observations -- to both arrive at the same mechanism by which species evolve: natural selection. In a paper read to a meeting of scientists in London in 1858, they presented their theory of natural selection based on a series of principles: The first key idea was that, in a population of living things, natural variations will occur, and as a result of those changes, some members of the population will survive and reproduce more than others. Then, they posited that those that survive and reproduce will pass on their traits to 04:11 their offspring. And this meant that traits that give individuals an advantage in a certain environment will get passed on more often. And as a result, more members of the population will have that trait. Therefore, gradually and over time, this will result in certain traits showing up more or less often in a population. Today, when this series of events happens within a species, we call it microevolution. It’s how a single species responds to changes in the environment. On a broader scale, we call it macroevolution. This is how these changes accumulate over long periods of time to produce entirely new body plans, new species, and the grander patterns of diversity in the tree of life. And one of the most incredible things about the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that Darwin and Wallace didn’t have a good explanation for how traits were passed from parent to offspring. Genetics as a field was still a long way off, and neither of them were aware of the experiments that were being done on pea plants at the time, by a Czech monk named Gregor Mendel. 05:13 In the 1850s, while Darwin and Wallace were putting all the puzzle pieces of natural selection together, Mendel was breeding peas at his monastery to try to figure out how heredity worked. And he figured out that traits didn’t simply blend together when living things reproduced. Instead, only some were inherited as discrete traits by different numbers of offspring. Mendel’s results were rediscovered around the turn of the 20th century, when a new generation of biologists was investigating genetics. And it was this new wave of researchers that brought our understanding of evolution to the next level. One of these scientists was American biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan. Instead of peas, he bred flies, and in 1910, he bred a fly with an odd trait. It had eyes that were white, instead of red What’s more, he was able to breed that white-eyed trait back into the parent population. Morgan had discovered another key driver of evolution by natural selection: mutation. He realized that the fly had undergone a random change in its genes that made it different from the rest. So Morgan theorized that mutations were a source of variation in living things - and 06:15 that it was the source of the variation that natural selection acted on. Beneficial mutations would be passed on, he thought, and detrimental ones would eventually disappear. So by the early 1900s, we’d already recognized two of the four major forces of evolution: Darwin and Wallace gave us natural selection, and Morgan brought mutation into the mix. It wasn’t until the 1920s that things would really start to come together through the work of three of the founders of the field of population genetics: Ronald Aylmer Fisher, John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, and Sewall Wright. Fisher and Haldane both looked at natural selection mathematically, especially in large populations, using Mendel’s ideas about inheritance to figure out how often and how fast natural selection worked on variations. It was Haldane who did the math that explained the transition of England’s famous peppered moths, in which a gene for dark color spread quickly, as pollution darkened the bark of the trees they lived on. Studies like this led Fisher and Haldane to conclude that natural selection acted slowly, but also uniformly, in large populations. 07:15 Meanwhile, in the US, a geneticist named Sewall Wright was thinking about how evolution worked in smaller, more isolated populations. He did some research breeding animals like cattle and guinea pigs. But it was his mathematical studies of genetics that led him to uncover another key idea: genetic drift. This is the idea that the frequency at which certain genes appear will sometimes change, totally by chance, and randomly, and Sewell found that this has a greater effect in smaller populations than in larger ones. Another, somewhat related, idea that came up around this time, in the late 1930s, is gene flow - the movement of genes between populations, by way of migration. So, when members of one population of a species -- say, panthers from Texas -- breed with members of another population -- like panthers in Florida -- that will change the makeup of the gene pool in the Florida population. And this, too, is a driving force of evolutionary change. Together, the work of Fisher, Haldane, and Wright showed that natural selection acting on genes was the most likely explanation for how evolution works And in 1937, another biologist brought together all of the evidence from genetics and natural 08:19 history to show how evolution by natural selection could produce new species. And this enabled us to make the enormous conceptual jump from microevolution to macroevolution. His name was Theodosius Dobzhansky, and he had worked in Hunt’s fly lab. He’d found that fly populations from different countries seemed to be genetically different, even though they were considered to be the same species. But, these flies weren’t so good at reproducing with each other. So he wondered if they were actually different species. And this took the scientific conversation all the way back to the 1800s, and the once-novel idea that evolution could eventually, gradually produce new species. From his experiments, Dobzhansky produced a theory about how new species originate. Mutations happen naturally in populations, creating variations that can stick around if they’re beneficial or just neutral. And if populations are isolated, these variations can remain within a single group, with new mutations popping up. But none of these would spread to the rest of the species. 09:23 Over time, this would make one group genetically distinct from others, potentially causing problems if it tried to interbreed with others. And given enough time, it would lose the ability to interbreed with other populations entirely. It would become a new species. This was the beginning of “the Modern Synthesis,” a collaboration by many evolutionary biologists of the time to explain large-scale patterns of evolution. And while the Modern Synthesis has changed over time, it’s still the framework for our current understanding of how evolution works. In 1953, we added a better understanding of how genetics works, through the discovery of the structure of DNA and how it functions. So, now we know that mutations randomly happen when DNA is copied incorrectly during replication - something Morgan didn’t know. Now we also know that natural selection is only one of the mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow. And it’s this knowledge that allows us to witness -- first hand! -- microevolution taking place today -- say, in studies of bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics. And it also helps us understand the story that the specimens around us right now are 10:24 trying to tell us, the story of macroevolution. With this understanding, we can see how the aquatic mammal behind me, Pezosiren, is related to the more recent Metaxytherium. Separated by some 30 million years, these mammals lost their hind limbs and acquired flippers instead of feet. And today, their closest living relatives are the manatees and dugongs. Places like the Deep Time Hall show us evolution at work, with specimens that take us from the most ancient fossil ancestors, to transitional forms, all the way to the organisms we know today. In less than 200 years, scientific study has completely revolutionized our understanding of the constantly changing nature of life. We’ve been able to see how organisms are shaped by their environments to better survive and reproduce there. And we’ve learned that time is a key component of evolution. This is why a deep look into the deep past is critical for our understanding how life has changed over millions of years. And, it’s why we’re so excited about the opening of the new Deep Time Hall in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

https://stindx.com/track?v=dyiZaHIRM6w&l=en&t=human

Guo, Jinyu, Shuang, Kai, Li, Jijie, Wang, Zihan The goal of dialogue state tracking (DST) is to predict the current dialogue state given all previous dialogue contexts. Existing approaches generally predict the dialogue state at every turn from scratch. However, the overwhelming majority of the slots in each turn should simply inherit the slot values from the previous turn. Therefore, the mechanism of treating slots equally in each turn not only is inefficient but also may lead to additional errors because of the redundant slot value generation. To address this problem, we devise the two-stage DSS-DST which consists of the Dual Slot Selector based on the current turn dialogue, and the Slot Value Generator based on the dialogue history. The Dual Slot Selector determines each slot whether to update slot value or to inherit the slot value from the previous turn from two aspects: (1) if there is a strong relationship between it and the current turn dialogue utterances; (2) if a slot value with high reliability can be obtained for it through the current turn dialogue. The slots selected to be updated are permitted to enter the Slot Value Generator to update values by a hybrid method, while the other slots directly inherit the values from the previous turn. Empirical results show that our method achieves 56.93%, 60.73%, and 58.04% joint accuracy on MultiWOZ 2.0, MultiWOZ 2.1, and MultiWOZ 2.2 datasets respectively and achieves a new state-of-the-art performance with significant improvements. Yeh, Yi-Ting, Eskenazi, Maxine, Mehri, Shikib Automatic evaluation metrics are a crucial component of dialog systems research. Standard language evaluation metrics are known to be ineffective for evaluating dialog. As such, recent research has proposed a number of novel, dialog-specific metrics that correlate better with human judgements. Due to the fast pace of research, many of these metrics have been assessed on different datasets and there has as yet been no time for a systematic comparison between them. To this end, this paper provides a comprehensive assessment of recently proposed dialog evaluation metrics on a number of datasets. In this paper, 17 different automatic evaluation metrics are evaluated on 10 different datasets. Furthermore, the metrics are assessed in different settings, to better qualify their respective strengths and weaknesses. Metrics are assessed (1) on both the turn level and the dialog level, (2) for different dialog lengths, (3) for different dialog qualities (e.g., coherence, engaging), (4) for different types of response generation models (i.e., generative, retrieval, simple models and state-of-the-art models), (5) taking into account the similarity of different metrics and (6) exploring combinations of different metrics. This comprehensive assessment offers several takeaways pertaining to dialog evaluation metrics in general. It also suggests how to best assess evaluation metrics and indicates promising directions for future work. Palani, Sarojadevi, Rajagopal, Prabhu, Pancholi, Sidharth Sentiment analysis (SA) has become an extensive research area in recent years impacting diverse fields including ecommerce, consumer business, and politics, driven by increasing adoption and usage of social media platforms. It is challenging to extract topics and sentiments from unsupervised short texts emerging in such contexts, as they may contain figurative words, strident data, and co-existence of many possible meanings for a single word or phrase, all contributing to obtaining incorrect topics. Most prior research is based on a specific theme/rhetoric/focused-content on a clean dataset. In the work reported here, the effectiveness of BERT(Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) in sentiment classification tasks from a raw live dataset taken from a popular microblogging platform is demonstrated. A novel T-BERT framework is proposed to show the enhanced performance obtainable by combining latent topics with contextual BERT embeddings. Numerical experiments were conducted on an ensemble with about 42000 datasets using NimbleBox.ai platform with a hardware configuration consisting of Nvidia Tesla K80(CUDA), 4 core CPU, 15GB RAM running on an isolated Google Cloud Platform instance. The empirical results show that the model improves in performance while adding topics to BERT and an accuracy rate of 90.81% on sentiment classification using BERT with the proposed approach. Barreto, Sérgio, Moura, Ricardo, Carvalho, Jonnathan, Paes, Aline, Plastino, Alexandre With the growth of social medias, such as Twitter, plenty of user-generated data emerge daily. The short texts published on Twitter -- the tweets -- have earned significant attention as a rich source of information to guide many decision-making processes. However, their inherent characteristics, such as the informal, and noisy linguistic style, remain challenging to many natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including sentiment analysis. Sentiment classification is tackled mainly by machine learning-based classifiers. The literature has adopted word representations from distinct natures to transform tweets to vector-based inputs to feed sentiment classifiers. The representations come from simple count-based methods, such as bag-of-words, to more sophisticated ones, such as BERTweet, built upon the trendy BERT architecture. Nevertheless, most studies mainly focus on evaluating those models using only a small number of datasets. Despite the progress made in recent years in language modelling, there is still a gap regarding a robust evaluation of induced embeddings applied to sentiment analysis on tweets. Furthermore, while fine-tuning the model from downstream tasks is prominent nowadays, less attention has been given to adjustments based on the specific linguistic style of the data. In this context, this study fulfils an assessment of existing language models in distinguishing the sentiment expressed in tweets by using a rich collection of 22 datasets from distinct domains and five classification algorithms. The evaluation includes static and contextualized representations. Contexts are assembled from Transformer-based autoencoder models that are also fine-tuned based on the masked language model task, using a plethora of strategies. Xu, Ying, Zhong, Xu, Yepes, Antonio Jimeno, Lau, Jey Han We introduce a grey-box adversarial attack and defence framework for sentiment classification. We address the issues of differentiability, label preservation and input reconstruction for adversarial attack and defence in one unified framework. Our results show that once trained, the attacking model is capable of generating high-quality adversarial examples substantially faster (one order of magnitude less in time) than state-of-the-art attacking methods. These examples also preserve the original sentiment according to human evaluation. Additionally, our framework produces an improved classifier that is robust in defending against multiple adversarial attacking methods. Code is available at: https://github.com/ibm-aur-nlp/adv-def-text-dist. Ye, Fanghua, Manotumruksa, Jarana, Zhang, Qiang, Li, Shenghui, Yilmaz, Emine An indispensable component in task-oriented dialogue systems is the dialogue state tracker, which keeps track of users' intentions in the course of conversation. The typical approach towards this goal is to fill in multiple pre-defined slots that are essential to complete the task. Although various dialogue state tracking methods have been proposed in recent years, most of them predict the value of each slot separately and fail to consider the correlations among slots. In this paper, we propose a slot self-attention mechanism that can learn the slot correlations automatically. Specifically, a slot-token attention is first utilized to obtain slot-specific features from the dialogue context. Then a stacked slot self-attention is applied on these features to learn the correlations among slots. We conduct comprehensive experiments on two multi-domain task-oriented dialogue datasets, including MultiWOZ 2.0 and MultiWOZ 2.1. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on both datasets, verifying the necessity and effectiveness of taking slot correlations into consideration. Social media popularity and importance is on the increase, due to people using it for various types of social interaction across multiple channels. This social interaction by online users includes submission of feedback, opinions and recommendations about various individuals, entities, topics, and events. This systematic review focuses on the evolving research area of Social Opinion Mining, tasked with the identification of multiple opinion dimensions, such as subjectivity, sentiment polarity, emotion, affect, sarcasm and irony, from user-generated content represented across multiple social media platforms and in various media formats, like text, image, video and audio. Therefore, through Social Opinion Mining, natural language can be understood in terms of the different opinion dimensions, as expressed by humans. This contributes towards the evolution of Artificial Intelligence, which in turn helps the advancement of several real-world use cases, such as customer service and decision making. A thorough systematic review was carried out on Social Opinion Mining research which totals 485 studies and spans a period of twelve years between 2007 and 2018. The in-depth analysis focuses on the social media platforms, techniques, social datasets, language, modality, tools and technologies, natural language processing tasks and other aspects derived from the published studies. Such multi-source information fusion plays a fundamental role in mining of people's social opinions from social media platforms. These can be utilised in many application areas, ranging from marketing, advertising and sales for product/service management, and in multiple domains and industries, such as politics, technology, finance, healthcare, sports and government. Future research directions are presented, whereas further research and development has the potential of leaving a wider academic and societal impact. Hong, Chung Hoon, Liang, Yuan, Roy, Sagnik Sinha, Jain, Arushi, Agarwal, Vihang, Draves, Ryan, Zhou, Zhizhuo, Chen, William, Liu, Yujian, Miracky, Martha, Ge, Lily, Banovic, Nikola, Jurgens, David Conversational Intelligence requires that a person engage on informational, personal and relational levels. Advances in Natural Language Understanding have helped recent chatbots succeed at dialog on the informational level. However, current techniques still lag for conversing with humans on a personal level and fully relating to them. The University of Michigan's submission to the Alexa Prize Grand Challenge 3, Audrey, is an open-domain conversational chat-bot that aims to engage customers on these levels through interest driven conversations guided by customers' personalities and emotions. Audrey is built from socially-aware models such as Emotion Detection and a Personal Understanding Module to grasp a deeper understanding of users' interests and desires. Our architecture interacts with customers using a hybrid approach balanced between knowledge-driven response generators and context-driven neural response generators to cater to all three levels of conversations. During the semi-finals period, we achieved an average cumulative rating of 3.25 on a 1-5 Likert scale. We investigate the problem of multi-domain Dialogue State Tracking (DST) with open vocabulary, which aims to extract the state from the dialogue. Existing approaches usually concatenate previous dialogue state with dialogue history as the input to a bi-directional Transformer encoder. They rely on the self-attention mechanism of Transformer to connect tokens in them. However, attention may be paid to spurious connections, leading to wrong inference. In this paper, we propose to construct a dialogue state graph in which domains, slots and values from the previous dialogue state are connected properly. Through training, the graph node and edge embeddings can encode co-occurrence relations between domain-domain, slot-slot and domain-slot, reflecting the strong transition paths in general dialogue. The state graph, encoded with relational-GCN, is fused into the Transformer encoder. Experimental results show that our approach achieves a new state of the art on the task while remaining efficient. It outperforms existing open-vocabulary DST approaches. Wu, Zhengxuan, Ong, Desmond C. Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) and Targeted ASBA (TABSA) allow finer-grained inferences about sentiment to be drawn from the same text, depending on context. For example, a given text can have different targets (e.g., neighborhoods) and different aspects (e.g., price or safety), with different sentiment associated with each target-aspect pair. In this paper, we investigate whether adding context to self-attention models improves performance on (T)ABSA. We propose two variants of Context-Guided BERT (CG-BERT) that learn to distribute attention under different contexts. We first adapt a context-aware Transformer to produce a CG-BERT that uses context-guided softmax-attention. Next, we propose an improved Quasi-Attention CG-BERT model that learns a compositional attention that supports subtractive attention. We train both models with pretrained BERT on two (T)ABSA datasets: SentiHood and SemEval-2014 (Task 4). Both models achieve new state-of-the-art results with our QACG-BERT model having the best performance. Furthermore, we provide analyses of the impact of context in the our proposed models. Our work provides more evidence for the utility of adding context-dependencies to pretrained self-attention-based language models for context-based natural language tasks.

https://aitopics.org/search?filters=taxnodes%3ATechnology%7CInformation+Technology%7CArtificial+Intelligence%7CNatural+Language%7CDiscourse+%26+Dialogue%40%40taxnodes%3ATechnology%7CInformation+Technology%7CArtificial+Intelligence%40%40taxnodes%3ATechnology%7CInformation+Technology%7CArtificial+Intelligence%7CMachine+Learning%7CNeural+Networks%7CDeep+Learning%40%40modified%3A%5B1000-01-01T00%3A00%3A01.000Z+TO+NOW%5D%40%40taxnodes%3AGenre%7CResearch+Report%7CNew+Finding%40%40modified%3A%5B*+TO+NOW%5D

Summary: The main purpose of the ex-ante evaluation is to improve the quality of the county development plan (CDP). The ex-ante evaluation will ensure that the CDP of Šibenik-Knin County will be evaluated based on the following main criteria: relevance (relevance and strengths of information and their completeness); effectiveness; coherence (internal: synergy between CDP objectives, and external: with other development programs). The evaluation will be based on additional criteria: the criterion of concentration and the criterion of clarity. The ex-ante evaluation of the Development Plan of Šibenik-Knin County for the period 2021-2027 is based on the principles of accuracy and integrity, effectiveness, on results orientation, sustainability and partnership and transparency.

https://eizg.hr/projects/ongoing-projects/ex-ante-evaluation-of-the-sibenik-knin-county-development-plan/5756

To refine and improve the way that data from Montana’s State Truck Activities Reporting System (STARS) is processed to make it a more effective tool for planning weight enforcement activities by the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT). To provide an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of Montana’s “New Entrant Safety Assurance Program” and suggest ways to improve the program. Document the demand for intermodal shipping service in Montana, and recommend incentives that could be used to encourage rail companies to create such a service to help Montana agriculture and industry to compete in the world marketplace. To evaluate the accuracy, operations and maintenance requirements and relative costs of a new low cost weigh-in-motion system that is less sensitive to the infrastructure in which it is placed. Results if successful, will lead to widespread implementation in rural areas where lower truck traffic volumes Sitemap Montana State University College of Engineering PO Box 174250, Bozeman, MT 59717-4250 Tel: (406) 994-6114 Fax: (406) 994-1697 © 2008 Montana State University. All rights reserved.

http://www.westerntransportationinstitute.org/research/logistics/completed/default.aspx

This article presents a comparative study on different types of robust design optimization methods for electrical machines. Three robust design approaches, Taguchi parameter design, worst-case design and design for six-sigma, are compared for low-dimensional and high-dimensional design optimization scenarios, respectively. For the high-dimensional scenario, the computational burden is normally massive due to the robustness evaluation of a huge number of design candidates. To attempt this challenge, as the second aim of this paper, a space reduction optimization (SRO) strategy is proposed for these robust design approaches, yielding three new robust optimization methods. To illustrate and compare the performance of different robust design optimization methods, a permanent magnet motor with soft magnetic composite cores is investigated with the consideration of material diversities and manufacturing tolerances. 3-D finite element model and thermal network model are employed in the optimization process and the accuracy of both models has been verified by experimental results. Based on the theoretical analysis and optimization results, a detailed comparison is provided for all investigated and proposed robust design optimization methods in terms of different aspects. It shows that the proposed SRO strategy can greatly improve the design optimization effectiveness and efficiency of those three conventional robust design methods.

https://www.cheric.org/research/tech/periodicals/view.php?seq=1835617

Evaluation is a tool to strengthen results-based management and the human-rights based approach to programming. Evaluation is a process of systematically and objectively assessing the value of what we do. Evaluation examines the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of what we do. Good evaluation involves a broad range of stakeholders to ensure independence of the process as well as accuracy and completeness of the conclusions, recommendations and lessons learned. Good evaluation answers the questions that key users have and in doing so focuses their decisions and actions. Evaluation aims to improve or reorient the policies, strategies or programmes examined, as well as to contribute to learning beyond that specific case and to strengthen reporting for accountability. Evaluation helps UNICEF and partners to focus on results for children and women and to assess those results against human rights standards. The Evaluation Database contains abstracts with access to the full text of UNICEF’s evaluations, studies and surveys.

https://www.unicef.org/evaluation/index_evaluation.html

Kessler, Jason S. (Indiana University) | Nicolov, Nicolas (J.D. Power and Associates (McGraw-Hill)) User generated content is extremely valuable for mining market intelligence because it is unsolicited. We study the problem of analyzing users' sentiment and opinion in their blog, message board, etc. posts with respect to topics expressed as a search query. In the scenario we consider the matches of the search query terms are expanded through coreference and meronymy to produce a set of mentions. The mentions are contextually evaluated for sentiment and their scores are aggregated (using a data structure we introduce call the sentiment propagation graph) to produce an aggregate score for the input entity. An extremely crucial part in the contextual evaluation of individual mentions is finding which sentiment expressions are semantically related to (target) which mentions --- this is the focus of our paper. We present an approach where potential target mentions for a sentiment expression are ranked using supervised machine learning (Support Vector Machines) where the main features are the syntactic configurations (typed dependency paths) connecting the sentiment expression and the mention. We have created a large English corpus of product discussions blogs annotated with semantic types of mentions, coreference, meronymy and sentiment targets. The corpus proves that coreference and meronymy are not marginal phenomena but are really central to determining the overall sentiment for the top-level entity. We evaluate a number of techniques for sentiment targeting and present results which we believe push the current state-of-the-art. George, Clint Pazhayidam (University of Florida) | Puri, Sahil (University of Florida) | Wang, Daisy Zhe (University of Florida) | Wilson, Joseph N. (University of Florida) | Hamilton, William F. (University of Florida) Electronic discovery is an interesting subproblem of information retrieval in which one identifies documents that are potentially relevant to issues and facts of a legal case from an electronically stored document collection (a corpus). In this paper, we consider representing documents in a topic space using the well-known topic models such as latent Dirichlet allocation and latent semantic indexing, and solving the information retrieval problem via finding document similarities in the topic space rather doing it in the corpus vocabulary space. We also develop an iterative SMART ranking and categorization framework including human-in-the-loop to label a set of seed (training) documents and using them to build a semi-supervised binary document classification model based on Support Vector Machines. To improve this model, we propose a method for choosing seed documents from the whole population via an active learning strategy. We report the results of our experiments on a real dataset in the electronic discovery domain. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of machine learning concerned with processing and analyzing natural language data, usually in the form of text or audio. Some common challenges within NLP include speech recognition, text generation, and sentiment analysis, while some high-profile products deploying NLP models include Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and many of the chatbots one might interact with online. To get started with NLP and introduce some of the core concepts in the field, we're going to build a model that tries to predict the sentiment (positive, neutral, or negative) of tweets relating to US Airlines, using the popular Twitter US Airline Sentiment dataset. Code snippets will be included in this post, but for fully reproducible notebooks and scripts, view all of the notebooks and scripts associated with this project on its Comet project page. Let's start by importing some libraries. Balasubramanyan, Ramnath (Carnegie Mellon University) | Cohen, William W (Carnegie Mellon University) | Pierce, Douglas (Rutgers University) | Redlawsk, David P. (Rutgers University) Political discourse in the United States is getting increasingly polarized. This polarization frequently causes different communities to react very differently to the same news events. Political blogs as a form of social media provide an unique insight into this phenomenon. We present a multitarget, semisupervised latent variable model, MCR-LDA to model this process by analyzing political blogs posts and their comment sections from different political communities jointly to predict the degree of polarization that news topics cause. Inspecting the model after inference reveals topics and the degree to which it triggers polarization. In this approach, community responses to news topics are observed using sentiment polarity and comment volume which serves as a proxy for the level of interest in the topic. In this context, we also present computational methods to assign sentiment polarity to the comments which serve as targets for latent variable models that predict the polarity based on the topics in the blog content. Our results show that the joint modeling of communities with different political beliefs using MCR-LDA does not sacrifice accuracy in sentiment polarity prediction when compared to approaches that are tailored to specific communities and additionally provides a view of the polarization in responses from the different communities.

https://aitopics.org/mlt?cdid=news%3AFA1CF778&dimension=taxnodes

BACKGROUND – Healthcare teams are responding to complex challenges to deliver quality, safe and cost-effective healthcare by transforming traditional approaches of healthcare delivery to incorporate Interprofessional practice (IPP), underpinned by Inter-professional education (IPE) ¹²³. To fully realise the benefits and efficiencies IPP and IPE can effect, it is imperative that healthcare services develop an organisation-wide understanding of principles of IPE and IPP¹²⁵ , thus Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Services (CHQ-HSS) has developed an organisation-wide IPE/IPP strategy including an evaluation framework and workforce awareness survey (WAS) to ensure internal consistency in longitudinal evaluation. AIM – To establish a consistent approach to evaluation of organisational learning related to an IPE/IPP strategy and to monitor organisational understanding of IPP/IPE by sampling the workforce of CHQ longitudinally through a phased roll out of the strategy. METHOD – A working group of interprofessional champions from CHQ-HHS was convened. An international partnership was formalised with the Centre for Interprofessional Education, University of Toronto. Literature reviews were conducted to inform WAS content and develop the Evaluation framework cross-referenced to organisational learning effectiveness as described by Kirkpatrick-Phillips⁴. Consultation incorporated review by CHQ representatives and international partners. A pilot awareness survey was undertaken with a sample population of workforce (clinical and non-clinical) to refine its effectiveness. Communication and distribution plan optimised workforce engagement and survey completion rates. RESULTS & DISCUSSION – Initial data collection phase is underway for phase1/horizon1 of the strategy. Results from this stage will be analysed & presented. Findings from the evaluation framework and awareness survey will serve to inform future planning for targeted IPE/ IPP activity within CHQ-HHS existing and emerging workforce with the aim of improving integration of care and optimising clinical outcomes for those target populations best serviced by interprofessional models of care. Ongoing evaluation of IPE/IPP activities across horizons of implementation will be measured according to the evaluation framework. Kris Kelly is an Allied Health Workforce Development Officer and Co-chair of the Children’s Health Queensland Inter-professional Working Group. She has been involved in educating allied health students within the university context and during clinical placement with of focus on inter-professional education in a paediatric context. Her work has included paediatric workforce education and training also incorporating inter- professional education with emphasis on inter professional models of care and simulation based learning for over a decade.

http://www.nahc.com.au/3205

BACKGROUND – Healthcare teams are responding to complex challenges to deliver quality, safe and cost-effective healthcare by transforming traditional approaches of healthcare delivery to incorporate Interprofessional practice (IPP), underpinned by Inter-professional education (IPE) ¹²³. To fully realise the benefits and efficiencies IPP and IPE can effect, it is imperative that healthcare services develop an organisation-wide understanding of principles of IPE and IPP¹²⁵ , thus Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Services (CHQ-HSS) has developed an organisation-wide IPE/IPP strategy including an evaluation framework and workforce awareness survey (WAS) to ensure internal consistency in longitudinal evaluation. AIM – To establish a consistent approach to evaluation of organisational learning related to an IPE/IPP strategy and to monitor organisational understanding of IPP/IPE by sampling the workforce of CHQ longitudinally through a phased roll out of the strategy. METHOD – A working group of interprofessional champions from CHQ-HHS was convened. An international partnership was formalised with the Centre for Interprofessional Education, University of Toronto. Literature reviews were conducted to inform WAS content and develop the Evaluation framework cross-referenced to organisational learning effectiveness as described by Kirkpatrick-Phillips⁴. Consultation incorporated review by CHQ representatives and international partners. A pilot awareness survey was undertaken with a sample population of workforce (clinical and non-clinical) to refine its effectiveness. Communication and distribution plan optimised workforce engagement and survey completion rates. RESULTS & DISCUSSION – Initial data collection phase is underway for phase1/horizon1 of the strategy. Results from this stage will be analysed & presented. Findings from the evaluation framework and awareness survey will serve to inform future planning for targeted IPE/ IPP activity within CHQ-HHS existing and emerging workforce with the aim of improving integration of care and optimising clinical outcomes for those target populations best serviced by interprofessional models of care. Ongoing evaluation of IPE/IPP activities across horizons of implementation will be measured according to the evaluation framework. Biography: Kris Kelly is an Allied Health Workforce Development Officer and Co-chair of the Children’s Health Queensland Inter-professional Working Group. She has been involved in educating allied health students within the university context and during clinical placement with of focus on inter-professional education in a paediatric context. Her work has included paediatric workforce education and training also incorporating inter- professional education with emphasis on inter professional models of care and simulation based learning for over a decade.

http://www.nahc.com.au/3205

Design Student of the Month - Danielle Lottridge There are a lot of creative students in Canada who are doing innovative work to improve people's life through interactive, visual, informational, and other aspects of User Experience Design. I invited them to introduce who they are and share their work with you. To nominate a Design Student of the Month, email us. The Design Student of the Month for September 2008 is Danielle Lottridge! Congratulations!! Let's hear from Danielle. Who’s Danielle? I am halfway through a 4-year PhD program in Human Factors, in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, at the University of Toronto. I have had the benefit of learning from gifted mentors who have inspired me and instilled in me a life-long goal of learning. I am passionate about the pursuit of meaningful questions with appropriate and rigorous methods. I have deep enthusiasm for the foci of human factors and human computer interaction; my work aims to improve the design and evaluation of interactive systems. Teaching is also important aspect of my work: I aim to provide my students with motivation and tools to pursue their own questions and learning paths. I always try to approach the world with curiosity. This is one of my favourite quotes: “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” - Voltaire What cool stuff is Danielle doing? I will highlight two projects from my two main research areas: design methods and emotional evaluation. Please see the video below where I talked about my two research areas. Wendy Mackay and I developed a method to sketch design spaces. Low-fidelity sketches that include design dimensions (axes), point designs (devices) and boundaries (inclusion-exclusion criteria) can help designers generate ideas, select among alternatives, re-frame a design project and iteratively refine a design. We purposefully include technology, design and social science dimensions to frame design spaces from a multi-disciplinary perspective. My research on emotional reactions aims to provide users with an effective way to communicate their emotional experiences, in the context of system evaluation. Today’s standards of likert scale items with common labels (happy, angry) do not provide enough granularity for an account of continuous interactive experiences. I created several prototypes to report emotional responses: including tangible components and dynamic animations on a touch screen. The prototypes are based on the two-dimensional psychological model of emotion: valence (positive-negative) and arousal (excited-calm). I recently completed a study with 12 participants to assess correlations with psychological measures, reliability and cognitive load. I plan to use the results to iterate for an improved design. This work aims to contribute a rigorous, continuous method of measuring self-reported emotion as a valuable addition to traditional HCI evaluation methods such as response time, accuracy, usability, satisfaction, and workload. 1. Lottridge, D., and Mackay, W. 2008. Sketching Design Spaces (Interactive Poster). CSCW’08 2. Lottridge, D. 2008. Emotional response as a measure of human performance. In CHI '08 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '08. ACM, New York, NY, 2617-2620. What are Danielle’s plans after graduation? I love exploring questions from multiple viewpoints: theoretically, empirically and through design and practice. Universities are great places to engage with other people in pursuing this type of multi- and trans-disciplinary research. The next step after my PhD is to do a post-doc. After that, I plan to pursue a tenure track-faculty position. Want to learn more about Danielle?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/canux/design-student-of-the-month-danielle-lottridge

In recent years, online reviews have become the foremost medium for users to express their satisfaction, or lack thereof, about products and services. The proliferation of user-generated reviews, combined with the rapid growth of e-commerce, results in vast amounts of opinionated text becoming available to consumers, manufacturers, and researchers alike. This has fuelled an increased focus on automated methods that attempt to discover, analyze, and distill opinions found in text. This thesis tackles the tasks of fine-grained sentiment analysis and aspect extraction, and presents a unified framework for the summarization of opinions from multiple user reviews. Two core concepts form the basis of our methodology. Firstly, the use of neural networks, whose ability to learn continuous feature representations from data, without recourse to preprocessing tools or linguistic annotations, has advanced the state-of-the-art of numerous Natural Language Processing tasks. Secondly, our belief that opinion mining systems applied to real-life applications cannot rely on expensive human annotations and should mostly take advantage of freely available review data. Specifically, the main contributions of this thesis are: (i) The creation of OPOSUM, a new Opinion Summarization corpus which contains over one million reviews from multiple domains. To test our methods, we annotated a subset of the data with fine-grained sentiment and aspect labels, as well as extractive gold-standard opinion summaries. (ii) The development of two weakly-supervised hierarchical neural models for the detection and extraction of sentiment-heavy expressions in reviews. Our first model composes segment representations hierarchically and uses an attention mechanism to differentiate between opinions and neutral statements. Our second model is based on Multiple Instance Learning (MIL), and can detect user opinions of potentially opposing polarity. Experiments demonstrate significant benefits from our MIL-based architecture. (iii) The introduction of a neural model for aspect extraction, which requires minimal human involvement. Our proposed formulation uses aspect keywords to help the model target specific aspects, and a multi-tasking objective to further improve its accuracy. (iv) A unified summarization framework which combines our sentiment and aspect detection methods, while taking redundancy into account to produce useful opinion summaries from multiple reviews. Automatic evaluation, on our opinion summarization dataset, shows significant improvements over other summarization systems in terms of extraction accuracy and similarity to reference summaries. A large-scale judgement elicitation study indicates that our summaries are also preferred by human judges.

https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.783772

The bullet impact detection in the silhouette plays an important role in the institutions which have a shooting range, specially where are regulated the license to carry a gun and where the evaluation manual process could present distortion in the ability's evaluation of the shooter and like a consequence the license's issuance. This paper proposes a method for an automatic detection of the bullet impacts in silhouettes based on deep learning and image processing, which consist of the following steps: pre-processing, impacts detection, edge detection and evaluation results. The experiments about 600 silhouettes with 2401 bullet impacts images of the proposed and implemented method considering the models Resnet 50 and Resnet 101 for Mask R-CNN show that Resnet 50 get better results than Resnet 101, achieving 97.6 %, 99.5 %, and 97.9 %, of accuracy, precision and recall, respectively, above the methods Circular Hough Transform, Circlet Detection, Random Sample Consensus, Randomized Hough Transform, Randomized Circle Detection, Support Vector Machine, Faster R-CNN, MnasNet and YOLO. Also, the results show 100 % of effectiveness in the edge detection and the count of the detected bullet impacts. |Original language||English| |Article number||9139306| |Pages (from-to)||129542-129552| |Number of pages||11| |Journal||IEEE Access| |Volume||8| |DOIs| |State||Published - 2020| Bibliographical notePublisher Copyright: © 2013 IEEE. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

https://siis.unmsm.edu.pe/en/publications/bullet-impact-detection-in-silhouettes-using-mask-r-cnn

Who we are We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting individuals with disabilities in their pursuit of postsecondary education. Through scholarships and awareness, we hope to open doors to educational opportunities that have been previously unattainable. STRIDES will work tirelessly to improve access to educational programs for individuals with disabilities, and encourage a more welcoming environment for students with IDD across all college campuses. We support students attending two educational programs at Texas A&M University: the PATHS Certificate program and Aggie ACHIEVE program. While these programs are fantastic for students, the financial burden of a postsecondary education is sometimes too much for families to bear. We work to alleviate this problem by providing students with disabilities the resources that they need to attain their goals. However, We know we can’t reach our goal without your support. Please check out our donate page or sign up for our newsletter below! Have a question? Send Us a Message! STRIDES is a certified 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax deductible.

https://letsmakestrides.com/

The Parris Foundation, Inc. The Parris Foundation, Inc. Causes Here's a sample of our volunteer opportunities:VIEW AS Mission Statement Mission The Parris Foundation is dedicated to promoting educational opportunities and fostering awareness in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) via scholarships and community outreach programs. The Parris Foundation currently fulfills its mission by: Providing scholarships to students from disadvantaged, socio-economic backgrounds who are enrolled in undergraduate programs in the STEM disciplines with a proven financial need Servicing disenfranchised communities by providing educational opportunities in STEM Collaborating with organizations focused on improving access to technology for low-income families Exposing adolescents and young adults to academic and professional opportunities in STEM Description Vision The Parris Foundation believes that attracting young people to STEM is the key to closing the achievement gap, and eradicating the disparity in academic performance between disadvantaged and privileged students. In an effort to break the cycle of poverty in underprivileged communities, The Parris Foundation equips disenfranchised students with the tools needed to pursue STEM disciplines, academically and professionally. The Parris Foundation’s programs and partnerships provide out-of-school learning activities to supplement, and enhance in-school learning. The lack of global competiveness the U.S has experienced in recent years will not improve unless we start molding the next generation of innovators and inventors at a young age. Moreover, the faces of STEM should be representative of the diverse world in which we live. Exposure to STEM via The Parris Foundation programs:

https://www.volunteermatch.org/search/org471840.jsp

Hit the Books (“HTB”) aims to bring additional educational resources to underserved communities through a sports-based development approach, with tutoring and mentorship at its core and mixed martial arts as the ‘hook’. HTB serves as an after-school community center to facilitate career development and help make any and every goal achievable for its Students. HOW WE WILL ACHIEVE OUR MISSION HTB provides after-school educational programs, mentorship, and mixed martial art classes to kids in Harlem aged 6-13 in order to help our Students progress outside of the classroom intellectually, emotionally, and physically. HTB exposes its Students to educational and professional opportunities that may otherwise pass them by, fostering an environment of educational equality. In addition to enhancing the educational resources available to children, HTB serves as a community within a community, where children feel safe and view the facility as a second home. Hit the Books Values Our members believe in a commitment to their academic goals and put the value of education first. Our members believe that they are capable, resilient and can bounce back from anything. Our members are ambitious, and they believe every opportunity can be achieved with a positive attitude, hard work and tenacity. Our members are self-disciplined. Focus and consistent practice lead to success—in the ring, and in all corners of life. Finally, HTB members are compassionate toward others. They believe in being empathetic toward each other, their families, and other HTB members. They are champions for their communities and strive to make the world a better place.

https://www.hitthebooksnyc.org/mission-statement

Zamar Music Academy , the educational division of Zamar Music Productions Inc., offers affordable music mentorship and education programs in a wide variety of instruments including Voice, to students of all ages and removes the financial obstacle that is often present within our communities by providing financial assistance and awarding scholarships to deserving applicants. Our mission is to provide students with the musical skills they need for self expression within a safe and mutually inclusive environment and to develop the musical ability of each student through quality music education and mentorship using the "A Better Way to Learn" method. Through the "A Better Way to Learn" method, our instructors engage and teach students how to play and understand their instruments through a combination of practice, ear training and musical theory. This teaching concept offers students more than just musical proficiency. Through music mentorship, students also gain creative empowerment, social skills and confidence. 8920 Highway 50, Unit 4 Brampton, Ont.

https://www.zamarmusicacademy.ca/aboutus.html

The name of the corporation is Friends of Lisi The Corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of Section 50I(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. Within the acope of the foregoing, the Corporation is organized and operated to support and benefit one or more centers or organizations described in Sections 509(a)(I) or 509(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, and engaged in (i) providing and developing educational assistance and services to underprivileged individuals witha special focus and emphasis on centers and organizations providing such services to children and youngadultsin Latin America, Africa and countries in similar social and economic conditions, and (ii) academic research, development and education (hereinafter an "Educational Organization"). Pursuant to the foregoing, the Corporation is organized and operated to directly or indirectly: - Design, construct, install and operate educational and academic centers; provide educational and academic assistance; design and operate educational programs; grant scholarships, including for post graduate programs and/or university degrees; and train the personnel necessary for the advancement in education of the community in general, with special focus and emphasis on poor and underprivileged individuals or educationally disadvantaged children and young adults; - Initiate, promote, sponsor, fund endow, manage and direct Educational Organizations in order to enhance educational opportunities, as well as to carry out any kind of activities in the academic, scientific, cultural, artistic and recreational fields; and - Promote, sponsor, fund, endow, manage and direct libraries, newspaper and periodicals libraries, museums and exhibitions. As well as to edit bulletins, periodicals, magazines, publications and books. THE MISSION OF LISI INSTITUTE is to give to the youn men and women an integral education of their personalities inspire on the human values and excellent academic, sport and musical formation so they can live in social commitment and participate actively in the constant improvement of their community. We work with young men and women that have natural talents of leadership. Those who have different intellectual and physical capacities, that are waiting to be taught in discipline in order to expose all their characteristics in the benefit of the society. TO DO OF THIS LISI INSTITUTE an educational model of excellence that gives to their students the necessary bases participate responsible within the society and constantly improve it. Mark with all their actions their human, academic, sport and cultural leadership.

http://www.friendsoflisi.org/how-we-are/

Meet Our Academic Advisor At NCA, we strive to partner with families to provide students with a Christ-centered, rigorous education that pushes them to achieve academic excellence. A major goal of ours is to provide students with the type of education that will prepare them for success at the college of their choice. As the academic advisor, it is my objective to provide students with as many resources and opportunities to be successful at the collegiate level. I will work alongside our students, families, and teachers to ensure every student’s educational experience is catered to their needs. I look forward to meeting individually with students to track progress and celebrate personal victories, as well as address academic challenges they may face along the way. In addition to providing students with a tailored educational plan, I aim to foster a mentorship with my students where we can discover God’s calling in their lives. I will guide students in how to discern God’s plan for their lives, and how to best utilize the unique gifts He has given them. I am excited to see what God has in store for each of our NCA Lions! I know they all will go on to do great things for God’s Kingdom! Anchored in Christ, Vanessa Zeiller, M.Ed.

https://www.nazarenechristianacademy.org/academic-advising

The Liamuiga Education Foundation is designed to improve the educational opportunities for underprivileged individuals in the community. The focus will be on providing scholarships for deserving individuals to get a chance at higher education. ADMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN The foundation intends to award up to four (4) annual scholarships to qualified students who have graduated from high school in St. Kitts and Nevis as well as those who have graduated from the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College. The fund that will assist students with payment of educational expenses associated with studying in the United States. P.O. Box 1913, Koi Building 2nd Floor,

http://lefstkittsnevis.org/

By Annalisa Purser and Maria O’Mara On this first day of fall semester, the University of Utah launched a new program aimed at improving educational achievement for women. Since the Women’s Enrollment Initiative was announced in October 2014, organizers have established campus and community partnerships that will provide resources such as mentorship, sponsorship and internships for women students and developed a website (women.utah.edu) to help students find resources to support them through school. The Women’s Enrollment Initiative was established as part of the university’s commitment to helping underserved students succeed at the U. It focuses on recruiting, retaining and graduating women by providing a network of support and services. “We already knew that women face a unique set of challenges in their journey to achieve an education,” said Debra Daniels, assistant vice president of the Women’s Enrollment Initiative and director of the Women’s Resource Center. “Through the focus groups and research we conducted during the past year, we’ve gotten better insight into the specific issues that prevent women from graduating and what resources are needed to help them succeed.” In Utah only 25.5 percent of women receive bachelor’s degrees—2 percent less than women nationally and 6 percent fewer than Utah men. Utah leaders have created a goal to have 66 percent of Utah’s population with postsecondary degrees by the year 2020, making this initiative all the more relevant. “People in Utah value education, but our students have many responsibilities that make going to school more difficult,” said Mary Parker, associate vice president for Enrollment Management. “By the time they graduate, 25 percent of our students have children. Day care, finances and the need to support a family can get in the way of completing a college degree. The best indicator of life success and earnings is having a college degree, and we want to give women the tools to achieve the best life possible.” While the Women’s Enrollment Initiative is designed to be integrated into programs and offices throughout the university by making changes that support women students, there are certain efforts that will be led by the WEI committee and the Women’s Resource Center. Since 2003, the Women’s Resource Center has increased its scholarship offerings from $60,000 annually to more than $220,000, with 100 recipients. During the past 10 years, the U has found that women who receive these scholarships have an 88 percent graduation and retention rate. The center also offers emergency grants to help women who are facing financial emergencies, such as unexpected car trouble or unplanned day care expenses. These grants have also been used to pay for books and allow women to continue with their education instead of postponing school for a job in order to cover these expenses. Among those who receive these emergency grants, there is an 83 percent retention rate. It is critical to continue the effort to increase scholarship funding specifically for women so more students can benefit from these gifts. Over the past year, the U has also focused on creating more physical spaces on campus that support women and their unique needs. Lactation rooms have been designated, child care offerings have been expanded and a family space was established in the library to give parents a space to work on assignments while their children play nearby. The focus groups showed that physical spaces for women are needed and appreciated, and the Women’s Enrollment Initiative hopes to create more of these in the future. “We understand the value of having a diverse campus, and women are an important part of that,” Daniels said. “Everyone is part of this initiative because we all benefit when women have college degrees. Education helps women grow personally and allows them to better care for themselves, their families, be better role models for their children and improve our state, the nation and the world. Our greatest wish is for women to feel supported, connected, safe and heard.” Annalisa Purser is a communications specialist at University Marketing and Communications. If you have an interesting story idea, email her at annalisa.purser@utah.edu. Maria O’Mara is the communications director for the University of Utah.

https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/commitment-to-women/

Our vision is to promote holistic education for the underprivileged child in orphanage homes and underprivileged schools with special focus on mentorship and material donations. MISSION Our mission is to ignite the need to succeed in the hearts and minds of the underprivileged child through: 1. Providing mentorship programs. 2. Providing them with materials to give them a sound mind to pursue their studies. OBJECTIVES OF SPRING-UP GLOBAL NETWORK The organization shall focus on transforming the lives of underprivileged children in primary and junior high schools through mentorship and donations. We seek to promote quality and holistic education by changing their world view for the better. SPRING-UP aims to ignite a passion to succeed in the hearts and minds of underprivileged children in orphanage homes and schools. a) Organizing programs to promote education. b) To have positive impact by pairing mentors with mentees. c) To indulge in activities that heighten the interest of the child to pursue higher education. d) To offer the child material donations to aid quality education.

https://ghanayouthdirectory.org/directory/3188/spring-up-global-network/

Our main activity is the material support and assistance for the people in need through educational, hygienic and social applications. Dr. Verestoy Attila Foundation was officially registered on February 19th 2008 at the Court of Odorheiu Secuiesc. http://verestoyattila-alapitvany.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=370&Itemid=206&lang=en#sigFreeId776126b41c The foundation’s objective is providing material support, help, new opportunities for the local communities, for young people, students, undergraduates, for underprivileged ones, for patients, and for aged ones. We favor the in-service training of the young people working in different areas, and we also offer scholarships for students and undergraduates. Our foundation considers it important that in his humanitarian and philanthropist work to collaborate with other foundations that are active in the similar areas. Since the treatment of the symptoms in not sufficient in the forming of an acceptable vision, we consider it important the organization of different programs that on long term may ease the social, hygienic and educational problems counting as a stereotype in our community. Our perspective: We work for a better and more liveable future. Our mission is to educate a generation sticking to its homeland which feels responsible for the conservation/survival of our region and which is ready to make sacrifices for this aim; to give an example in terms of cooperation, the importance and need of support; to assist non-governmental organisations which involve the disadvantaged in their activity in order to improve their life conditions.

http://verestoyattila-alapitvany.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=370&Itemid=206&lang=en

quality patient care and inspires creativity and leadership in new entrants into the workforce, would be invaluable to each agency and to the industry as a whole for the purpose of driving innovation. To accomplish this, EMS educational institutions ought to require degrees for instructors and strive to support EMS instructor development through rigorous hiring, quality improvement, formal education, experience, and mentorship. Formal internships and fellowships in EMS education should also be developed. Meanwhile, agencies should include teaching and mentorship in performance reviews and enhance salaries for exceptional educators. Finally, state and national EMS leaders should make a concerted effort to increase the pool of instructors that have advanced education degrees through incentive programs, scholarships and expansion of career opportunities. State and national average pass rates should be utilized to benchmark instructional performance and guide allocation of resources to programs with the greatest need. Simultaneously, well performing programs should be incentivized to identify and disseminate best practices and support the development of new innovative educational methods. ENHANCING EDUCATIONAL METHODS Students should leave formal EMS education with critical thinking skills, exposure to other health care roles, deeper knowledge about their role in the health care system, and have the ability to research new questions and learn independently. If that is accomplished, EMS providers would be more likely to be viewed as colleagues by other health care professionals.

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/589783/60/

Vertebrates use environmental cues to time reproduction to optimal breeding conditions. Numerous laboratory studies have revealed that light experienced during a critical window of the circadian (daily) rhythm can influence reproductive physiology. However, whether these relationships observed in captivity hold true under natural conditions and how they relate to observed variation in timing of reproductive output remains largely unexplored. Here we test the hypothesis that individual variation in daily timing recorded in nature (i.e. chronotype)... Data from: Heart rate reveals torpor at high body temperatures in lowland tropical free-tailed batsM. Teague O'Mara, Sebastian Rikker, Martin Wikelski, Andries Ter Maat, Henry S. Pollock & Dina K. N. Dechmann Reduction in metabolic rate and body temperature is a common strategy for small endotherms to save energy. The daily reduction in metabolic rate and heterothermy, or torpor, is particularly pronounced in regions with a large variation in daily ambient temperature. This applies most strongly in temperate bat species (order Chiroptera), but it is less clear how tropical bats save energy if ambient temperatures remain high. However, many subtropical and tropical species use some daily heterothermy... Data from: Individual recognition of opposite sex vocalizations in the zebra finchPietro B. D'Amelio, Milena Klumb, Mauricio Nicolas Adreani, Manfred Gahr & Andries Ter Maat Individual vocal recognition plays an important role in the social lives of many vocally active species. In group-living songbirds the most common vocalizations during communal interactions are low-intensity, soft, unlearned calls. Being able to tell individuals apart solely from a short call would allow a sender to choose a specific group member to address, resulting in the possibility to form complex communication networks. However, little research has yet been carried out to discover whether soft... Data from: Heritability and social brood effects on personality in juvenile and adult life-history stages in a wild passerineIsabel S. Winney, Julia Schroeder, Shinichi Nakagawa, Yu-Hsun Hsu, Mirre J. Simons, Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar, Maria-Elena Mannarelli & Terry Burke How has evolution led to the variation in behavioural phenotypes (personalities) in a population? Knowledge of whether personality is heritable, and to what degree it is influenced by the social environment, is crucial to understanding its evolutionary significance, yet few estimates are available from natural populations. We tracked three behavioural traits during different life-history stages in a pedigreed population of wild house sparrows. Using a quantitative genetic approach, we demonstrated heritability in adult exploration, and... Data from: Behavioural mediators of genetic life-history trade-offs: a test of the pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis in field cricketsFrancesca Santostefano, Alastair J. Wilson, Petri T. Niemela & Niels J. Dingemanse The pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis predicts associations between life-history and ‘risky’ behaviours. Individuals with ‘fast’ lifestyles should develop faster, reproduce earlier, exhibit more risk-prone behaviour, and die sooner than those with ‘slow’ lifestyles. While support for POLS has been equivocal to date, studies have relied on individual-level (phenotypic) patterns in which genetic trade-offs may be masked by environmental effects on phenotypes. We estimated genetic correlations between life-history (development, lifespan, size) and risky behaviours (exploration, aggression)... Data from: Lateralized feeding behavior is associated with asymmetrical neuroanatomy and lateralized gene expressions in the brain in scale-eating cichlid fishHyuk Je Lee, Ralf F. Schneider, Tereza Manousaki, Ji Hyoun Kang, Etienne Lein, Paolo Franchini & Axel Meyer Lateralized behavior (‘handedness’) is unusual, but consistently found across diverse animal lineages, including humans. It is thought to reflect brain anatomical and/or functional asymmetries, but its neuro-molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Lake Tanganyika scale-eating cichlid fish, Perissodus microlepis show pronounced asymmetry in their jaw morphology as well as handedness in feeding behavior – feeding scales preferentially only from one or the other side of their victims. This makes them an ideal model in which to... Data from: Age-dependent trajectories differ between within-pair and extra-pair paternity successYu-Hsun Hsu, Mirre J. P. Simons, Julia Schroeder, Antje Girndt, Isabel S. Winney, Terry Burke, Shinichi Nakagawa & Y.-H. Hsu Reproductive success is associated with age in many taxa, increasing in early life followed by reproductive senescence. In socially monogamous, but genetically polygamous species, this generates the interesting possibility of differential trajectories of within-pair and extra-pair siring success with age in males. We investigate these relationships simultaneously using within-individual analyses with 13 years of data from an insular house sparrow (Passer domesticus) population. As expected, we found that both within- and extra-pair paternity success increased... Data from: Testing the phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis in the presence and absence of inbreedingWolfgang Forstmeier, Malika Ihle, Pavlina Opatova, Katrin Martin, Ulrich Knief, Jana Albrechtová, Tomas Albrecht & Bart Kempenaers The phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis suggests that females can judge male fertility by inspecting male phenotypic traits. This is because male sexually selected traits might correlate with sperm quality if both are sensitive to factors that influence male condition. A recent meta-analysis found little support for this hypothesis, suggesting little or no shared condition dependence. However, we recently reported that in captive zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) inbreeding had detrimental effects both on phenotypic traits and on... Data from: Methods in field chronobiologyDavide Michelangelo Dominoni, Susanne Åkesson, Raymond Klaassen, Kamiel Spoelstra & Martin Bulla Chronobiological research has seen a continuous development of novel approaches and techniques to measure rhythmicity at different levels of biological organization from locomotor activity (e.g. migratory restlessness) to physiology (e.g. temperature and hormone rhythms, and relatively recently also in genes, proteins and metabolites). However, the methodological advancements in this field have been mostly and sometimes exclusively used only in indoor laboratory settings. In parallel, there has been an unprecedented and rapid improvement in our ability... Data from: The curious case of Bradypus variegatus sloths: populations in threatened habitats are biodiversity components needing protectionSofia Marques Silva, José A. Dávila, Bryson Voirin, Susana Lopes, Nuno Ferrand & Nadia Moraes-Barros Studying Neotropical wild populations is of particular interest. While this region is facing an escalating habitat degradation, it also has remarkable biodiversity levels, whose origin we are only beginning to understand. A myriad of processes might have had idiosyncratic effects on its numerous species. Within the hottest Neotropical biodiversity hotspot, the Atlantic Forest (AF), species and genetic diversities are organized latitudinally, with decreasing diversity levels southwards. Bradypus variegatus, the brown-throated three-toed sloth, was one of... Data from: Animal tracking meets migration genomics: transcriptomic analysis of a partially migratory bird speciesPaolo Franchini, Iker Irisarri, Adam Fudickar, Andreas Schmidt, Axel Meyer, Martin Wikelski & Jesko Partecke Seasonal migration is a widespread phenomenon, which is found in many different lineages of animals. This spectacular behaviour allows animals to avoid seasonally adverse environmental conditions to exploit more favourable habitats. Migration has been intensively studied in birds, which display astonishing variation in migration strategies, thus providing a powerful system for studying the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape migratory behaviour. Despite intensive research, the genetic basis of migration remains largely unknown. Here we used... Data from: Variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a South American passerine birdEsteban Botero-Delgadillo, Verónica Quirici, Yanina Poblete, Élfego Cuevas, Sylvia Kuhn, Alexander Girg, Kim Teltscher, Elie Poulin, Bart Kempenaers & Rodrigo A. Vasquez The distribution of suitable habitat influences natal and breeding dispersal at small spatial scales, resulting in strong micro-geographic genetic structure. Although environmental variation can promote inter-population differences in dispersal behavior and local spatial patterns, the effects of distinct ecological conditions on within-species variation in dispersal strategies and in fine-scale genetic structure remain poorly understood. We studied local dispersal and fine-scale genetic structure in the thorn-tailed rayadito (Aphrastura spinicauda), a South American bird that breeds along... Data from: Measurement artefacts lead to false positives in the study of birdsong in noiseHenrik Brumm, Sue Anne Zollinger, Petri T. Niemelä & Philipp Sprau 1: Numerous studies over the past decade have reported correlations between elevated levels of anthropogenic noise and a rise in the minimum frequency of acoustic signals of animals living in noisy habitats. This pattern appears to be occurring globally, and higher pitched signals have been hypothesized to be adaptive changes that reduce masking by low-frequency traffic noise. However, the sound analysis methods most often used in these studies are prone to measurement errors that can... Data from: No mutual mate choice for quality in zebra finches: time to question a widely-held assumptionDaiping Wang, Wolfgang Forstmeier & Bart Kempenaers Studies of mate choice typically assume that individuals prefer high quality mates and select them based on condition-dependent indicator traits. In species with bi-parental care, mutual mate choice is expected to result in assortative mating for quality. When assortment is not perfect, the lower quality pair members are expected to compensate by increased parental investment to secure their partner (positive differential allocation). This framework has been assumed to hold for monogamous species like the zebra... Data from: High fidelity: extra-pair fertilisations in eight Charadrius plover species are not associated with parental relatedness or social mating systemKathryn H. Maher, Luke J. Eberhart-Phillips, András Kosztolányi, Natalie Dos Remedios, María Cristina Carmona-Isunza, Medardo Cruz-López, Sama Zefania, James J. H. St Clair, Monif AlRashidi, Michael A. Weston, Martín A. Serrano-Meneses, Oliver Krüger, Joseph I. Hoffmann, Tamás Székely, Terry Burke, Clemens Küpper & Joseph I. Hoffman Extra-pair paternity is a common reproductive strategy in many bird species. However, it remains unclear why extra-pair paternity occurs and why it varies among species and populations. Plovers (Charadrius spp.) exhibit considerable variation in reproductive behaviour and ecology, making them excellent models to investigate the evolution of social and genetic mating systems. We investigated inter- and intra-specific patterns of extra-pair parentage and evaluated three major hypotheses explaining extra-pair paternity using a comparative approach based on... Data from: Cyclic bouts of extreme bradycardia counteract the highmetabolism of frugivorous batsM. Teague O'Mara, Martin Wikelski, Christian C. Voigt, Andries Ter Maat, Henry S. Pollock, Gary Burness, Lanna M. Desantis, Dina K. N. Dechmann & Dina KN Dechmann Active flight requires the ability to efficiently fuel bursts of costly locomotion while maximizing energy conservation during non-flying times. We took a multi-faceted approach to estimate how fruit-eating bats (Uroderma bilobatum) manage a high-energy lifestyle fueled primarily by fig juice. Miniaturized heart rate telemetry shows that they use a novel, cyclic, bradycardic state that reduces daily energetic expenditure by 10% and counteracts heart rates as high as 900 bpm during flight. Uroderma bilobatum support flight... Data from: Male but not female zebra finches with high plasma corticosterone have lower survivalBlanca Jimeno, Michael Briga, Michaela Hau & Simon Verhulst (1) The glucocorticoid axis is essential for coping with predictable and unpredictable environmental variation. Despite this vital function, attempts to link individual variation in the glucocorticoid axis to survival have yielded mixed results, which may be due to endocrine variation caused by uncontrolled variation in environment and life history traits such as reproductive effort. We therefore studied the link between the glucocorticoid axis and long-term survival using captive non-breeding zebra finches. (2) We quantified the... Data from: Effects of experimental night lighting on the daily timing of winter foraging in common European songbirdsArnaud Da Silva, David Diez-Méndez & Bart Kempenaers The ecological effects of light pollution are becoming better understood, especially in birds. Recent studies have shown that several bird species can use street lighting to extend activity into the night during the breeding season. However, most of these studies are correlational and little is known about the effects of artificial night lighting on the timing of activities outside the breeding season. During winter, low temperatures and short days may limit foraging opportunities and can... Data from: Vocal plasticity in mallards: multiple signal changes in noise and the evolution of the Lombard effect in birdsAdriana M. Dorado-Correa, Sue Anne Zollinger & Henrik Brumm Signal plasticity is a building block of complex animal communication systems. A particular form of signal plasticity is the Lombard effect, in which a signaler increases its vocal amplitude in response to an increase in the background noise. The Lombard effect is a basic mechanism for communication in noise that is well-studied in human speech and which has also been reported in other mammals and several bird species. Sometimes, but not always, the Lombard effect... Data from: Simulated moult reduces flight performance but overlap with breeding does not affect breeding success in a long-distance migrantBarbara M. Tomotani, Florian T. Muijres, Julia Koelman, Stefania Casagrande & Marcel E. Visser 1. Long-distance migrants are time-constrained as they need to incorporate many annual cycle stages within a year. Migratory passerines moult in the short interval between breeding and migration. To widen this interval, moult may start while still breeding, but this results in flying with moulting wings when food provisioning. 2. We experimentally simulated wing gaps in breeding male pied flycatchers by plucking 2 primary feathers from both wings. We quantified the nest visitations of both... Data from: Routine habitat switching alters the likelihood and persistence of infection with a pathogenic parasiteDavid R. Daversa, Andrea Manica, Jaime Bosch, Jolle W. Jolles & Trenton W. J. Garner 1.Animals switch habitats on a regular basis, and when habitats vary in suitability for parasitism, routine habitat switching alters the frequency of parasite exposure and may affect post-infection parasite proliferation. However, the effects of routine habitat switching on infection dynamics are not well understood. 2.We performed infection experiments, behavioural observations, and field surveillance to evaluate how routine habitat switching by adult alpine newts (Ichthyosaura alpestris) influences infection dynamics of the pathogenic parasite, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd).... Data from: Oxidative status and fitness components in the Seychelles warblerJanske Van De Crommenacker, Martijn Hammers, Jildou Van Der Woude, Marina Louter, Peter Santema, David S. Richardson & Jan Komdeur Oxidative damage, caused by reactive oxygen species during aerobic respiration, is thought to be an important mediator of life-history trade-offs. To mitigate oxidative damage, antioxidant defence mechanisms are deployed, often at the cost of resource allocation to other body functions. Both reduced resource allocation to body functions and direct oxidative damage may decrease individual fitness, through reducing survival and/or reproductive output. The oxidative costs of reproduction have gained much attention recently, but few studies have... Data from: Plumage color manipulation has no effect on social dominance or fitness in zebra finchesSofia Jerónimo, Mehdi Khadraoui, Daiping Wang, Katrin Martin, John A. Lesku, Kylie A. Robert, Emmi Schlicht, Wolfgang Forstmeier & Bart Kempenaers Colourful plumage ornaments may evolve because they play a role in mate choice or in intrasexual competition, acting as signals of species identity or of individual quality. The zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) is a model organism for the study of mate choice and its colourful plumage ornaments are thought to be used in both of these contexts. Numerous genetic colour variants have been described for this species, but they are rare in the wild. This... Data from: Polygamy slows down population divergence in shorebirdsJosephine D'Urban Jackson, Natalie Dos Remedios, Kathryn H. Maher, Sama Zefania, Susan Haig, Sara Oyler-McCance, Donald Blomqvist, Terry Burke, Mike W. Bruford, Tamas Szekely, Clemens Küpper & Michael W. Bruford Sexual selection may act as a promotor of speciation since divergent mate choice and competition for mates can rapidly lead to reproductive isolation. Alternatively, sexual selection may also retard speciation since polygamous individuals can access additional mates by increased breeding dispersal. High breeding dispersal should hence increase gene flow and reduce diversification in polygamous species. Here we test how polygamy predicts diversification in shorebirds using genetic differentiation and subspecies richness as proxies for population divergence.... Data from: Singing from North to South: latitudinal variation in timing of dawn singing under natural and artificial light conditionsArnaud Da Silva & Bart Kempenaers 1. Animals breeding at northern latitudes experience drastic changes in daily light conditions during the breeding season with decreasing periods of darkness, whereas those living at lower latitudes are exposed to naturally dark nights throughout the year. Nowadays, many animals are also exposed to artificial night lighting (often referred to as light pollution). 2. Animals strongly rely on variation in light levels to time their daily and seasonal behaviour. Previous work on passerine birds showed...

https://search.datacite.org/works?resource-type-id=dataset&affiliation-id=ror.org%2F00178eg98&registered=2017

1.Insecticide usage is steadily increasing, implying an ongoing threat of sublethal exposure for non‐target organisms in habitats close to farmland. The exposure to low insecticide doses is often associated with a fitness decline in affected organisms. 2. We determined the effects of exposure to the sublethal pyrethroid lambda‐cyhalothrin, at a concentration 20 times lower than the LC50, on the cuticle surface profile containing mating cues, the mating and aggression behaviour and fitness consequences for a beetle species (Phaedon cochleariae Fabricius), which faces agropollutants when occurring close to farmland. Traits were investigated in the insecticide‐exposed parental generation, and carry‐over effects into their unexposed offspring were studied. 3. In both the parental and the offspring generation, the chemical surface profile was unaffected by the insecticide exposure. Nevertheless, insecticide exposure and carry‐over effects decreased male mating acceptance of females in no‐choice situations. A reduced acceptance of insecticide‐exposed females may be related to changes in specific chemical surface cues, because males attempted to mate more readily with dummies treated with surface extracts of control females than of insecticide‐exposed females. Moreover, females became more aggressive in dual‐choice situations towards other females in the presence of an insecticide‐exposed compared to an unexposed male, potentially due to neuronal dysfunctions. Thus, both intersexual (chemical) communication during mating and intrasexual communication were altered in response to insecticide exposure. 4. Insecticide‐exposed parents and their offspring suffered from a decreased reproductive output, likely due to direct toxic effects or constraints induced by detoxification processes. The carry‐over effects might be mediated by a parental insecticide transfer or insecticide‐induced heritable epigenetic changes involved in detoxification processes. 5. Synthesis and applications. This study demonstrates that sublethal insecticide exposure can have far‐reaching consequences on (non‐target) herbivores. These results have implications for population dynamics and, ultimately, for ecological communities, as insects are highly important members of food chains. Therefore, long‐term effects of short‐term insecticide exposure should be considered in the evaluation of pesticides and the discussion about pesticide usage in agriculture.

https://datadryad.org:443/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.fc56203

In utero bisphenol A (BPA) exposure affects reproductive function in the first generation (F1) of mice; however, not many studies have examined the reproductive effects of BPA exposure on subsequent generations. In this study, pregnant mice (F0) were orally dosed with vehicle, BPA (0.5, 20, and 50 μg/kg/day) or diethylstilbestrol (DES; 0.05 μg/kg/day) daily from gestation day 11 until birth. Diethylstilbestrol (DES; 0.05 µg/kg/day) was chosen as a positive control to ensure the animals were responsive to estrogenic compounds. F1 females were used to generate the F2 generation, and F2 females were used to generate the F3 generation. Breeding studies at the ages of 3, 6, and 9 months were conducted to evaluate reproductive capacity over time. Further, studies were conducted to evaluate pubertal onset, litter size, and percentage of dead pups; and to calculate pregnancy rate, and mating, fertility, and gestational indices. The results indicate that BPA exposure (0.5 and 50 μg/kg/day) significantly delayed the age at vaginal opening in the F3 generation compared to vehicle control. Both DES (0.05 μg/kg/day) and BPA (50 μg/kg/day) significantly delayed the age at first estrus in the F3 generation compared to vehicle control. BPA exposure reduced gestational index in the F1 and F2 generations compared to control. Further, BPA exposure (0.5 μg/kg/day) compromised the fertility index in the F3 generation compared to control. Finally, in utero BPA exposure reduced the ability of female mice to maintain pregnancies as they aged. Collectively, these data suggest that BPA exposure affects reproductive function in female mice and that some effects may be transgenerational in nature. Full paper (free access) : The effects of in utero bisphenol A exposure on reproductive capacity in several generations of mice, Toxicology and applied pharmacology, NCBI PubMed, PMC4410077, 2015 May 1.

https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/effects-reproductive-capacity-several-generations/

Flashcards in Digestion and Absorption of Proteins Deck (23) Loading flashcards... 1 Three things that make up amino acids? Amine group Carboxylic acid group Side chains - R 2 What is the mnemonic to remember essential amino acids? PVT TIM HALL 3 Which essential AA is only essential in children? Arginine 4 What are the essential AA? Phenylalanine Valine Tryptophan Threonine Isoleucine Methionine Histidine Arginine Lysine Leucine 5 What are the acidic AA? Glutamine Glutamate Aspartate Asparagine 6 What are the basic AA? Lys His 7 First step in digestion? Mechanical (chewing) 8 What is the role of HCl? Denaturation of proteins 9 What protease hydrolyzes proteins in the stomach? Pepsin 10 What releases proteases? Pancreas SI 11 What do G cells do? Release gastrin in the stomach 12 What does gastrin do? Stimulates the release of HCl from parietal cells 13 What deactivates pepsin? Alkaline duodenum 14 How is pepsinogen activated? It is partially activated by HCl and then auto-cleaves peptides off to become fully activated 15 What is the activation process of proteases released from the pancreas? Enterokinase activates trypsinogen to trypsin Trypsin activates chymotrypsinogen to chymotrypsin Trypsin activates procarboxypeptidase to carboxypeptidase 16 Where do endopeptidases cleave? At internal amide bonds 17 Where do ectopeptidases cleave? At terminal amino acids of peptides 18 Where are carboxypeptidases cleave? At C-terminal amino acids of peptides 19 Where do carboxypeptidases A and B cleave respectively? A: neutral AA B: basic AA 20 How are AA absorbed? Active transport (mono, di, and tri but di and tri are broken down by enzymes in membrane) 21 How do AA move out of the villus epithelium? Facilitated diffusion 22 What channel transports peptides into the villus?

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Serine proteases account for over one-third of all known proteolytic enzymes ,. Within the diverse collection of serine proteases, the most famous members are trypsin, chymotrypsin and elastase. Aside from their key roles in digestion (and other physiological processes) , the unique specificities of these enzymes make them useful tools in biochemistry and molecular biology to ascertain protein sequences. More information about utilizing proteases for research can be found on the ExPASy Proteomics Server under the PeptideCutter Tool. Looking at the structures below, it is apparent that these three enzymes have similar folds. This conservation of tertiary structure is due to extensive similarities at the level of primary amino acid sequence. However, there are small differences in amino acid sequence among the proteins, which are reflected in their different specificities. Each protein cleaves the peptide backbone after (or on the carbonyl side) of a specific type of sidechain; chymotrypsin prefers to cut after aromatic residues, trypsin after basic residues and elastase after smaller neutral residues . After examining the molecular basis for these functional similarities and differences, you will hopefully see why serine proteases are a classic example of how structure dictates function! | || || | Active Sites Serine proteases perform their catalytic roles using three key residues, which are commonly referred to as the catalytic triad: Ser, His, Asp. Highlight the . The elements are color coded as follows: C, O, N. - Mouse over or click on the structure to determine the residue numbers for Ser, Asp and His. (The residue code will appear near the mouse pointer or in the lower left-hand corner of the browser window.) - You can adjust the zoom in each image by holding down the shift key while you click and drag on the structure. Alternatively, you can click on the Jmol symbol in the lower right-hand corner of each image and select a different zoom percentage from the main menu. This arrangement of amino acids is also called a charge relay system . Considering that the serine sidechain becomes activated for catalysis when it is negatively charged, how would the protons move among the highlighted Ser, Asp and His residues? Are these proton exchanges what you would expect from your knowledge of the pKa values for these amino acid sidechains? (pKa table) Now compare the active site residues of chymotrypsin to the and the . Substrate Binding Pockets As we have just seen, these three serine proteases have relatively similar active sites. What then accounts for their varying specificities? To answer this question, the next links examine the binding pockets of each protein. The spacefilled residues have been color coded according to hydrophobicity (residues are indicated as: Hydrophobic or Polar, with Aspartate highlighted further ). - The is large, deep and relatively hydrophobic. This structure accommodates bulky aromatic and aliphatic sidechains, as indicated by the position of a , a bound inhibitor. - The contains Asp189 to select for positively charged sidechains, such as . The arginine sidechain is part of a larger peptide-based inhibitor called , which is now shown in balls and sticks. - The is more constrained, explaining the preference for smaller residues. Which residue provides the key steric hinderance to prevent larger sidechains from entering the binding pocket? Disulfide Bonds These proteases each have four to six disulfide bonds. One cystine linkage that is conserved among all the structures is between Cys191 and Cys220. These residues were shown in spacefill representation under the "Substrate Binding Pockets" heading, but are more easily viewed in sticks format as can be seen here for , and . What role might this covalent bond have in the protein's function? Does its conservation among several proteins with similar function provide any suggestion to its importance? Additional PDB Structures In order to easily compare the proteins shown on this page, some portions of the crystal structures have been masked. Although each of these serine proteases functions as a monomer, they are often observed as dimers or even tetramers in crystal structures. These higher-order multimers are not the physiological state of the serine protease, but rather a consequence of the experimental method, which requires high protein concentrations. However, some proteins are only functional in the tetrameric state, such as hemoglobin. Therefore, it is important to recognize that one cannot necessarily determine the physiological state from a crystal structure alone. To view the full, unmodified structures in the RSCB Protein Data Bank, here are links to each of the crystal structures shown above: chymotrypsin (2cha), trypsin (1aq7) and elastase (4est). Keep in mind that these are only representative structures of each serine protease. Other structures can be found at the following links: - chymotrypsin (7gch) This structure is shown in Figure 6-18 (page 206) of Lehninger's Principles of Biochemistry (5th edition). - chymotrypsin (1acb) This structure includes a bound protein, showing how the peptide fits into the active site of the enzyme. - trypsin (2cmy) - elastase (3est) Understanding the Mechanism Catalytic Mechanism Lehninger's Principles of Biochemistry (5th edition) describes the catalytic mechanism of chymotrypsin on pages 208-209. An animated version of the enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis reaction is also available on the textbook's website. was designed to match the perspective given by those resources. To provide better orientation after this rotation, here are the that were highlighted above. (Or you can .) - - () Note that the would be in approximately the same location as the carbonyl group of the substrate peptide. - pH Dependence The pH dependence of chymotrypsin activity is a well-studied phenomenon. Enzymatic activity is greatest when the solution pH is between 7 and 8.5 due to the ionization states of two key residues: His57 and Ile16. If you are wondering how the isoleucine sidechain can be titrated, good question! The sidechain is not being ionized, but rather the backbone; Ile16 falls at the N-terminus of one polypeptide chain (see Lehninger, page 206). Although this representation of chymotrypsin has been uniformly colored green, the protein is actually comprised of three polypeptide chains. Now closely examine the distance between the substrate and the N-terminal nitrogen of Ile16: Ile16 appears to be too far from the active site to influence substrate binding directly, doesn't it? However, the protonated form of Ile16 is capable of forming a salt-bridge with Asp194, which opens the substrate-binding pocket . Conversely, when Ile16 is deprotonated at high pH, it can no longer interact with Asp194, thereby allowing Asp194 to shift position and obstruct the substrate from entering the active site. The 'closed' conformation is further stabilized by a hydrogen bond between Asp194 and His40. In this manner, Asp194 acts as a gate for the substrate-binding pocket, with the ionization state of Ile16 acting as the latch. See Also - Serine Proteases, a later version of the present article.

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Protease is a general term for a class of enzymes that hydrolyze protein peptide chains. According to the way they degrade polypeptides, they are divided into two categories: endopeptidases and telopeptidases. Endopeptidase can cut the large molecular weight polypeptide chain from the middle to form the smaller molecular weight prions and peptones. Telopeptidases can be further divided into carboxypeptidases and aminopeptidases, which hydrolyze the peptide chain one by one to generate amino acids from the free carboxyl-terminal or free amino-terminal of the polypeptide, respectively. According to the protease active center and the optimum pH value, proteases can be divided into serine proteases, thiol proteases, metalloproteases and aspartic proteases. According to the optimum pH value of its reaction, it is divided into acidic protease, neutral protease and alkaline protease. The proteases used in industrial production are mainly endopeptidases. Proteases are widely found in animal offal, plant stems and leaves, fruits and microorganisms. Microbial proteases are mainly produced by molds and bacteria, followed by yeast and actinomycetes. There are many types of enzymes that catalyze protein hydrolysis, mainly including pepsin, trypsin, cathepsin, papain and subtilisin. Proteases have strict selectivity for the reaction substrates they act on. A protease can only act on certain peptide bonds in protein molecules, such as the peptide bonds formed by the hydrolysis of basic amino acids catalyzed by trypsin. Proteases are widely distributed, mainly in the digestive tract of humans and animals, and are abundant in plants and microorganisms. Due to limited animal and plant resources, the industrial production of protease preparations is mainly prepared by fermentation of microorganisms such as Bacillus subtilis and Aspergillus terrestris. The role of trypsin is to hydrolyze intercellular proteolysis to dissociate the cells. Different tissues or cells have different responses to the action of trypsin. The activity of the cells dispersed by trypsin is also related to its concentration, temperature and action time. When the pH is 8.0 and the temperature is 37°C, the pancreatin solution has the strongest effect. When using trypsin, the concentration, temperature and time should be carefully controlled to avoid cell damage caused by excessive digestion. Because Ca2+, Mg2+, serum and protein can reduce the activity of pancreatin, BSS without Ca2+ and Mg2+ should be used when preparing pancreatin solution, such as D-Hanks solution. When the digestion is terminated, the action of trypsin on the cells can be stopped with a culture medium containing serum or a trypsin inhibitor. 1. Weigh trypsin: According to the trypsin concentration of 0.25%, accurately weigh the powder with an electronic balance and dissolve it into double distilled water (if double distilled water is used, the pH needs to be adjusted to about 7.2) or PBS solution. Stir to mix and place at 4°C overnight. 2. Suction filtration and sterilization with a syringe filter: The prepared pancreatin solution should be sterilized by suction filtration with a syringe filter (0.22 micron microporous membrane) in an ultra-clean bench. Then aliquot into vials and store at -20°C until use. Trypsin catalyzes the hydrolysis of specific peptide bonds in proteins. This catalytic process requires no energy, does not inactivate the enzyme, does not change shape and hydrolyze itself. The binding between the substrate and the active center of the enzyme is reversible. This binding makes the specific peptide bond of the protein activated due to bending deformation, and is more easily attacked by water molecules, forming amino and carboxyl groups and breaking them to obtain small molecular polypeptides or amino acids. Different proteases can act on peptide bonds formed by connecting different amino acids, so trypsin cannot act on all peptide bonds. Protease is the most important industrial enzyme preparation, which can catalyze the hydrolysis of proteins and polypeptides, and widely exists in animal offal, plant stems and leaves, fruits and microorganisms. Proteases are used extensively in cheese production, meat tenderization and vegetable protein modification. In addition, pepsin, chymotrypsin, carboxypeptidase and aminopeptidase are all proteases in the human digestive tract. Under the action of these proteases, the protein ingested by the human body is hydrolyzed into small molecular peptides and amino acids. Creative Enzymes is a remarkable supplier and manufacturer in the Enzymology field. Equipped with advanced technique platform, Creative Enzymes is able to offer high-quality and professional services for customers. Its products and services are widely used in the academic and pharmaceutical industries.

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Structure–Function Relationships of Proteolytic Enzymes provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of proteolytic enzymes. This book presents the historical role of proteolytic enzyme as a group in protein and enzyme chemistry. Organized into 23 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the results obtained from investigation on the chymotrypsinogens of porcine origin. This text then examines the differences of amino acid sequence between chymotrypsin, trypsin, and elastase that affect the substrate binding site, which reflect the specificity differences between these enzymes. Other chapters consider the kinetic parameters related to the trypsin-catalyzed hydrolysis of several model peptides. This book discusses as well the acetylation of trypsin, which result in functional consequences varying from complete inactivation to promotion of activity. The final chapter deals with the physical properties of stem bromelain in comparison with the data for three other sulfhydryl proteases of plant origin. This book is a valuable resource for enzymologists, microbiologists, and biochemists. Table of Contents List of Participants Foreword Session I: Pancreatic Proteases On the Three Chymotrypsinogens of Porcine Pancreas Comments Comments Chymotrypsin: Tertiary Structure and Enzymatic Activity (Abstract) Comments Comments The Role of Carboxylates and Phenol Side-Chains in the Activity and Conformation of Trypsinogen, Trypsin, Chymotrypsinogen, and Chymotrypsin Chemical Modifications of Bovine Trypsinogen and Trypsin The Specificity Site of Trypsin Comments Structure and Mechanism of Action of a Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor The Chemistry of the Reactive Site of Soybean Trypsin Inhibitor Structural Aspects of Interaction of Trypsin with Macromolecular Inhibitors Homology and Phylogeny of Proteolytic Enzymes Comments Comments Structural Aspects of Thrombin and Prothrombin Cobalt Proteases: Implications of Absorption and Circular Dichroism Spectra for Catalysis Session II: Microbial Proteases Some Structure-Function Relationships in the Subtilisins Subtilisin BPN': Tertiary Structure and Inhibitor Binding (Abstract) Comments Subtilisin: Stability Properties and Secondary Binding Sites Comments Aminopeptidases from Thermophilic Microorganisms The Second Kaj Linderstrom-Lang Gold Medal Lecture A Synthetic Approach to the Study of Microenvironmental Effects on Enzyme Action Session III: Pepsin and Related Enzymes Specificity and Mechanism of Pepsin Action Comments Towards a Mechanism for Pepsin Comments Comments Chemical Studies on Purified Pepsin Porcine Pepsinogen and Pepsin Comments Session IV: Sulfhydryl Proteases The Three-Dimensional Structure of Papain Streptococcal Proteinase Structure and Function of Stem Bromelain Product details - No. of pages: 310 - Language: English - Copyright: © Academic Press 1970 - Published: January 1, 1970 - Imprint: Academic Press - eBook ISBN: 9781483261171 About the Editors P. Desnuelle H. Neurath M. Ottesen Ratings and Reviews There are currently no reviews for "Structure–Function Relationships of Proteolytic Enzymes"

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Probiotics—the good bacteria that live in your gut and that are also found in yogurt and dietary supplements—have been shown in a variety of studies to improve digestion, but new research shows they can do much more. The Healing Power of Proteolytic Enzymes Proteolytic enzymes (or proteases) refer to the various enzymes that digest (break down into smaller units) protein. These enzymes include the pancreatic proteases chymotrypsin and trypsin, bromelain (pineapple enzyme), papain (papaya enzyme), fungal proteases, and Serratia peptidase (the “silk worm” enzyme). Preparations of proteolytic enzymes have been shown to be useful in the following situations:

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Chymotrypsin is a serine endopeptidase produced by the acinar cells of the pancreas. Chymotrypsin becomes activated after proteolysis of chymotrypsinogen by trypsin. While trypsin hydrolyzes at lysine and arginine, chymotrypsin selectively cleaves peptide bonds formed by aromatic residues (tyrosine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan) (Hedstrom et al. 1992). Two predominant forms of chymotrypsin, A and B, are found in equal amounts in cattle pancreas. They are very similar proteins (80% identical), but have significantly different proteolytic characteristics (Hartley 1964, Meloun et al. 1966, Smillie et al. 1968, and Gráf et al. 2004). The information below pertains primarily to the A form of chymotrypsinogen and chymotrypsin. History: In the early 1900s, Vernon proposed that pancreatic preparations could give rise to an intrinsic activator of its own enzymes (Vernon 1901). Vernon’s milk-clotting experiments determined there were at least two enzymes present and that one was more stable than the other (Vernon 1902). However, this idea was not widely accepted until 1934 when Kunitz and Northrop confirmed the presence of an enzyme in addition to trypsin, naming it chymotrypsin. They were able to crystallize chymotrypsin, as well as the inactive precursor, chymotrypsinogen (Kunitz and Northrop 1934). In 1938, Kunitz isolated different active forms of chymotrypsin, designating them as alpha, beta, and gamma (Kunitz 1938). In the early 1940s Fruton and Bergmann further studied the specificity of chymotrypsin, reporting on several new substrates (Fruton and Bergmann 1942). Jacobsen soon identified additional forms of chymotrypsin, designating them as delta and pi (Jacobsen 1947). In 1948, Schwert further characterized the molecular weights of chymotrypsin and chymotrypsinogen. In 1954, the first evidence for the three-step mechanism of chymotrypsin hydrolyzing amide and ester substrates was reported on by Hartley and Kilby, who hypothesized the presence of an acyl enzyme intermediate, which was later proven to be true (Henderson 1970). In 1955, Laskowski obtained a second crystalline chymotrypsinogen, naming it chymotrypsinogen B. In 1964 Hartley determined the amino acid sequence of chymotrypsin A, which was later refined by Meloun et al. in 1966. In 1968, Smillie et al. determined the amino acid sequence of chymotrypsin B, which revealed 80% sequence identity with chymotrypsin A. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s research was done to better understand the mechanism of action, and identify the differences in amino acid sequences between trypsin and chymotrypsin (Steitz et al. 1969, Cohen et al. 1981, Asbóth and Polgár 1983, and Gráf et al. 1988). In the 1990s, chymotrypsin was purified from other sources including Atlantic cod (Ásgeirsson and Bjarnason 1991), and camel (Al-Ajlan and Bailey 1997). Work also begun on investigating inhibitors (Baek et al. 1990), and Frigerio et al. elucidated the crystal structure of bovine chymotrypsin to a 2.0 Å resolution (Frigerio et al. 1992). Recent research has investigated the folding and denaturation of chymotrypsin over a range of concentrations (Ghaouar et al. 2010), chymotrypsin’s interaction with nanoparticle substrates (You et al. 2006, and Jordan et al. 2009), and increasing chymotrypsin stability by conjugating to PEG molecules (Castellanos et al. 2005, and Rodríguez-Martínez et al. 2009). Specificity: Chymotrypsin is activated through cleavage of the bond between arginine and isoleucine (R15 and I16) by trypsin, causing structural modifications and formation of the substrate binding site (Sears 2010). Chymotrypsin differs from trypsin in that trypsin cleaves peptides at arginine and lysine residues, while chymotrypsin prefers large hydrophobic residues (Hedstrom et al. 1992). Chymotrypsin preferentially catalyzes the hydrolysis of peptide bonds involving L-isomers of tyrosine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan. It also readily acts upon amides and esters of susceptible amino acids. Chymotrypsin’s specificity for large hydrophobic residues can be explained by a hydrophobic S1 binding pocked formed by residues 189 through 195, 214 through 220, and 225 through 228 (Cohen et al. 1981). Although the structure of trypsin and chymotrypsin’s S1 site show only one difference (at position 189), site-directed mutagenesis of trypsin and chymotrypsin have failed to interchange specificities, suggesting the mechanism by which trypsin and chymotrypsin achieve substrate specific catalysis is not fully understood (Steitz et al. 1969, and Gráf et al. 1988). Molecular Characteristics: Chymotrypsin A and B share 80% sequence identity (Hartley 1964, Meloun et al. 1966, Smillie et al. 1968, and Gráf et al. 2004). The amino acids of the catalytic triad (H57, D102, and S195) are highly conserved in the sequences of the peptidases of family S1 (Gráf et al. 2004). The serine at position 214 is also highly conserved in the family and has been proposed as the fourth member of the catalytic triad (Ohara et al. 1989, and McGrath et al. 1992). Composition: The three amino acid residues of the catalytic triad (H57, D102, and S195) are essential for peptide bond cleavage and are stabilized by hydrogen bonds (Sears 2010, and Gráf et al. 2004). G193 and S195 make up the oxyanion hole and interact with the carbonyl group of the scissile peptide bond, orienting it to form the tetrahedral intermediate (Rühlmann et al. 1973, Huber and Bode 1978, and Gráf et al. 2004). Protein Accession Number: P00766 CATH Classification (v. 3.3.0): Molecular Weight: Optimal pH: 7.8-8.0 (Rick 1974) Isoelectric Point: Extinction Coefficient: Active Site Residues: Activators: Inhibitors: Applications:

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How to Use Proteases for Protein Proteolysis Protein Proteolysis refers to the use of hydrochloric acid to destroy peptide bonds between the amino acids that make up a protein. When carried out with proteases (also known as proteinases), which are enzymes, the process is termed proteolysis. Depending on how efficient the enzyme is or what links it breaks, the proteolysis can be limited or unlimited. Proteolysis can begin either from one end of the chain of amino acids that comprise the protein or somewhere in the middle of it. Unlimited proteolysis produces individual amino acids while limited proteolysis produces short chains of polypeptides. Proteases are currently classified into six broad groups: - Serine proteases - Threonine proteases - Cysteine proteases - Aspartate proteases - Metalloproteases - Glutamic acid proteases Instructions for using Protease for Protein Proteolysis 1. Dissolve 1 mg of target protein in 20 mL of the appropriate enzyme buffer: The exact quantity will determine the type of gel staining required later. In general, microgram quantities of protein will require nanogram quantities of protease enzyme but several hours of reaction, and analysis via silver staining. On the other hand, larger amounts of protein will require microgram levels of enzyme but only minutes to react and therefore a Coomassie stain is used to visualize the sizes of the resulting peptides. The ratio of protease-to-protein in a reaction should be 1:1000. 2. Add 1 mL of each protease to the solution of protein to be digested (See Calyculin A inhibitor) Since proteins are made up of many different peptides and therefore many different peptide links, more than one protease may be needed, either sequentially, or in combination as long as they do not destroy each other. Commonly used enzymes include proteinase K, trypsin, papain, elastase and chymotrypsin, and a cocktail of several of these can be used to tackle the many types of links present in any given protein. Note that the buffer needed for the reaction will depend on what enzyme(s) are used. 3. Carry out the reaction at 98.6°F for 90 minutes. Because different enzymes will have different efficiencies and reaction requirements (including but not limited to temperature and buffer composition), it is necessary to determine the optimal reaction volume and duration for complete hydrolysis. Some enzymes achieve complete hydrolysis when long reactions are carried out (i.e. Proteolysis is unlimited), hence it is important for the user to decide before starting if it is the individual amino acid or polypeptide that is required. Reaction times can start and increase in 10 minute increments up to 60 minutes at first, and if analysis shows that insufficient amino acids or polypeptides are detected, then this can be increased up to 3 hours. 4. Electrophoretically size-separate the reaction products on a polyacrylamide gel and stain this with either silver or Coomassie to allow visualisation of the digested peptides or amino acids. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PROTEINASE K E-BROCHURE HERE - Proteinase K (Recombinant), Molecular/PCR Grade P-1264 Starting at $75.00 - Proteinase K Solution 20 mg/mL (Recombinant), Molecular/PCR Grade P-1264-SOL Starting at $124.38 - Proteinase K P-1265 Starting at $65.00 5 Comments - Great web site. Plenty of helpful information here. I am sending it to some buddies ans also sharing in delicious. And obviously, thanks for your sweat!↓ - This page really has all of the info I wanted concerning this subject and didn't know who to ask.↓ - It's extremely difficult to discover well-informed people with this topic, but you seem like you know what you're discussing! Thanks↓ - Everybody loves it whenever people combine and share opinions.

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ACTIVITY-EXERCISE ■ Patterns of personally relevant exercise, activity, leisure, and recreation ■ ADLs that require energy expenditure ■ Factors that interfere with the desired pattern (e.g., illness or injury) SLEEP-REST ■ Patterns of sleep and rest-/relaxation in a 24-h period ■ Perceptions of quality and quantity of sleep and rest ■ Use of sleep aids and routines COGNITIVE-PERCEPTUAL ■ Adequacy of vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell ■ Pain perception and management ■ Language, judgment, memory, decisions SELF-PERCEPTION–SELF-CONCEPT ■ Attitudes about self ■ Perceived abilities, worth, self-image, emotions ■ Body posture and movement, eye contact, voice and speech patterns Reprinted from Nursing Diagnosis: Process and Application, 3rd ed., by M. Gordon, pp. 80-96. Copyright © 1994, with permission from Elsevier Science. Functional Health Patterns with Related Nursing Diagnoses lem13086_ch25.qxd 1/4/07 11:19 AM Page 739 Responses to Altered Bowel Elimination CHAPTER 25 Assessing Clients with Bowel Elimination Disorders CHAPTER 26 Nursing Care of Clients with Bowel Disorders UNIT 7 lem13086_ch25.qxd 1/4/07 9:29 AM Page 740 Assessing Clients with Bowel Elimination Disorders ■ Conduct and document a health history for clients who have or are at risk for alterations in bowel elimination. ■ Conduct and document a physical assessment of the intestinal system. ■ Monitor the results of diagnostic tests and report abnormal findings. CHAPTER 25 LEARNING OUTCOMES ■ Describe the anatomy, physiology, and functions of the intestines. ■ Explain the physiologic processes involved in bowel elimination. ■ Identify specific topics to consider during a health history assess- ment interview of the client with problems of bowel elimination. ■ Describe techniques used to assess bowel integrity and function. ■ Describe normal variations in assessment findings for the older adult. ■ Identify manifestations of altered intestinal function. CLINICAL COMPETENCIES EQUIPMENT NEEDED ■ Water-soluble lubricant ■ Occult blood test kit, such as Occultest or Hemoccult II ■ Disposable gloves ■ Stethoscope Resources for this chapter can be found on the Prentice Hall Nursing MediaLink DVD accompanying this textbook, and on the Companion Website at http://www.prenhall.com/lemone MEDIALINK lem13086_ch25.qxd 1/4/07 9:29 AM Page 741 hernia, 749 melena, 750 occult blood, 744 ostomy, 746 peristalsis, 743 steatorrhea, 750 striae, 748 Valsalva’s maneuver, 743 borborygmus, 748 bruits, 749 constipation, 743 diarrhea, 746 flatus, 746 KEY TERMS After foods are eaten and broken down into usable elements, nu- trients are absorbed and indigestible materials are eliminated. Bowel elimination is the end process in digestion. This chapter de- scribes the structure and function of the large intestine, including the rectosigmoid region and the anus, as well as the assessment of bowel function. The anatomy and physiology of the small intestine are discussed in relation to nutrition in Chapter 21 ; the in- formation in this chapter is provided as a base for understanding health problems from altered bowel function. In addition, this chapter discusses the function of the small intestine in the absorp- tion of digested end products. Malabsorption (impaired absorption of nutrients) is discussed fully in Chapter 26 . ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE INTESTINES The small and large intestines provide structures to absorb nu- trients and vitamins and to eliminate wastes from food ingested and processed in the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The Small Intestine The small intestine begins at the pyloric sphincter and ends at the ileocecal junction at the entrance of the large intestine. The small intestine is about 20 feet (6 m) long, but only about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. This long tube hangs in coils in the ab- dominal cavity, suspended by the mesentery and surrounded by the large intestine. The small intestine has three regions: the duodenum, the je- junum, and the ileum. The duodenum begins at the pyloric sphincter and extends around the head of the pancreas for about 10 inches (25 cm). Both pancreatic enzymes and bile from the liver enter the small intestine at the duodenum. The jejunum is the middle region of the small intestine. It extends for about 8 feet (2.4 m). The ileum, the terminal end of the small intestine, is approximately 12 feet (3.6 m) long and meets the large in- testine at the ileocecal valve. Food is chemically digested and mostly absorbed as it moves through the small intestine. Circular folds (deep folds of the mucosa and submucosa layers), villi (finger-like projec- tions of the mucosa cells), and microvilli (tiny projections of the mucosa cells) all increase the surface area of the small in- testine to enhance absorption of food. Although up to 10 L of food, liquids, and secretions enter the gastrointestinal tract each day, most is digested and absorbed in the small intestine; less than 1 L reaches the large intestine. Enzymes in the small intestine break down carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids as follows: ■ Pancreatic amylase acts on starches, converting them to mal- tose, dextrins, and oligosaccharides; the intestinal enzymes dextrinase, glucoamylase, maltase, sucrase, and lactase further break down these products into monosaccharides. ■ Proteins are broken down into peptides by the pancreatic en- zymes trypsin and chymotrypsin and by intestinal enzymes. Pancreatic enzymes (trypsin and chymotrypsin) and intestinal enzymes continue to break down proteins into peptides. ■ Pancreatic lipases break down lipids. ■ Triglycerides enter as fat globules, and are then coated by bile salts and emulsified. ■ Nucleic acids are hydrolyzed by pancreatic enzymes, then broken apart by intestinal enzymes. Both pancreatic enzymes and bile are excreted into the duo- denum in response to the secretion of secretin and cholecys- tokinin, hormones produced by the intestinal mucosa cells when chyme enters the small intestine. Nutrients are absorbed through the mucosa of the intestinal villi into the blood or lymph by active transport, facilitated transport, and passive diffusion. Almost all food products and water, as well as vitamins and most electrolytes, are absorbed in the small intestine, leaving only indigestible fibers, some water, and bacteria to enter the large intestine. The Large Intestine The large intestine, or colon, begins at the ileocecal valve and terminates at the anus (Figure 25–1 ■). It is about 5 feet (1.5 m) long. The large intestine frames the small intestine on three sides and includes the cecum, the appendix, the colon, the rec- tum, and the anal canal.

https://dokumen.tips/documents/elimination-patterns-constipation-perceived-constipation-risk-for-constipation-diarrhea.html

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An alkali stable cellulase by chemical modification using maleic anhydride CARBOHYDRATE POLYMERS Protein-containing hydrophobic coatings and films BIOMATERIALS Gastrointestinal mucoadhesive patch system (GI-MAPS) for oral administration of G-CSF, a model protein BIOMATERIALS New supports for enzyme immobilization based on copolymers of vinylene carbonate and beta-hydroxyethylene acrylate JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE Inhibition of pig liver and Zea mays L. polyamine oxidase: A comparative study JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION Protease inhibitors, part 13: Specific, weakly basic thrombin inhibitors incorporating sulfonyl dicyandiamide moieties in their structure JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION Alcalase rapeseed inhibitors: Purification and partial characterization JOURNAL OF ENZYME INHIBITION Glycome project: Concept, strategy and preliminary application to Caenorhabditis elegans PROTEOMICS Immobilization of the restriction enzymes HaeIII and HindIII on porous silica particles via a glutaraldehyde linkage for the micro-digestion of dsDNAwith analysis by capillary electrophoresis JOURNAL OF SEPARATION SCIENCE Interaction of cysteine proteases with calciotropic hormone receptors COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY C-TOXICOLOGY & PHARMACOLOGY Computer simulation of protein-protein interactions JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B Simulation of hydrated BPTI at high pressure: Changes in hydrogen bonding and its relation with NMR experiments JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B Purification and characterisation of trypsin-like enzyme from the pyloric caeca of cod (Gadus morhua) II BRAZILIAN ARCHIVES OF BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY Isolation and amino acid sequence of a serine proteinase inhibitor from common flax (Linum usitatissimum) seeds CHEMBIOCHEM The chemical composition and nutritional evaluation of Canavalia virosa: awild perennial bean from Eastern Ghats of Peninsular India EUROPEAN FOOD RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY Effects of sprouting on nutrient and antinutrient composition of kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris var. Rose coco) EUROPEAN FOOD RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY Molecular cloning and characterization of two isoforms of trypsinogen fromanchovy pyloric ceca MARINE BIOTECHNOLOGY Analysis of the human pancreatic secretory trypsin inhibitor (PSTI) gene mutations in Japanese patients with chronic pancreatitis JOURNAL OF HUMAN GENETICS Noncovalently bound cofactors for chemical nucleases EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY H-1 high-resolution magic angle spinning NMR spectroscopy for the investigation of a Ras lipopeptide in a lipid membrane ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION Fmoc-compatible solid-phase peptide synthesis of long C-terminal peptide thioesters ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION Prediction of DNA far-IR absorption spectra based on normal mode analysis THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY ACCOUNTS Quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical study of three stationary points along the deacylation step of the catalytic mechanism of elastase THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY ACCOUNTS Isolation and characterization of a trypsin-like protease from Trichodermaviride BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY Synthetic peptides and fluorogenic substrates related to the reactive sitesequence of Kunitz-type inhibitors isolated from Bauhinia: Interaction with human plasma kallikrein BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY NMR structure of Desulfovibrio gigas rubredoxin: a model for studying protein stabilization by compatible solutes EXTREMOPHILES Revisiting the enzymes stored in the laticifers of Carica papaya in the context of their possible participation in the plant defence mechanism CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR LIFE SCIENCES The effect of dansyl-modified beta-cyclodextrin on the chaperone activity of heat shock proteins JOURNAL OF INCLUSION PHENOMENA AND MACROCYCLIC CHEMISTRY Genetic modification and plant food allergens: risks and benefits JOURNAL OF CHROMATOGRAPHY B Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography of peptides of porcine pepsin prepared by the use of various forms of immobilized alpha-chymotrypsin JOURNAL OF CHROMATOGRAPHY B Enzyme immobilisation using siliceous mesoporous molecular sieves MICROPOROUS AND MESOPOROUS MATERIALS Contemporary methods for peptide and protein synthesis CURRENT ORGANIC CHEMISTRY New supports for enzyme immobilization based on the copolymers of poly(vinylene carbonate) and alpha-(2-aminoethylene amino)-omega-(2-aminoethylene amino)-poly(ethylene oxide) REACTIVE & FUNCTIONAL POLYMERS Enzyme immobilisation using SBA-15 mesoporous molecular sieves with functionalised surfaces JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR CATALYSIS B-ENZYMATIC Stabilization mechanism of MPEG modified trypsin based on thermal inactivation kinetic analysis and molecular modeling computation JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR CATALYSIS B-ENZYMATIC Mathematical modelling of the washing phase of a semi-batch affinity ultrafiltration system for enzyme separation BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL An experimental study of caseinomacropeptide hydrolysis by trypsin in a continuous membrane reactor BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL A model far local infection-induced preterm labor in the mouse: delivery of live pups before term following the intracervical administration of lipopolysaccharide PRENATAL AND NEONATAL MEDICINE Purification and characterization of a proteinase inhibitor from white croaker skeletal muscle (Micropogon opercularis) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BIOCHEMISTRY & CELL BIOLOGY Effect of different diets on growth and digestive enzyme activity in Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931) early post-larvae AQUACULTURE RESEARCH Effect of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans protease on the proliferation of gingival epithelial cells ORAL DISEASES Enhanced intestinal motor response to cholecystokinin in post-Nippostrongylus brasiliensis-infected rats: modulation by CCK receptors and the vague nerve NEUROGASTROENTEROLOGY AND MOTILITY Effects of raw or extruded legume seeds on some functional and morphological gut parameters in rats JOURNAL OF ANIMAL AND FEED SCIENCES The influence of feeding raw vs extruded soyabean supplemented or unsupplemented with sulphur amino acids on performance, pancreatic trypsin activityand morphological parameters of the jejunum in rats JOURNAL OF ANIMAL AND FEED SCIENCES The influence of extrusion of faba bean seeds and supplementation of sulphur amino acids on performance, pancreatic trypsin activity, and morphological parameters of the jejunum in rats JOURNAL OF ANIMAL AND FEED SCIENCES Karyotype analysis of tumorigenic human bronchial epithelial cells transformed by chrysolite asbestos using chemically induced premature chromosome condensation technique INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE Isolation and characteristics of trypsin inhibitor from the hepatopancreasof a squid (Todarodes pacificus) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Purification and partial characterisation of alpha(2)-antiplasmin and plasmin(ogen) from ostrich plasma COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Adaptation of tobacco budworm Heliothis virescens to proteinase inhibitorsmay be mediated by the synthesis of new proteinases COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Purification of a novel myofibril-bound serine proteinase inhibitor (MBSPI) from the skeletal muscle of lizard fish COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Effects of nicotinamide coenzymes on the stability of enzyme activities and proteins in niacin-deficient quail tissues against trypsin treatment COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Digestion in relation to feeding strategies exhibited by crustacean larvae COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY A-MOLECULAR AND INTEGRATIVE PHYSIOLOGY Modeling magnetization transfer using a three-pool model and physically meaningful constraints on the fitting parameters JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE A faster way to characterize by triple-quantum-filtered O-17 NMR water molecules strongly bound to macromolecules in solution JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE Hyaluronan in morphogenesis SEMINARS IN CELL & DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY Phosphatidylethanolamine participates in the stimulation of the contact system of coagulation by very-low-density lipoproteins ARTERIOSCLEROSIS THROMBOSIS AND VASCULAR BIOLOGY Influence of thermal motion on H-1 chemical shifts in proteins: The case of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor JOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE Pretreatment with a deleted form of hepatocyte growth factor (DHGF) prevents the mortality of plasma-loss-induced hypovolemic shock in rats SHOCK Mechanism of the inhibitory effect of protease inhibitor on tumor necrosisfactor alpha production of monocytes SHOCK phi-Values for BPTI folding intermediates and implications for transition state analysis NATURE STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY Self antigen prognostic for human immunodeficiency virus disease progression CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY IMMUNOLOGY A single amino acid change within antigenic domain II of the spike proteinof bovine coronavirus confers resistance to virus neutralization CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY IMMUNOLOGY An introduction to hydrogen bond scalar couplings CONCEPTS IN MAGNETIC RESONANCE Advances in the development of functional foods from buckwheat CRITICAL REVIEWS IN FOOD SCIENCE AND NUTRITION An immunoassay for canine pancreatic elastase 1 as an indicator for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in dogs JOURNAL OF VETERINARY DIAGNOSTIC INVESTIGATION Serine proteases increase oxidative stress in lung cells AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LUNG CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR PHYSIOLOGY Stability properties of thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-trypsin conjugates BIOCATALYSIS AND BIOTRANSFORMATION Purification and partial peptide sequence analysis of the boar 32 kDa sperminogen MOLECULES AND CELLS Treatment of rotaviral gastroenteritis with Qiwei Baizhu powder WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY Secretion expression of recombinant glucagon in Escherichia coli SCIENCE IN CHINA SERIES C-LIFE SCIENCES A comparative study of the winged bean protease inhibitors and their interaction with proteases PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY Protection against rotavirus challenge in mice orally inoculated with trypsin inhibitor INDIAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH Structural basis for inhibition promiscuity of dual specific thrombin and factor Xa blood coagulation inhibitors STRUCTURE Introduction of the new dipeptide isostere 7-endo-BtA as reverse turn inducer in a Bowman-Birk proteinase inhibitor: Synthesis and conformational analysis BIOORGANIC & MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY Characterization of two cDNAs encoding serine proteinases from the hard tick Haemaphysalis longicornis INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Purification and characterization of a plasmin-like protease from Tenoderasinensis (Chinese mantis) INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Transcriptional induction of diverse midgut trypsins in larval Agrotis ipsilon and Helicoverpa zea feeding on the soybean trypsin inhibitor INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Preliminary characterisation of digestive proteases of the green mirid, Creontiades dilutus (Hemiptera : Miridae) INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Biochemical and molecular characterization of serine proteases from larvaeof Chrysomya bezziana, the Old World Screwworm fly INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Underutilised legumes: potential sources for low-cost protein INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCES AND NUTRITION Some nutritional properties of the seeds of three Mucuna species INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCES AND NUTRITION Molecular characterization of two serine proteases expressed in gut tissueof the African trypanosome vector, Glossina morsitans morsitans INSECT MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Computational analysis of binding of P1 variants to trypsin PROTEIN SCIENCE The energetic cost of induced fit catalysis: Crystal structures of trypsinogen mutants with enhanced activity and inhibitor affinity PROTEIN SCIENCE Amino-acid substitutions at the fully exposed P-1 site of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor affect its stability PROTEIN SCIENCE Structure and stability effects of mutations designed to increase the primary sequence symmetry within the core region of a beta-trefoil PROTEIN SCIENCE Utilisation of male Arctic capelin and Atlantic cod intestines for fish sauce production - evaluation of fermentation conditions BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY Dye-affinity hollow-fibres and their lysozyme adsorption-desorption characteristics POLYMER INTERNATIONAL Non-essential amino acids play an important role in adaptation of the rat exocrine pancreas to high nitrogen feeding JOURNAL OF NUTRITIONAL BIOCHEMISTRY NMR chemical shift mapping of the binding site of a protein proteinase inhibitor: changes in the H-1, C-13 and N-15 NMR chemical shifts of turkey ovomucoid third domain upon binding to bovine chymotrypsin A(alpha) JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR RECOGNITION Development of an extruded plantain/corn/soy weaning food INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Bromelain is an accelerator of phagocytosis, respiratory burst and killingof candida albicans by human granulocytes and monocytes EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH Localization of human airway trypsin-like protease in the airway: an immunohistochemical study HISTOCHEMISTRY AND CELL BIOLOGY Characterization of hemolytic activity of Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from bovine mastitic milk MICROBIOLOGICAL RESEARCH Genetic mutations in exons 3 and 4 of the pancreatic secretory trypsin inhibitor in patients with pancreatitis JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY Urinary trypsin inhibitor and biliary atresia - Providing protection for the liver?

https://serials.unibo.it/cgi-ser/start/it/spogli/ds-s.tcl?soggetti=TRYPSIN

When conducting investigations under these guidelines, the FBI may use any lawful investigative technique. The choice of investigative techniques is a matter of judgment, which should take account of: (i) the objectives of the investigation and available investigative resources, (ii) the intrusiveness of a technique, considering such factors as the effect on the privacy of individuals and potential damage to reputation, (iii) the seriousness of the crime, and (iv) the strength of the information indicating its existence or future commission. Where the conduct of an investigation presents a choice between the use of more or less intrusive methods, the FBI should consider whether the information could be obtained in a timely and effective way by the less intrusive means. The FBI should not hesitate to use any lawful techniques consistent with these Guidelines in an investigation, even if intrusive, where the intrusiveness is warranted in light of the seriousness of the crime or the strength of the information indicating its existence or future commission. This point is to be particularly observed in investigations relating to terrorist activities. Whenever an individual is known to be represented by counsel in a particular matter, the FBI shall follow applicable law and Department procedure concerning contact with represented individuals in the absence of prior notice to their counsel. The SAC or his designee and the United States Attorney shall consult periodically on applicable law and Department procedure. Where issues arise concerning the consistency of contacts with represented persons with applicable attorney conduct rules, the United States Attorney should consult with the Professional Responsibility Advisory Office.

https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/general-crimes-investigations-guidelines/04-investigative-techniques/

Until now, most employers have relied upon their employees’ consent in order to process their personal data. But, under the GDPR, the requirements for consent will be much stricter. Particularly in the employment context, where it is generally accepted that the imbalance of power between the employer and employee is likely to invalidate any consent given by the employee. Nevertheless, all is not lost. Consent is only one of a number of potential legal bases for processing employees’ data. Employers will therefore need to consider whether any of the available alternatives are appropriate for their processing requirements. In this context, employers may turn increasingly to “legitimate interests” as a lawful basis for processing. The legitimate interests ground is potentially wide in scope and flexible but, as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) warns in its latest guidance, employers should not assume it will be appropriate in all cases. Essentially, a proportionality assessment is required. The ICO guidance requires employers to apply a three stage test: - Purpose test: identity the legitimate interest; - Necessity test: assess whether the processing is necessary to achieve that interest; and - Balancing test: balance the legitimate interest against the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms. Where an employer can reasonably achieve the same result in a less intrusive way the legitimate interests basis for processing will not apply. The ICO guidance refers to the process of considering – and documenting – the analysis under the three stage test as an “LIA” (legitimate interests assessment). An LIA is intended to be a “type of light-touch risk assessment”. Although not a mandatory requirement under the GDPR, the ICO’s view is that carrying out an LIA will help the employer to ensure its processing satisfies the three stage test above and is therefore lawful. In addition, an LIA may also assist in demonstrating GDPR compliance generally in line with the broader accountability obligations. Carrying out an initial LIA is not the end of the story however: LIAs should be kept under review and re-considered if there is a significant change in the purpose, nature or context of the processing. In addition, in more complex or intrusive cases or where an LIA identifies any significant risks, a full in depth DPIA (data protection impact assessment) may still be required. There will inevitably be grey areas, and whether or not the new LIA provides for a genuinely “light touch” or simply adds yet another stage to the process remains to be seen.

http://www.ukemploymenthub.com/gdpr-are-your-interests-legitimate/

On 13 September 2012 the Director of Public Prosecutions published final Guidelines for prosecutors on assessing the public interest in cases affecting the media. The guidelines set out the approach that the CPS will take to prosecutorial decisions that affect the media. In particular, they provide guidance to prosecutors on how to decide whether a prosecution is in the public interest. In an earlier post we examined the DPP’s interim guidelines and the accompanying consultation exercise. With a couple of interesting exceptions, the final guidelines cover largely the same ground as their interim predecessors. The guidelines are an important development, bringing a degree of structure and foreseeability to an important aspect of prosecutorial discretion. However for the reasons set out in our previous article, they remain an inadequate substitute for a general public interest defence. Scope of the guidelines The DPP’s guidelines will be relevant whenever prosecutors are considering whether to charge journalists with criminal offences that may have been committed in the course of their work as journalists. They are also likely to be relevant when prosecutors are considering whether to charge other individuals whose interaction with journalists may have involved the commission of a criminal offence. General principles The guidelines do not displace the general principles contained in the Code for Crown Prosecutors. Accordingly, the starting point for any prosecution decision remains the two-stage test of (a) evidential sufficiency; and (b) consideration of the public interest. The DPP’s guidelines supplement the second limb of this test by providing further guidance about the assessment of the public interest. Cases where there is no express public interest defence The guidelines distinguish between offences where there is an express public interest defence and offences where there is no express defence. In respect of the former, prosecutors must first consider what any public interest defence may be, and how likely it is to affect the prospects of conviction – reflecting the general approach to assessment of the strength of likely defences in the CPS Code at para. 4.5. In respect of the latter, prosecutors must ascertain whether the courts have given clear guidance on the proper interpretation of the offence. Where they have not, the DPP’s guidelines advise that, “the best course for prosecutors may be to put the relevant facts and matters before the court for consideration (assuming that the evidential stage of the Code test is otherwise met)”. In other words, if it is not clear whether a public interest defence exists then the prosecutor should consider putting the case before the court for it to decide the issue. This is a telling paragraph, which demonstrates both the uncertainty of the present law and the advantages of a general public interest defence. The guidelines specifically address the position under the Official Secrets Act 1989 and the resulting uncertainty is representative of the overarching problem which the guidelines do not remove. This is an important piece of legislation with obvious implications for investigative journalists, especially given the offence of onward disclosure of protected information under s.5. The Act underpinned the police action against Martin Bright and The Observer (when David Shayler was prosecuted under the 1989 Act) and, more recently, it was used (abortively) against Amelia Hill in relation to phone hacking sources. The courts have given clear guidance that there is no general public interest defence to offences under sections 1(1)(a) (disclosure by a member of the security or intelligence services) and 4(1) and (3)(a) (disclosure by a Crown servant or government agent of information that results in the commission of a criminal offence, escape from lawful custody or impedes the detention of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders): see R v Shayler UKHL 11. Accordingly, prosecutors are therefore instructed to “proceed on the basis that there is no public interest defence available to a suspect who is charged under these sections”. The Official Secrets Act is a prime example of the anomalous state of the current law and the case for a general public interest defence. There is no general “public interest” defence under the Act, however the public interest is relevant to whether any particular disclosure of information is “damaging” – a condition that must be satisfied for all offences under the Act except those in s. 1(1) and s. 4. In addition, the public interest may be engaged indirectly by the defence of necessity, which is applicable to all offences under the Act. A good illustration of this is the case of Katherine Gun, a GCHQ employee who was charged with breaching s. 1 of the Official Secrets Act by disclosing the USA’s request to the UK to bug the so-called “swing states” in the United Nations during the run-up to the Iraq war. Her publicly stated defence was a desire to prevent a war without a lawfully obtained second UN resolution. The prosecution was abandoned on the opening day of her trial. One of the stated reasons given for discontinuing the prosecution was the difficulty of rebutting the defence of necessity – a tacit reflection of the relevance of the public interest in this area. Any attempted prosecution of the national newspaper which printed her disclosures would undoubtedly have faltered for the same reasons. The DPP’s guidelines’ approach to the Official Secrets Act demonstrates how unacceptable it is to relegate the public interest to the back and side doors in this way: no general public interest defence but the public interest is relevant in assessing damage and whether to prosecute. The public interest test The guidelines identify the critical question for the prosecutor as being: “Whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality?” If the answer is yes then it is “less likely that a prosecution will be required in the public interest”. There are three stages to this exercise. First, the prosecutor must assess the public interest served by the allegedly criminal conduct. Second, they must assess the “overall criminality”. Finally, they must weigh these factors against one another and assess where the overall balance lies. (1) Assessing the public interest served The guidelines provide a non-exhaustive list of types of conduct that is capable of serving the public interest: (a) Conduct which is capable of disclosing that a criminal offence has been committed, is being committed or is likely to be committed. (b) Conduct which is capable of disclosing that a person has failed, is failing, or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation to which s/he is subject. (c) Conduct which is capable of disclosing that a miscarriage of justice has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur. (d) Conduct which is capable of raising or contributing to an important matter of public debate. (e) Conduct which is capable of disclosing that any one of the above is being, or is likely to be, concealed. In relation to (d), the final guidelines expand upon the interim guidelines by providing further detail about what constitutes an “important matter of public debate”: “There is no exhaustive definition of an important matter of public debate, but examples include public debate about serious impropriety, significant unethical conduct and significant incompetence, which affects the public.” The value of this additional explanation is doubtful. Notions of “serious impropriety”, “unethical conduct” and “significant incompetence” are highly subjective – in practice it will be difficult for a journalist to conclude confidently that a prosecutor would share their assessment on these points. This is symptomatic of the all-pervading problem with the guidelines: they require the prosecutor to make a value judgement: to weigh the public interest of a journalist’s actions against the perceived seriousness of the crime. That is a task, surely, which only a jury can properly make. Clive Ponting’s case, for example, illustrates how divergent the views of prosecutors and juries may be. This part of the Guidelines is clearly modeled on the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which protects employees who make “protected disclosures” of certain types of information. The first three examples in the DPP’s guidance are almost identical to s. 43B(a)-(c) of PIDA. However PIDA contains two further categories of “protected disclosure” that are not included in the guidelines: information showing that the health and safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered (s. 43B(d)) and information showing that the environment has been, is being or is likely to be damaged (s. 43B(e)). It is not clear why these examples are not included in the DPP’s list, although their absence was presumably deliberate. The omission may have surprising consequences. Intercepting an email to reveal a cover-up about a spill of toxic chemicals or a leaking nuclear plant or a dangerous hospital, for example, is not something that apparently falls within the public interest guidance. (2) Assessing the overall criminality The Guidelines provide a non-exhaustive list of factors relevant to the extent of wrongdoing: (a) The impact on the victim(s) of the conduct in question, including the consequences for the victims. (b) Whether the victim was under 18 or in a vulnerable position. (c) The overall loss and damage caused by the conduct in question. (d) Whether the conduct was part of a repeated or routine pattern of behaviour or likely to continue. (e) Whether the conduct in question included the use of threats, harassment or intimidation. (f) Whether there was any element of corruption in the conduct in question. (g) The impact on any course of justice, for example whether a criminal investigation or proceedings may have been put in jeopardy. (h) The motivation of the suspect insofar as it can be ascertained. (i) Whether the public interest in question could equally well have been served by some lawful means having regard to all the circumstances in the particular case. These factors are identical to the factors contained in the interim guidelines. In relation to (h), the final guidelines seek to provide further detail: examples of motivation “might range from malice or financial gain at one extreme to a belief that the conduct would be in the public interest at the other, taking into account the information available to the suspect at the time”. Again, this additional detail adds little of substance to the earlier guidance. And the opaque language in (i) falls well short of an express acknowledgment that in some cases, the commission of the crime in question, may have been the only means by which the wrongdoing in question could have been exposed. (3) Making a decision In relation to the third stage, the guidelines remind prosecutors that assessing whether a prosecution is in the public interest is not an arithmetical exercise of counting up the number of factors on each side of the scales. Rather, each case must be considered on its own merits – it is entirely possible that one factor on its own may outweigh a multitude of countervailing factors. The guidelines emphasise the need for “special care” in cases which involve the disclosure of journalists’ sources. The European Court of Human Rights has highlighted the “potentially chilling effect” on press freedom of the forced disclosure of journalists’ sources (see Goodwin v UK (1996) 22 EHRR 123) and the Grand Chamber in Sanoma Uitgevers BV v The Netherlands EMLR 4 recently emphasised that source protection “is a cornerstone of freedom of the press, without which sources may be deterred from assisting the press in informing the public on matters of public interest”. In addition, section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides that no court may require a person to disclose the source of information contained in a publication for which they are responsible, unless the court is satisfied that disclosure is necessary in the interests of justice or national security or for the prevention of disorder or crime. Comment In our earlier post we highlighted four reasons why a public interest defence is preferable to prosecutorial guidance: (a) First, guidelines require journalists to pre-empt a prosecutor’s assessment based on a range of broad and open-ended criteria. This is much harder to predict than a substantive defence, where a body of binding principles and illustrative case law would accumulate over time. (b) Second, the scope for challenging a prosecutor’s decision is very limited. Absent bad faith, improper motive or other exceptional circumstance, judicial review is not available in respect of a decision to prosecute. By contrast, with a substantive public interest defence a defendant would have a full right of appeal (including a right to a reasoned judgment) against any rejection of their defence. (c) Third, important evidence may emerge at trial which casts important light on the public interest served by the journalist’s conduct. In the absence of a substantive defence, that information cannot be used to avoid a conviction once the trial is underway. (d) Fourth, the success of a substantive public interest defence would ultimately be a matter for the jury. The public interest is something that a jury – a representative cross-section of the general public – is uniquely suited to assess. The DPP’s guidelines are a welcome development and arguably the next best thing to a substantive defence. But they are incapable of providing the predictability, enforceability and consistency that proper investigative journalism deserves from the law and which a general public interest defence would provide. Earlier this year the House of Lords Communications Committee published a report into investigative journalism. While the report favoured the introduction of prosecutorial guidance over a general defence, it noted the problems caused by the lack of such a defence: “85. These examples demonstrate the inconsistency between different pieces of legislation when it comes to whether there is a statutory defence relating to the public interest. We are aware of this and the practical challenges and uncertainties it creates for journalists, editors and the prosecuting authorities. For that reason we believe it is appropriate in considering any future law to ask specifically whether a statutory defence relating to the public interest should be included.” The Leveson Inquiry is due to report shortly, and Parliament is scheduled to debate the defamation reform Bill this autumn. This is therefore an ideal opportunity to debate the merits of a general public interest defence. The benefits of responsible journalism inure to the public as a whole. Thalidomide, cash-for-questions, MPs’ expenses, phone hacking – all were exposed through dogged investigations by British newspapers. The law should facilitate, not frustrate, such reporting. So long as journalists have to rely on prosecutorial discretion rather than legal principle for protection, it is society as a whole – as well as the media which serves it – that will suffer the consequences. Alex Bailin QC and Edward Craven are barristers at Matrix Chambers.

https://inforrm.org/2012/09/26/prosecuting-the-media-the-dpps-final-guidelines-alex-bailin-qc-and-edward-craven/

Recent Australian Federal Police raids on journalists and media institutions have called into question whether the laws of this nation have struck the right balance between security and freedom of speech. Although the offences specified as being the subject of the recent raids were made under a previous law, due to the timing of the alleged offences, the Bar Association is still deeply concerned about the implications of the current laws which came into effect late last year. Raids upon journalists should only be countenanced in extreme circumstances.” Mr Game said. Last year amendments made to the Commonwealth Criminal Code created offences relating to disclosure of information that may be prejudicial to national security. The amendments provide a limited defence for journalists, media staff and media entities, but like the previous law, they do not provide for a full public interest defence which was agitated for by the Law Council of Australia. Such a defence is necessary to protect the confidentiality of sources, which in turn enables proper reporting and robust debate regarding matters of public importance in a democratic society.” Mr Game said. Although the Association does not propose to comment on the particular circumstances of this week’s events, which we understand are subject to ongoing investigation, there is no doubt that the legal framework surrounding these kinds of matters is inadequate. Apart from the lack of a public interest defence, the process of obtaining warrants by the Federal Police to carry out searches is opaque, with no broad scrutiny of the justification for the exercise of such highly intrusive search and seizure powers. Applications for such warrants are routinely put before a registrar for approval at short notice without any opportunity for proper judicial oversight” said Mr Game. Without proper safeguards, both regarding protecting the flow of information from sources to journalists in the public interest and in the process for obtaining warrants, these laws have the very real potential to stifle debate on crucial matters of public importance and promote a culture of secrecy which impinges on the freedoms of every Australian” said Mr Game.

https://newcastleonhunter.com/2019/06/09/security-overreach-threatens-rights-and-freedoms/

Make sure you meet your legal obigation to assess value for members and you understand what elements contribute to the value your members get from your pension scheme. The DC code sets out the standards we expect you to meet when complying with the law. You should read the value for members section of the DC code before you read this guide. For the purposes of the guides AVC arrangements are defined as arrangements which receive only voluntary contributions paid in addition to those due under the scheme rules, whether paid by the member or the employer (for example through salary sacrifice). Monies arising from a transfer in from another non-AVC arrangement in order to secure money purchase benefits do not fall into this category. Where legal obligations apply you should consider the risks to members in the context of the significance of the value of AVCs relative to those members’ overall benefits in the scheme (as opposed to the size of the AVC arrangement relative to the scheme overall). You should apply a proportionate approach to meeting the relevant standards in our DC code. Most members of money purchase schemes rely on others to make the important decisions about their fund and to deliver and assess value for them. All members should receive good value from their pension scheme, regardless of whether you have a legal duty to assess and report on value for members annually. There is no single approach to an assessment of value – you should develop your own policy which reflects the circumstances of your scheme and its members. It’s important for you to understand what your scheme’s members value as far as possible but, ultimately, you need to use your judgement to determine whether the scheme offers good value. Your assessment should involve considering the quality and scope of scheme provision as well as the cost. You need to try to understand how your costs and what is provided for those costs compare with other options available in the market. You should strive to ensure that your scheme continues to provide good value for the full period that you are responsible for your members’ funds. We have included below an illustrative approach, which the trustee boards of relevant schemes may wish to use to comply with their legal duties and to meet the related standards in the DC code but different methods are likely to be appropriate depending on the scheme. In particular, less complex schemes with a small number of members may find that it is proportionate to take a simplified approach. Whatever approach you choose, you should document the steps you take and be prepared to show in the chair’s statement that you have followed a proper process that has taken account of all relevant factors. This should include an explanation of how and why you have reached your conclusions. You are required to carry out the assessment at least annually, which means your focus should be on the value provided by your scheme for the charges and transaction costs paid by members across the preceding year and the influence that could have on future outcomes for those members. You might also find it useful to consider the value provided to members over previous years if this provides helpful background information for the assessment. You need include in your assessment only those services that members pay for, or where members share the cost with the employer. Even where members cover only a small proportion of the overall cost of a service or bundle of services, you still need to assess the value for members of those services. As set out in the DC code, we expect you to explain the basis of any cost sharing when you report on your assessment in the chair’s statement. The overall value offered by a scheme, as opposed to the value for members assessment required by legislation, is likely to be influenced strongly by additional factors. The scheme’s governance framework – the effectiveness of the trustee board and its interaction with both service providers and the employer can affect the overall value provided to members. Security of assets – whether arrangements are in place to protect member benefits in the event of the scheme being wound up. Employer contribution to the cost of services – in some schemes, the employer might cover many, if not the majority of, scheme costs, such as all administration costs. The value for money of services paid for by the employer – if employers are paying for poor quality services it is likely to be in members’ and employers’ best interests for that money to be spent in a different way. Employer contribution to member funds – if employers choose to pay a higher rate of contributions to member funds, over and above the automatic enrolment minimum, this could be considered part of the overall value offered to members. The same principle may apply where employers offer contribution matching arrangements that encourage members to contribute more than the automatic enrolment minimum. Value over the longer-term – see examples below. Scheme A provides online communications and tools for its members. Research indicates that the members who access these find them very helpful and use them a lot. However, currently only a small proportion of the overall membership uses them. The trustees of scheme A could consider whether further promotion of the services would make more members aware of them and encourage greater use over time. In these circumstances, the trustees could be justified in allowing time for the full value for members provided by the service to be realised. Scheme B provides an investment fund which (like most funds) has a performance target that extends beyond a one-year time period. In this situation, the trustees could be justified in focusing on an interim analysis of how the fund is performing in relation to the relevant costs and whether it is on track to meet the target by the relevant date. Although the above factors do not form part of your legal duties, you may wish to refer to them in the chair’s statement to provide context for your report on the value for members assessment. You should still set out clearly in the chair’s statement any particular member-borne costs and charges that do not represent good value and the action you have taken, or plan to take, as a result. What services (including investment products) do members pay for across the four core areas of scheme governance and management, investment, administration and communications? This should include services where the costs are shared between members and the employer. What are the charges and transaction costs associated with those services? This involves identifying particular charges and transaction costs, including service provider, trustee and investment product costs (that are not excluded), which are passed on to members. It also involves breaking down bundled costs into their component parts where possible and proportionate. You should include investment transaction costs as far as you are able – refer to the box on transaction costs below. What are the costs of comparable services? You could start by looking at the costs of comparable services used by similar schemes, where this information is available. Similar schemes can be defined according to factors such as size, membership profile, what is offered by the scheme and whether they operate a similar balance of member- and employer-borne costs. For example, if your scheme’s member charges relate to investment costs only, try to compare it with schemes that share costs in the same way. However, as far as possible, you should also seek to discover the costs of services used by other schemes generally. For example, check if there are comparable services available on the market for a significantly different cost from what you are paying. Did it occur within the past year? Will there be further costs? Why did it take place? For example, to seek improved investment performance? Has it or should it offer good value for members and why? Did you review market conditions before making the change? Transaction costs are defined in regulations as the costs incurred as a result of buying, selling, lending or borrowing investments and they can have a significant impact on members’ fund values. Currently, providers are not subject to any reporting or disclosure requirements in respect of transaction costs, which can make it difficult to obtain a full breakdown of costs. However, you should have an understanding of the types and levels of transaction costs that are incurred by different investments and include them in your value for members assessment. To determine whether the costs are appropriate for a fund, consider factors such as the fund’s investment style (eg active or passive management), the underlying investment instruments (eg equity, bonds or property), the value traded, the return generated, any risks mitigated and the general trading environment. Transaction costs are typically categorised as explicit costs and implicit costs. Explicit costs are directly observable and asset managers and product providers should be able to provide you with information on these costs. Examples of explicit costs include broker fees, transaction taxes and custody fees. Implicit costs cannot be observed in the same way but will also result in a reduction in the total amount of capital invested. Examples of implicit costs include bid-ask spreads and market impact. You should be aware that implicit costs can have a significant impact on net returns. When you report on your value for members assessment in the chair’s statement, you might find it helpful to separate costs into those known with certainty (eg transaction tax), those known with a reasonable degree of accuracy (eg spread costs) and those which have been estimated (eg market impact). Given the complex nature of transaction cost disclosure, you should contact your asset managers and product providers well ahead of your scheme’s year end to ensure the information can be collated on a timely basis and that the costs are appropriate. If your asset manager or provider is unable to give you the information you ask for, you should ask them why and record this in the chair’s statement. This should include any steps you have agreed with them to get this information in future years. Where you are provided with only limited information, you may wish to engage with the relevant party to enable you to take a view on certain transaction costs and whether unidentified or unquantified costs are justified by the return they generate. You should assume the role of a demanding consumer in your relationship with your asset manager or provider, making use of advisers where necessary. When reviewing investment mandates in the future, you should consider including disclosure of transaction costs as both part of your selection criteria and as a contractual term. The Investment Association has issued voluntary industry guidance on enhanced disclosure of charges and costs incurred by UK-authorised funds. The type and extent of information that you should seek to obtain for this part of the assessment will vary according to the nature of your scheme and its membership. You should therefore take a proportionate approach to the time and cost involved. Key question: Are the benefits provided by the scheme’s services suitable for, relevant to and valued by members? You could start by considering member characteristics, such as age, salary, fund size, contribution rate and the range of funds they are invested in. This information can help you to build a basic membership profile and it might help you to create categories of members. There are many sources of information you could use, including surveys, employer-led workshops, member panels, feedback from member-nominated trustees and issues or themes arising from member complaints. Master trusts might also find it useful to seek employer feedback on service quality, eg through an employer working group. Detailed information on methods of member engagement is set out in the communicating and reporting guide. Where information gathered in relation to members is insufficient for you to reach a firm view, it might be helpful to also consider looking at available research that is not specific to your own scheme, eg the members' perspective on workplace pensions report from Price Bailey. While taking account of member views, you need to use your judgement to conclude whether your scheme’s services are meeting member needs. This is particularly important in situations where you succeed in engaging with only a small proportion of members or groups of members. Key question: Have the scheme’s services to members performed effectively over the past year and do you believe they will continue to perform effectively? changes made to the scheme or services in the past year that could have an effect on future value for members. This might include changes in staff or pricing or the introduction of new IT software. For specific information on how to measure performance in these areas, refer to the guides on the trustee board, scheme management skills, administration, investment governance and communicating and reporting. You should now be in a position to take a view on the scope and quality of your scheme’s services to members relative to the costs. Does the scope and quality of each service provide good value for the relevant costs and charges incurred by members? Does the scope and/or quality of a particular service justify any differences in cost when compared to similar schemes and other options available in the market? The second question is important because even if you determine that a particular service is delivering good value based on an internal assessment of cost and quality, your view could change if you discover that similar schemes pay less for the same service or that comparable services are available on the market to other schemes at a much lower cost. Sources of relevant comparable information for large schemes are likely to include competitive tendering, sharing information through an adviser or professional trustee where permitted, commissioning an independent consultant or using an appropriate benchmarking service. It might suit less complex schemes with a small number of members to focus on carrying out online research, bearing in mind that some schemes will publish their costs and charges on their website, or requesting support from a professional adviser or accountant. You should take a proportionate approach to this process of comparison, including a thorough consideration of cost and benefit. It will not be proportionate to use a method that will incur a significant cost unless it is likely to return a worthwhile benefit for members in the future. When you have reached a conclusion on the two questions above, you will need to use your judgement to determine the extent to which your scheme’s members are receiving good value for what they pay. In coming to a view, you should consider any significant impact from cross subsidies. These may relate to the amounts that different members pay, cross-subsidies between different membership groups, or between sections of a scheme where the scheme has more than one section. The law requires trustee boards of relevant schemes to set out the levels of particular charges and costs and to explain their value for members assessment in the chair’s statement. If you have documented clearly each stage of your assessment process you will be in an excellent position to comply with this requirement. Where you have used a scoring or rating system to help you make decisions, this should be supported by clear explanatory narrative. As set out in the DC code, we expect you to include in the chair’s statement details of any areas where the costs of services are shared between the member and the employer, including the basis of the cost sharing. However, you do not need to include in the statement all of the supporting information and evidence that you used to reach your conclusions. Further information on how to complete the chair’s statement is set out in the communicating and reporting guide. You should consider the potential for producing a summary of the key outcomes from the assessment and either sending it to members with existing communications or publishing it on your website. It is important to take action to improve or remedy areas of poor value where possible. In some cases, decisions to change the scheme or elements within it rest with the employer but it remains your responsibility to address poor value as far as you are able. It is important that you are able to work effectively with employers in this regard. The trustee boards of large schemes could also consider whether there is potential to negotiate lower costs, even if the costs they pay are the market standard for schemes of a similar size. If an appropriate measure to address poor value is likely to incur higher costs initially, eg an investment in technology to help simplify or standarise a particular service, you could be justified in taking this action if it will result in reducing costs in the longer-term and will not unfairly disadvantage any particular group of members. In some circumstances, it might be sensible to work with the employer to close the scheme to new members or to close the scheme altogether and transfer members and their pots to a different scheme. For example, a large scheme might be able to provide members with benefits that are only available through economies of scale and professional governance. Winding up an existing scheme can be a valid and effective way of addressing poor value where the evidence justifies this action and the costs of doing so are not out of proportion to the expected benefits for members in the longer-term. You will need to consult the trust deed and scheme rules for information on who has the power to wind up your scheme and it is important to seek legal advice before making a decision. Even where you can report confidently that member-borne costs and charges in your scheme represent good value, this may not always hold true. Therefore, you should guard against a deterioration in value for members with ongoing monitoring and evaluation. Although you are required to carry out a full review of value for members at least once a year, it is best practice to ensure that you have arrangements in place to enable the ongoing monitoring of services provided to the scheme, and that discussions and decisions relating to scheme services take account of any potential impact on value for members. To help you evaluate service providers on a continual basis, you could invite representatives to board meetings to offer updates on how services are performing and any challenges they are facing. This might be particularly helpful where you have recently negotiated improved service levels. In some cases, rather than inviting representatives to meetings, it might be more appropriate for one of the board members or the scheme secretary to request particular information from a service provider and report back to the full board. Any decision to engage with service providers should be proportionate to the costs involved and you should also assess their performance against defined targets, measures and/or objectives on a regular basis. For many schemes, this will be at least quarterly, although less complex schemes with a small number of members and that carry out fewer transactions might find it appropriate to review performance less frequently unless a particular issue arises. The regularity of review may also depend on the level of involvement the provider has in the scheme. Where relevant, you should also have a process in place to evaluate the performance of any remunerated trustees on your board. For example, this could form part of an annual board effectiveness review. Refer to the guide on scheme management skills for information on monitoring the performance of service providers and evaluating board performance. You should review your approach to the value for members assessment each year and consider whether it remains fit for purpose in light of external market developments, changes to your scheme’s membership demographic, growth in scheme assets and your medium- to long-term strategy for the scheme. To support this process, you could consider meeting or sharing information with other trustee boards to compare approaches and discuss ideas. You may also wish to consider whether there are opportunities to learn from practices and approaches adopted by independent governance committees in relation to contract-based schemes offering money purchase benefits and meet with them or share information where appropriate. You should not assume that the process you adopt to carry out the value for members assessment for the first time is necessarily the right one. When reviewing your approach you should consider whether examples of good practice have emerged in the industry or in guidance that you could use or adapt. To allow a greater level of comparison between schemes in the future, you could consider publishing your chair’s statement. 'Charge controls' apply to the default arrangements of certain occupational pension schemes that provide money purchase benefits and that are being used as qualifying schemes for automatic enrolment. However, exceptions apply – eg the charge cap does not apply to arrangements which contain third-party promises or guarantees about the level of benefits members will receive. You should assess whether any guarantees or other favourable treatment might be lost on transition and whether any penalties will be triggered. You may wish to seek advice to determine whether or not the controls apply to arrangements in your scheme. You can also refer to the investment governance guide for further information on default arrangements. As set out in the DC code, the law requires you to comply with limits on charges and how these charges may be structured. Even if your charges look to be below the limit, you'll still be in breach of the law if the charging structure used isn't allowed. The requirements include making sure that no members' funds in a default arrangement are subject to charges in excess of a cap. If charges are calculated solely as a simple percentage of members' funds, the limit is 0.75% per annum. This is measured over a period called a 'charges year', which may be different from the year ends that schemes use for other purposes. If your scheme charges aren't calculated in this way, but are made up of a charge on members' funds plus a charge on contributions or a flat fee, the regulations specify how the cap applies to each element. Some types of charge or cost are excluded and don't count against the cap, such as transaction costs, which are incurred as a result of buying, selling, lending or borrowing investments. Refer to the box above for further information on transaction costs. If your default arrangement(s) is subject to the charge controls, it needed to comply from 6 April 2015 or the automatic enrolment staging date of the employer to which the default arrangement relates (if that date is later). You need to confirm you comply with the charge controls to us via the scheme return. You can read about identifying which arrangements are affected and assessing charges in the charge cap guidance for trustees and managers on GOV.UK. You can use the adjustment measure in exceptional circumstances so that the charge cap won't apply for a particular default arrangement. To use the adjustment measure you need to notify the employer, members and us at least one month before you intend to use it, providing the date on which the measure will take effect. Your scheme rules may not allow you to take the steps for using the adjustment measure. However, the legislation overrides some scheme rules and some of the processes you might otherwise have to follow. You may wish to take advice on what steps you need to take. Failing to comply with the charge controls alone will not mean that your scheme doesn't qualify for use under automatic enrolment. However, if you decide you'll no longer accept contributions, employers of affected members may need to make alternative arrangements to ensure they comply with their automatic enrolment duties. From 6 April 2016, 'active member discounts' are banned. This means you are not allowed to charge the pots of non-contributing members more than you would have if they were active members contributing to the scheme. Employers are still permitted to pay charges on behalf of active members so long as the total charge level imposed is the same for contributing and non-contributing members. The ban applies to certain occupational pension schemes that provide money purchase benefits and are being used as qualifying schemes for automatic enrolment. You may wish to seek advice to determine whether the ban on active member discounts applies to members in your scheme. The ban applies to non-contributing members where at least one contribution for them has been made to your scheme on or after 6 April 2016. The contribution needs to have been made while they worked for the employer who is using the scheme to comply with their automatic enrolment duties. The ban applies to all investment arrangements, not just default arrangements. Even where charges for non-contributing members are within the limit (or equivalent) permitted under the charge control regulations, from 6 April 2016 onwards you'll still be breaching the law if an active member discount exists. If you're not sure whether an active member discount exists, you should compare the rate and/or amount of charges imposed on a non-contributing member to those that the member would have faced if they were a contributing member. If the rate or the amount is higher than it would have been if the member was a contributing member, then an active member discount exists. From 6 April 2016, providers of administration services to trustees are banned from making scheme members cover commission costs they pay to advisers for advice or services to members or participating employers. The ban does not apply to advice and services provided to trustees. Trustees can continue to use member-borne charges to pay for advice and services that they need or are required by law to obtain to run their scheme effectively. If your scheme provides money purchase benefits and is being used as a qualifying scheme for automatic enrolment, the ban is likely to apply and you’ll have duties to meet. The ban applies to AVCs in so far as these arrangements are used to provide money purchase benefits in such schemes. If you’re not sure whether the ban applies to your scheme, you should seek legal advice. The ban applies to certain service providers who levy a charge on members to recover the cost of any commission payments to advisers for certain advice or services, but only in respect of commission arrangements that are entered into, varied or renewed on or after 6 April 2016. In practice, a service provider is likely to be captured if they are a provider of bundled or unbundled administration services to trustees. Payroll and middleware services are not covered by the ban. The ban takes effect one month after you have notified your service provider(s) in writing that your scheme is affected. The service provider has a further month to confirm to you in writing that they comply with the ban. These time limits may be extended if your service provider needs more information from you about your scheme’s membership. If your service provider fails to confirm that they comply, or tells you that they don’t comply, you should tell us by completing a breach of law report via Exchange. Members can choose to pay for advice and services using deductions from their pension pot, but certain conditions must be met. For more information see the Department for Work and Pensions guidance on banning member-borne commission in automatic enrolment pension schemes.

https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/trustees/managing-dc-benefits/5-value-for-members

Here are Barmak Nassirian’s views of the bill recently re-introduced in the House and the Senate, Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would authorize the creation of a federal database of all college students, complete with their personally identifiable information, tracking them through college and into the workforce, including their earnings, Social Security numbers, and more. The ostensible purpose of the bill? To provide better consumer information to parents and students so they can make “smart higher education investments.” The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy opposes this bill, and believes that allowing the federal government to collect the personal data of all college students with no provision for consent or opt out is unacceptable – and would create huge risks to their privacy and safety. This is especially true given the recent revelations of the massive breach of the personal information of millions of federal employees, and the sensitive information of other individuals as well, referenced in their security clearances. We are especially disappointed that Sen. Ron Wyden, a strong privacy advocate, is a co-sponsor of this bill. Barmak’s comments were originally posted in response to an article in US News and World Report by Kevin James and Andrew Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute. by Barmak Nassirian The authors are thoughtful higher education analysts, whose interest in more comprehensive and more granular data is certainly understandable. Unfortunately, the slam-dunk case they attempt to make on behalf of a national, student-level educational/employment data system fails to acknowledge, let alone address, some of the most basic questions about the wisdom of building such a system. First, let’s be clear that the data in question would be personally identifiable information of every student (regardless of whether they seek or obtain any benefits from the government), that these data would be collected without the individual’s consent or knowledge, that each individual’s educational data would be linked to income data collected for unrelated purposes, and that the highly personal information residing for the first time in the same data-system would be tracked and updated over time. Second, the open-ended justification for the collection and maintenance of the data (“better consumer information”) strongly suggests that the data systems in question would have very long, if not permanent, record-retention policies. They, in other words, would effectively become life-long dossiers on individuals. Third, the amorphous rationale for matching collegiate and employment data would predictably spread and justify the concatenation of other “related” data into individuals’ longitudinal records. The giant sucking sound we would hear could be the sound of personally identifiable data from individuals’ K12, juvenile justice, military service, incarceration, and health records being pulled into their national dossiers. Fourth, the lack of explicit intentionality as to the compelling governmental interest that would justify such a surveillance system is an open invitation for mission creep. The availability of a dataset as rich as even the most basic version of the system in question would quickly turn it into the go-to data mart for other federal and state agencies, and result in currently unthinkable uses that would never have been authorized if proposed as allowable disclosures in the first place. Fifth, while the numerous authorized uses of the data system are scary enough in their own right, the high probability of unauthorized access should give advocates some pause. The individually identifiable life-information that would be neatly organized in the system, if/when compromised, would give away the entire identity of every former student, with data elements that go far beyond the terrifying data breaches we know about. Finally, given all of the above, shouldn’t we ponder whether there are other ways of addressing the one argument for the data system–i.e., better information about outcomes–through less intrusive mechanisms? As the authors point out, proxies for exact knowledge of outcomes are already at hand, and may be tweaked to produce better information. Tracking autonomous free individuals through most of their lives in the name of better information for the benefit of others may be justifiable, but its extremism should at the very least be acknowledged and addressed. Unfortunately, the legislation in question (and this defense of that legislation) fails to do either. The thought that the proposed system doesn’t pose new privacy risks is quite astonishing. I seriously doubt that a much less intrusive data system, such as placing a transponder in every car to generate better transportation data, would be met with much enthusiasm at AEI, despite the fact that driving is privilege not a right, and that cars are already required to register with the government to drive on public roads.

https://studentprivacymatters.org/barmak-nassirian-is-the-student-right-to-know-bill-worth-the-risk-to-privacy/

• Information: significant and interesting Journalism begins with information. Gathering information is the first job of the journalist. That information must meet certain conditions. Most importantly, it must be factual and accurate. Journalists seek information that is factual – events that actually happened, what people really said and did, how people really feel. They try to sort out the actual from the fantasy – that is, what people think or hope or wish had happened from what actually happened. Obtaining and disseminating accurate information is the chief goal of journalists. Much of the process that journalists use to gather information is mean to ensure the accuracy of the information they have. Accuracy is a concept that will come up again and again as we discuss what it means to be a journalist. Journalist fear inaccurate information because it means that they have failed at their job. Another condition of the information that journalists gather is that it be significant. By significant, we mean that it should be meaningful to a sizeable number of people. The fact that your pet (dog, cat, rabbit, whatever) is sick is important to you and your family, but it is not meaningful to those outside your immediate circle. If your pet is being affected by a condition that is affecting many other pets, however, that information is significant, and it is something that a journalist might be interested in. Closely associated with significance is the condition that the information should be interesting to some portion of the audience. Not everything that appears in the news media is of interest to everyone, of course. The comings and goings of many celebrities are of absolutely no interest or importance to many, many people. Yet, we will hear about them because there are a significant number of people (you, perhaps) who want to know this information. Judging how interesting information is to an audience is tricky business for journalists. They must often go beyond their personal interests and inclinations and be aware that there are many people who expect the news media to provide information about a wide range of topics. Sports is a case in point. Many people care nothing for sports and will never read a sports story or listen to a sports broadcast. Yet, obviously, sports gets major attention from the news media because there are enough people who are interested in it to make a difference to news organizations. And there are enough people who are not only interested but deeply interested for sports to be a major part of the news media’s offerings. Journalists should develop a wide range of interests, but they should also recognize the audience’s interests range far more widely than their personal interests. Yet another condition of the information a journalist gathers is that it be current information. In fact, it should be the most up to date information that is available about an event or topic. This factor of the timeliness of the information is terribly important for news organizations and for the journalists themselves. It is an important part of modern journalism that information be the latest, most up-to-date information that can be obtained. And by up-to-date, what we really mean is up-to-the minute. Old news is not news, as journalists like to say; it’s history. What happened last week is not nearly as interesting to the journalist as what happened yesterday. And what happened yesterday is not as interesting as what happened in the last hour or the last give minutes. That is one of the things that makes journalism so difficult. Journalists are in a constant race to shorten the amount of time between obtaining and disseminating information, and that is especially as the web as become a major medium of journalism. The web is always on and always available. Audiences expect the web of be consistently and constantly updated with new information. In module 1.2 of Digital Journalism 010 <link>, we referred to news values by which a topic or event may be judged. Much of what we have said in this section coincides or overlaps with that, and you should review that material as you consider what is in this module. A word about writing Writing is a vital part of the journalistic process, and we pay a great deal of attention to the forms and techniques of journalistic writing in the next section of JN-21. But writing and reporting are intertwined, and as you begin to learn about information and reporting, you should also be learning about writing journalistically. In fact, your instructor may be covering these sections together, and doing makes a lot of sense. Knowing what you have to write and the way you write it influences the information that you obtain to produce an article or report. For instance, most stories for print or the web require the inclusion of direct quotations from a live source. Consequently, in reporting on the story, the journalist will try to find someone who can provide that direct quotation. In reporting for the web, as we will see in a later section <link>, it is important to include a list if that is possible and appropriate. Lists are easy for readers to see and comprehend quickly. So, the journalist writing for a web site will be on the lookout for some items that can be made into a list. As you learn about journalistic information, pay attention to the kind of information you will need and the form that it should take so that it can be included in your reports. Get a FREE copy of Kill the Quarterback Get a free digital copy of Jim Stovall's mystery novel, Kill the Quarterback. You will also get Jim's newsletter and advanced notice of publications, free downloads and a variety of information about what he is working on. Jim likes to stay in touch, so sign up today.

https://www.jprof.com/reporting/information-significant-and-interesting/

hey are at it again, those eager policy makers keen to define what journalism actually is. To be a journalist, or not to be one, may well be the difference between punishment or protection under the latest discussions by members of the U.S. Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee was busy last week coming to a few conclusions on the subject. Some of these remain troubling. There was a certain urgency in the air after it was revealed that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed some two months’ worth of telephone records spanning 21 phone lines involving editors and reporters of The Associated Press. A search warrant was also secretly used to obtain emails of a Fox News journalist (The Times and Democrat, Sep 15). Two pertinent issues are at stake here. One is what a journalist, and requisite journalism, actually is. Such definitions have proven problematic, traditionally defined in such a way that excludes publishers such as WikiLeaks. That, law makers seem to claim, would be one immunity too far. Once the definition of journalist is satisfied, the argument then centres on how far the immunity extends to protect a journalist from disclosing sources. The Schumer-Graham media shield bill states that those covered would be persons with the “primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information.” The Free Flow of Information Act 2013, as the new shield bill has formally been called, would provide shield protection for journalists from having to reveal sources against a subpoena. It is a resurrection, in part, of the Free Flow of Information bill of 2009, an instrument that found itself stranded in Congressional waters soon after WikiLeaks unleashed Cablegate. Any definition suggests exclusions. Furthermore, the glaring feature of the latest debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee is the assumption that Congress should even define what journalism is. So, while we have Senator Charles Schumer’s diligent efforts to increase the scope of the definition to include bloggers (how revolutionary), thorny issues remain. For Schumer, “You have to do two things. You first have to realise that the world has changed, and not everything occurs in print from people who work seven days a week in journalism.” Not that he is about to throw the baby out with its accompanying conservative bathwater. “But on the other hand, you can’t just say anybody who writes one single thing gets the same kind of protection.” California Senator Diane Feinstein, never a friend of the journalistic creed, preferred to define “real reporters” as those earning a salary, independent contractors or “agent of an entity that disseminates news or information”. In hearings, Feinstein is on record as suggesting that a 17-year-old high school dropout with a blog could hardly qualify for protection. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has also been of a similar view, while Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) entertained the absurd in his claim that journalists revealing classified information could not be covered. Whether information is privileged also depends on the medium disclosing the information, namely, that it be a “newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, news agency, news website, mobile application or other news or information service (whether distributed digitally or otherwise); news program, magazine or other periodical, whether in print, electronic or other format; or through television or radio broadcast; or motion picture for public showing.” Again, the tendrils of conservatism are such that a publishing agency like WikiLeaks might fall outside its ambit, unless it is classed as a “news website”. The compromise between the Durbin-Feinstein grouping and Schumer, passed on Thursday by 13-5 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, seems like unnecessary babble in the context of restriction. An individual who has had an employer relationship for one of the past 20 years or three continuous months in the five years would be protected (Huffington Post, Sep 12). As the editorial of The Times and Democrat claims, “It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years.” Judicial discretion is, however, granted in cases where an individual might not, on face value, fall within that protection. As with anything that stems from state representatives, national security exceptions apply. Confidential information in a journalist’s possession that might cause “significant and articulable harm to national security” would still have to surrender such material. Given how incalculably vague national security interests are, let alone “articulable”, we are still in that old muddle of whether a true flow of information will be possible. It all falls to the reasonableness of judicial opinion and the sanity of the state, both questionable propositions. What now happens to the bill as it veers to the Senate for full consideration remains an open question. While there can be little doubt that aspects of government will be opened by the measure – the need for court approval to seek journalists’ records being the main feature there – the compromise remains weak for focusing on the status of the journalist rather than the actions of journalism. Congress is incapable of letting that one go. Besides, the Senators will continue to be concerned by that organisation that continues to send tremors through the national security establishment.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/16/wikileaks-and-defining-journalism/print/

Business, 12.11.2019 04:31, daijahamaker062816 Nico and oscar form a contract under which oscar is to perform gardening services for nico for one year. for six months, oscar performs the services, and nico pays him. nico’s mother, madison, becomes ill and is unable to care for her garden. the three agree that oscar will no longer care for nico’s garden but instead will care for madison’s garden for the remainder of the year. the new contract: Answered: Visitor statement of owner"s equity; Answered: Visitor a ab Answered: Visitor if kj of heat is transferred o 1200 g liquid water at 36'c, what would the new temperature of the water be? (he specific heat capacity of liquid water is 4.186 j/g''c) a. 15'c b.100'c c.51'c d.36'c Answered: Visitor in terms of experimental research, mcdonald’s charging different prices in the two cities relates to Business, 22.06.2019 03:00, JadaaJayy Insurance companies have internal controls in place to protect assets, monitor the accuracy of accounting records and encourage operational efficiencies and adherence to policies. these internal controls are generally of two types: administrative controls and accounting controls. administrative controls are the policies and procedures that guide the daily actions of employees. accounting controls are the policies and procedures that delineate authorizations of financial transactions that are done, safeguard assets, and provide reports on the company’s financial status in a reliable and timely manner. internal controls should include both preventative and detective controls. the purpose of preventative controls is to stop problems and errors before they occur. detective controls identify problems after they have occurred. preventative controls are usually more effective at reducing problems, but they also tend to be more expensive. internal controls must be flexible to adjust for changes in laws and regulations in addition to adding new products or modifying current ones. companies must also do regular analyses to ensure that the benefits of implementing the controls are worth their costs. when concerned about paying unwarranted insurance claims which type of control would be useful? Answers: 2 Business, 22.06.2019 07:30, nanamath5662 Select the correct answer the smith family adopted a child. the adoption procedure took about three months, and the family incurred various expenses. will the smiths receive and financial benefit for the taxable year? a) they will not receive any financial benefit for adopting the child b) their income tax component will decrease c) they will receive childcare grants d) they will receive a tax credit for the cost borne for adopting the child e) they will receive several tax deductions Answers: 3 Business, 22.06.2019 11:00, HUNIXX6561 Samantha is interested in setting up her own accounting firm and wants to specialize in the area of accounting that has experienced the most significant growth in recent years. which area of accounting should she choose as her specialty? samantha should choose as her specialty. Answers: 1 Business, 22.06.2019 13:20, sman091305 In a slow year, deutsche burgers will produce 3.500 million hamburgers at a total cost of $4.600 million. in a good year, it can produce 4.300 million hamburgers at a total cost of $4.900 million. a. what are the fixed costs of hamburger production? (do not round intermediate calculations. enter your answer in millions rounded to 1 decimal place) b. what is the variable cost per hamburger? c. what is the average cost per burger when the firm produces 3 million hamburgers? Answers: 3 Nico and oscar form a contract under which oscar is to perform gardening services for nico for one y...

https://smart-answers.com/business/question13813565

Downstairs at Porch is a casual pub with lite fare food such as wings, fish & chips and hamburgers and lite entrees. Beer enthusiasts will enjoy our 10 rotating taps and a beer menu consisting of over 130 beers. We will gladly handle special requests but this may add time and or additional cost to you order.

http://porchrestaurant.com/Pub

Join us for worship and a picnic at the lake! We are wrapping up our campout that weekend with an outdoor worship service followed by a picnic. Check out the basic details below and then RSVP if you'd like to attend. WHO: Everyone! WHEN: Sunday, October 18, 10:30am-1:00pm WHERE: Smithville Lake, at the Crows Creek Playground area. COST: It is $5 per car to enter the campground. WHAT TO BRING: - For worship - The Grove will provide Activity Bags for kids but you should bring Lawn chairs and/or blankets for sitting and Bibles for each person in your party. - For the picnic - Bring drinks for your family and a side to share and The Grove will provide hot dogs and hamburgers and the fixings. We'd love to have you join us in-person (please RSVP below). If that's not possible, please join us for the online service in the morning.

https://thegrovekc.com/worship-at-the-lake

I am a mom of four kids and I love cooking quick and easy meals for my family. One day, I was making hamburgers with bread crumbs mixed in to make them extra crispy on the outside but still juicy on the inside. My kids ate these so fast that they wanted me to keep making them! These are now one of our favorite go-to recipes. What have you been cooking lately? Share your recipe ideas in the comments below! prep: 10 mins cook: 30 mins total: 40 mins Servings: 4 Yield: 4 burgers Ingredients: ½ teaspoon garlic powder, or to taste ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste 1 pound ground beef ¼ cup vegetable oil for frying 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 2 eggs ½ teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste 1 small onion, sliced into rings 1 ½ cups bread crumbs Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Whisk eggs together in a small bowl. Place bread crumbs on a plate. In a medium bowl, mix together the ground beef, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Form into 4 patties. Dip burger patties into egg, then press into bread crumbs to coat. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the breaded hamburgers on each side, about 2 minutes per side. Place onion rings in the bottom of a baking dish or casserole dish. Pour in just enough water to cover the bottom, but not cover the onion. Carefully place burgers on top of the onions in the baking dish without touching the water. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until burgers are well done. Nutrition Facts: Per Serving: 420 calories; protein 27.8g; carbohydrates 32g; fat 19.3g; cholesterol 162mg; sodium 570.9mg.

https://77recipes.com/breaded-hamburgers/

Eva Magill-Oliver is a multi-media artist living and working in Alpharetta, Georgia. The natural world is an ever-present theme in her work, which transitions with the landscape that surrounds her. Nature inspires her color palettes, the way she creates patterns, and influences the organic shapes and silhouettes prevalent in her work. “I love to explore the movements, patterns, and connections found in the natural world. I am in awe of nature’s subtle variations and how they flow and influence one another.” After working exclusively on paper for several years, she has expanded her work to include oil and acrylic abstract paintings on canvas. The work is organic, representing the dynamic evolution that is the natural world. Eva is represented by a number of galleries across the United States. Her work is featured in several online boutiques and publications.

https://www.quartoknows.com/books/9781631595967/Paint-Alchemy.html

NEW GROUND, by the artist Manuel Bisson, presented at Galerie Bernard from October 8 to November 7, includes two series of works from 2013 to 2015. Although representational, Bisson painting suggests subject to interpretation forms. The two series oscillate between references to the body (animal and human), as well as landscape (unreal, cosmic). The first corpus presents works carried out between 2013 and 2014. Pictorial research of Manuel Bisson is activated by the meeting of opposites and the exploration of contrasts. This series is under the influences of the animal and/or human body, where: hair, coat and textures are superimposed on the deep contrasts of black and white. Intimate and visceral things are hidden under angular geometric features, thus creating a certain dichotomy in the image; an ambiguity between modesty and exhibitionism. With the second corpus (2015 artworks), the artist takes us into another universe. Here, one moves away from the figure (body human/animal/mineral) and we are transported in a series of improbable, futuristic, unreal landscapes… Manuel Bisson questions the environment, location, and architecture, without however incorporating figurative elements. Avoiding narration, the elements arranged in his paintings are set in turn voltage, contemplation, isolation and insecurity. The compositions range from two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, space and canvas, shadows-objects and objects-nil. The oblique and the superimposed planes create cutaway perspectives and false assumed depths. Integrated subtly into his works, influences from the aesthetics of the science fiction of the 1970s and 1980s can be perceived, both in the treatment of the color as in the plans in suspension. Some mystical universe and worlds parallel, retro-futuristic prints can be well seen in this series. The comings and goings of this geometric theatre often takes place in a floating space without anchoring figurative or structural. In addition, this feeling of suspension is suggested by the meeting of abstract plans or light radiation that Bisson creates with his singular exploration of color and mediums. The artist works with ease, one series to another, combinations of fluorescent color palettes, pastel, black and white, who marry in an unexpected way. The use of the aerosol and plastic references in the cosmos are recurrent in the whole corpus of Bisson. Thus, these two series to the formal, sometimes different, are connected by several elements that make up a coherent practice. His abstract art is the result of a gesture, an action for most of the time spontaneous and instinctive but evolving. NEW GROUND is an opportunity for him to explore new formal and semantic fields in the context of this first solo exhibition at the Gallery Bernard. (Source in French: Roxanne Arsenault – Translation Galerie Bernard) Manuel Bisson, born in 1973, lives and works in Montréal. His artistic approach stands out mainly by two disciplines, that is to say: performance and painting. He completed his Bachelor of Arts visuels et médiatiques at UQAM in 2011. However, his multidisciplinary artistic practice spans more than 15 years. His performative works were presented in festivals and galleries in the Canada and abroad. A few years ago he left the performance to devote himself entirely to his pictorial work. From 2014, Manuel Bisson is represented by Galerie Bernard; his works have been presented at the collective exhibition in the Gallery Accrochage 2014 – «Territories et fioritures» (Manuel Bisson, Kittie Bruneau, Raymond Dupuis and André Jasmin), at the fair of contemporary art of Saint-Lambert, at the auction Clark26 in 2014, as well as the contemporary art PAPIER14 and PAPIER15 fairs.

https://www.galeriebernard.ca/en/expositions/passees/manuel-bisson/

As their debut on UIQ, 'INDS', is the new EP from London-based duo HXE (fka HEX). Loosely formed around the practice and aesthetics of modern, large scale industry and practices, the 4-track release sees their sound develop to further utilise harsh textures and sound design that resonate in metallic, mechanical soundscapes. As a progression from their previous EP on Liberation Technologies, 'INDS' replicates aesthetic elements and sound palettes from the industrial process, stretching and expanding synthetic samples and vocals with granular synthesis.

https://u-i-q.org/news/hxe-inds-uiq0011

Starting from this year MarediModa launches its exclusive TREND BOOK. A digital publication dedicated to style bureaux. In-depth analysis of key trends, color palettes, fabrics, silhouettes and video of trend presentation by David Shah.

https://www.maredimoda.com/en/maredimoda-unveils-the-beachwear-underwear-and-athleisure-trends-for-s-s-2020/

What's with the recent trend of messing with color palettes in WADs? Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom GeneralLike I may have mentioned, I'm overall quite familiar with the notion of having multiple palettes. Descent 2 played with that idea quite extensively, having six built-in palettes, each capable of rendering all textures, but each suited better to different texture types. One dude was able to port Descent 1's palette to D2 too a while ago, which was sorely missed because it's got all the purples and renders light grays much more losslessly. Still, it would probably be optimal to have true color and just duplicate the different palette versions of certain textures in the instances where it makes the most difference. Shame such awesome games were created in an era of such frustrating limitations! - What's with the recent trend of messing with color palettes in WADs? Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom GeneralJust checked out Breathless and to be honest blue is all it's got going for it. Sure the blues are pretty, but there's not much apart from them. That's why true color would be so much better, shame only the more modern ports support it. I do agree that color banding contributes to the nice retro aesthetic though, and you can't have that with true color. That's not a big sacrifice though, all things considered. - What can I open VOICES.WAD with? Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom GeneralThanks! - What can I open VOICES.WAD with? Xfing posted a topic in Doom GeneralI'd like to play back some of the unused dialogue from Strife, always had fun digging into that game's secrets. What software can I use to get inside the WAD archive and browse its contents? - What's with the recent trend of messing with color palettes in WADs? Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom GeneralI can dig that, my favorite way to play is Crispy Doom, ditched GZDoom for it pretty much the moment I found out about it haha But it has so many features that I'd expect it to be able to enrich palettes without sacrificing anything. I don't think I've ever seen something like that done though, most WADs I've seen affect existing assets. This is a lot like the situation with the palettes from Descent. The first game had a single one and the second game had a whole six of its own. Being restricted to 256 colors is a reaaaal bitch - What's with the recent trend of messing with color palettes in WADs? Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom GeneralI've noticed that most of those WADs indeed target the blues - turning the deep blue of the water texture, the Soul Sphere and the health boosts to a brighter blue. But wouldn't GZDoom work in full color anyhow? I think it's weird to make pinkies and barons gray without changing anything else about them. - What's with the recent trend of messing with color palettes in WADs? Xfing posted a topic in Doom GeneralLots of newer WADs have altered palettes for some reason, which does make for aesthetically interesting levels, but also seems to needlessly affect monsters, palette-swapping them without changing their functionalities. Why has this idea gained so much traction recently? - Pretty sure revenants, arachnotrons, spider masterminds and mancubi are actually produced by Hell, inside of Hell somewhere. - Yeah, Sigil has probably all the best texturing tropes of early Doom. It was made by Romero after all, so what do you expect? The only thing that bothers me about Sigil is that it's overwhelmingly red, and too much red can be quite fatiguing on the eyes. - Oh, and it just occurred to me - science fantasy has seen a bit of a revival in Project Warlock and its sequel - these can definitely be classified as science fantasy first person shooters! - Doom 1's Hell was very pretty when it comes to themes, with both the visceral aspect and the lava aspect nicely melded together. Mt. Erebus is an understandable fan favorite, and even it had a good number of techy-looking buildings. But while beautiful, I always considered Doom 1's Inferno rather soothing, or at least accomodating at times - while Doom 2's map 28 I found downright scary and disturbing. The music, the new tissue-based textures, the huge arena with the spiders, the lack of a skybox... that level is just terrifying and unpleasant. And that's why it's so genius! - I'm a big fan of Might and Magic and naturally have also dabbled in Heroes as well. I'm well aware of all this. In fact I can tell you something nice - not at liberty to give any details at the moment, but I can tell you to stay on your toes and keep an eye out :) - Why are people so wary of mixing techbase and hell? Xfing posted a topic in Doom GeneralThis is a topic that both concerns classic Doom and the new reboots (not counting doom 3 which I haven't played). Classic Doom was known for its melding of high technology with Hell. Hell itself was stated to have high technology and be capable of producing stuff like Spider Masterminds, Arachnotrons, Mancubi, Revenants all with its own efforts. The classic Inferno episode had a bunch of tech textures here and there, most immediately noticeable in the final map, Dis. What I've noticed and what kinda bothers me is that for a very long time most designers wouldn't capitalize on that and instead opted for keeping hell separate from any sort of technology in their texturing. I guess all of that goodness in the original Doom games was a product of its times - early 90s was the time of ready melding of science fiction and fantasy. It's there where science fantasy had its peak in gaming, with series like Ultima, Wizardy and Might and Magic. But for some reason this hasn't stuck, and these days only science fantasy games that aren't Dragon Ball that you can find anywhere are gonna be tabletop board games. People are just afraid of doing science fantasy anymore, perhaps worried about a potential hit to profits, or consider the mixing of these two supposedly opposide worlds to be "jarring" or whatever. Anyway, this has become even more apparent in Doom 2016 and Eternal. All the monsters with any traces of technology on them have been retconned from being created by Hell without aid to being results of UAC's experiments. It's always the humans that provide the technological enhancements to mancubi, arachnotrons - hell, Revenants are created entirely by the UAC, with the only contribution of Hell being the Argent energy. Why go that route? Why does Hell need to be devoid of high technology to be scary? Is it for suspension of disbelief so that stuff like Nekravol can come across as believable? It really wouldn't take anything away from the image of hell if it had command of high technology. Especially since what we get at the very end is Immora, a city of technology so high that it looks like fricking Urdak. So yeah, feel free to rec me some nice wads that have lots of those cable textures 'n crap mixed with hellish reds and greens, that would be nice. - Earthless: Prelude - On Doom Classic Unity port and /idgames. Xfing replied to Jimmy's topic in WADs & ModsPlayed through the first four levels already and damn, gotta say I really love the vibe. It plays and feels a lot like Doom, but with a smooth and gradual admixture of Earth textures and monsters that's a much more gradual transition than what Doom 2 did. Plus the typical Deathless idiosyncrasies. Good stuff! If id is making addons outta your missions then one's got to wonder why they won't take UDTWiD and D2TWiD too while they're at it, they seem to favor missions with a similar feel to the original game. - I still think 2016 is harder to start out than Eternal Xfing replied to Xfing's topic in Doom 2016That's OK to think, though I do like Eternal a bit more. I like the variety in the setting, the demon weakness system, the fun bosses... 2016 is still a great game too though. If they pull of a third one as good as the first two, then there will be a consummate modern DOOM trilogy for sure.

https://www.doomworld.com/profile/12696-xfing/

What really lasts: Enduring decor “What really lasts.” This is the theme of my favorite issue of House Beautiful, published in January, 2008, and it’s amazing to me that every picture in its pages has, in fact, lasted in its appeal. One of the core tenets of sustainability is durability, a quality in short supply these days. I’ve noticed a kind of liquidation quality to décor magazines over the last two years – garish color, insanely competing patterns and textures, weird 1970s and ‘80s references utilizing far too many finish materials that rely on mining, all within homes that are too new and (still, when will it end?) far too large. This issue inspired my own home though I copied none of it exactly. Not all of it reflects my own personal taste – I don’t love rolled arm sofas; I wouldn’t choose Chinoiserie; some of it is too preppy for me. But the threads that run through it show us exactly what lasts. In each feature the rooms are furnished comfortably, easily functional without large spaces to traverse between rooms or among pieces. There are balances of sizing – normal-scaled sofas and chairs in a relatively low-ceilinged living room are dominated by wall-sized oil paintings from the hunt. There is a balance of color — airy neutrals are interrupted by an oversized brown check on the armchairs; tall walls painted in the airy pale green of Benjamin Moore’s “Nantucket Breeze” are offset by long orange silk drapes, the color echoed in the striped upholstery of French dining chairs. Color is present but threaded through these palettes, allowing light to dominate. In each layout the quality and location of the light is clear, whether it’s the cooler grey bright light filtering through the windows of an antique Newport, RI cottage, or the open, warm weight of the air in New Orleans. The home signals and responds to its surroundings, in a way that is both immediate and timeless. None feels “decorated” – that imposition of ideas that might not relate to the home’s geography or quality of life outside. You can feel these houses. The soft hush of the home in Atlanta, pastels warmed by dark wood. The airy high ceilinged gorgeousness of the New Orleans townhouse, filled with antiques but made fresh with white trim and bare touches of gold. The cozy breeziness of the Newport cottage, all the way up to the toile covered tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs. You can be their guest. You would love to visit and stay, year after year after year.

https://thedesignofthings.com/2018/03/

Comparative Case Analysis (CCA) is an important tool for criminal investigation and crime theory extraction. It analyzes the commonalities and differences between a collection of crime reports in order to understand crime patterns and identify abnormal cases. A big challenge of CCA is the data processing and exploration. Traditional manual approach can no longer cope with the increasing volume and complexity of the data. In this paper we introduce a novel visual analytics system, Spherical Similarity Explorer (SSE) that automates the data processing process and provides interactive visualizations to support the data exploration. We illustrate the use of the system with uses cases that involve real world application data and evaluate the system with criminal intelligence analysts.

https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/37474

The goods are measured by our own measuring method according to the indication below. Find your preferred size. US $ 918EU € 835These balloon pants are made of a patchwork of checked patterns and dyed. By over-dyeing the original color of the fabric, the pants have been finished with increased depth. The relaxed design and gathered waist make these pants very comfortable to wear. The asymmetrical design allows you to enjoy a variety of silhouettes by adjusting the degree of drawstring at the hem. Due to the product dyeing process, there are individual differences between each item.The image of the model is wearing a sample item. The size and texture may differ from the product. Please check SIZE INFO for details. Model height: 175cm MAIN 50% COTTON35% VISCOSE15% LYOCELLPARTS 52% CELLULOSE48% COTTON Made in Japan Size information by SIZEGUIDE. Find your preferred size. ■ Notes ・ All clothing is placed flat on a flat table for measurement.Please note, that slight differences may occur depending on the item.

https://theshopyohjiyamamoto.com/shop/g/gYX-P07-800-3-01/

In order to talk and think sensibly about the various ways of engaging with texts, we need to distinguish them by reference to relevant differences and commonalities between them. This paper focusses on the conceptual relations between three ways of engaging with texts that figure prominently in literary scholarship: textual interpretation, literary interpretation, and aesthetic appreciation. Rather than giving a full analysis of these three terms, this paper has two specific concerns. First, it is argued that literary interpretation is best understood as a species of textual interpretation. Second, and relatedly, some theorists argue that the discriminating feature of literary interpretation is its aim of aesthetic appreciation. Aesthetic appreciation may refer to either (i) a judgement about or (ii) an experience of or (iii) an attempt to identify and evaluate the aesthetic properties of something. The idea that appreciative judgements or experiences are the main aims of literary interpretation should not lead to a conceptual confusion of literary interpretation with aesthetic evaluation (or appreciative acts), even if there is a sense in which the idea is correct. Aesthetic appreciation is, at most, a secondary aim of literary interpretation and may function as a motivation to engage in literary interpretation. This aligns well with the idea that aesthetic appreciation has a significance independent from interpretation. Their conceptual distinction notwithstanding, it is argued that there are interesting evidential relations between (literary) interpretation and aesthetic appreciation. These relations of support, evidence, or justification may go either way. Currie, Gregory, Work and Text, Mind 100:3 (1991), 325–340. Goldman, Alan H., Interpreting Art and Literature, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48:3 (1990), 205–214. Hungerland, Isabel C., The Interpretation of Poetry, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 13:3 (1955), 351–359. Lamarque, Peter, Appreciation and Literary Interpretation, in: Michael Krausz (ed.), Is There a Single Right Interpretation?, University Park, PA 2002, 285–306. Lamarque, Peter, The Philosophy of Literature, Malden, MA/Oxford 2009. Olsen, Stein Haugom, The End of Literary Theory, Cambridge 1987. Womersley, David (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels, Cambridge 2012. The Journal of Literary Theory is an international forum for debate in literary theory. It takes an interdisciplinary approach and is open to a broad variety of theories and methods, promoting their study, research, and development. JLT reaches out to disciplines dealing with theoretical foundations of the study of literature as well as to related fields of research such as musicology, art theory, and film studies as well as the sciences.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jlt/14/1/article-p1.xml

Sylvie Fleury (b. 1961 in Geneva, CH) lives and works in Geneva, CH. Subversively taking on capitalist aesthetics through a distinctly feminized lense, her work examines the intersection of popular and high culture. After shopping one day, Fleury stopped into an art gallery and when she set her armful of bags on the floor and claimed them as sculpture. From thereon she began her exploration of the ready made, often in the form of a crossover between fashion and art such as other nontraditional mediums like motorcycles and vinyl banners long before the more recent trend towards collaborations with brands. The commodification of beauty and wellness are rendered in slick, highly produced objects d’art with human-scale makeup palettes and neon signs expressing state of the art aphorisms appropriated from perfume brands. As she also employs a world of atypical textures like faux-fur, she directly confronts the art historical precedent of monochromatic painted squares for which male artists in the 20th century were glorified. Fleury looks at the marketization of the art world while challenging the space of the gallery and the very process of consuming art. Sylvie Fleury has had exhibitions at Villa Stuck in Munich, the Bass museum, Miami, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, ETH Zurich and MoCA, Los Angeles, amongst others. A permanent installation of hers is positioned on top of the Bass museum in Miami.

https://karmainternational.ch/artists/sylvie-fleury/

Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world? This question is taken up in three experiments. English and Mandarin talk about time differently—English predominantly talks about time as if it were horizontal, while Mandarin also commonly describes time as vertical. This difference between the two languages is reflected in the way their speakers think about time. In one study, Mandarin speakers tended to think about time vertically even when they were thinking for English (Mandarin speakers were faster to confirm that March comes earlier than April if they had just seen a vertical array of objects than if they had just seen a horizontal array, and the reverse was true for English speakers). Another study showed that the extent to which Mandarin–English bilinguals think about time vertically is related to how old they were when they first began to learn English. In another experiment native English speakers were taught to talk about time using vertical spatial terms in a way similar to Mandarin. On a subsequent test, this group of English speakers showed the same bias to think about time vertically as was observed with Mandarin speakers. It is concluded that (1) language is a powerful tool in shaping thought about abstract domains and (2) one’s native language plays an important role in shaping habitual thought (e.g., how one tends to think about time) but does not entirely determine one’s thinking in the strong Whorfian sense. Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive psychology, 43(1), 1-22.

http://happyfinder.co.kr/2021/05/10/boroditsky-l-2001-does-language-shape-thought-mandarin-and-english-speakers-conceptions-of-time-cognitive-psychology-431-1-22/

Language teacher cognitions can be complex, ranging over many different subjects; they can be dynamic, changing over time and under different influences; and they can be systematic, forming unified and cohesive personal and practical theories (Feryok, 2010). One subject matter area that has not been explored in the literature is the relationship between second language (L2) teacher cognition and assessment, also known as (language) assessment literacy – the level of a teacher's engagement with constructing, using, and interpreting a variety of assessment procedures to make decisions about a learner’s language ability (Taylor, 2013). I examine L2 teachers’ cognitions about assessment at the individual level, and then analyze how micro-institutional (social) and macro-sociocultural aspects of their lives as language teachers (including past, present, and future aspects) are shaping teachers’ assessment practices. This investigation focused on a group of 96 in-service university English language teachers in Uzbekistan. The three overarching research questions are: (1) To what extent does the Language Assessment Literacy Survey (Kremmel & Harding, forthcoming), provide valid and actionable information about teachers’ language assessment literacy? (2) How do Uzbekistan EFL teachers talk about their assessment practices and justify the scores they provide for their students? (3) What are the macro-environmental constraints and/or affordances in Uzbekistan that could shape how EFL teachers provide meaningful assessment situations for their students? The data were collected over three months and include teachers’ responses to the Language Assessment Literacy Survey (N = 96), transcripts of five focus group interviews, and transcripts of twelve semi-structured one-on-one interviews. For quantitative analyses, I computed in JASP v.0.8.3.1 the descriptive statistics for the overall survey, conducted an external review of the language assessment literacy literature, and carried out an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Subsequently, I compared my results with Kremmel and Harding’s to determine the validity of their survey. For qualitative analyses, I used substantive or open coding to discern how/if the participating Uzbekistan EFL teachers are creating relevant and meaningful assessment experiences for their students. The results are discussed in terms of the relationship between the participating Uzbekistan EFL teachers’ cognitions, emotions, and activities of language assessment that they report. Chiesa, David Lawrence, "Discerning the Language Assessment Literacy of EFL Teachers in Uzbekistan: An Individual, Social, and Sociohistorical Teacher Cognition Inquiry." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2018.

https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/alesl_diss/49/

Grammar is the most controversial concept in the domain of language teaching and learning for both teachers and learners. Moreover, there has been debate galore on whether to teach it or not, and in the case of the latter, how and when to teach it. This article is an attempt to set the scene for language teachers to treat grammar more efficiently and effectively. It is generally accepted that grammar is an indispensable part of being competent in language skills- listening, speaking, reading, and writing- and even the sub-skill of vocabulary. Today, grammar is not just a knowledge to be learned or acquired, but, at the same time, a skill to be practiced and developed to enable students to communicate accurately, meaningfully and appropriately (Larsen-Freeman, 2001). Currently, almost all theorists in the field of language pedagogy believe that they cannot lead students towards success unless we teach them how to use it in real communication. In a righteous attempt, Larsen-Freeman (2001) depicts a three dimensional model of grammar: form, meaning, and use. Unaware of all three dimensions, students are unable to communicate successfully even when they use grammar correctly. Taking all methods and approaches and their advantages and limitations into account, the most widely utilized approach to grammar instruction has been the PPP model (Presentation, Practice, and Production). Unlike its traditional background, PPP is considered in its current form in the post-method era where teachers are considered active decision makers in classrooms (Kumaravadivelu, 1994). Presentation Presentation is the first stage in which the target grammatical structure is introduced in a meaningful context by first explaining the form, meaning and use, and then by arranging activities to check students’ understanding of the presented structure (Ellis, 2002). It should be mentioned that teachers should choose whether to present grammar explicitly or implicitly. The former launches by stating the grammar focus and explaining it through the use of grammatical terminology. For example, the teacher states, “Today we are going to learn present continuous.” Then he continues by writing examples on the board or referring students to the grammar chart in their textbooks. Next, he models the structure by reading the sentences and explaining the form, meaning and use. “Present continuous means that something is happening around the time of speaking. It is used to talk about temporary activities.” On the other hand, the latter, i.e., teaching implicitly, begins by teaching grammar through examples without any reference to rules and patterns. The teacher, for instance, models, “We are studying English. I am teaching now, and you are learning.” Overt explanation of the rules may be delayed or avoided. Overall, due to the attendance of students with various background and even different levels in the same class, teachers can develop their own theory of presenting grammar. Whether grammar is presented explicitly or implicitly, this stage should be concluded by checking the understanding of the students (Savage et al., 2010). Practice After presenting the target structure in a meaningful context, students are led to the next stage, practice, "in which the learner manipulates the structure in question while all other variables are held constant" (Celce-Murcia & Hilles, 1988, p.27). Here, practice is controlled and guided by the instructor through various activities like drills and dialog substitutions. Through this controlled procedure, students are able to "gain control of the form without the added pressure and distraction of trying to use the form for communication" (ibid). Instead of providing information, in this stage, the teacher plays the role of a guide who leads students to use new structures in context. By modeling the activity, checking students' understanding of the task, monitoring, and providing feedback, the teacher assists students to do the activities (Ellis, 2002), and experience the pleasure of using target structures successfully. Error correction plays a crucial role in every teaching and learning process. In guided practices, error correction can be done directly or indirectly (Lyster, 2004). In direct one, the teacher corrects students by providing the correct form himself, whereas in indirect error correction, the teacher involves students and encourages them to do self- and peer-corrections. However, students’ level should be taken into account. Production Communicative production is the last stage in which students have "frequent opportunities for communicative use of the target grammar to promote automatic and accurate use" (Sheen, 2003, p. 226). Here, the class is more learner-centered, and they usually use more diverse language than the target structure in quasi-real situations.The end goal is being competent in real-life communication in which they decide what to say, but do not have control over the response. In this situation, when the conveyed meaning is not clear, the interlocutor negotiates and adjusts the language (Savage et al. 2010). Error correction also plays an important role in communicative activities. Due to the nature of communication and its interactional nature, the teacher does not correct students' errors unless they block meaningful communication (Doughty, 2001). Conclusion The obvious role of grammar in language classrooms and its effect on other skills alongside the challenge of its efficient treatment have resulted in diverse frameworks, among them the PPP is the most outstanding one. The PPP model starts with Presentation, in which the new structure is presented explicitly or implicitly considering form, meaning, and use. The process of learning continues by Practice stage, in which students practice the newly presented structure in a controlled context. The final stage is Production, in which learners participate in a real-like exchange of information to internalize the intended structure. Details References Celce-Murcia, M., & Hilles, S. (1988). Techniques and resources in teaching grammar. New York: Oxford University Press. Doughty, C. J. (2001). Cognitive underpinnings of focus on form. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, R. (2001). Investigating form-focused instruction." In A. Rodriguez (Ed.), Teaching grammar to adult English language learners: Focus on form. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Ellis, R. (2002). Does form-focused instruction affect the acquisition of implicit knowledge? A review of the research. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24(2), 223-236. Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition: (E) merging strategies for second/ foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28 (1), 27-49. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001). Teaching grammar. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language, Third Edition. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Lyster, R. (2004). Differential effects of prompts and recasts in form-focused instruction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26, 3, 399–432. Savage, K. L., Bitterlin, G., & Price, D. (2010). Grammar matters: Teaching grammar in adult ESL programs. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sheen, R. (2003). Focus on form: A myth in the making? ELT Journal 57, 3, 225–33.

https://lingoties.com/en/article/how-to-teach-grammar

“That said, it should be recognised that immigration is here to benefit native Australians and not the other way round.” Why do you think that? Do you simply have no concern for people not born within the borders of your pretty arbitrary nation state? If not, why should foreigners matter less than Australians? – Robert Wiblin, 2 March. Robert’s point is a challenge for political philosophies with universalist ambitions, such as some forms of liberalism and egalitarianism. States are part of these liberal and egalitarian theories, to protect or enforce rights, but they are not nation-states and the people in them have no particular nationality. Individual rights and entitlements derive from an individual’s status as a human (‘human rights’), not their membership of any smaller group. So on these accounts, a purist classical liberal would have no easy ideological grounds for limting geographic movement, and a purist egalitarian would have no grounds for denying the claims of poor people throughout the world to material support. Certainly there would be significant personal costs to both classical liberals and egalitarians from such policies, but being born into a rich and successful country is a piece of very good luck that is morally arbitrary. In practice, of course, few classical liberals or egalitarians pursue this kind of thinking to its logical conclusion. Even Robert hesitates: pretty arbitrary nation states, not arbitrary nation states. And while I call myself a classical liberal, I hesitate too. Liberal societies are a complex mix of cultural beliefs, practices, and institutions that are deeply rooted in the histories of particular places. These beliefs, practices and institutions are not constructed out of abstract liberal theories based on universal human rights; rather universal human rights theories are constructed by intellectuals out of idealised versions of those beliefs, practices and institutions. From this perspective, while there is something arbitrary about where any particular individual was born, being a current member of a liberal nation-state is not arbitrary. This state is a political, economic and sociological achievement of the people who have lived, and continue to live, in it. They were lucky to get the chance to do so, but most help sustain their society by playing by its rules and contributing as much or more than they take out. Their claim to a say in that state’s future is not morally arbitrary; it is a state they have helped build and they have a legitimate interest in how it (and their own lives) will turn out. Liberal societies have typically been relatively welcoming to migrants; indeed leading liberal societies such as Australia, the US, Canada and New Zealand are essentially migrant societies. They often maintain strong migration programs, to help boost the dynamism, creativity and energy that make liberal societies such attractive places. But the people who live in these liberal societies typically see migration as an exchange from which both parties hope they will benefit – the migrant gets the chance to live in free and prosperous society, the society gets the labour, skills and ideas of the migrant – and not a right that the migrant can choose to exercise alone. This is not, as Robert suggests, indifference to people beyond the nation-state’s borders. Being a member of a group need not – and rarely does – imply that people outside the group have no moral standing or legitimate interests. But it is to say that members of groups can choose who joins and the terms on which they join.

https://andrewnorton.info/2010/03/03/is-australia-an-arbitrary-nation-state/

Political theory and the multicultural society. Bhikhu parekh. Cultural diversity in modern societies takes many forms, of which three are most common. First. Bhikhu Parekh’s Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory sets out to design paths for multiculturalism understood both as political. Kelly, Paul () Situating Parekh’s multiculturalism: Bhikhu Parekh and twentieth-century British political theory. In: Uberoi, Varun and. |Author:||Mikagal Arashile| |Country:||Iran| |Language:||English (Spanish)| |Genre:||Science| |Published (Last):||19 October 2012| |Pages:||429| |PDF File Size:||13.21 Mb| |ePub File Size:||6.73 Mb| |ISBN:||396-8-98360-978-8| |Downloads:||3964| |Price:||Free* [*Free Regsitration Required]| |Uploader:||Dam| We shall call this perspectival diversity. Each carries bits of the other within itself and is never wholly sui generis. Bhikhk achieves a level of theoretical coherence and a depth of insight that is rare and impressive. Political cultures, cultural politics Whatever their differences, contemporary multicultural societies raise several common and novel questions muoticulturalism to the cultural rights of minorities, the nature of collective rights, the rights and obligations of immigrants, the ways of accommodating dual diasporic loyalties, the variety pxrekh the level and forms of citizenship, whether all cultures deserve equal respect, whether they should be judged in their multiculturaliwm terms, or ours, or universal standards, how we can communicate across and resolve deep differences between cultures, and so forth. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? American Journal of Sociology. Third, in their discussions of how to treat the socalled non-liberal ways of life, liberal writers have adopted one of two strategies. Although the culturalists appreciated pare,h importance of culture, they misunder-stood its nature. Since each defines its identity in terms of its differences from others or what it is not, it feels threatened by them and seeks to safeguard its integrity by resisting their influences and even avoiding pardkh contacts with them. This book is rich in conclete examples, as argument on uniform, the publicaiton of Salam Rusdie’s book and so on. In a multicultural society different communities have different needs, and some might be structurally disadvantaged or lack the skill and the confidence to participate in the mainstream society and avail of its opportunities. It is a strength of this work that Parekh not only develops a brilliantly conceived theory of multiculturalism, but applies that theory meaningfully to thorny policy questions. Bhikhu Parekh, What is multiculturalism Misrecognition, therefore, can only be countered by undertaking a rigorous critique of the dominant culture and radically restructuring the prevailing inequalities of economic and political power. To call contemporary Western society liberal is not only to homogenize and oversimplify it, but also to give liberals a moral and cultural monopoly over it and to treat the rest as illegitimate and troublesome intruders. Since conservatives vehemently reject all this, they refuse to call Britain multicultural; by contrast many British liberals, who endorse most of these claims, have no hesitation in calling it multicultural. The wisdom of a multicultural society consists in its ability to anticipate, minimize and manage such demands. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. It is, however, neither unusual nor impossible to meet, for traditional political philosophy at its best has always refused to remain trapped within the terms of discourse set by the contending ideologies of the marketplace and attempted to go behind and above them in its search for a more universal and less positivist theoretical framework. While such a theory would rightly draw on the insights of the traditional political theory, it is also bound to mark a radical departure from it in its basic assumptions, conceptual framework, and philosophical concerns. Situating Parekh’s multiculturalism: Bhikhu Parekh and twentieth-century British political theory Added to PP index Total downloads 3of 2, Recent downloads 6 months 1of 2, How can I increase my downloads? C ommitment or belonging is reciprocal in nature. A multicultural society, then, is one which includes two or more mullticulturalism communities. They split up humankind into different cultural units, and could not give a coherent account of how human beings were able to communicate across and even evaluate the customs and practices of other cultures. If we are to theorize multicultural societies we need to reject these mutually reinforcing and equally unsatisfactory extremes and develop a theory of human beings that does three things. Cultural Diversity and Civic Education: When you read these chapters you patekh to understand the difficulty and importance of finding acceptable multicultudalism. Callaway – – In R. Over the years, Bhikhu Parekh’s writings have been the source of sanity and wisdom on cultural rights and community relations. Parekh has multicupturalism it again! T he political context mu,ticulturalism which the Constitution was drafted has however altered considerably. Views Read Edit View history. The problem of establishing a successful multi-cultural society is not new. Ships from and sold by Books’r us We ship worldwide! Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University’s proxy server Configure custom proxy use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy. Culturalism, the second strand of thought articulated by some of the Sophists, Vico, Herder and the German Romantics, made the opposite move. Some, mostly of teleological persuasion, confront non-liberals with a fullblooded liberal vision and condemn them for failing to measure up to it. M isrecognition has both a cultural and a material basis. Gemma Cornelissen – – Ratio Juris 25 1: The same tendency leads them to divide all ways of life into liberal and non-liberal, to equate the latter with illiberal, and to talk of tolerating and rarely of respecting or cherishing them. The final chapter 11 presents an excellent summary. Toleration, Respect and Recognition: Since different communities have different historical backgrounds and needs and face different kinds of threats, they might demand different kinds of rights and powers.

https://saloontokens.info/bhikhu-parekh-multiculturalism-71/

The spirit of human rights has been passed from generation to generation to generation either consciously or unconsciously. If today a person invokes the UN universal human rights declaration that was adopted in 1948 someone may think that this is an idea that has a universal agreement (United Nations, 1948). The origin of human rights concept is usually a question that is politically charged because as countries or regions claim to be the inventors of the idea they end up accusing others as violators of human rights. For instance, the US can claim to be promoting Human Rights (according to their definition of human rights) while at the same time accusing the USSR of abusing human rights (United Nations, Office Of The High Commissioner For Human Rights (OHCHR), 2008). This is always an attempt for certain countries to have their principles domineering over others. There is an understanding that Human rights is a ‘western’ construct however, this is not true because there are various evidences that point to human rights as a worldwide creation with various societies having there own understanding. The following are reasons to explain why human rights did not only originate from the West (Ishay, 2004). Human Rights as a Worldwide Construct Ethics in the modern days have borrowed a lot from the religious and secular traditions all over the world. For instance, the idea of proportionately punishing offenders as well as giving due justice was found in various regions and traditions all over the world. These include the Code of Hummurabbi of ancient Babylon; Christianity, which promoted human solidarity as well as urged moral conduct during war time. These were ideas shared also in Islam faith whereas there were other religions that were the first to defend the ecosystem such as the Hindu and the Buddhist. Lastly, the Hebrew bible upheld the sacredness of life and reciprocal entitlements. This clearly shows that human right was a concept understood and practiced worldwide even before the western cultures reached the other parts of the world (Lauren, 2003). Some philosophical stands that rallied for the upholding of the dignity of each individual, promotion of ethical behaviour as well as social justice can be seen in various parts of the world before colonial powers arrived in those parts. For instance, in the third century B.C a leader of the Buddhist called Asoka provided freedom of worship under his rule in the sixteenth century, Chaitanya. A Hindu Philosopher campaigned against the caste system which regarded other human beings as superior to others. He therefore urged for banning of the system to promote equality. This also shows that there were philosophers in ancient times who understood the concept of human rights more or less as it is explained today and went further to champion for its implementation (Ishay, 2004). Some people may argue that most of what is contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is developed from the western understanding of human rights. However, it is clear that it also envisions the practices of human rights that were carried out in ancient cultures of other parts of the world apart from the western world. In fact, the process of developing the document began in 1947 by identifying common rights shared by human beings (worldwide), a task which was done by the human rights commission. They were to examine the struggle generations as well as generations of thought, whereby the examination was to start in the ancient times and religions. This point out to the fact that there were rights in the document that are common to different parts of the world and that they were not only obtained from the western nations’ practices of human rights but also from other parts as well (Ishay, 2010). The document that defines human rights according to the UN was composed of representatives of various countries of the world. For instance, the human Rights Commission had 18 members who were representatives of various governments. As a result, they promoted the views of their governments while contributing to the drafting of the document. The members who were not from the western countries included, China, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Egypt, India and Yugoslavia. In addition, the negotiations were characterized with controversies as each country pushed for their own agenda. For instance, the British delegation did not want human rights matters to be included to the mandate of the UN. Being a western country this faults the argument that only their views were captured in the document. Furthermore, the Chinese representative was a skilled diplomat and in many occasions came up with a solution when there was a deadlock in the negotiations (Shamnoy, 1999). Human Rights as a Western Construct The European Enlightenment on the understanding of human rights seems to have towered over other regions’ understanding. Although human rights were a concept generally shared worldwide the struggle for the rights began in the western world. The Britain witnessed several revolutions that resulted in the enactment of laws that upheld human rights and these included rights of women to vote, right of workers among others. America in turn used the similar discourse in its country to fight for independence to fight against racial discrimination. Such struggles spread all over the world and later led to nations agreeing on the need for a common understanding of human rights through a universal body- the UN. Capitalism that developed in Europe also created a foundation for the development of the human rights Universal language because it led to the empowerment of the private sector and restriction of government powers (Ishay, 2003). Conclusion The origin of the human rights construct is a politically charged debate because it brings into picture the struggle for global dominance between nations. There is a largely believed notion that the understanding of human rights originated from the western world. On the contrary, a lot of evidences have been brought forward that suggest that human rights concept has a worldwide origin. The evidences point out that human rights existed in different societies all over the world long before the western influence reached those societies. They also explain that the ancient religions and traditions of those societies had practices that included the respect for human rights. In addition, ancient philosophers in those ancient societies have also demonstrated that they actually understood what human rights are as conceived today. They went ahead and called for the abolishment of rules and beliefs that violated the concepts of equality, justice and respect for life. However, the ancient understanding is to some extend questioned because as much as they valued life some practices were out rightly against human rights, yet were embraced as acceptable practices such as regarding women as inferior. This supports the idea of European enlightenment. In spite of the western massive contribution to the struggle for human rights it is still clear that the idea did not only originate from them but was a worldwide practice even in ancient times. 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