This article discusses the political use of the fall of the Roman empire and in particular the way this historical motif has been utilized in environmental debates and in US political culture. It is furthermore argued that the historiography of the fall of the Roman empire bears witness to the ideological and existential contexts of specific explanations to why Rome fell.

Purpose - Even though noticeable improvements have been made in global health in recent years, the distribution is uneven throughout the world and many developing and low-income countries lack access to required medicine and vaccines. Thus, a model to strategically source vaccines for these nations can contribute a great deal. This paper presents an extensive review of strategic sourcing literatur

Parasites exert important top-down control of their host populations. The host-parasite system formed by Alexandrium minutum (Dinophyceae) and Parvilucifera sinerae (Perkinsozoa) offers an opportunity to advance our knowledge of parasitism in planktonic communities. In this study, DNA extracted from 73 clonal strains of P. sinerae, from 10 different locations along the Atlantic and Mediterranean c

Abstract in UndeterminedMeasurements of dielectric permittivity and electrical conductivity were taken in a saline gypsiferous soil collected from southern Tunisia. Both time domain reflectometry (TDR) and the new WET sensor based on frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) were used. Seven different moistening solutions were used with electrical conductivities of 0.0053-14 dS m(-1). Different models

Here we detail high performance, enzymatic electrodes for oxygen bio-electroreduction, which can be easily and reproducibly fabricated with industry-scale throughput. Planar and nanostructured electrodes were built on biocompatible, flexible polymer sheets, while nanoimprint lithography was used for electrode nanostructuring. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first reports concernin

Fires can be an important hazard for the overall safe operation of nuclear power plants. Prevention of fire, fast detection and efficient extinguishment of a fire are some parameters, which are important to consider when designing the fire safety in a nuclear power plant. As an alternative to extinguishment system the use of hypoxic air or hypoxic air venting has been introduced e.g. in storage ro

Socio-technical methods advocate a human-focus analysis that reflects on social and technical factors in the design of organizational systems. The aim of this paper is to report on the experiences of a ST toolbox use in practice by 36 companies. Our findings show that the use of ST toolbox improves companies’ understanding of their job practices and enhance their learning about their business sust

Objectives. To study treatment response rates of RA patients undergoing second- and third-line anti-TNF therapy and to identify baseline predictors of response to second-line treatment. Methods. RA patients monitored in a prospective, observational study, having switched anti-TNF therapy once (first-time switchers, n = 337) or twice (second-time switchers, n = 36)-i.e. following failures with one

Objectives. Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a potentially serious complication of hospitalization and immobilization. The use of anticoagulant prophylaxis in acutely ill medical inpatients is still under debate. New data including a recent meta-analysis have recently been published. We aim at studying the efficacy and safety of anticoagulant prophylaxis in acutely ill medical inpatients, and demon

Milk casein concentrates with different casein-to-protein ratios (0.82 and 0.93), pH (5.8, 6.2 and 6.7) and level of applied ultra-high pressure homogenisation (UHPH) (0, 150 and 300 MPa) were studied. Samples with a casein-to-protein ratio of 0.93 at pH 5.8 and subjected to UHPH treatment at 300 MPa had the highest apparent viscosity and particle size followed by similar samples with a casein-to-

Females of the Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella, and females of the Mediterranean flour month, Ephestia kuehniella (both Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), exhibit daily rhythms in calling behavior. The peak in P. interpunctella calling occurs at dusk, whereas E. kuehniella calls preferentially at dawn. This behavior turned arrhythmic in P. interpunctella females in constant darkness (DD) and remaine

Dominance can be maintained through status recognition or recognition of individual (familiar) opponents. In crustaceans, both types of recognition exist, often based on chemical signals. Fight behaviours involved in establishment and maintenance of dominance relationships in male and female European lobster (Homarus gammarus) were examined. Same-sex pairs of size-matched animals interacted on two

Fusobacterium necrophorum is a well-known cause of Lemirre's disease and accumulating evidence support its pathogenic role in peritonsillar abscess while its role in recurrent and chronic tonsillitis is uncertain. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of oropharyngeal colonisation with F. necrophorum and Beta-haemolytic streptococci in a cohort of patients scheduled for tonsille

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) defines a group of inherited degenerative retinal diseases causing progressive loss of photoreceptors. To this day, RP is still untreatable and rational treatment development will require a thorough understanding of the underlying cell death mechanisms. Methylation of the DNA base cytosine by DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) is an important epigenetic factor regulating gene

Isotropic chiral media can be modelled in several ways. We show that when realizing such a medium from spiral inclusions with real permittivities and permeabilities in a periodic structure, a modified Drude–Born–Fedorov model is obtained. This model equals the original Born model for small wave vectors, but the strength of the chirality depends on the propagation direction. The effective parameter

We have implemented intraprocedural control-flow and data-flow analysis of Java source code in a declarative manner, using reference attribute grammars augmented with circular attributes and collection attributes. Our implementation is built on top of the JastAdd Extensible Java Compiler and we have run the analyses on medium-sized Java programs. We show how the analyses can be built using sma

To compare 2D transperineal ultrasound assessment of cervical dilatation with vaginal examination and to investigate intra-observer variability of the ultrasound method.

Background: FUS, EWS and TAF15 are structurally similar multifunctional proteins that were first discovered upon characterization of fusion oncogenes in human sarcomas and leukemias. The proteins belong to the FET ( previously TET) family of RNA-binding proteins and are implicated in central cellular processes such as regulation of gene expression, maintenance of genomic integrity and mRNA/microRN