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Perilymphatic fistula of the round window. To highlight diagnostic and treatment pitfalls in perilymphatic fistula. Two cases of round-window fistula are reported, detailing clinical aspect, treatment and outcome. The triad comprising sensorineural hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo with associated fistula sign is classical but in fact rarely encountered. Imaging is of limited contribution, but may reveal anatomic abnormalities suggestive of perilymphatic fistula. Outcome is improved by early management, especially in case of moderate hearing loss. Diagnosis of perilymphatic fistula is challenging, but enables effective treatment. On any suspicion, surgical exploration should be undertaken, being the only reliable guide to diagnosis and etiologically adapted management.

LSDA LSDA may refer to Learning and Skills Development Agency, UK Le Seigneur des anneaux, French translation of The Lord of the Rings Local Spin-Density Approximation London School of Dramatic Art LSDA Northern Ireland

Q: jQuery next DIV with Specific Class that resides in another DIV To make the question short, here is the HTML code that I have: <div class="step1 main-step"> <div class="step1a tooltip" step-name="step1a" title="Step 1a" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1b tooltip" step-name="step1b" title="Step 1b" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1c tooltip" step-name="step1c" title="Step 1c" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1d tooltip" step-name="step1d" title="Step 1d" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> </div> <!-- End of Step 1 --> <div class="step2 main-step"> <div class="step2a tooltip" step-name="step2a" title="Step 2a" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2b tooltip" step-name="step2b" title="Step 2b" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2c tooltip" step-name="step2c" title="Step 2c" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2d tooltip" step-name="step2d" title="Step 2d" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> </div> <!-- End of Step 2 --> <a href="#" current-step="step1a" next-step="step1b" class="button" id="continue-button">Continue</a> Now, my problem is when I use this jQuery code: $nextStep = $('#continue-button').attr('next-step'); $('#continue-button').attr('current-step', $nextStep); $nextTemp = $('div.' + $nextStep).next('.tooltip').attr('step-name'); $('#continue-button').attr('next-step', $nextTemp); $nextTemp stops at step1d. What can I do so $nextTemp will read the next div.tooltip from the other divs (step2, step3, step4, etc.) ? A: External Fiddle DEMO Well I have made some changes to your html to use a valid html data-* attributes which will be as follows and also check for inline comments: $(".button").on('click',function(){ var currentStep=$(this).data('current-step'); //get the current-step var $nextStep=$('.'+currentStep).next('.tooltip').length?$('.'+currentStep).next('.tooltip').data('step-name'):$('.'+currentStep).closest('.main-step').next('.main-step').find('div:first').data('step-name'); //ternary operator if there is nextstep in current main-step then take it otherwise //go to its parent and get next main-step first div's step-name data attribute if(typeof $nextStep != 'undefined') //check if it is undefined { $(this).data('current-step', $nextStep); $nextTemp = $('div.' + $nextStep).next().length?$('div.' + $nextStep).next().data('step-name'):$('.'+$nextStep).closest('.main-step').next().find('div:first').data('step-name'); typeof $nextTemp!='undefined'?$(this).data('next-step', $nextTemp):$(this).data('next-step', 'No more steps'); //ternary operators again } $('.result').append("Current Step : " +$(this).data('current-step')+ " " + "Next Step :" +$(this).data('next-step') +"<br/>"); //just to show what the results will be after each click. }); <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <div class="step1 main-step"> <div class="step1a tooltip" data-step-name="step1a" title="Step 1a" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1b tooltip" data-step-name="step1b" title="Step 1b" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1c tooltip" data-step-name="step1c" title="Step 1c" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step1d tooltip" data-step-name="step1d" title="Step 1d" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> </div> <!-- End of Step 1 --> <div class="step2 main-step"> <div class="step2a tooltip" data-step-name="step2a" title="Step 2a" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2b tooltip" data-step-name="step2b" title="Step 2b" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2c tooltip" data-step-name="step2c" title="Step 2c" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> <div class="step2d tooltip" data-step-name="step2d" title="Step 2d" style="width: 25.000%;"></div> </div> <!-- End of Step 2 --> <a href="#" data-current-step="step1a" data-next-step="step1b" class="button" id="continue-button">Continue</a> <div class='result'></div>

Udemy - Geek dating guide Natural Attraction System Pick Up Artist Dating tips for geeks, nerds and those that just cannot get a date or have hard time finding a girlfriend complete guide What are the requirements? Study this course and implement the method it is teaching What am I going to get from this course? Over 15 lectures and 1.5 hours of content!How to get her to like you being yourselfLearn secret of attractionGet real results in offline datingHow to be attractive to women being yourselfOnline dating tips for geeks profile creationLearn to approach women without fear of rejectionDevelop unstoppable confidenceConfidence to approch ANY womenTheory of the game and practiceSecret to getting the kiss on first first dateLearn how to text correctly What is the target audience? Anyone interested in improving their dating lifeCourse was created for men who have had issues with attracting womenClass for anyone who wantsto improve your dating skillsGreat class for geeks and nerds anyone who is not natural being social around womenSpecially created class to make you attract women by being yourselfSingle men who want to get more dates with women do not have to be a geek

package problem0958 import ( "testing" "github.com/aQuaYi/LeetCode-in-Go/kit" "github.com/stretchr/testify/assert" ) // tcs is testcase slice var tcs = []struct { root []int ans bool }{ { []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}, true, }, { []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, kit.NULL, 7}, false, }, // 可以有多个 testcase } func Test_isCompleteTree(t *testing.T) { ast := assert.New(t) for _, tc := range tcs { root := kit.Ints2TreeNode(tc.root) ast.Equal(tc.ans, isCompleteTree(root), "输入:%v", tc) } } func Benchmark_isCompleteTree(b *testing.B) { for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ { for _, tc := range tcs { root := kit.Ints2TreeNode(tc.root) isCompleteTree(root) } } }

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a nonpartisan speech today in Washington, DC, asking for Congress’s support in preventing a nuclear Iran. He pledged his desire to protect his people, while thanking America for her unrelenting support of his state – from Presidents Harry Truman to Barack Obama. Nevertheless, congressional Democrats decided it would be appropriate to bash the prime minister’s appearance during a press conference directly following his passionate address. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) decried the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech as ‘condescending’ and was offended that Netanyahu was ‘telling us how to operate.’ He even invoked the name of Dick Cheney, “This is right out of the Dick Cheney playbook” and bluntly told the prime minister, “He can go home.” Congressman David Price (D-NC) then dared to say that House Speaker John Boehner should ‘never’ have invited Netanyahu to speak in front of Congress at this time. The Fox News "Outnumbered" cast was shocked and outraged by the Democrats’ response. Andrea Tantaros called them ‘arrogant’ for such comments and Harris Faulkner likened their words to ‘vocal flame throwing.’ In all, 57 Democrats boycotted Netanyahu’s speech – with reports that number could have been even higher. Their decision to skip the speech was largely due to claims that Netanyahu’s timing in Washington was too close to Israeli elections. Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged, however, that visiting DC for political purposes was ‘never his intention.’ As for President Obama and Vice President Biden, they were no shows as well. Netanyahu’s speech was apolitical, focusing instead on the threat of a nuclear Iran. He urged the White House to ditch an arms deal with Iran, which he warned would only pave the way to a more dangerous country. “Its rapid appetite for aggression grows more every year…This deal will not change Iran for the better, it will change the Middle East for the worse.” Shame on Democrats for ignoring Netanyahu’s important warnings and for turning their backs on Israel at this fragile time.

Q: How can I make a Triple boot Currently I am using a dual boot with Windows7 and Ubuntu 12.04LTS. I would like to try Windows8. Not because I like it, but more and more people are using it. I have created a partition where I would like to install it. I have only one physical drive. What should I do to create a triple-boot and don't mess up my Ubuntu? This is my primary OS. But occasionally I need my Windows7. A: Install Windows 8 on a separate partition, then boot to Linux and update grub. You'll then have Windows 8 added to the boot option. $ update-grub Updating grub will add all OS installations to the list. Update: I thought this was kind of elementary because this pop up all the time: RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows: Boot to your Live Ubuntu CD Install and run Boot-Repair Click "Recommended Repair" Now reboot your system. I was initially more focus on the part where it's standard to have multiple boots. If you have 10 partitions you can actually have an OS on each and updating grub will automatically add each to the boot menu. YOu can even include USB drives or pen drives as some of those partitions.

Q: Ошибка вызова presentviewcontroller Господа прошу помощи, сам не могу разобраться...пока Есть FVC и SVC. В FVC есть кнопка связанная с SVC по modal, при нажатии SVC открывается все норм. Но в процессе работы FVC есть необходимость показать SVC без нажатия на кнопку и вернуться обратно. Я делаю так: в .h файле: import "SVC.h" в .m if (условие) { SVC *secondViewController = [[SVC alloc] initWithNibName:@"SVC" bundle:nil]; [self presentViewController:secondViewController animated:YES completion:nil]; } Но при выполнении и срабатывании условия, исполнение прерывается с ошибкой: Could not load NIB in bundle: 'NSBundle ........ (loaded)' with name 'SVC'' Может я не правильно пытаюсь отобразить SVC? A: если они описаны в сториборде, зачем вы делаете [[SVC alloc] initWithNibName:@"SVC" bundle:nil];? либо в том же сториборде опишите segue, назовите как-нибудь типа "SVC", а затем [self performSegueWithIdentifier:@"SVC" sender:self]; или если по каким-то причинам segue использовать не хочется, то задайте своему презентуемому UIVIewController storyboard ID = @"SVC" далее [self presentViewController:[self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"SVC"] animated:YES completion:nil];

Constantinos Philippou scored a a stunning first-round knockout over the durable Jared Hamman. The former Golden Gloves champion dropped Hamman numerous times, but Hamman just kept fighting back. However, one more big right hand sealed the deal. Hallman def. Makdessi Dennis Hallman made quick work of dangerous striker John Makdessi. Hallman, who missed weight by almost three pounds, immediately took Makdessi to the mat. After chipping away with strikes, he slipped in a rear-naked choke for the submission victory. Jabouin def. Watson Montreal’s Yves Jabouin won a split decision in an entertaining stand-up battle with Walel Watson. The two went toe-to-toe throwing out a variety of flashy kicks and spinning back fists, but it was Jabouin who continually landed the cleaner, heavy shots. Bocek def. Lentz Mark Bocek handed Nik Lentz the first loss of his UFC career. The story of the fight was Bocek securing takedowns and working his ground-and-pound, while Lentz frantically looked for guillotine chokes. After three rounds, the judges unanimously awarded it to Bocek. Hecht def. Attonito Jake Hecht weathered the early storm to secure a second-round TKO victory over Rich Attonito. As Attonito worked for a takedown attempt, Hecht caught him with a vicious elbow to the side of the head. A few punches on the mat and it was academic. Cholish def. Clarke Strikeforce veteran John Cholish earned an impressive TKO victory over Saskatoon’s Mitch Clarke in the opening bout. After a kimura attempt resulted in a wild scramble, Cholish secured back control and unloaded with punches for the win. Pokrajac def. Soszynski Igor Pokrajac demolished Krzysztof Soszynski, earning a lightning quick knockout victory. Despite being a strong grappler, Soszynski came out looking to brawl with the Croatian striker. It took Pokrajac only 35 seconds to put Soszynski away with punches.

Eastern Cape Division The Eastern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The main seat of the division is at Makhanda, with subordinate local seats at Port Elizabeth, East London, Bhisho and Mthatha. the Judge President of the division is Selby Mbenenge. History A superior court was first established at Grahamstown in 1864, as the Court of the Eastern Districts of the Cape of Good Hope, to ease access to justice for the residents of what is now the Eastern Cape. The Eastern Districts Court was subordinate to the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town, which had concurrent jurisdiction over the eastern districts. When the Union of South Africa was created in 1910, the Eastern Districts Court became the Eastern Districts Local Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa. In 1957 the division was removed from the concurrent jurisdiction of the court at Cape Town and renamed as the Eastern Cape Provincial Division. In 1974 the South Eastern Cape Local Division was established in Port Elizabeth to serve that city and the surrounding districts, although the Grahamstown court retained concurrent jurisdiction; that court is now a local seat of the division. In 1973 the Transkei was removed from the jurisdiction of the Grahamstown court when the Transkeian High Court was established at Mthatha. When the Transkei received nominal independence from South Africa, that court became the Supreme Court of the Transkei. Initially decisions could still be appealed from the court to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa, but in 1979 an Appellate Division was established in the Supreme Court of Transkei. A similar process took place in the Ciskei, which received nominal independence and established its own Supreme Court at Zwelitsha in 1981. In 1984 an Appellate Division was established and the court moved to new buildings in Bhisho. When the Transkei and Ciskei were reincorporated in South Africa on 27 April 1994, their Supreme Courts remained in existence, but three months later their Appellate Divisions were abolished and their jurisdiction transferred to the South African Appellate Division. When the final Constitution came into force the remaining General Divisions became High Courts of South Africa, known as the Transkei Division and the Ciskei Division. In 2013 under the Superior Courts Act, 2013 they became local seats of the Eastern Cape division, once again subordinate to Grahamstown. In December 2019 the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa ruled against the ban of children without birth certificates from receiving basic education in South Africa. The court ruled that "It is an important socioeconomic right directed, among other things, at promoting and developing a child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to his or her fullest potential" and that "Basic education also provides a foundation for a child’s lifetime learning and work opportunities." Seats References External links Decisions handed down before 2009 Decisions handed down since 2009: by the court at Grahamstown by the court at Bhisho by the court at Mthatha by the court at Port Elizabeth by the circuit court at East London High Court Category:High Court of South Africa

This invention relates to the detection of components of the antigen-antibody reaction by solid phase immunoassay techniques, more particularly to enzyme immunoassay. Many immunoassay procedures for detecting antigens, antibodies and haptens in body fluids are known in the immunoassay art. Radio-immunoassay techniques are numerous and have been shown to be highly sensitive. Numerous enzyme-immunoassay techniques are also known, including competitive, double antibody solid phase ("DASP") and sandwich procedures. Both classes of solid phase immunoassays have been performed using various solid supports, including finely divided cellulose, solid beads or discs, polystyrene tubes and microtiter plates. Enzyme immunoassays have included color formation as an indicator of a result. Degree of color formation has been used for quantitative determinations. Colorimeters have been used for automatic quantitative determinations based on color gradations of analytical solutions. Dot enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays using nitrocellulose filters as the solid phase have recently been described by Hawkes et al., "A Dot-Immunobinding Assay for Mono-clonal and Other Antibodies," Anal. Biochem. 119, 142-147 (1982). Hawkes et al. described putting antigen spots on nitrocellulose filters, cutting out areas containing spots, and either placing the cut-out portions in the wells of microtiter plates for enzyme immunoassasy or, where a range of different antigens are to be screened, using nitrocellulose strips. Similarly, Pappas et al., "Dot Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (Dot-ELISA): a Micro Technique for the Rapid Diagnosis of Visceral Leishmaniasis," J. Imm. Meth. 64, 205-214 (1983), have disclosed a dot assay for parasites. Both Hawkes et al. and Pappas et al. asserted advantages of nitrocellulose dot (or spot) assays, including not only a reduced need for bound reagent, but also the almost-whiteness of nitrocellulose as a background for color reading. Pappas et al. also stressed the improved binding of bound reagent to nitrocellulose as compared to microtiter plate wells. Hawkes et al. disclosed a quantitative procedure in which reflectance of spots was determined by a thin layer scanner. Also known in the art are pregnancy tests which utilize dipsticks coated or partially coated with bound antibody to HCG, such as the PREGNASTICK pregnancy test kit sold by Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc. Enzyme immunoassay procedures are used to change the color of the coated portion of the dipstick. The myriad assays in the prior art, while providing in some instances very high sensitivity, suffer from a variety of drawbacks. Radio-immunoassay procedures require the handling of radioactive materials, as well as their disposal, and expensive equipment. Many enzyme-immunoassay procedures produce soluble color solutions, are used with colorimeters, and require incubation periods longer than desired. Enzyme immunoassay pregnancy tests utilize single-use kits, which are thrown away after a single use. The nitrocellulose-based dot tests utilize a solid support which may absorb reactants, which can lead to background color and reduced sensitivity. Further, nitrocellulose is fragile, making it difficult to handle. It is a principal object of this invention to provide an improved immunoassay kit and protocol which eliminates drawbacks, discussed above, of the prior art and is capable of achieving an immunoassay which is sensitive, fast, inexpensive, which does not require expensive and delicate instruments, which is usable for multiple assays, and which can be made for a qualitative or a quantitative test. This and other objects of this invention will be better understood by reference to the description which follows.

Differential inhibition of estrogen and antiestrogen binding to the estrogen receptor by diethylpyrocarbonate. Diethylpyrocarbonate differentially inhibited the specific binding, in lamb uterine cytosol, of estradiol (inhibition approximately 90% with 4 mM reagent) and 4-hydroxytamoxifen (inhibition approximately less than 50% with 4-16 mM reagent), a potent triphenylethylene antiestrogen. Saturation analysis experiments indicated that the effects of diethylpyrocarbonate were due to progressive but differing decreases in the concentration of binding sites for the two ligands, with no apparent change in the affinity constants. However, competitive binding and dissociation experiments evidenced that steroidal and nonsteroidal estrogens still bound, but with very low affinities, to diethylpyrocarbonate-modified receptor (greater than 1000-fold decrease in affinity) whereas the affinities of triphenylethylene antiestrogens were much less affected (less than 10-fold decrease). Both ligands prevented the inactivation of the estrogen receptor by diethylpyrocarbonate, estradiol being more efficient than 4-hydroxytamoxifen. These data indicate that the action of diethylpyrocarbonate results in the formation of two populations of estrogen receptor that are quantitatively nearly equivalent: the first does not bind estrogens or antiestrogens; the second does not bind estrogens significantly but still interacts with antiestrogens at a high affinity. The simplest interpretation is that these two populations arise from mutually exclusive modifications by diethylpyrocarbonate of at least two aminoacid residues located at or close to the ligand binding site; modification of one residue totally prevents the binding of estrogens and antiestrogens; the modification of the second impairs only the binding of estrogens. Considering that (i) hydroxylamine, which specifically reverses the diethylpyrocarbonate-induced modification of histidine and tyrosine residues, restored a large part (greater than 80%) of the estradiol- and 4-hydroxytamoxifen-binding capacity of diethylpyrocarbonate-inactivated cytosol, and that (ii) similar differential inhibition of estrogen and antiestrogen binding was observed following the action of tetranitromethane, it is likely that these residues are histidine(s) and/or tyrosine(s). These results evince a marked difference in the interaction of estrogens and triphenylethylene antiestrogens with the estrogen receptor, which could account for the altered activation of the receptor by triphenylethylene antiestrogens. Consequently, the screening of ligands with modified steroid receptors could be a useful method for distinguishing between potential hormone agonists and antagonists.

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to electricity power generation, and particularly provides an electrical power generation device (generator) utilizing the oscillating action of the Karman vortex street to generate the induced alternate current. This device converts the energy from fluid motion to useable energy. 2. Description of the Related Art Reynold's number, Re, a non-dimensional number which is defined as the ratio of fluid inertia to viscosity force, is often used to describe fluid flow. The Re for compressible fluid is defined as follows, Re = ρ ⁢ ⁢ V ∞ ⁢ L μ , ( 1 ) where ρ, V∞, μ is respectively the density, velocity, and dynamic viscosity of the fluid, and L is the characteristic length. When fluid passes a non-streamlined body (or called body, or vortex generating body) in a given rang of Re, since the adverse pressure gradient exists in the boundary layer of the fluid on the body, the fluid starts to separate with the time developing. A lot of experimental and theoretical studies had shown that when Re is from 50 to 500, the vortices are continuously and periodically shed from each side of the body and the rotation direction of the paired vortices is alternate. Two stable, regularly spaced rows of vortices with laminar core are formed in the wake behind the body. This fluid motion pattern is called the Karman vortex street, named after the Germany fluid dynamist Theodore Von Karman (1881-1963), owning to his exploring research on this fluid motion. FIG. 1 presents the pattern of the Karman vortex street. The circulation conservation law can explain the formation of the Karman vortex street. It means that when a vortex produces, another vortex with apposite circulation surely exists. In practices, when flows pass the buildings, electrical lines, bridge piles, etc., the Karman vortex street will appear. Another non-dimensional parameter, Strouhal number, also describes the relation between the vortex shedding frequency and fluid velocity in the Karman vortex Street. The Strouhal number, St, is defined as St = fL V ∞ , ( 2 ) where f is the vortex shedding frequency and the other variables are same as before. Under a range of Re, the Strouhal number is fixed, therefore, the fluid velocity can be found by measuring the vortex shedding frequency, which is the basic principle of the widely used Karman vortex flow meters. The vortices in the Karman Vortex Street behind the vortex generating body are conducted to downstream. At the same time, because of the circulation around a vortex, a force along the lateral direction (perpendicular to the fluid direction) acts on the vortex. This force is called lift. In the Karman vortex street, fluid behaviors alternately force along the two rows of vortices. According to the principle of action and opposite action, the alternate shedding of vortices can create periodic lateral force on the body, which induces the body oscillation. In engineering practices, this oscillation could make the body fatigued and damaged. For example, the accident of Tcomn Narrow Bridge was caused by the Karman vortex street. To convert this oscillating energy generated by the Karman Vortex Street to the usable energy, such as electrical power, is the purpose of this invention.

Tom Tiffany Thomas P. Tiffany (born December 30, 1957) is an American politician who has served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 35th District, since 2011. Early life, education, and career Tiffany grew up on a dairy farm near Elmwood, Wisconsin, with five brothers and two sisters. According to his campaign material, he "learned the lessons of hard work, honesty and accountability from his parents at an early age". Tiffany graduated from the University of Wisconsin–River Falls in 1980 with a degree in agricultural economics. He managed the petroleum division of a farm cooperative in Plainview, Minnesota, before coming to Minocqua, Wisconsin, to manage Zenker Oil Company's petroleum distribution in 1988. He and his wife, Chris, have operated an excursion business on the Willow Flowage since 1991. Political career Tiffany serves as the Town Supervisor in the town of Little Rice and is an appointed member of the Oneida County Economic Development Corporation. In 2004 and 2008,he ran for the 12th State Senate District, first against Senator Roger Breske, and then Jim Holperin losing both times in very close elections. In 2010, he ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly after the position was vacated by retiring incumbent, Representative Donald Friske. Tiffany won the primary, and later defeated Democrat Jay Schmelling 58.09% - 41.81%. In 2012 Tiffany chose not to seek re-election to the State Assembly and to seek election to the State Senate after Holperin announced he would not run for reelection. He defeated Democrat Susan Sommer, 56% - 40%, in the general election on November 6, 2012. Personal life He and his wife, Christine, have three children. Notes Category:1957 births Category:21st-century American politicians Category:Businesspeople from Wisconsin Category:Living people Category:Members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Category:People from Minocqua, Wisconsin Category:People from Pierce County, Wisconsin Category:People from Wabasha, Minnesota Category:Wisconsin Republicans Category:Wisconsin state senators Category:University of Wisconsin–River Falls alumni

SIG Sauer P230 The SIG Sauer P230 is a small, semi-automatic handgun chambered in .32 ACP or .380 Auto. It was designed by SIG Sauer of Eckernförde, Germany. It was imported into the United States by SIGARMS in 1985. In 1996 it was replaced by the model P232. Design The design and function of the P230 is of the simple fixed barrel, straight blow-back configuration. It has a reputation as a well-built firearm, and competes with the smaller Walther PPK. With its relatively narrow slide and frame it can be carried in an ankle holster or beneath body armor. The P230 was available in both blued and all-stainless finishes. The blued version features a blued steel slide and a matching, anodized aluminum frame, whereas the stainless version was completely made from stainless steel. Both versions came with a molded polymer, wrap-around grip that is contoured to give the shooter a comfortable and secure hold on the pistol. The trigger comes from the factory with a single-action pull, and is capable of both single-action and double-action. Pulling back the slide sets the hammer backwards and downwards to its single-action position, making for a very short trigger pull, with minimal take-up. The double-action pull is longer and more stiff. It has no external safeties, though it does have a de-cocking lever positioned just above the right-handed shooter's thumb, on the left side of the grip. The lever provides for a safe method of lowering the hammer from its full-cocked, single-action position, to a "half-cock", double-action safe position where the hammer itself falls forward to a locking point about an eighth of an inch from the rear of the firing pin. Once de-cocked, it is physically impossible for the hammer to drop completely and contact the firing pin, which would otherwise greatly increase the risk of the unintentional discharge of a chambered round. In order for the round to discharge, the full double-action pull would have to be completed, which allows for the pistol to be carried reasonably safely with a round chambered. In addition, the SIG P232 has an automatic firing pin safety. The sights are of the traditional SIG design and configuration, with a dot on the front sight and a rectangle on the rear sight. To aim using the sights, the shooter simply aligns the dot over the rectangle. The magazine release is located behind and below the magazine floor plate. The magazine is released by pushing the lever towards the rear of the grip, at which point the magazine can be removed from the pistol. SIG Sauer P232 The P232 incorporates more than 60 changes to the design of the P230. Most of the changes are internal. Some of the changes are: The P232 has a drop safety to block the firing pin. The P230 front sight is machined into the slide. The P232 slide is cut for a dovetailed front sight. The P230 slide has 12 narrow, shallow serrations. The P232 slide has 7 wide, deeper serrations. The P230 factory grip panels are flat and smooth plastic with some checkering. The P232 factory grip panels are thicker plastic and 100% stippled. (The grip panels are not interchangeable between the two models.) The P230 factory magazine floor plates are aluminum. The P232 factory magazine floor plates are plastic. Overview Due to its small dimensions, it is easily carried as a backup weapon or as a concealed carry handgun, holding 8 + 1 rounds of .32 ACP or 7 + 1 rounds of .380 ACP (9mm Short), respectively. Discontinuation Imports of the SIG Sauer P232 to the United States, and of spare parts and magazines, were discontinued in July 2014. Although the P230 and P232 are known for reliability and accuracy, market competition had increased with the proliferation of smaller, lighter and less expensive pistols chambered for the .380 ACP cartridge. The P232 and other SIG Sauer products manufactured in Germany were banned for export by the German Government, due to unlawful foreign arms sales by the U.S. State Department to the Colombian Defense Ministry. Users : Some of the Prefectural police departments. : Various police forces. : Special Air Services (SAS). : Various police forces. References External resources SIGARMS.com Category:.32 ACP semi-automatic pistols Category:.380 ACP semi-automatic pistols Category:9×18mm Ultra firearms Category:Semi-automatic pistols of Switzerland Category:SIG Sauer semi-automatic pistols

[Entoptic] Exploring 'entoptic phenomena' - realtime particles Quick audio reactive realtime particle animation project exploring entoptic phenomena experienced from the central nervous system whose source is within the eye itself. You can see them by rubbing a finger against the eyelid of a closed eye or for the more serious, entering trance-like states. Evidence suggests 'Neolithic Shamanism' derived rock art and megalithic architecture from entoptic experiences.

The Story of the Dodo Bird A Reference Site for The Dodo Bird and it's History The Dodo bird or Raphus Cucullatus was a flightless bird native to the island of Mauritius, near the island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The closest relatives to the dodo bird are pigeons and doves, even though dodo birds were much larger in size. On average, dodo birds stood 3 feet tall and weighted about 40 lb. Unfortunately, due to aggressive human population, dodo birds became extinct in late 17th century. The Dodo Bird Location Dodo Birds, while now extinct, were found only on the small island of Mauritius, some 500 miles east of Madagascar, and 1200 miles east of Africa. The complete isolation of this island let the Dodo Birds grow and evolve without natural predators, unfortunately to a fault that led to their extinction. Learn More » What Would You Do? »

--- abstract: 'We generalize the concept of quasiparticle for one-dimensional (1D) interacting electronic systems. The $\uparrow $ and $\downarrow $ quasiparticles recombine the pseudoparticle colors $c$ and $s$ (charge and spin at zero magnetic field) and are constituted by one many-pseudoparticle [*topological momenton*]{} and one or two pseudoparticles. These excitations cannot be separated. We consider the case of the Hubbard chain. We show that the low-energy electron – quasiparticle transformation has a singular charater which justifies the perturbative and non-perturbative nature of the quantum problem in the pseudoparticle and electronic basis, respectively. This follows from the absence of zero-energy electron – quasiparticle overlap in 1D. The existence of Fermi-surface quasiparticles both in 1D and three dimensional (3D) many-electron systems suggests there existence in quantum liquids in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3. However, whether the electron – quasiparticle overlap can vanish in D$>$1 or whether it becomes finite as soon as we leave 1D remains an unsolved question.' author: - 'J. M. P. Carmelo$^{1}$ and A. H. Castro Neto$^{2}$' --- = 10000 Electrons, pseudoparticles, and quasiparticles in the\ one-dimensional many-electron problem $^{1}$ Department of Physics, University of Évora, Apartado 94, P-7001 Évora Codex, Portugal\ and Centro de Física das Interacções Fundamentais, I.S.T., P-1096 Lisboa Codex, Portugal $^{2}$ Department of Physics, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 INTRODUCTION ============ The unconventional electronic properties of novel materials such as the superconducting coper oxides and synthetic quasi-unidimensional conductors has attracted much attention to the many-electron problem in spatial dimensions 1$\leq$D$\leq$3. A good understanding of [*both*]{} the different and common properties of the 1D and 3D many-electron problems might provide useful indirect information on quantum liquids in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3. This is important because the direct study of the many-electron problem in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3 is of great complexity. The nature of interacting electronic quantum liquids in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3, including the existence or non existence of quasiparticles and Fermi surfaces, remains an open question of crucial importance for the clarification of the microscopic mechanisms behind the unconventional properties of the novel materials. In 3D the many-electron quantum problem can often be described in terms of a one-particle quantum problem of quasiparticles [@Pines; @Baym], which interact only weakly. This Fermi liquid of quasiparticles describes successfully the properties of most 3D metals, which are not very sensitive to the presence of electron-electron interactions. There is a one to one correspondence between the $\sigma $ quasiparticles and the $\sigma $ electrons of the original non-interacting problem (with $\sigma =\uparrow \, , \downarrow$). Moreover, the coherent part of the $\sigma $ one-electron Green function is quite similar to a non-interacting Green function except that the bare $\sigma $ electron spectrum is replaced by the $\sigma $ quasiparticle spectrum and for an electron renormalization factor, $Z_{\sigma }$, smaller than one and such that $0<Z_{\sigma }<1$. A central point of Fermi-liquid theory is that quasiparticle - quasihole processes describe exact low-energy and small-momentum Hamiltonian eigenstates and “adding” or “removal” of one quasiparticle connects two exact ground states of the many-electron Hamiltonian. On the other hand, in 1D many-electron systems [@Solyom; @Haldane; @Metzner], such as the hUBbard chain solvable by Bethe ansatz (BA) [@Bethe; @Yang; @Lieb; @Korepinrev], the $\sigma $ electron renormalization factor, $Z_{\sigma }$, vanishes [@Anderson; @Carmelo95a]. Therefore, the many-particle problem is not expected to be descibed in terms of a one-particle problem of Fermi-liquid quasiparticles. Such non-perturbative electronic problems are usually called Luttinger liquids [@Haldane]. In these systems the two-electron vertex function at the Fermi momentum diverges in the limit of vanishing excitation energy [@Carmelo95a]. In a 3D Fermi liquid this quantity is closely related to the interactions of the quasiparticles [@Pines; @Baym]. Its divergence seems to indicate that there are no quasiparticles in 1D interacting electronic systems. A second possibility is that there are quasiparticles in the 1D many-electron problem but without overlap with the electrons in the limit of vanishing excitation energy. While the different properties of 1D and 3D many-electron problems were the subject of many Luttinger-liquid studies in 1D [@Solyom; @Haldane; @Metzner], the characterization of their common properties is also of great interest because the latter are expected to be present in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3 as well. One example is the Landau-liquid character common to Fermi liquids and some Luttinger liquids which consists in the generation of the low-energy excitations in terms of different momentum-occupation configurations of anti-commuting quantum objects (quasiparticles or pseudoparticles) whose forward-scattering interactions determine the low-energy properties of the quantum liquid. This generalized Landau-liquid theory was first applied in 1D to contact-interaction soluble problems [@Carmelo90] and shortly after also to $1/r^2$-interaction integrable models [@Haldane91]. Within this picture the 1D many-electron problem can also be described in terms of weakly interacting “one-particle” objects, the pseudoparticles, which, however, have no one-to-one correspondence with the electrons, as is shown in this paper. In spite of the absence of the one to one principle in what concerns single pseudoparticles and single electrons, following the studies of Refs. [@Carmelo90; @Carmelo91b; @Carmelo92] a generalized adiabatic principle for small-momentum pseudoparticle-pseudohole and electron-hole excitations was introduced for 1D many-electron problems in Refs. [@Carmelo92b]. The pseudoparticles of 1D many-electron systems show other similarities with the quasiparticles of a Fermi liquid, there interactions being determined by [*finite*]{} forward-scattering $f$ functions [@Carmelo91b; @Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b]. At constant values of the electron numbers this description of the quantum problem is very similar to Fermi-liquid theory, except for two main differences: (i) the $\uparrow $ and $\downarrow $ quasiparticles are replaced by the $c$ and $s$ pseudoparticles [@Carmelo93; @Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c; @Carmelo95], and (ii) the discrete pseudoparticle momentum (pseudomomentum) is of the usual form $q_j={2\pi\over {N_a}}I_j^{\alpha}$ but the numbers $I_j^{\alpha}$ (with $\alpha =c,s$) are not always integers. They are integers or half integers depending on whether the number of particles in the system is even or odd. This plays a central role in the present quasiparticle problem. The connection of these perturbative pseudoparticles to the non-perturbative 1D electronic basis remains an open problem. By perturbative we mean here the fact that the two-pseudoparticle $f$ functions and forward-scattering amplitudes are finite [@Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94], in contrast to the two-electron vertice functions. The low-energy excitations of the Hubbard chain at constant electron numbers and in a finite magnetic field and chemical potential were shown [@Carmelo91b; @Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c] to be $c$ and $s$ pseudoparticle-pseudohole processes relative to the canonical-ensemble ground state. This determines the $c$ and $s$ low-energy separation [@Carmelo94c], which at zero magnetization leads to the so called charge and spin separation. In this paper we find that in addition to the above pseudoparticle-pseudohole excitations there are also Fermi-surface [*quasiparticle*]{} transitions in the 1D many-electron problem. Moreover, it is the study of such quasiparticle which clarifies the complex and open problem of the low-energy electron – pseudoparticle transformation. As in 3D Fermi liquids, the quasiparticle excitation is a transition between two exact ground states of the interacting electronic problem differing in the number of electrons by one. When one electron is added to the electronic system the number of these excitations [*also*]{} increases by one. Naturally, its relation to the electron excitation will depend on the overlap between the states associated with this and the quasiparticle excitation and how close we are in energy from the initial interacting ground state. Therefore, in order to define the quasiparticle we need to understand the properties of the actual ground state of the problem as, for instance, is given by its exact solution via the BA. We find that in the 1D Hubbard model adding one $\uparrow $ or $\downarrow $ electron of lowest energy is associated with adding one $\uparrow $ or $\downarrow $ quasiparticle, as in a Fermi liquid. These are many-pseudoparticle objects which recombine the colors $c$ and $s$ giving rise to the spin projections $\uparrow $ and $\downarrow $. We find that the quasiparticle is constituted by individual pseudoparticles and by a many-pseudoparticle object of large momentum that we call topological momenton. Importantly, these excitations cannot be separated. Although one quasiparticle is basically one electron, we show that in 1D the quasiparticle – electron transformation is singular because it involves the vanishing one-electron renormalization factor. This also implies a low-energy singular electron - pseudoparticle transformation. This singular character explains why the problem becomes perturbative in the pseudoparticle basis while it is non perturbative in the usual electronic picture. The singular nature of the low-energy electron - quasiparticle and electron – pseudoparticle transformations reflects the fact that the one-electron density of states vanishes in the 1D electronic problem when the excitation energy $\omega\rightarrow 0$. The diagonalization of the many-electron problem is at lowest excitation energy associated with the singular electron – quasiparticle transformation which absorbes the vanishing electron renormalization factor and maps vanishing electronic spectral weight onto finite quasiparticle and pseudoparticle spectral weight. For instance, by absorbing the renormalization factor the electron - quasiparticle transformation renormalizes divergent two-electron vertex functions onto finite two-quasiparticle scattering parameters. These quantities fully determine the finite $f$ functions and scattering amplitudes of the pseudoparticle theory [@Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94b]. The pseudoparticle $f$ functions and amplitudes determine all the static and low-energy quantities of the 1D many-electron problem and are associated with zero-momentum two-pseudoparticle forward scattering. The paper is organized as follows: the pseudoparticle operator basis is summarized in Sec. II. In Sec. III we find the quasiparticle operational expressions in the pseudoparticle basis and characterize the corresponding $c$ and $s$ recombination in the $\uparrow $ and $\downarrow $ spin projections. The singular electron – quasiparticle (and electron – pseudoparticle) transformation is studied in Sec. IV. Finally, in Sec. V we present the concluding remarks. THE PERTURBATIVE PSEUDOPARTICLE OPERATOR BASIS ============================================== It is useful for the studies presented in this paper to introduce in this section some basic information on the perturbative operator pseudoparticle basis, as it is obtained directly from the BA solution [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c]. We consider the Hubbard model in 1D [@Lieb; @Frahm; @Frahm91] with a finite chemical potential $\mu$ and in the presence of a magnetic field $H$ [@Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b] $$\begin{aligned} \hat{H} = -t\sum_{j,\sigma}\left[c_{j,\sigma}^{\dag }c_{j+1,\sigma}+c_ {j+1,\sigma}^{\dag }c_{j,\sigma}\right] + U\sum_{j} [c_{j,\uparrow}^{\dag }c_{j,\uparrow} - 1/2] [c_{j,\downarrow}^{\dag }c_{j,\downarrow} - 1/2] - \mu \sum_{\sigma} \hat{N}_{\sigma } - 2\mu_0 H\hat{S}_z \, ,\end{aligned}$$ where $c_{j,\sigma}^{\dag }$ and $c_{j,\sigma}$ are the creation and annihilation operators, respectively, for electrons at the site $j$ with spin projection $\sigma=\uparrow, \downarrow$. In what follows $k_{F\sigma}=\pi n_{\sigma}$ and $k_F=[k_{F\uparrow}+k_{F\downarrow}]/2=\pi n/2$, where $n_{\sigma}=N_{\sigma}/N_a$ and $n=N/N_a$, and $N_{\sigma}$ and $N_a$ are the number of $\sigma$ electrons and lattice sites, respectively ($N=\sum_{\sigma}N_{\sigma}$). We also consider the spin density, $m=n_{\uparrow}-n_{\downarrow}$. The many-electron problem $(1)$ can be diagonalized using the BA [@Yang; @Lieb]. We consider all finite values of $U$, electron densities $0<n<1$, and spin densities $0<m<n$. For this parameter space the low-energy physics is dominated by the lowest-weight states (LWS’s) of the spin and eta-spin algebras [@Korepin; @Essler] of type I [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo95]. The LWS’s I are described by real BA rapidities, whereas all or some of the BA rapidities which describe the LWS’s II are complex and non-real. Both the LWS’s II and the non-LWS’s out of the BA solution [@Korepin] have energy gaps relative to each canonical ensemble ground state [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo95]. Fortunately, the quasiparticle description involves only LWS’s I because these quantum objects are associated with ground-state – ground-state transitions and in the present parameter space all ground states of the model are LWS’s I. On the other hand, the electronic excitation involves transitions to LWS’s I, LWS’s II, and non-LWS’s, but the electron – quasiparticle transformation involves only LWS’s I. Therefore, our results refer mainly to the Hilbert sub space spanned by the LWS’s I and are valid at energy scales smaller than the above gaps. (Note that in simpler 1D quantum problems of symmetry $U(1)$ the states I span the whole Hilbert space [@Anto].) In this Hilbert sub space the BA solution was shown to refer to an operator algebra which involves two types of [*pseudoparticle*]{} creation (annihilation) operators $b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha }$ ($b_{q,\alpha }$). These obey the usual anti-commuting algebra [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c] $$\{b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha},b_{q',\alpha'}\} =\delta_{q,q'}\delta_{\alpha ,\alpha'}, \hspace{0.5cm} \{b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha},b^{\dag }_{q',\alpha'}\}=0, \hspace{0.5cm} \{b_{q,\alpha},b_{q',\alpha'}\}=0 \, .$$ Here $\alpha$ refers to the two pseudoparticle colors $c$ and $s$ [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c]. The discrete pseudomomentum values are $$q_j = {2\pi\over {N_a}}I_j^{\alpha } \, ,$$ where $I_j^{\alpha }$ are [*consecutive*]{} integers or half integers. There are $N_{\alpha }^*$ values of $I_j^{\alpha }$, [*i.e.*]{} $j=1,...,N_{\alpha }^*$. A LWS I is specified by the distribution of $N_{\alpha }$ occupied values, which we call $\alpha $ pseudoparticles, over the $N_{\alpha }^*$ available values. There are $N_{\alpha }^*- N_{\alpha }$ corresponding empty values, which we call $\alpha $ pseudoholes. These are good quantum numbers such that $$N_c^* = N_a \, ; \hspace{0.5cm} N_c = N \, ; \hspace{0.5cm} N_s^* = N_{\uparrow} \, ; \hspace{0.5cm} N_s = N_{\downarrow} \, .$$ The numbers $I_j^c$ are integers (or half integers) for $N_s$ even (or odd), and $I_j^s$ are integers (or half integers) for $N_s^*$ odd (or even) [@Lieb]. All the states I can be generated by acting onto the vacuum $|V\rangle $ (zero-electron density) suitable combinations of pseudoparticle operators [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b]. The ground state $$|0;N_{\sigma }, N_{-\sigma}\rangle = \prod_{\alpha=c,s} [\prod_{q=q_{F\alpha }^{(-)}}^{q_{F\alpha }^{(+)}} b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha }] |V\rangle \, ,$$ and all LWS’s I are Slatter determinants of pseudoparticle levels. In Appendix A we define the pseudo-Fermi points, $q_{F\alpha }^{(\pm )}$, of $(5)$. In that Appendix we also present other quantities of the pseudoparticle representation which are useful for the present study. In the pseudoparticle basis spanned by the LWS’s I and in normal order relatively to the ground state $(5)$ the Hamiltonian $(1)$ has the following form [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94c] $$:\hat{H}: = \sum_{i=1}^{\infty}\hat{H}^{(i)} \, ,$$ where, to second pseudoparticle scattering order $$\begin{aligned} \hat{H}^{(1)} & = & \sum_{q,\alpha} \epsilon_{\alpha}(q):\hat{N}_{\alpha}(q): \, ;\nonumber\\ \hat{H}^{(2)} & = & {1\over {N_a}}\sum_{q,\alpha} \sum_{q',\alpha'} {1\over 2}f_{\alpha\alpha'}(q,q') :\hat{N}_{\alpha}(q)::\hat{N}_{\alpha'}(q'): \, .\end{aligned}$$ Here $(7)$ are the Hamiltonian terms which are [ *relevant*]{} at low energy [@Carmelo94b]. Furthermore, at low energy and small momentum the only relevant term is the non-interacting term $\hat{H}^{(1)}$. Therefore, the $c$ and $s$ pseudoparticles are non-interacting at the small-momentum and low-energy fixed point and the spectrum is described in terms of the bands $\epsilon_{\alpha}(q)$ (studied in detail in Ref. [@Carmelo91b]) in a pseudo-Brillouin zone which goes between $q_c^{(-)}\approx -\pi$ and $q_c^{(+)}\approx \pi$ for the $c$ pseudoparticles and $q_s^{(-)}\approx -k_{F\uparrow}$ and $q_s^{(+)}\approx k_{F\uparrow}$ for the $s$ pseudoparticles. In the ground state $(5)$ these are occupied for $q_{F\alpha}^{(-)}\leq q\leq q_{F\alpha}^{(+)}$, where the pseudo-Fermi points (A1)-(A3) are such that $q_{Fc}^{(\pm)}\approx \pm 2k_F$ and $q_{Fs}^{(\pm)}\approx \pm k_{F\downarrow}$ (see Appendix A). At higher energies and (or ) large momenta the pseudoparticles start to interact via zero-momentum transfer forward-scattering processes of the Hamiltonian $(6)-(7)$. As in a Fermi liquid, these are associated with $f$ functions and Landau parameters [@Carmelo92; @Carmelo94], whose expressions we present in Appendix A, where we also present the expressions for simple pseudoparticle-pseudohole operators which are useful for the studies of next sections. THE QUASIPARTICLES AND $c$ AND $s$ RECOMBINATION ================================================ In this section we introduce the 1D quasiparticle and express it in the pseudoparticle basis. In Sec. IV we find that this clarifies the low-energy transformation between the electrons and the pseudoparticles. We define the quasiparticle operator as the generator of a ground-state – ground-state transition. The study of ground states of form $(5)$ differing in the number of $\sigma $ electrons by one reveals that their relative momentum equals [*presisely* ]{} the $U=0$ Fermi points, $\pm k_{F\sigma}$. Following our definition, the quasiparticle operator, ${\tilde{c}}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }$, which creates one quasiparticle with spin projection $\sigma$ and momentum $k_{F\sigma}$ is such that $${\tilde{c}}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma} |0; N_{\sigma}, N_{-\sigma}\rangle = |0; N_{\sigma} + 1, N_{\sigma}\rangle \, .$$ The quasiparticle operator defines a one-to-one correspondence between the addition of one electron to the system and the creation of one quasiparticle: the electronic excitation, $c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0; N_{\sigma}, N_{-\sigma}\rangle$, defined at the Fermi momentum but arbitrary energy, contains a single quasiparticle, as we show in Sec. IV. In that section we will study this excitation as we take the energy to be zero, that is, as we approach the Fermi surface, where the problem is equivalent to Landau’s. Since we are discussing the problem of addition or removal of one particle the boundary conditions play a crucial role. As discussed in Secs. I and II, the available Hamiltonian eigenstates I depend on the discrete numbers $I_j^{\alpha}$ of Eq. $(3)$ which can be integers of half-integers depending on whether the number of particles in the system is even or odd \[the pseudomomentum is given by Eq. $(3)$\]. When we add or remove one electron to or from the many-body system we have to consider the transitions between states with integer and half-integer quantum numbers \[or equivalently, between states with an odd (even) and even (odd) number of $\sigma $ electrons\]. The transition between two ground states differing in the number of electrons by one is associated with two different processes: a backflow in the Hilbert space of the pseudoparticles with a shift of all the pseudomomenta by $\pm\frac{\pi}{N_a}$ \[associated with the change from even (odd) to odd (even) number of particles\], which we call [*topological momenton*]{}, and the creation of one or a pair of pseudoparticles at the pseudo-Fermi points. According to the integer or half-integer character of the $I_j^{\alpha}$ numbers we have four “topological” types of Hilbert sub spaces. Since that character depends on the parities of the electron numbers, we refer these sub spaces by the parities of $N_{\uparrow}$ and $N_{\downarrow}$, respectively: (a) even, even; (b) even, odd; (c) odd, even; and (d) odd, odd. The ground-state total momentum expression is different for each type of Hilbert sub space in such a way that the relative momentum, $\Delta P$, of $U>0$ ground states differing in $N_{\sigma }$ by one equals the $U=0$ Fermi points, ie $\Delta P=\pm k_{F\sigma }$. Moreover, we find that the above quasiparticle operator $\tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }$ involves the generator of one low-energy and large-momentum topological momenton. The $\alpha $ topological momenton is associated with the backflow of the $\alpha $ pseudoparticle pseudomomentum band and cannot occur without a second type of excitation associated with the adding or removal of pseudoparticles. The $\alpha $-topological-momenton generator, $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$, is an unitary operator which controls the topological transformations of the pseudoparticle Hamiltonian $(6)-(7)$. For instance, in the $\Delta P=\pm k_{F\uparrow }$ transitions (a)$\rightarrow $(c) and (b)$\rightarrow $(d) the Hamiltonian $(6)-(7)$ transforms as $$:H: \rightarrow U^{\pm\Delta N_{\uparrow}}_s :H: U^{\mp\Delta N_{\uparrow}}_s \, ,$$ and in the $\Delta P=\pm k_{F\downarrow }$ transitions (a)$\rightarrow $(b) and (c)$\rightarrow $(d) as $$:H:\rightarrow U^{\pm \Delta N_{\downarrow}}_c:H:U^{\mp \Delta N_{\downarrow}}_c \, ,$$ where $\Delta N_{\sigma}=\pm 1$ and the expressions of the generator $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ is obtained below. In order to arrive to the expressions for the quasipaticle operators and associate topological-momenton generators $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ we refer again to the ground-state pseudoparticle representation $(5)$. For simplicity, we consider that the initial ground state of form $(5)$ is non degenerate and has zero momentum. Following equations (A1)-(A3) this corresponds to the situation when both $N_{\uparrow }$ and $N_{\downarrow }$ are odd, ie the initial Hilbert sub space is of type (d). However, note that our results are independent of the choice of initial ground state. The pseudoparticle numbers of the initial state are $N_c=N_{\uparrow }+N_{\downarrow }$ and $N_s=N_{\downarrow }$ and the pseudo-Fermi points $q_{F\alpha }^{(\pm)}$ are given in Eq. (A1). We express the electronic and pseudoparticle numbers and pseudo-Fermi points of the final states in terms of the corresponding values for the initial state. We consider here the case when the final ground state has numbers $N_{\uparrow }$ and $N_{\downarrow }+1$ and momentum $k_{F\downarrow }$. The procedures for final states with these numbers and momentum $-k_{F\downarrow }$ or numbers $N_{\uparrow }+1$ and $N_{\downarrow }$ and momenta $\pm k_{F\uparrow }$ are similiar and are omitted here. The above final state belongs the Hilbert sub space (c). Our goal is to find the quasiparticle operator $\tilde{c}^{\dag}_{k_{F\downarrow },\downarrow}$ such that $$|0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}+1\rangle = \tilde{c}^{\dag}_{k_{F\downarrow },\downarrow} |0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}\rangle\, .$$ Taking into account the changes in the pseudoparticle quantum numbers associated with this (d)$\rightarrow $(c) transition we can write the final state as follows $$|0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}+1\rangle = \prod_{q=q^{(-)}_{Fc}-\frac{\pi}{N_a}}^{q^{(+)}_{Fc}+ \frac{\pi}{N_a}}\prod_{q=q^{(-)}_{Fs}}^{q^{(+)}_{Fs}+\frac{2\pi}{N_a}} b^{\dag}_{q,c} b^{\dag}_{q,s} |V\rangle \, ,$$ which can be rewritten as $$|0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}+1\rangle = b^{\dag}_{q^{(+)}_{Fc}+\frac{\pi}{N_a},c} b^{\dag}_{q^{(+)}_{Fs}+\frac{2\pi}{N_a},s} \prod_{q=q^{(-)}_{Fs}}^{q^{(+)}_{Fs}} \prod_{q=q^{(-)}_{Fs}}^{q^{(+)}_{Fs}} b^{\dag}_{q-\frac{\pi}{N_a},c} b^{\dag}_{q,s} |V\rangle \, ,$$ and further, as $$|0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}+1\rangle = b^{\dag}_{q^{(+)}_{Fc}+\frac{\pi}{N_a},c} b^{\dag}_{q^{(+)}_{Fs}+\frac{2\pi}{N_a},s} U_c^{+1}|0; N_{\uparrow}, N_{\downarrow}\rangle \, ,$$ where $U_c^{+1}$ is the generator of expression $(10)$. Both this operator and the operator $U_s^{+1}$ of Eq. $(9)$ obey the relation $$U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha }U^{\mp 1}_{\alpha }= b^{\dag }_{q\mp {\pi\over {N_a}},\alpha } \, .$$ The pseudoparticle vacuum remains invariant under the application of $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ $$U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }|V\rangle = |V\rangle \, .$$ (The $s$-topological-momenton generator, $U_s^{+1}$, appears if we consider the corresponding expressions for the up-spin electron.) Note that the $\alpha $ topological momenton is an excitation which only changes the integer or half-integer character of the corresponding pseudoparticle quantum numbers $I_j^{\alpha }$. In Appendix B we derive the following expression for the generator $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ $$U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }=U_{\alpha } \left(\pm\frac{\pi}{N_a}\right) \, ,$$ where $$U_{\alpha}(\delta q) = \exp\left\{ - i\delta q G_{\alpha}\right\} \, ,$$ and $$G_{\alpha} = -i\sum_{q} \left[{\partial\over {\partial q}} b^{\dag }_{q,\alpha }\right]b_{q,\alpha } \, ,$$ is the Hermitian generator of the $\mp {\pi\over {N_a}}$ topological $\alpha $ pseudomomentum translation. The operator $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ has the following discrete representation $$U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha } = \exp\left\{\sum_{q} b^{\dag }_{q\pm {\pi\over {N_a}},\alpha }b_{q,\alpha }\right\} \, .$$ When acting on the initial ground state of form $(5)$ the operator $U^{\pm 1}_{\alpha }$ produces a vanishing-energy $\alpha $ topological momenton of large momentum, $k=\mp N_{\alpha }{\pi\over {N_a}}\simeq q_{F\alpha}^{(\mp)}$. As referred above, the topological momenton is always combined with adding or removal of pseudoparticles. In the two following equations we change notation and use $q_{F\alpha }^{(\pm)}$ to refer the pseudo-Fermi points of the final state (otherwise our reference state is the initial state). Comparing equations $(11)$ and $(14)$ it follows that $$\tilde{c}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\downarrow },\downarrow } = b^{\dag }_{q_{Fc}^{(\pm)},c}b^{\dag }_{q_{Fs}^{(\pm)},s} U^{\pm 1}_{c } \, ,$$ and a similar procedure for the up-spin electron leads to $$\tilde{c}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\uparrow },\uparrow } = b^{\dag }_{q_{Fc}^{(\pm)},c} U^{\pm 1}_{s} \, .$$ According to these equations the $\sigma $ quasiparticles are constituted by one topological momenton and one or two pseudoparticles. The topological momenton cannot be separated from the pseudoparticle excitation, ie both these excitations are confined inside the quasiparticle. Moreover, since the generators $(17)-(20)$ have a many-pseudoparticle character, following Eqs. $(21)-(22)$ the quasiparticle is a many-pseudoparticle object. Note also that both the $\downarrow $ and $\uparrow $ quasiparticles $(21)$ and $(22)$, respectively, are constituted by $c$ and $s$ excitations. Therefore, the $\sigma $ quasiparticle is a quantum object which recombines the pseudoparticle colors $c$ and $s$ (charge and spin in the limit $m\rightarrow 0$ [@Carmelo94]) giving rise to spin projection $\uparrow $ or $\downarrow $. It has “Fermi surface” at $\pm k_{F\sigma }$. However, two-quasiparticle objects can be of two-pseudoparticle character because the product of the two corresponding many-pseudoparticle operators is such that $U^{+ 1}_{\alpha }U^{- 1}_{\alpha }=\openone$, as for the triplet pair $\tilde{c}^{\dag }_{+k_{F\uparrow },\uparrow } \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{-k_{F\uparrow },\uparrow }= b^{\dag }_{q_{Fc}^{(+)},c}b^{\dag }_{q_{Fc}^{(-)},c}$. Such triplet quasiparticle pair is constituted only by individual pseudoparticles because it involves the mutual annihilation of the two topological momentons of generators $U^{+ 1}_{\alpha }$ and $U^{- 1}_{\alpha }$. Therefore, relations $(21)$ and $(22)$ which connect quasiparticles and pseudoparticles have some similarities with the Jordan-Wigner transformation. Finally, we emphasize that the Hamiltonian-eigenstate generators of Eqs. $(26)$ and $(27)$ of Ref. [@Carmelo94b] are not general and refer to finite densities of added and removed electrons, respectively, corresponding to even electron numbers. The corresponding general generator expressions will be studied elsewhere and involve the topological-momenton generators $(17)-(20)$. THE ELECTRON - QUASIPARTICLE TRANSFORMATION =========================================== In this section we study the relation of the 1D quasiparticle introduced in Sec. III to the electron. This study brings about the question of the low-excitation-energy relation between the electronic operators $c_{k,\sigma}^{\dag }$ in momentum space at $k=\pm k_{F\sigma }$ and the pseudoparticle operators $b_{q,\alpha}^{\dag }$ at the pseudo-Fermi points. The quasiparticle operator, ${\tilde{c}}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma}$, which creates one quasiparticle with spin projection $\sigma$ and momentum $k_{F\sigma}$, is defined by Eq. $(8)$. In the pseudoparticle basis the $\sigma $ quasiparticle operator has the form $(21)$ or $(22)$. However, since we do not know the relation between the electron and the pseudoparticles, Eqs. $(21)$ and $(22)$ do not provide direct information on the electron content of the $\sigma $ quasiparticle. Equation $(8)$ tells us that the quasiparticle operator defines a one-to-one correspondence between the addition of one electron to the system and the creation of one quasiparticle, exactly as we expect from the Landau theory in 3D: the electronic excitation, $c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma}|0; N_{\uparrow}=N_c-N_s, N_{\downarrow}=N_s\rangle$, defined at the Fermi momentum but arbitrary energy, contains a single $\sigma $ quasiparticle, as we show below. When we add or remove one electron from the many-body system this includes the transition to the suitable final ground state as well as transitions to excited states. The former transition is nothing but the quasiparticle excitation of Sec. III. Although our final results refer to momenta $k=\pm k_{F\sigma }$, in the following analysis we consider for simplicity only the momentum $k=k_{F\sigma }$. In order to relate the quasiparticle operators $\tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }$ to the electronic operators $c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }$ we start by defining the Hilbert sub space where the low-energy $\omega $ projection of the state $$c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma} |0; N_{\sigma}, N_{-\sigma} \rangle \, ,$$ is contained. Notice that the electron excitation $(23)$ is [ *not*]{} an eigenstate of the interacting problem: when acting onto the initial ground state $|0;i\rangle\equiv |0; N_{\sigma}, N_{-\sigma} \rangle$ the electronic operator $c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }$ can be written as $$c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma } = \left[\langle 0;f|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle + {\hat{R}}\right] \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \, ,$$ where $${\hat{R}}=\sum_{\gamma}\langle \gamma;k=0|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle {\hat{A}}_{\gamma} \, ,$$ and $$|\gamma;k=0\rangle = {\hat{A}}_{\gamma} \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }|0;i\rangle = {\hat{A}}_{\gamma}|0;f\rangle \, .$$ Here $|0;f\rangle\equiv |0; N_{\sigma}+1, N_{-\sigma} \rangle$ denotes the final ground state, $\gamma$ represents the set of quantum numbers needed to specify each Hamiltonian eigenstate present in the excitation $(23)$, and ${\hat{A}}_{\gamma}$ is the corresponding generator. The first term of the rhs of Eq. $(24)$ refers to the ground state - ground state transition and the operator $\hat{R}$ generates $k=0$ transitions from $|0,f\rangle $ to states I, states II, and non LWS’s. Therefore, the electron excitation $(23)$ contains the quantum superposition of both the suitable final ground state $|0;f\rangle$, of excited states I relative to that state which result from multiple pseudoparticle-pseudohole processes associated with transitions to states I, and of LWS’s II and non-LWS’s. All these states have the same electron numbers as the final ground state. The transitions to LWS’s II and to non-LWS’s require a minimal finite energy which equals their gap relative to the final ground state. The set of all these Hamiltonian eigenstates spans the Hilbert sub space where the electronic operators $c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }$ $(24)$ projects the initial ground state. In order to show that the ground-state – ground-state leading order term of $(24)$ controls the low-energy physics, we study the low-energy sector of the above Hilbert sub space. This is spanned by low-energy states I. In the case of these states the generator ${\hat{A}}_{\gamma}$ of Eq. $(26)$ reads $${\hat{A}}_{\gamma}\equiv {\hat{A}}_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} = \prod_{\alpha=c,s} {\hat{L}}^{\alpha\iota}_{-N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}}(l) \, ,$$ where the operator ${\hat{L}}^{\alpha\iota}_{-N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}}(l)$ is given in Eq. $(56)$ of Ref. [@Carmelo94b] and produces a number $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}$ of $\alpha ,\iota$ pseudoparticle-pseudohole processes onto the final ground state. Here $\iota =sgn (q)1=\pm 1$ defines the right ($\iota=1$) and left ($\iota=-1$) pseudoparticle movers, $\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}$ is a short notation for $$\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}\equiv N_{ph}^{c,+1}, N_{ph}^{c,-1}, N_{ph}^{s,+1}, N_{ph}^{s,-1} \, ,$$ and $l$ is a quantum number which distinguishes different pseudoparticle-pseudohole distributions characterized by the same values for the numbers $(28)$. In the case of the lowest-energy states I the above set of quantum numbers $\gamma $ is thus given by $\gamma\equiv \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l$. (We have introduced the argument $(l)$ in the operator $L^{\alpha\iota}_{-N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}}(l)$ which for the same value of the $N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}$ number defines different $\alpha\iota$ pseudoparticle - pseudohole configurations associated with different choices of the pseudomomenta in the summation of expression $(56)$ of Ref. [@Carmelo94b].) In the particular case of the lowest-energy states expression $(26)$ reads $$|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0\rangle = {\hat{A}}_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma }|0;i\rangle = {\hat{A}}_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l}|0;f\rangle \, .$$ The full electron – quasiparticle transformation $(24)$ involves other Hamiltonian eigenstates which are irrelevant for the quasiparticle problem studied in the present paper. Therefore, we omit here the study of the general generators ${\hat{A}}_{\gamma}$ of Eq. $(26)$. The momentum expression (relative to the final ground state) of Hamiltonian eigenstates with generators of the general form $(27)$ is [@Carmelo94b] $$k = {2\pi\over {N_a}}\sum_{\alpha ,\iota}\iota N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota} \, .$$ Since our states $|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0\rangle$ have zero momentum relative to the final ground state they have restrictions in the choice of the numbers $(28)$. For these states these numbers are such that $$\sum_{\alpha ,\iota}\iota N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} = 0 \, ,$$ which implies that $$\sum_{\alpha }N_{ph}^{\alpha ,+1} = \sum_{\alpha }N_{ph}^{\alpha ,-1} = \sum_{\alpha }N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} \, .$$ Since $$N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}=1,2,3,.... \, ,$$ it follows from Eqs. $(31)-(33)$ that $$\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} = 2,4,6,8.... \, ,$$ is always an even positive integer. The vanishing chemical-potential excitation energy, $$\omega^0_{\sigma }=\mu(N_{\sigma }+1,N_{-\sigma }) -\mu(N_{\sigma },N_{-\sigma }) \, ,$$ can be evaluated by use of the Hamiltonian $(6)-(7)$ and is given by $$\omega^0_{\uparrow } = {\pi\over {2N_a}}\left[v_c + F_{cc}^1 + v_s + F_{ss}^1 - 2F_{cs}^1 + v_c + F_{cc}^0\right] \, ,$$ and $$\omega^0_{\downarrow } = {\pi\over {2N_a}}\left[v_s + F_{ss}^1 + v_c + F_{cc}^0 + v_s + F_{ss}^0 + 2F_{cs}^0\right] \, ,$$ for up and down spin, respectively, and involves the pseudoparticle velocities (A6) and Landau parameters (A8). Since we measure the chemical potencial from its value at the canonical ensemble of the reference initial ground state, ie we consider $\mu(N_{\sigma },N_{-\sigma })=0$, $\omega^0_{\sigma }$ measures also the ground-state excitation energy $\omega^0_{\sigma }=E_0(N_{\sigma }+1,N_{-\sigma })-E_0(N_{\sigma },N_{-\sigma })$. The excitation energies $\omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ of the states $|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0\rangle$ (relative to the initial ground state) involve the energy $\omega^0_{\sigma }$ and are $l$ independent. They are given by $$\omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}) = \omega^0_{\sigma } + {2\pi\over {N_a}}\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} v_{\alpha} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} \, .$$ We denote by $N_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}}$ the number of these states which obey the condition-equations $(31)$, $(32)$, and $(34)$ and have the same values for the numbers $(28)$. In order to study the main corrections to the (quasiparticle) ground-state – ground-state transition it is useful to consider the simplest case when $\sum_{\alpha ,\iota}N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}=2$. In this case we have $N_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}}=1$ and, therefore, we can omit the index $l$. There are four of such Hamiltonian eigenstates. Using the notation of the right-hand side (rhs) of Eq. $(28)$ these states are $|1,1,0,0;k=0\rangle $, $|0,0,1,1;k=0\rangle $, $|1,0,0,1;k=0\rangle $, and $|0,1,1,0;k=0\rangle $. They involve two pseudoparticle-pseudohole processes with $\iota=1$ and $\iota=-1$, respectively and read $$|1,1,0,0;k=0\rangle = \prod_{\iota=\pm 1} {\hat{\rho}}_{c ,\iota}(\iota {2\pi\over {N_a}}) \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma } |0;i\rangle \, ,$$ $$|0,0,1,1;k=0\rangle = \prod_{\iota=\pm 1} {\hat{\rho}}_{s ,\iota}(\iota {2\pi\over {N_a}}) \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma } |0;i\rangle \, ,$$ $$|1,0,0,1;k=0\rangle = {\hat{\rho}}_{c,+1}({2\pi\over {N_a}}) {\hat{\rho}}_{s,-1}(-{2\pi\over {N_a}}) \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma } |0;i\rangle \, ,$$ $$|0,1,1,0;k=0\rangle = {\hat{\rho}}_{c,-1}(-{2\pi\over {N_a}}) {\hat{\rho}}_{s,+1}({2\pi\over {N_a}}) \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma },\sigma } |0;i\rangle \, ,$$ where ${\hat{\rho}}_{\alpha ,\iota}(k)$ is the fluctuation operator of Eq. (A12). This was studied in some detail in Ref. [@Carmelo94c]. From equations $(26)$, $(27)$, and $(29)$ we can rewrite expression $(24)$ as $$\begin{aligned} c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma } & = & \langle 0;f|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle \left[1 + \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} {\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle \over \langle 0;f|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle} \prod_{\alpha=c,s} {\hat{L}}^{\alpha\iota}_{-N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}}(l)\right] \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \nonumber\\ & + & \sum_{\gamma '}\langle \gamma ';k=0|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle {\hat{A}}_{\gamma '} \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \, ,\end{aligned}$$ where $\gamma '$ refers to the Hamiltonian eigenstates of form $(26)$ whose generator ${\hat{A}}_{\gamma '}$ are not of the particular form $(27)$. In Appendix C we evaluate the matrix elements of expression $(43)$ corresponding to transitions to the final ground state and excited states of form $(29)$. Following Ref. [@Carmelo94b], these states refer to the conformal-field-theory [@Frahm; @Frahm91] critical point. They are such that the ratio $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}/N_a$ vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, $N_a\rightarrow 0$. Therefore, in that limit the positive excitation energies $\omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ of Eq. $(38)$ are vanishing small. The results of that Appendix lead to $$\langle 0;f|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle = \sqrt{Z_{\sigma }}\, ,$$ where, as in a Fermi liquid [@Nozieres], the one-electron renormalization factor $$Z_{\sigma}=\lim_{\omega\to 0}Z_{\sigma}(\omega) \, ,$$ is closed related to the $\sigma $ self energy $\Sigma_{\sigma} (k,\omega)$. Here the function $Z_{\sigma}(\omega)$ is given by the small-$\omega $ leading-order term of $$|\varsigma_{\sigma}||1-{\partial \hbox{Re} \Sigma_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega) \over {\partial\omega}}|^{-1}\, ,$$ where $$\varsigma_{\uparrow}=-2+\sum_{\alpha} {1\over 2}[(\xi_{\alpha c}^1-\xi_{\alpha s}^1)^2 +(\xi_{\alpha c}^0)^2] \, ,$$ and $$\varsigma_{\downarrow}=-2 +\sum_{\alpha}{1\over 2}[(\xi_{\alpha s}^1)^2+(\xi_{\alpha c}^0+\xi_{\alpha s}^0)^2] \, ,$$ are $U$, $n$, and $m$ dependent exponents which for $U>0$ are negative and such that $-1<\varsigma_{\sigma}<-1/2$. In equations $(47)$ and $(48)$ $\xi_{\alpha\alpha'}^j$ are the parameters (A7). From equations $(46)$, (C11), and (C15) we find $$Z_{\sigma}(\omega)=a^{\sigma }_0 \omega^{1+\varsigma_{\sigma}} \, ,$$ where $a^{\sigma }_0$ is a real and positive constant such that $$\lim_{U\to 0}a^{\sigma }_0=1 \, .$$ Equation $(49)$ confirms that the renormalization factor $(45)$ vanishes, as expected for a 1D many-electron problem [@Anderson]. It follows from Eq. $(44)$ that in the present 1D model the electron renormalization factor can be identified with a single matrix element [@Anderson; @Metzner94]. We emphasize that in a Fermi liquid $\varsigma_{\sigma}=-1$ and Eq. $(46)$ recovers the usual Fermi-liquid relation. In the different three limits $U\rightarrow 0$, $m\rightarrow 0$, and $m\rightarrow n$ the exponents $\varsigma_{\uparrow}$ and $\varsigma_{\downarrow}$ are equal and given by $-1$, $-2+{1\over 2}[{\xi_0\over 2}+{1\over {\xi_0}}]^2$, and $-{1\over 2}-\eta_0[1-{\eta_0\over 2}]$, respectively. Here the $m\rightarrow 0$ parameter $\xi_0$ changes from $\xi_0=\sqrt{2}$ at $U=0$ to $\xi_0=1$ as $U\rightarrow\infty$ and $\eta_0=({2\over {\pi}})\tan^{-1}\left({4t\sin (\pi n)\over U}\right)$. The evaluation in Appendix C for the matrix elements of the rhs of expression $(43)$ refers to the thermodynamic limit and follows the study of the small-$\omega $ dependencies of the one-electron Green function $G_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma}, \omega)$ and self energy $\Sigma_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma}, \omega)$. This leads to $\omega $ dependent quantities \[as $(46)$ and $(49)$ and the function $F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega )$ of Eq. $(51)$ below\] whose $\omega\rightarrow 0$ limits provide the expressions for these matrix elements. Although these matrix elements vanish, it is physicaly important to consider the associate $\omega $-dependent functions. These are matrix-element expressions only in the limit $\omega\rightarrow 0$, yet at small finite values of $\omega $ they provide revelant information on the electron - quasiparticle overlap at low energy $\omega $. In addition to expression $(44)$, in Appendix C we find the following expression which is valid only for matrix elements involving the excited states of form $(29)$ referring to the conformal-field-theory critical point $$\begin{aligned} \langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle & = & \lim_{\omega\to 0} F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega ) = 0\, ,\nonumber\\ F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega ) & = & e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)\over a^{\sigma }_0}}\sqrt{Z_{\sigma }(\omega )}\, \omega^{\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}} \, .\end{aligned}$$ Here $\chi_{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)$ and $a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)$ are real numbers and the function $Z_{\sigma }(\omega )$ was defined above. Notice that the function $F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega )$ vanishes with different powers of $\omega $ for different sets of $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}$ numbers. This is because these powers reflect directly the order of the pseudoparticle-pseudohole generator relative to the final ground state of the corresponding state I. Although the renormalization factor $(45)$ and matrix elements $(51)$ vanish, Eqs. $(49)$ and $(51)$ provide relevant information in what concerns the ratios of the different matrix elements which can either diverge or vanish. Moreover, in the evaluation of some $\omega $-dependent quantities we can use for the matrix elements $(51)$ the function $F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega )$ and assume that $\omega $ is vanishing small, which leads to correct results. This procedure is similar to replacing the renormalization factor $(45)$ by the function $(49)$. While the renormalization factor is zero because in the limit of vanishing excitation energy there is no overlap between the electron and the quasiparticle, the function $(49)$ is associated with the small electron - quasiparticle overlap which occurs at low excitation energy $\omega $. Obviously, if we introduced in the rhs of Eq. $(43)$ zero for the matrix elements $(44)$ and $(51)$ we would loose all information on the associate low-energy singular electron - quasiparticle transformation (described by Eq. $(58)$ below). The vanishing of the matrix elements $(44)$ and $(51)$ just reflects the fact that the one-electron density of states vanishes in the 1D many-electron problem when the excitation energy $\omega\rightarrow 0$. This justifies the lack of electron - quasiparticle overlap in the limit of zero excitation energy. However, the diagonalization of that problem absorbes the renormalization factor $(45)$ and maps vanishing electronic spectral weight onto finite quasiparticle and pseudoparticle spectral weight. This process can only be suitable described if we keep either ${1\over {N_a}}$ corrections in the case of the large finite system or small virtual $\omega $ corrections in the case of the infinite system. (The analysis of Appendix C has considered the thermodynamic limit and, therefore, we consider in this section the case of the infinite system.) In spite of the vanishing of the matrix elements $(44)$ and $(51)$, following the above discussion we introduce Eqs. $(44)$ and $(51)$ in Eq. $(43)$ with the result $$\begin{aligned} c^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma } & = & \lim_{\omega\to 0} \sqrt{Z_{\sigma }(\omega )} \left[1 + \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)\over a^{\sigma }_0}}\omega^{\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota }}\prod_{\alpha=c,s} {\hat{L}}^{\alpha\iota}_{-N_{ph}^{\alpha\iota}}(l)\right] \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \nonumber\\ & + & \sum_{\gamma '}\langle \gamma ';k=0|c^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma }|0;i\rangle {\hat{A}}_{\gamma '} \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \, .\end{aligned}$$ (Note that the expression is the same for momenta $k=k_{F\sigma}$ and $k=-k_{F\sigma}$.) Let us confirm the key role played by the “bare” quasiparticle ground-state – ground-state transition in the low-energy physics. Since the $k=0$ higher-energy LWS’s I and finite-energy LWS’s II and non-LWS’s represented in Eq. $(52)$ by $|\gamma ';k=0\rangle$ are irrelevant for the low-energy physics, we focus our attention on the lowest-energy states of form $(29)$. Let us look at the leading-order terms of the first term of the rhs of Eq. $(52)$. These correspond to the ground-state – ground-state transition and to the first-order pseudoparticle-pseudohole corrections. These corrections are determined by the excited states $(39)-(42)$. The use of Eqs. $(34)$ and $(39)-(42)$ allows us rewriting the leading-order terms as $$\lim_{\omega\to 0}\sqrt{Z_{\sigma }(\omega )}\left[1 + \omega^2\sum_{\alpha ,\alpha ',\iota} C_{\alpha ,\alpha '}^{\iota } \rho_{\alpha\iota } (\iota{2\pi\over {N_a}}) \rho_{\alpha '-\iota } (-\iota{2\pi\over {N_a}}) + {\cal O}(\omega^4)\right] \tilde{c}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma } \, ,$$ where $C_{\alpha ,\alpha '}^{\iota }$ are complex constants such that $$C_{c,c}^{1} = C_{c,c}^{-1} = e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(1,1,0,0)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(1,1,0,0)\over a^{\sigma }_0}} \, ,$$ $$C_{s,s}^{1} = C_{s,s}^{-1} = e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(0,0,1,1)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(0,0,1,1)\over a^{\sigma }_0}} \, ,$$ $$C_{c,s}^{1} = C_{s,c}^{-1} = e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(1,0,0,1)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(1,0,0,1)\over a^{\sigma }_0}} \, ,$$ $$C_{c,s}^{-1} = C_{s,c}^{1} = e^{i\chi_{\sigma }(0,1,1,0)} \sqrt{{a^{\sigma }(0,1,1,0)\over a^{\sigma }_0}} \, ,$$ and ${\hat{\rho}}_{\alpha ,\iota } (k)=\sum_{\tilde{q}} b^{\dag}_{\tilde{q}+k,\alpha ,\iota}b_{\tilde{q},\alpha ,\iota}$ is a first-order pseudoparticle-pseudohole operator. The real constants $a^{\sigma }$ and $\chi_{\sigma }$ in the rhs of Eqs. $(54)-(57)$ are particular cases of the corresponding constants of the general expression $(51)$. Note that the $l$ independence of the states $(39)-(42)$ allowed the omission of the index $l$ in the quantities of the rhs of Eqs. $(54)-(57)$ and that we used the notation $(28)$ for the argument of the corresponding $l$-independent $a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ constants and $\chi_{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ phases. The higher-order contributions to expression $(53)$ are associated with low-energy excited Hamiltonian eigenstates I orthogonal both to the initial and final ground states and whose matrix-element amplitudes are given by Eq. $(51)$. The corresponding functions $F_{\sigma}^{\alpha ,\iota}(\omega )$ vanish as $\lim_{\omega\to 0}\omega^{1+\varsigma_{\sigma}+4j\over 2}$ (with $2j$ the number of pseudoparticle-pseudohole processes relative to the final ground state and $j=1,2,...$). Therefore, the leading-order term of $(52)-(53)$ and the exponent $\varsigma_{\sigma}$ $(47)-(48)$ fully control the low-energy overlap between the $\pm k_{F\sigma}$ quasiparticles and electrons and determines the expressions of all $k=\pm k_{F\sigma }$ one-electron low-energy quantities. That leading-order term refers to the ground-state – ground-state transition which dominates the electron - quasiparticle transformation $(24)$. This transition corresponds to the “bare” quasiparticle of Eq. $(8)$. We follow the same steps as Fermi liquid theory and consider the low-energy non-canonical and non-complete transformation one derives from the full expression $(53)$ by only taking the corresponding leading-order term which leads to $${\tilde{c}}^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma } = {c^{\dag }_{\pm k_{F\sigma},\sigma }\over {\sqrt{Z_{\sigma }}}} \, .$$ This relation refers to a singular transformation. Combining Eqs. $(21)-(22)$ and $(58)$ provides the low-energy expression for the electron in the pseudoparticle basis. The singular nature of the transformation $(58)$ which maps the vanishing-renormalization-factor electron onto the one-renormalization-factor quasiparticle, explains the perturbative character of the pseudoparticle-operator basis [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c]. If we replace in Eq. $(58)$ the renormalization factor $Z_{\sigma }$ by $Z_{\sigma }(\omega )$ or omit $\lim_{\omega\to 0}$ from the rhs of Eqs. $(52)$ and $(53)$ and in both cases consider $\omega$ being very small leads to effective expressions which contain information on the low-excitation-energy electron – quasiparticle overlap. Since these expressions correspond to the infinite system, the small $\omega $ finite contributions contain the same information as the ${1\over {N_a}}$ corrections of the corresponding large but finite system at $\omega =0$. It is the perturbative character of the pseudoparticle basis that determines the form of expansion $(53)$ which except for the non-classical exponent in the $\sqrt{Z_{\sigma }(\omega )} \propto \omega^{1+\varsigma_{\sigma}\over 2}$ factor \[absorbed by the electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$\] includes only classical exponents, as in a Fermi liquid [@Nozieres]. At low energy the BA solution performs the singular transformation $(58)$ which absorbes the one-electron renormalization factor $(45)$ and maps vanishing electronic spectral weight onto finite quasiparticle and pseudoparticle spectral weight. By that process the transformation $(58)$ renormalizes divergent two-electron scattering vertex functions onto finite two-quasiparticle scattering quantities. These quantities are related to the finite $f$ functions [@Carmelo92] of form given by Eq. (A4) and amplitudes of scattering [@Carmelo92b] of the pseudoparticle theory. It was shown in Refs. [@Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94b] that these $f$ functions and amplitudes of scattering determine all static and low-energy quantities of the 1D many-electron problem, as we discuss below and in Appendices A and D. The $f$ functions and amplitudes are associated with zero-momentum two-pseudoparticle forward scattering. These scattering processes interchange no momentum and no energy, only giving rise to two-pseudoparticle phase shifts. The corresponding pseudoparticles control all the low-energy physics. In the limit of vanishing energy the pseudoparticle spectral weight leads to finite values for the static quantities, yet it corresponds to vanishing one-electron spectral weight. To diagonalize the problem at lowest energy is equivalent to perform the electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$: it maps divergent irreducible (two-momenta) charge and spin vertices onto finite quasiparticle parameters by absorbing $Z_{\sigma }$. In a diagramatic picture this amounts by multiplying each of these vertices appearing in the diagrams by $Z_{\sigma }$ and each one-electron Green function (propagator) by ${1\over Z_{\sigma }}$. This procedure is equivalent to renormalize the electron quantities onto corresponding quasiparticle quantities, as in a Fermi liquid. However, in the present case the renormalization factor is zero. This also holds true for more involved four-momenta divergent two-electron vertices at the Fermi points. In this case the electron - quasiparticle transformation multiplies each of these vertices by a factor $Z_{\sigma }Z_{\sigma '}$, the factors $Z_{\sigma }$ and $Z_{\sigma '}$ corresponding to the pair of $\sigma $ and $\sigma '$ interacting electrons. The obtained finite parameters control all static quantities. Performimg the transformation $(58)$ is equivalent to sum all vertex contributions and we find that this transformation is unique, ie it maps the divergent Fermi-surface vertices on the same finite quantities independently on the way one chooses to approach the low energy limit. This cannot be detected by looking only at logarithmic divergences of some diagrams [@Solyom; @Metzner]. Such non-universal contributions either cancel or are renormalized to zero by the electron - quasiparticle transformation. We have extracted all our results from the exact BA solution which takes into account all relevant contributions. We can choose the energy variables in such a way that there is only one $\omega $ dependence. We find that the relevant vertex function divergences are controlled by the electron - quasiparticle overlap, the vertices reading $$\Gamma_{\sigma\sigma '}^{\iota }(k_{F\sigma },\iota k_{F\sigma '};\omega) = {1\over {Z_{\sigma}(\omega)Z_{\sigma '}(\omega)}} \{\sum_{\iota '=\pm 1}(\iota ')^{{1-\iota\over 2}} [v_{\rho }^{\iota '} + (\delta_{\sigma ,\sigma '} - \delta_{\sigma ,-\sigma '})v_{\sigma_z}^{\iota '}] - \delta_{\sigma ,\sigma '}v_{F,\sigma }\} \, ,$$ where the expressions for the charge $v_{\rho}^{\iota }$ and spin $v_{\sigma_z}^{\iota }$ velocities are given in Appendix D. The divergent character of the function $(59)$ follows exclusively from the ${1\over Z_{\sigma}(\omega)Z_{\sigma '}(\omega)}$ factor, with $Z_{\sigma}(\omega)$ given by $(49)$. The transformation $(58)$ maps the divergent vertices onto the $\omega $-independent finite quantity $Z_{\sigma}(\omega) Z_{\sigma '}(\omega)\Gamma_{\sigma\sigma '}^{\iota }(k_{F\sigma }, \iota k_{F\sigma '};\omega )$. The low-energy physics is determined by the following $v_{F,\sigma }$-independent Fermi-surface two-quasiparticle parameters $$L^{\iota }_{\sigma ,\sigma'} = lim_{\omega\to 0} \left[\delta_{\sigma ,\sigma '}v_{F,\sigma }+ Z_{\sigma}(\omega) Z_{\sigma '}(\omega)\Gamma_{\sigma\sigma '}^{\iota }(k_{F\sigma },\iota k_{F\sigma '};\omega )\right] \, .$$ From the point of view of the electron - quasiparticle transformation the divergent vertices $(59)$ originate the finite quasiparticle parameters $(60)$ which define the above charge and spin velocities. These are given by the following simple combinations of the parameters $(60)$ $$\begin{aligned} v_{\rho}^{\iota} = {1\over 4}\sum_{\iota '=\pm 1}(\iota ')^{{1-\iota\over 2}}\left[L_{\sigma ,\sigma}^{\iota '} + L_{\sigma ,-\sigma}^{\iota '}\right] \, , \nonumber\\ v_{\sigma_z}^{\iota} = {1\over 4}\sum_{\iota '=\pm 1}(\iota ')^{{1-\iota\over 2}}\left[L_{\sigma ,\sigma}^{\iota '} - L_{\sigma ,-\sigma}^{\iota '}\right] \, .\end{aligned}$$ As shown in Appendix D, the parameters $L_{\sigma ,\sigma '}^{\iota}$ can be expressed in terms of the pseudoparticle group velocities (A6) and Landau parameters (A8) as follows $$\begin{aligned} L_{\sigma ,\sigma}^{\pm 1} & = & 2\left[{(v_s + F^0_{ss})\over L^0} \pm (v_c + F^1_{cc}) - {L_{\sigma ,-\sigma}^{\pm 1}\over 2} \right] \, , \nonumber\\ L_{\sigma ,-\sigma}^{\pm 1} & = & -4\left[{(v_c + F^0_{cc} + F^0_{cs})\over L^0}\pm (v_s + F^1_{ss} - F^1_{cs})\right] \, ,\end{aligned}$$ where $L^0=(v_c+F^0_{cc})(v_s+F^0_{ss})-(F^0_{cs})^2$. Combining equations $(61)$ and $(62)$ we find the expressions of the Table for the charge and spin velocities. These velocities were already known through the BA solution and determine the expressions for all static quantities [@Carmelo94c]. Equations $(62)$ clarify their origin which is the singular electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$. It renders a non-perturbative electronic problem into a perturbative pseudoparticle problem. In Appendix D we show how the finite two-pseudoparticle forward-scattering $f$ functions and amplitudes which determine the static quantities are directly related to the two-quasiparticle finite parameters $(60)$ through the velocities $(61)$. This study confirms that it is the singular electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$ which justifies the [*finite character*]{} of the $f_{\alpha\alpha '}(q,q')$ functions (A4) and the associate perturbative origin of the pseudoparticle Hamiltonian $(6)-(7)$ [@Carmelo94]. In order to further confirm that the electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$ and associate electron - quasiparticle overlap function $(49)$ control the whole low-energy physics we close this section by considering the one-electron spectral function. The spectral function was studied numerically and for $U\rightarrow\infty$ in Refs. [@Muramatsu] and [@Shiba], respectively. The leading-order term of the real-part expression for the $\sigma $ Green function at $k=\pm k_{F\sigma}$ and small excitation energy $\omega $ (C10)-(C11) is given by, $\hbox{Re}G_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega)=a^{\sigma}_0 \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma}}$. From Kramers-Kronig relations we find $\hbox{Im}G_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega)= -i\pi a^{\sigma}_0 (1 + \varsigma_{\sigma}) \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma }}$ for the corresponding imaginary part. Based on these results we arrive to the following expression for the low-energy spectral function at $k=\pm k_{F\sigma}$ $$A_{\sigma}(\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega) = 2\pi a^{\sigma }_0 (1 + \varsigma_{\sigma}) \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma}} = 2\pi {\partial Z_{\sigma}(\omega)\over\partial\omega} \, .$$ This result is a generalization of the $U\rightarrow\infty$ expression of Ref. [@Shiba]. It is valid for all parameter space where both the velocities $v_c$ and $v_s$ (A6) are finite. (This excludes half filling $n=1$, maximum spin density $m=n$, and $U=\infty$ when $m\neq 0$.) The use of Kramers-Kronig relations also restricts the validity of expression $(63)$ to the energy $\omega $ continuum limit. On the other hand, we can show that $(63)$ is consistent with the general expression $$\begin{aligned} A_{\sigma} (\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega) & = & \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} |\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2 2\pi\delta (\omega - \omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}))\nonumber \\ & + & \sum_{\gamma '}|\langle\gamma ';k=0|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma} |0;i\rangle |^2 2\pi\delta (\omega - \omega_{\gamma '}) \, ,\end{aligned}$$ whose summations refer to the same states as the summations of expressions $(43)$ and $(52)$. The restriction of the validity of expression $(63)$ to the energy continuum limit requires the consistency to hold true only for the spectral weight of $(64)$ associated with the quasiparticle ground-state – ground-state transition. This corresponds to the first $\delta $ peak of the rhs of Eq. $(64)$. Combining equations $(44)$ and $(64)$ and considering that in the present limit of vanishing $\omega $ replacing the renormalization factor $(45)$ by the electron - quasiparticle overlap function $(49)$ leads to the correct result (as we confirm below) we arrive to $$A_{\sigma}(\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega) = a^{\sigma }_0\omega^{1+\varsigma_{\sigma}} 2\pi\delta (\omega - \omega^0_{\sigma }) = Z_{\sigma}(\omega ) 2\pi\delta (\omega - \omega^0_{\sigma }) \, .$$ Let us then show that the Kramers-Kronig continuum expression $(63)$ is an approximation consistent with the Dirac-delta function representation $(65)$. This consistency just requires that in the continuum energy domain from $\omega =0$ to the ground-state – ground-state transition energy $\omega =\omega^0_{\sigma }$ (see Eq. $(35)$) the functions $(63)$ and $(65)$ contain the same amount of spectral weight. We find that both the $A_{\sigma}(\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega)$ representations $(63)$ and $(65)$ lead to $$\int_{0}^{\omega^0_{\sigma }}A_{\sigma}(\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega) =2\pi a^{\sigma }_0 [\omega^0_{\sigma }]^{\varsigma_{\sigma }+1} \, ,$$ which confirms they contain the same spectral weight. The representation $(63)$ reveals that the spectral function diverges at $\pm k_{F\sigma}$ and small $\omega$ as a Luttinger-liquid power law. However, both the small-$\omega $ density of states and the integral $(66)$ vanish in the limit of vanishing excitation energy. Using the method of Ref. [@Carmelo93] we have also studied the spectral function $A_{\sigma}(k,\omega)$ for all values of $k$ and vanishing positive $\omega $. We find that $A_{\sigma}(k,\omega)$ \[and the Green function $Re G_{\sigma} (k,\omega)$\] vanishes when $\omega\rightarrow 0$ for all momentum values [*except*]{} at the non-interacting Fermi-points $k=\pm k_{F\sigma}$ where it diverges as the power law $(63)$. This divergence is fully controlled by the quasiparticle ground-state - ground-state transition. The transitions to the excited states $(29)$ give only vanishing contributions to the spectral function. This further confirms the dominant role of the bare quasiparticle ground-state - ground-state transition and of the associate electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$ which control the low-energy physics. It follows from the above behavior of the spectral function at small $\omega $ that for $\omega\rightarrow 0$ the density of states, $$D_{\sigma} (\omega)=\sum_{k}A_{\sigma}(k,\omega) \, ,$$ results, exclusively, from contributions of the peaks centered at $k=\pm k_{F\sigma}$ and is such that $D_{\sigma} (\omega)\propto \omega A_{\sigma}(\pm k_{F\sigma},\omega)$ [@Carmelo95a]. On the one hand, it is known from the zero-magnetic field studies of Refs. [@Shiba; @Schulz] that the density of states goes at small $\omega $ as $$D_{\sigma} (\omega)\propto\omega^{\nu_{\sigma}} \, ,$$ where $\nu_{\sigma}$ is the exponent of the equal-time momentum distribution expression, $$N_{\sigma}(k)\propto |k\mp k_{F\sigma}|^{\nu_{\sigma }} \, ,$$ [@Frahm91; @Ogata]. (The exponent $\nu_{\sigma }$ is defined by Eq. $(5.10)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91] for the particular case of the $\sigma $ Green function.) On the other hand, we find that the exponents $(47)-(48)$ and $\nu_{\sigma}$ are such that $$\varsigma_{\sigma}=\nu_{\sigma }-1 \, ,$$ in agreement with the above analysis. However, this simple relation does not imply that the equal-time expressions [@Frahm91; @Ogata] provide full information on the small-energy instabilities. For instance, in addition to the momentum values $k=\pm k_{F\sigma}$ and in contrast to the spectral function, $N_{\sigma}(k)$ shows singularities at $k=\pm [k_{F\sigma}+2k_{F-\sigma}]$ [@Ogata]. Therefore, only the direct low-energy study reveals all the true instabilities of the quantum liquid. Note that in some Luttinger liquids the momentum distribution is also given by $N(k)\propto |k\mp k_F|^{\nu }$ but with $\nu >1$ [@Solyom; @Medem; @Voit]. We find that in these systems the spectral function $A(\pm k_F,\omega) \propto\omega^{\nu -1}$ does not diverge. CONCLUDING REMARKS ================== One of the goals of this paper was, in spite of the differences between the Luttinger-liquid Hubbard chain and 3D Fermi liquids, detecting common features in these two limiting problems which we expect to be present in electronic quantum liquids in spatial dimensions $1<$D$<3$. As in 3D Fermi liquids, we find that there are Fermi-surface quasiparticles in the Hubbard chain which connect ground states differing in the number of electrons by one and whose low-energy overlap with electrons determines the $\omega\rightarrow 0$ divergences. In spite of the vanishing electron density of states and renormalization factor, the spectral function vanishes at all momenta values [*except*]{} at the Fermi surface where it diverges (as a Luttinger-liquid power law). While low-energy excitations are described by $c$ and $s$ pseudoparticle-pseudohole excitations which determine the $c$ and $s$ separation [@Carmelo94c], the quasiparticles describe ground-state – ground-state transitions and recombine $c$ and $s$ (charge and spin in the zero-magnetization limit), being labelled by the spin projection $\sigma $. They are constituted by one topological momenton and one or two pseudoparticles which cannot be separated and are confined inside the quasiparticle. Moreover, there is a close relation between the quasiparticle contents and the Hamiltonian symmetry in the different sectors of parameter space. This can be shown if we consider pseudoholes instead of pseudoparticles [@Carmelo95a] and we extend the present quasiparticle study to the whole parameter space of the Hubbard chain. Importantly, we have written the low-energy electron at the Fermi surface in the pseudoparticle basis. The vanishing of the electron renormalization factor implies a singular character for the low-energy electron – quasiparticle and electron – pseudoparticle transformations. This singular process extracts from vanishing electron spectral weight quasiparticles of spectral-weight factor one. The BA diagonalization of the 1D many-electron problem is at lowest excitation energy equivalent to perform such singular electron – quasiparticle transformation. This absorves the vanishing one-electron renormalization factor giving rise to the finite two-pseudoparticle forward-scattering $f$ functions and amplitudes which control the expressions for all static quantities [@Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94]. It is this transformation which justifies the perturbative character of the many-electron Hamiltonian in the pseudoparticle basis [@Carmelo94]. From the existence of Fermi-surface quasiparticles both in the 1D and 3D limits, our results suggest their existence for quantum liquids in dimensions 1$<$D$<$3. However, the effect of increasing dimensionality on the electron – quasiparticle overlap remains an unsolved problem. The present 1D results do not provide information on whether that overlap can vanish for D$>$1 or whether it always becomes finite as soon as we leave 1D. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS =============== We thank N. M. R. Peres for many fruitful discussions and for reproducing and checking some of our calculations. We are grateful to F. Guinea and K. Maki for illuminating discussions. This research was supported in part by the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation under the EU Contract No. ERBCHRX - CT920020 and by the National Science Foundation under the Grant No. PHY89-04035. In this Appendix we present some quantities of the pseudoparticle picture which are useful for the present study. We start by defining the pseudo-Fermi points and limits of the pseudo-Brillouin zones. When $N_{\alpha }$ (see Eq. $(4)$) is odd (even) and the numbers $I_j^{\alpha }$ of Eq. $(3)$ are integers (half integers) the pseudo-Fermi points are symmetric and given by [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94c] $$q_{F\alpha }^{(+)}=-q_{F\alpha }^{(-)} = {\pi\over {N_a}}[N_{\alpha}-1] \, .$$ On the other hand, when $N_{\alpha }$ is odd (even) and $I_j^{\alpha }$ are half integers (integers) we have that $$q_{F\alpha }^{(+)} = {\pi\over {N_a}}N_{\alpha } \, , \hspace{1cm} -q_{F\alpha }^{(-)} ={\pi\over {N_a}}[N_{\alpha }-2] \, ,$$ or $$q_{F\alpha }^{(+)} = {\pi\over {N_a}}[N_{\alpha }-2] \, , \hspace{1cm} -q_{F\alpha }^{(-)} = {\pi\over {N_a}}N_{\alpha } \, .$$ Similar expressions are obtained for the pseudo-Brioullin zones limits $q_{\alpha }^{(\pm)}$ if we replace in Eqs. (A1)-(A3) $N_{\alpha }$ by the numbers $N_{\alpha }^*$ of Eq. $(4)$. The $f$ functions were studied in Ref. [@Carmelo92] and read $$\begin{aligned} f_{\alpha\alpha'}(q,q') & = & 2\pi v_{\alpha}(q) \Phi_{\alpha\alpha'}(q,q') + 2\pi v_{\alpha'}(q') \Phi_{\alpha'\alpha}(q',q) \nonumber \\ & + & \sum_{j=\pm 1} \sum_{\alpha'' =c,s} 2\pi v_{\alpha''} \Phi_{\alpha''\alpha}(jq_{F\alpha''},q) \Phi_{\alpha''\alpha'}(jq_{F\alpha''},q') \, ,\end{aligned}$$ where the pseudoparticle group velocities are given by $$v_{\alpha}(q) = {d\epsilon_{\alpha}(q) \over {dq}} \, ,$$ and $$v_{\alpha }=\pm v_{\alpha }(q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)}) \, ,$$ are the pseudo-Fermi points group velocities. In expression (A4) $\Phi_{\alpha\alpha '}(q,q')$ mesures the phase shift of the $\alpha '$ pseudoparticle of pseudomomentum $q'$ due to the forward-scattering collision with the $\alpha $ pseudoparticle of pseudomomentum $q$. These phase shifts determine the pseudoparticle interactions and are defined in Ref. [@Carmelo92]. They control the low-energy physics. For instance, the related parameters $$\xi_{\alpha\alpha '}^j = \delta_{\alpha\alpha '}+ \Phi_{\alpha\alpha '}(q_{F\alpha}^{(+)},q_{F\alpha '}^{(+)})+ (-1)^j\Phi_{\alpha\alpha '}(q_{F\alpha}^{(+)},q_{F\alpha '}^{(-)}) \, , \hspace{2cm} j=0,1 \, ,$$ play a determining role at the critical point. ($\xi_{\alpha\alpha '}^1$ are the entries of the transpose of the dressed-charge matrix [@Frahm].) The values at the pseudo-Fermi points of the $f$ functions (A4) include the parameters (A7) and define the Landau parameters, $$F_{\alpha\alpha'}^j = {1\over {2\pi}}\sum_{\iota =\pm 1}(\iota )^j f_{\alpha\alpha'}(q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)},\iota q_{F\alpha '}^{(\pm)}) \, , \hspace{1cm} j=0,1 \, .$$ These are also studied in Ref. [@Carmelo92]. The parameters $\delta_{\alpha ,\alpha'}v_{\alpha }+ F_{\alpha\alpha'}^j$ appear in the expressions of the low-energy quantities. We close this Appendix by introducing pseudoparticle-pseudohole operators which will appear in Sec. IV. Although the expressions in the pseudoparticle basis of one-electron operators remains an unsolved problem, in Ref. [@Carmelo94c] the electronic fluctuation operators $${\hat{\rho}}_{\sigma }(k)= \sum_{k'}c^{\dag }_{k'+k\sigma}c_{k'\sigma} \, ,$$ were expressed in terms of the pseudoparticle fluctuation operators $${\hat{\rho}}_{\alpha }(k)=\sum_{q}b^{\dag }_{q+k\alpha} b_{q\alpha} \, .$$ This study has revealed that $\iota =sgn (k)1=\pm 1$ electronic operators are made out of $\iota =sgn (q)1=\pm 1$ pseudoparticle operators only, $\iota $ defining the right ($\iota=1$) and left ($\iota=-1$) movers. Often it is convenient measuring the electronic momentum $k$ and pseudomomentum $q$ from the $U=0$ Fermi points $k_{F\sigma}^{(\pm)}=\pm \pi n_{\sigma}$ and pseudo-Fermi points $q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)}$, respectively. This adds the index $\iota$ to the electronic and pseudoparticle operators. The new momentum $\tilde{k}$ and pseudomomentum $\tilde{q}$ are such that $$\tilde{k} =k-k_{F\sigma}^{(\pm)} \, , \hspace{2cm} \tilde{q}=q-q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)} \, ,$$ respectively, for $\iota=\pm 1$. For instance, $${\hat{\rho}}_{\sigma ,\iota }(k)=\sum_{\tilde{k}} c^{\dag }_{\tilde{k}+k\sigma\iota}c_{\tilde{k}\sigma\iota} \, , \hspace{2cm} {\hat{\rho}}_{\alpha ,\iota }(k) = \sum_{\tilde{q}}b^{\dag }_{\tilde{q}+k\alpha\iota} b_{\tilde{q}\alpha\iota} \, .$$ In this Appendix we evaluate the expression for the topological-momenton generator $(17)-(19)$. In order to derive the expression for $U_c^{+1}$ we consider the Fourier transform of the pseudoparticle operator $b^{\dag}_{q,c}$ which reads $$\beta^{\dag}_{x,c} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{N_a}} \sum_{q_c^{(-)}}^{q_c^{(+)}} e^{-i q x} b^{\dag}_{q,c} \, .$$ From Eq. $(15)$ we arrive to $$U_c^{+1} \beta^{\dag}_{x,c} U_c^{-1} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{N_a}} \sum_{q_c^{(-)}}^{q_c^{(+)}} e^{-i q x} b^{\dag}_{q-\frac{\pi}{N_a},c} \, .$$ By performing a $\frac{\pi}{N_a}$ pseudomomentum translation we find $$U_c^{+1} \beta^{\dag}_{x,c} U_c^{-1} = e^{i\frac{\pi}{N_a} x}\beta^{\dag}_{x,c} \, ,$$ and it follows that $$\begin{aligned} U_{c}^{\pm 1} = \exp\left\{\pm i\frac{\pi}{N_a} \sum_{y}y\beta^{\dag}_{y,c}\beta_{y,c} \, , \right\}.\end{aligned}$$ By inverse-Fourier transforming expression (B4) we find expression $(17)-(19)$ for this unitary operator, which can be shown to also hold true for $U_{s}^{\pm 1}$. In this Appendix we derive the expressions for the matrix elements $(44)$ and $(51)$. At energy scales smaller than the gaps for the LWS’s II and non-LWS’s referred in this paper and in Refs. [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c] the expression of the $\sigma $ one-electron Green function $G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega)$ is fully defined in the two Hilbert sub spaces spanned by the final ground state $|0;f\rangle $ and associate $k=0$ excited states $|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0\rangle$ of form $(29)$ belonging the $N_{\sigma }+1$ sector and by a corresponding set of states belonging the $N_{\sigma }-1$ sector, respectively. Since $|0;f\rangle $ corresponds to zero values for all four numbers $(28)$ in this Appendix we use the notation $|0;f\rangle\equiv|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}=0\},l;k=0\rangle$. This allows a more compact notation for the state summations. The use of a Lehmann representation leads to $$G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) = G_{\sigma}^{(N_{\sigma }+1)} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) + G_{\sigma}^{(N_{\sigma }-1)} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) \, ,$$ where $$G_{\sigma}^{(N_{\sigma }+1)} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) = \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l} {|\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2\over {\omega - \omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}) + i\xi}} \, ,$$ has divergences for $\omega >0$ and $G_{\sigma}^{(N_{\sigma }-1)} (k_{F\sigma},\omega)$ has divergences for $\omega <0$. We emphasize that in the $\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}$ summation of the rhs of Eq. (C2), $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}=0$ for all four numbers refers to the final ground state, as we mentioned above. Below we consider positive but vanishing values of $\omega $ and, therefore, we need only to consider the function (C2). We note that at the conformal-field critical point [@Frahm; @Frahm91] the states which contribute to (C2) are such that the ratio $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}/N_a$ vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, $N_a\rightarrow 0$ [@Carmelo94b]. Therefore, in that limit the positive excitation energies $\omega (\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ of Eq. (C2), which are of the form $(38)$, are vanishing small. Replacing the full Green function by (C2) (by considering positive values of $\omega $ only) we find $$\lim_{N_a\to\infty}\hbox{Re}G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) = \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}}\left[ {\sum_{l} |\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2 \over {\omega }} \right] \, .$$ We emphasize that considering the limit (C3) implies that all the corresponding expressions for the $\omega $ dependent quantities we obtain in the following are only valid in the limit of vanishing positive energy $\omega $. Although many of these quantities are zero in that limit, their $\omega $ dependence has physical meaning because different quantities vanish as $\omega\rightarrow 0$ in different ways, as we discuss in Sec. IV. Therefore, our results allow the classification of the relative importance of the different quantities. In order to solve the present problem we have to combine a suitable generator pseudoparticle analysis [@Carmelo94b] with conformal-field theory [@Frahm; @Frahm91]. Let us derive an alternative expression for the Green function (C3). Comparison of both expressions leads to relevant information. This confirms the importance of the pseudoparticle operator basis [@Carmelo94; @Carmelo94b; @Carmelo94c] which allows an operator description of the conformal-field results for BA solvable many-electron problems [@Frahm; @Frahm91]. The asymptotic expression of the Green function in $x$ and $t$ space is given by the summation of many terms of form $(3.13)$ of Ref. [@Frahm] with dimensions of the fields suitable to that function. For small energy the Green function in $k$ and $\omega $ space is obtained by the summation of the Fourier transforms of these terms, which are of the form given by Eq. $(5.2)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91]. However, the results of Refs. [@Frahm; @Frahm91] do not provide the expression at $k=k_{F\sigma }$ and small positive $\omega $. In this case the above summation is equivalent to a summation in the final ground state and excited states of form $(29)$ obeying to Eqs. $(31)$, $(32)$, and $(34)$ which correspond to different values for the dimensions of the fields. We emphasize that expression $(5.7)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91] is not valid in our case. Let us use the notation $k_0=k_{F\sigma }$ (as in Eqs. $(5.6)$ and $(5.7)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91]). While we consider $(k-k_0)=(k-k_{F\sigma })=0$ expression $(5.7)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91] is only valid when $(k-k_0)=(k-k_{F\sigma })$ is small but finite. We have solved the following general integral $$\tilde{g}(k_0,\omega ) = \int_{0}^{\infty}dt e^{i\omega t}F(t) \, ,$$ where $$F(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}dx\prod_{\alpha ,\iota} {1\over {(x+\iota v_{\alpha }t)^{2\Delta_{\alpha }^{\iota}}}} \, ,$$ with the result $$\tilde{g}(k_0,\omega )\propto \omega^{[\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} 2\Delta_{\alpha }^{\iota}-2]} \, .$$ Comparing our expression (C6) with expression $(5.7)$ of Ref. [@Frahm91] we confirm these expressions are different. In the present case of the final ground state and excited states of form $(29)$ obeying Eqs. $(31)$, $(32)$, and $(34)$ we find that the dimensions of the fields are such that $$\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} 2\Delta_{\alpha }^{\iota}= 2+\varsigma_{\sigma}+2\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} \, ,$$ with $\varsigma_{\sigma}$ being the exponents $(47)$ and $(48)$. Therefore, equation (C6) can be rewritten as $$\tilde{g}(k_0,\omega )\propto \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma}+2\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}} \, .$$ Summing the terms of form (C8) corresponding to different states leads to an alternative expression for the function (C3) with the result $$\lim_{N_a\to\infty} \hbox{Re}G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) = \sum_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}}\left[ {a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}) \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma } + 1 + 2\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota} } \over {\omega }} \right] \, ,$$ or from Eq. $(34)$, $$\lim_{N_a\to\infty} \hbox{Re}G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega) = \sum_{j=0,1,2,...}\left[ {a^{\sigma }_j \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma } + 1 + 4j} \over {\omega }}\right] \, ,$$ where $a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})$ and $a^{\sigma }_j$ are complex constants. From equation (C10) we find $$\hbox{Re}\Sigma_{\sigma} ( k_{F\sigma},\omega ) = \omega - {1\over {\hbox{Re} G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma },\omega )}} = \omega [1-{\omega^{-1-\varsigma_{\sigma}}\over {a^{\sigma }_0+\sum_{j=1}^{\infty}a^{\sigma }_j\omega^{4j}}}] \, .$$ While the function $Re G_{\sigma} (k_{F\sigma},\omega)$ (C9)-(C10) diverges as $\omega\rightarrow 0$, following the form of the self energy (C11) the one-electron renormalization factor $(45)$ vanishes and there is no overlap between the quasiparticle and the electron, in contrast to a Fermi liquid. (In equation (C11) $\varsigma_{\sigma}\rightarrow -1$ and $a^{\sigma }_0\rightarrow 1$ when $U\rightarrow 0$.) Comparision of the terms of expressions (C3) and (C9) with the same $\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}$ values, which refer to contributions from the same set of $N_{\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}}$ Hamiltonian eigenstates $|\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0\rangle$ and refer to the limit $\omega\rightarrow 0$, leads to $$\sum_{l} |\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2 = \lim_{\omega\to 0} a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\})\, \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma } + 1 + 2\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}} = 0\, .$$ Note that the functions of the rhs of Eq. (C12) corresponding to different matrix elements go to zero with different exponents. On the other hand, as for the corresponding excitation energies $(38)$, the dependence of functions associated with the amplitudes $|\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |$ on the vanishing energy $\omega $ is $l$ independent. Therefore, we find $$|\langle \{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l;k=0| c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2 = \lim_{\omega\to 0} a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)\, \omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma } + 1 + 2\sum_{\alpha ,\iota} N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}} = 0\, ,$$ where the constants $a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l)$ are $l$ dependent and obey the normalization condition $$a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\}) = \sum_{l} a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}\},l) \, .$$ It follows that the matrix elements of Eq. (C12) have the form given in Eq. $(51)$. Moreover, following our notation for the final ground state when the four $N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}$ vanish Eq. (C13) leads to $$|\langle 0;f|c^{\dag }_{k_{F\sigma},\sigma}|0;i\rangle |^2 = \lim_{\omega\to 0} a^{\sigma }_0\,\omega^{\varsigma_{\sigma } + 1} = \lim_{\omega\to 0} Z_{\sigma}(\omega) = Z_{\sigma} = 0 \, ,$$ where $a^{\sigma }_0=a^{\sigma }(\{N_{ph}^{\alpha ,\iota}=0\},l)$ is a positive real constant and $Z_{\sigma}(\omega)$ is the function $(49)$. Following equation (C11) the function $Z_{\sigma}(\omega)$ is given by the leading-order term of expression $(46)$. Since $a^{\sigma }_0$ is real and positive expression $(44)$ follows from Eq. (C15). In this Appendix we confirm that the finite two-quasiparticle functions $(60)$ of form $(62)$ which are generated from the divergent two-electron vertex functions $(59)$ by the singular electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$ control the charge and spin static quantities of the 1D many-electron problem. On the one hand, the parameters $v_{\rho}^{\iota}$ and $v_{\sigma_z}^{\iota}$ of Eq. $(59)$ can be shown to be fully determined by the two-quasiparticle functions $(60)$. By inverting relations $(60)$ with the vertices given by Eq. $(59)$ expressions $(61)$ follow. Physically, the singular electron - quasiparticle transformation $(58)$ maps the divergent two-electron functions onto the finite parameters $(60)$ and $(61)$. On the other hand, the “velocities” $(61)$ play a relevant role in the charge and spin conservation laws and are simple combinations of the zero-momentum two-pseudoparticle forward-scattering $f$ functions and amplitudes introduced in Refs. [@Carmelo92] and [@Carmelo92b], respectively. Here we follow Ref. [@Carmelo94c] and use the general parameter $\vartheta $ which refers to $\vartheta =\rho$ for charge and $\vartheta =\sigma_z$ for spin. The interesting quantity associated with the equation of motion for the operator ${\hat{\rho}}_{\vartheta }^{(\pm)}(k,t)$ defined in Ref. [@Carmelo94c] is the following ratio $${i\partial_t {\hat{\rho}}_{\vartheta }^{(\pm)}(k,t)\over k}|_{k=0} = {[{\hat{\rho}}_{\vartheta }^{(\pm)}(k,t), :\hat{{\cal H}}:]\over k}|_{k=0} = v_{\vartheta}^{\mp 1} {\hat{\rho}}_{\vartheta }^{(\mp)}(0,t) \, ,$$ where the functions $v_{\vartheta}^{\pm 1}$ $(61)$ are closely related to two-pseudoparticle forward-scattering quantities as follows $$\begin{aligned} v_{\vartheta}^{+1} & = & {1\over {\left[\sum_{\alpha ,\alpha'}{k_{\vartheta\alpha}k_{\vartheta\alpha'} \over {v_{\alpha}v_{\alpha '}}} \left(v_{\alpha}\delta_{\alpha ,\alpha '} - {[A_{\alpha\alpha '}^{1}+ A_{\alpha\alpha '}^{-1}] \over {2\pi}}\right)\right]}}\nonumber \\ & = & {1\over {\left[\sum_{\alpha}{1\over {v_{\alpha}}} \left(\sum_{\alpha'}k_{\vartheta\alpha '}\xi_{\alpha\alpha '}^1\right)^2\right]}} \, ,\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned} v_{\vartheta}^{-1} & = & \sum_{\alpha ,\alpha'}k_{\vartheta\alpha}k_{\vartheta\alpha'} \left(v_{\alpha}\delta_{\alpha ,\alpha '} + {[f_{\alpha\alpha '}^{1}- f_{\alpha\alpha '}^{-1}]\over {2\pi}}\right)\nonumber \\ & = & \sum_{\alpha}v_{\alpha} \left(\sum_{\alpha'}k_{\vartheta\alpha '} \xi_{\alpha\alpha '}^1\right)^2 \, .\end{aligned}$$ Here $k_{\vartheta\alpha}$ are integers given by $k_{\rho c}=k_{\sigma_{z} c}=1$, $k_{\rho s}=0$, and $k_{\sigma_{z} s}=-2$, and the parameters $\xi_{\alpha\alpha '}^j$ are defined in Eq. (A7). In the rhs of Eqs. (D2) and (D3) $v_{\alpha }$ are the $\alpha $ pseudoparticle group velocities (A6), the $f$ functions are given in Eq. (A4) and $A_{\alpha\alpha'}^{1}=A_{\alpha\alpha' }(q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)}, q_{F\alpha'}^{(\pm)})$ and $A_{\alpha\alpha'}^{-1}= A_{\alpha\alpha'}(q_{F\alpha}^{(\pm)}, q_{F\alpha'}^{(\mp)})$, where $A_{\alpha\alpha'}(q,q')$ are the scattering amplitudes given by Eqs. $(83)-(85)$ of Ref. [@Carmelo92b]. The use of relations $(61)$ and of Eqs. (A5), (A6), (A8), (D2), and (D3) shows that the parameters $(60)$ and corresponding charge and spin velocities $v_{\vartheta}^{\pm 1}$ can also be expressed in terms of the pseudoparticle group velocities (A6) and Landau parameters (A8). These expressions are given in Eq. $(62)$ and in the Table. The charge and spin velocities control all static quantities of the many-electron system. They determine, for example, the charge and spin susceptibilities, $$K^{\vartheta }={1\over {\pi v_{\vartheta}^{+1}}} \, ,$$ and the coherent part of the charge and spin conductivity spectrum, $v_{\vartheta}^{-1}\delta (\omega )$, respectively [@Carmelo92; @Carmelo92b; @Carmelo94c]. D. Pines and P. Nozières, in [*The Theory of Quantum Liquids*]{}, (Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, 1989), Vol. I. Gordon Baym and Christopher J. Pethick, in [*Landau Fermi-Liquid Theory Concepts and Applications*]{}, (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1991). J. Sólyom, Adv. Phys. [**28**]{}, 201 (1979). F. D. M. Haldane, J. Phys. C [**14**]{}, 2585 (1981). I. E. Dzyaloshinskii and A. I. Larkin, Sov. Phys. JETP [**38**]{}, 202 (1974); Walter Metzner and Carlo Di Castro, Phys. Rev. B [**47**]{}, 16 107 (1993). This ansatz was introduced for the case of the isotropic Heisenberg chain by H. A. Bethe, Z. Phys. [**71**]{}, 205 (1931). 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B [**43**]{}, 8401 (1991). V. Medem and K. Schönhammer, Phys. Rev. B [**46**]{}, 15 753 (1992). J. Voit, Phys. Rev. B [**47**]{}, 6740 (1993). TABLE *= *$v^{\iota}_{\rho }$ = *$v^{\iota}_{\sigma_z }$\ $\iota = -1$ $v_c + F^1_{cc}$ $v_c + F^1_{cc} + 4(v_s + F^1_{ss} - F^1_{cs})$\ $\iota = 1$ $(v_s + F^0_{ss})/L^0$ $(v_s + F^0_{ss} + 4[v_c + F^0_{cc} + F^0_{cs}])/L^0$\ \[tableI\]*** Table I - Alternative expressions of the parameters $v^{\iota}_{\rho }$ (D1)-(D4) and $v^{\iota}_{\sigma_z }$ (D2)-(D5) in terms of the pseudoparticle velocities $v_{\alpha}$ (A6) and Landau parameters $F^j_{\alpha\alpha '}$ (A8), where $L^0=(v_c+F^0_{cc}) (v_s+F^0_{ss})-(F^0_{cs})^2$.

Q: How to remove an added value by uncheck box? Hi I have check box to add a value on click. However, It also adds even if I unchecked the box. How can I remove the added value when I uncheck the box? Thank you! $('.addCheckBox').click( function( event ){ var btn = $(event.currentTarget); var Data = btn.data(); var addList = $('#ListBtn'); var Obj = { aID: Data.id, aName: Data.name }; addList.push( Obj ); addListBtn[0].innerHTML = "(" + addList.length + ") in List"; }); A: $('.addCheckBox').click(function (event) { if ($('.addCheckBox').is(':checked')) { var btn = $(event.currentTarget); var Data = btn.data(); var addList = $('#ListBtn'); var Obj = { aID: Data.id, aName: Data.name }; addList.push({"myData":Obj}); console.log(addList); }else{ var addList = $('#ListBtn'); addList.remove("myData"); console.log(addList); } });

Q: Rails/Passenger/Apache: Simple one-off URL redirect to catch stale DNS after server move One of my rails apps (using passenger and apache) is changing server hosts. I've got the app running on both servers (the new one in testing) and the DNS TTL to 5 minutes. I've been told (and experienced something like this myself) by a colleague that sometimes DNS resolvers slightly ignore the TTL and may have the old IP cached for some time after I update DNS to the new server. So, after I've thrown the switch on DNS, what I'd like to do is hack the old server to issue a forced redirect to the IP address of the new server for all visitors. Obviously I can do a number of redirects (301, 302) in either Apache or the app itself. I'd like to avoid the app method since I don't want to do a checkin and deploy of code just for this one instance so I was thinking a basic http url redirect would work. Buuttt, there are SEO implications should google visit the old site etc. etc. How best to achieve the re-direct whilst maintaining search engine niceness? A: I guess the question is - where would you redirect to? If you are redirecting to the domain name, the browser (or bot) would just get the same old IP address and end up in a redirect loop. If you redirect to an IP address.. well, that's not going to look very user friendly in someone's browser. Personally, I wouldn't do anything. There may be some short period where bots get errors trying to access your site, but it should all work itself out in a couple days without any "SEO damage"

Q: Improving the performance of a webscraper I have here a modified version of a web scraping code I wrote some weeks back. With some help from this forum, this modified version is faster (at 4secs per iteration) than the earlier version. However, I need to run many iterations (over 1million) which is so much time. Is there any way to further enhance its performance? Thank you. sample data (data.csv) Code Origin 1 Eisenstadt 2 Tirana 3 St Pölten Hbf 6 Wien Westbahnhof 7 Wien Hauptbahnhof 8 Klagenfurt Hbf 9 Villach Hbf 11 Graz Hbf 12 Liezen Code: import csv from functools import wraps from datetime import datetime, time import urllib2 from mechanize import Browser from bs4 import BeautifulSoup, SoupStrainer # function to group elements of a list def group(lst, n): return zip(*[lst[i::n] for i in range(n)]) # function to convert time string to minutes def get_min(time_str): h, m = time_str.split(':') return int(h) * 60 + int(m) # Delay function incase of network disconnection def retry(ExceptionToCheck, tries=1000, delay=3, backoff=2, logger=None): def deco_retry(f): @wraps(f) def f_retry(*args, **kwargs): mtries, mdelay = tries, delay while mtries > 1: try: return f(*args, **kwargs) except ExceptionToCheck, e: msg = "%s, Retrying in %d seconds..." % (str(e), mdelay) if logger: logger.warning(msg) else: print msg time.sleep(mdelay) mtries -= 1 mdelay *= backoff return f(*args, **kwargs) return f_retry # true decorator return deco_retry def datareader(datafile): """ This function reads the cities data from csv file and processes them into an O-D for input into the web scrapper """ # Read the csv with open(datafile, 'r') as f: reader = csv.reader(f) next(reader, None) ListOfCities = [lines for lines in reader] temp = ListOfCities[:] city_num = [] city_orig_dest = [] for i in ListOfCities: for j in temp: ans1 = i[0], j[0] if ans1[0] != ans1[1]: city_num.append(ans1) ans = (unicode(i[1], 'iso-8859-1'), unicode(j[1], 'iso-8859-1'), i[0], j[0]) if ans[0] != ans[1] and ans[2] != ans[3]: city_orig_dest.append(ans) yield city_orig_dest input_data = datareader('data.csv') def webscrapper(x): """ This function scraped the required website and extracts the quickest connection time within given time durations """ #Create a browser object br = Browser() # Ignore robots.txt br.set_handle_robots(False) # Google demands a user-agent that isn't a robot br.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Chrome')] @retry(urllib2.URLError, tries=1000, delay=3, backoff=2) def urlopen_with_retry(): try: # Retrieve the website, return br.open('http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en') except urllib2.HTTPError, e: print e.code except urllib2.URLError, e: print e.args # call the retry function urlopen_with_retry() # Select the 6th form on the webpage br.select_form(nr=6) # Assign origin and destination to the o d variables o = i[0].encode('iso-8859-1') d = i[1].encode('iso-8859-1') print 'o-d:', i[0], i[1] # Enter the text input (This section should be automated to read multiple text input as shown in the question) br.form["REQ0JourneyStopsS0G"] = o # Origin train station (From) br.form["REQ0JourneyStopsZ0G"] = d # Destination train station (To) br.form["REQ0JourneyTime"] = x # Search Time br.form["date"] = '10.05.17' # Search Date # Get the search results br.submit() connections_times = [] ListOfSearchTimes = [] #Click the LATER link a given number of times times to get MORE trip times for _ in xrange(3): # Read the result of each click and convert to response for beautiful soup formatting for l in br.links(text='Later'): response = br.follow_link(l) # get the response from mechanize Browser parse_only = SoupStrainer("table", class_="hfs_overview") soup = BeautifulSoup(br.response(), 'lxml', from_encoding="utf-8", parse_only=parse_only) trs = soup.select('tr') # Scrape the search results from the resulting table for tr in trs: locations = tr.select('td.location') if locations: time = tr.select('td.time')[0].contents[0].strip() ListOfSearchTimes.append(time.encode('latin-1')) durations = tr.select('td.duration') # Check that the duration cell is not empty if not durations: duration = '' else: duration = durations[0].contents[0].strip() # Convert duration time string to minutes connections_times.append(get_min(duration)) arrivals_and_departure_pair = group(ListOfSearchTimes, 2) #Check that the selected departures for one interval occurs before the departure of the next interval fmt = '%H:%M' finalDepartureList = [] for idx, res in arrivals_and_departure_pair: t1 = datetime.strptime(idx, fmt) if x == '05:30': control = datetime.strptime('09:00', fmt) elif x == '09:00': control = datetime.strptime('12:00', fmt) elif x == '12:00': control = datetime.strptime('15:00', fmt) elif x == '15:00': control = datetime.strptime('18:00', fmt) elif x == '18:00': control = datetime.strptime('21:00', fmt) else: x == '21:00' control = datetime.strptime('05:30', fmt) if t1 < control: finalDepartureList.append(idx) # Get the the list of connection times for the departures above fastest_connect = connections_times[:len(finalDepartureList)] # Return the result of the search if not fastest_connect: return [i[2], i[3], NO_CONNECTION] else: return [i[2], i[3], str(min(fastest_connect))] NO_CONNECTION = '999999' # List of time intervals times = ['05:30', '09:00', '12:00', '15:00', '18:00', '21:00'] # Write the heading of the output text file headings = ["from_BAKCode", "to_BAKCode", "interval", "duration"] with open("output.txt", "w+") as f: f.write(','.join(headings)) f.write('\n') if __name__ == "__main__": for ind, i in enumerate(input_data.next()): print 'index', ind for ind, t in enumerate(times): result = webscrapper(t) result.insert(2, str(ind + 1)) print 'result:', result print with open("output.txt", "a") as f: f.write(','.join(result[0:4])) f.write('\n') A: There is a major limitation. Your code is of a blocking nature - you process timetable searches sequentially - one at a time. I really think you should switch to Scrapy web-scraping framework - it is fast, pluggable and entirely asynchronous. As a bonus point, you will be able to scale your spider to multiple instances or multiple machines. For example, you may divide your input data evenly into N parts and run a spider instance for every part (check out scrapyd). Here is a sample spider that works for a single timetable search: import scrapy TIMES = ['05:30', '09:00', '12:00', '15:00', '18:00', '21:00'] DEFAULT_PARAMS = { "changeQueryInputData=yes&start": "Search connection", "REQ0Total_KissRideMotorClass": "404", "REQ0Total_KissRideCarClass": "5", "REQ0Total_KissRide_maxDist": "10000000", "REQ0Total_KissRide_minDist": "0", "REQComparisonCarload": "0", "REQ0JourneyStopsS0A": "255", "REQ0JourneyStopsZ0A": "255", "REQ0JourneyStops1.0G": "", "REQ0JourneyStops1.0A": "1", "REQ0JourneyStopover1": "" } def merge_two_dicts(x, y): """Given two dicts, merge them into a new dict as a shallow copy.""" z = x.copy() z.update(y) return z class FahrplanSpider(scrapy.Spider): name = "fahrplan" allowed_domains = ["fahrplan.sbb.ch"] def start_requests(self): params = { "REQ0JourneyStopsS0G": "Eisenstadt", "REQ0JourneyStopsZ0G": "Tirano, Stazione", "date": "27.02.17", "REQ0JourneyTime": "17:00" } formdata = merge_two_dicts(DEFAULT_PARAMS, params) yield scrapy.FormRequest("http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en", method="POST", formdata=formdata) def parse(self, response): for trip_time in response.css("table.hfs_overview tr td.time::text").extract(): print(trip_time.strip()) If you want to take it further, you should do the following: use the datareader() results in the start_requests() method and start a form request for every input item define an Item class and yield/return it in the parse() callback use an "Item Pipeline" to "pipe" your items into the output file I understand that there is a lot of new information for you, but doing web-scraping for a long time, I can say that's really worth it, especially performance-wise.

Teixeira: Klopp gives confidence to challenge for Liverpool FC first team The Portuguese midfielder is looking forward to playing more minutes under the Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp manager of Liverpool hugs Joao Teixeira of Liverpool during The Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round between Liverpool and West Ham United at Anfield on January 30, 2016 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images) “I’m training hard, working hard and giving my best so that when I have a chance to play, I play the best I can.” The 23-year-old playmaker has played seven times for Liverpool, with six of those appearances coming under Klopp. He is one of a number of inexperienced players the German boss has handed opportunities to since his arrival – and Teixeira believes that is giving all the youngsters a boost. He added: “We have had a lot of games, two games a week at least. You can’t play with the same 11 players, so you have to change the team. He has trusted the young players and they have been doing well. “He gives us confidence and always tells us to enjoy the game, not to be afraid and to do our best. The young players have been showing that. “He always gives me a lot of confidence to play my game, to be free on the pitch and not to be afraid. Confidence is the most important thing for a player. “When someone is behind you and pushes you all the time – saying ‘you can do it’, ‘you will do it’ – it is good because it gives you confidence. You know you have the support from the manager. You can see he is a very passionate person for football and everything he does. It’s great to have his support. “Klopp has showed [his confidence] in the cup games – FA Cup and Capital One Cup. He has been playing the young players and showed confidence. “We’re young and have a big desire. We want to play more. We don’t have anything to lose, it’s the opposite. Every minute we play is to win and to show how good we are and can be. That’s what all of the younger players are trying to do now.”

Hungry generation The Hungry Generation () was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet, i.e. Binoy Mazumdar, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy (alias Haradhon Dhara), during the 1960s in Kolkata, India. Due to their involvement in this avant garde cultural movement, the leaders lost their jobs and were jailed by the incumbent government. They challenged contemporary ideas about literature and contributed significantly to the evolution of the language and idiom used by contemporaneous artists to express their feelings in literature and painting. The approach of the Hungryalists was to confront and disturb the prospective readers' preconceived colonial canons. According to Pradip Choudhuri, a leading philosopher and poet of the generation, whose works have been extensively translated in French, their counter-discourse was the first voice of post-colonial freedom of pen and brush. Besides the famous four mentioned above, Utpal Kumar Basu, Binoy Majumdar, Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Basudeb Dasgupta, Falguni Roy, Subhash Ghosh, Tridib Mitra, Alo Mitra, Ramananda Chattopadhyay, Anil Karanjai, Saileswar Ghosh, Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay, and Subo Acharya were among the other leading writers and artists of the movement. Origins The origins of this movement stem from the educational establishments serving Chaucer and Spengler to the poor of India. The movement was officially launched, however, in November 1961 from the residence of Malay Roy Choudhury and his brother Samir Roychoudhury in Patna. They took the word Hungry from Geoffrey Chaucer's line "In Sowre Hungry Tyme" and they drew upon, among others, Oswald Spengler's histriographical ideas about the non-centrality of cultural evolution and progression, for philosophical inspiration. The movement was to last from 1961 to 1965. It is wrong to suggest that the movement was influenced by the Beat Generation, since Ginsberg did not visit Malay until April 1963, when he came to Patna. Poets Octavio Paz and Ernesto Cardenal were to visit Malay later during the 1960s. The hungry generation has some of the same ideals as The Papelipolas and the Barranquilla Group, both from Colombia, and the Spanish Generation of 68. History This movement is characterized by expression of closeness to nature and sometimes by tenets of Gandhianism and Proudhonianism. Although it originated at Patna, Bihar and was initially based in Kolkata, it had participants spread over North Bengal, Tripura and Benares. According to Dr. Shankar Bhattacharya, Dean at Assam University, as well as Aryanil Mukherjee, editor of Kaurab Literary Periodical, the movement influenced Allen Ginsberg as much as it influenced American poetry through the Beat poets who visited Calcutta, Patna and Benares during the 1960-1970s. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, now a professor and editor, was associated with the Hungry generation movement. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Saileswar Ghosh, Subhas Ghosh left the movement in 1964. More than 100 manifestos were issued during 1961-1965. Malay's poems have been published by Prof P. Lal from his Writers Workshop publication. Howard McCord published Malay Roy Choudhury's controversial poem Prachanda Boidyutik Chhutar i.e., Stark Electric Jesus from Washington State University in 1965. The poem has been translated into several languages of the world. Into German by Carl Weissner,in Spanish by Margaret Randall, in Urdu by Ameeq Hanfee, in Assamese by Manik Dass, in Gujarati by Nalin Patel, in Hindi by Rajkamal Chaudhary, and in English by Howard McCord. Impact The works of these participants appeared in Citylights Journal 1, 2 and 3 published between 1964 and 1966, edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and in special issues of American magazines including Kulchur edited by Lita Hornick, Klactoveedsedsteen edited by Carl Weissner, El Corno Emplunado edited by Margaret Randall, Evergreen Review edited by Barney Rosset, Salted Feathersedited by Dick Bakken, Intrepid edited by Alan De Loach, and San Francisco Earthquake, during the 1960s. The Hungry Generation, also known as Hungryalism, challenged the mainstream literary genres. The group wrote poetry and prose in completely different forms and experimented with the contents. The movement changed the literary atmosphere of Bengal altogether. It had influences in Hindi, Marathi, Assamese and Urdu literatures. Hungryalists and Krittibas There is a misconception that the Hungryalists and the Krittibas group were the same and that the Krittibas magazine was a Hungryalist platform. This is incorrect as the Krittibas was a group from the fifties. The Hungryalist movement was a sixties decade phenomenon. Krittibas magazine in its editorial had openly declared that they have no relations with the movement and that they do not approve of the philosophy of the movement. References Sources The autobiography of Malay Roy Choudhury is available in Vol 215 of "Contemporary Authors" published by Thomas Gale. () There are Hungry Generation Archives in Northwestern University in Illinois as well as Bangla Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At Kolkata the Little Magazine Library and Research Centre run by Sandip Dutta has a separate section on the Hungryalist publications as well as trial papers of the famous Hungry generation case in which some of the colleagues of Malay turned against the movement and gave undertakings to have withdrawn from the movement. Trial papers are archived in Bankshall Court, Kolkata (9th Court of Presidency Magistrate), Case No. GR. 579 of 1965; State of West Bengal Vs Malay Roy Choudhury Hungry Kimbadanti written by Malay Roy Choudhury and published by De Books, Kolkata (1997) Hungry Andolon issue of Haowa 49 magazine (2003) edited by Samir Roychoudhury and Murshid A. M. Hungry Andolon O Drohopurush Kotha written by Dr. Bishnu Chandra Dey and published by Sahayatri, Kolkata 700 009 (2013) Chandragrahan Hungry Andolon Special issue edited by Pranabkumar Chattopadhyay2, Dumdum, Kolkata 700 030 (October 2014) External links BBC Documentary on Hungryalist movement The Hungry Generation (TIME 1964) Hungryalist Movement: A Photo-Text Album Hungry Generation (blog) * Category:Culture of Kolkata Category:Bengali-language literature Category:Bengali language Category:Indian literary movements

Q: C++ add new code during runtime I am using C++ (in xcode and code::blocks), I don't know much. I want to make something compilable during runtime. for eg: char prog []={"cout<<"helloworld " ;} It should compile the contents of prog. I read a bit about quines , but it didn't help me . A: It's sort of possible, but not portably, and not simply. Basically, you have to write the code out to a file, then compile it to a dll (invoking the compiler with system), and then load the dll. The first is simple, the last isn't too difficult (but will require implementation specific code), but the middle step can be challenging: obviously, it only works if the compiler is installed on the system, but you have to find where it is installed, verify that it is the same version (or at least a version which generates binary compatible code), invoke it with the same options that were used when your code was compiled, and process any errors. C++ wasn't designed for this. (Compiled languages generally aren't.)

Q: Error when data contract member refer each other i have a simple data contract which is have a data member that refer to each other, here are the data member: [DataContract(Namespace = "", Name = "ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage")] public class ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage { [DataMember] public int ScaleTransactionHeaderMessageId { get; set; } [DataMember] public string OperatorName { get; set; } [DataMember] public string Shift { get; set; } [DataMember] public string Source { get; set; } [DataMember] public string Destination { get; set; } **[DataMember] public List<ScaleTransactionDetailMessage> ScaleTransactionDetailMessages { get; set; }** } [DataContract(Namespace = "", Name = "ScaleTransactionDetailMessage")] public class ScaleTransactionDetailMessage { [DataMember] public int ScaleTransactionDetailMessageId { get; set; } [DataMember] public double Tonnage { get; set; } [DataMember] public DateTime TransactionDetailDate { get; set; } **[DataMember] public ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage scaleTransactionHeaderMessage { get; set; }** } Here is the operation causing the problem private static ScaleTransactionDetailMessage ConvertTransactionDetail(ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage headerMessage, ScaleTransactionDetail transactionDetail) { ScaleTransactionDetailMessage detailMessage = new ScaleTransactionDetailMessage { Tonnage = transactionDetail.Tonnage, TransactionDetailDate = transactionDetail.TransactionDetailDate, ScaleTransactionDetailMessageId = transactionDetail.TransactionDetailId, //TODO: Check why this is not working **scaleTransactionHeaderMessage = headerMessage** }; return detailMessage; } The problem is every time i add ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage in the ScaleTransactionDetailMessage data contract i always got an error mentioning connection timeout, i'm sure this is not configuration issue since if i did not add the value to the ScaleTransactionHeaderMessage in the operation contract the service can running properly. i have unit test the operation and it is working properly, the problem only appear when invoking the service. Is there any mistakes in the data contract design ? A: You need to add IsReference = true to the DataContract: [DataContract(IsReference=true] Take a look here.

The Galaxy is in turmoil: Lord Cracken, son of the emperor, is dead, and the Imperial Remnant threatens to tear itself apart. Meanwhile, the Heloki have been unleashed, and the Prophecies of the Blood Scrolls are close to coming to pass... Not a bad opening, Deac, but you did forget BD's stuff, as I'm sure he'll point out if he pops his head in here. )) Coruscant, Waste Reclamation Facility Voice: Are you going to attack me? Well... if that's what you want. It won't do you or I much good. Not that much of anything you people does you lots of good. Still, we can't do much to hurt each other. I've long been beyond any being's touch. Except Hers, of course. Official Forum Expert on Norse Mythology As Odin says in the Hovamal:"Praise no day 'til evening; no wife 'til on her pyre; no sword 'til tested; no maid 'til bedded; no ice 'til crossed; no ale 'til drunk." ((WTF. I've had problems accessing this website for the past week or so, and when I try it from another computer it works just fine. SIGH. For the record, I've always read it was "Deek". P.S. reply to PtH, Deac! EDIT: Erk, sorry Scar, I'll get to Tatooine ASAP.)) Coruscant, Waste Reclamation Facility Voice: Must 'suck'? You have no idea. What it's like to have no body, you mean. It's been hard to keep the world in focus... no, not world, worlds. Worlds without number. Dizzying. You lose focus. You lose all understanding. Forget how to see, hear, touch, speak. I don't doubt I would've dissolved into a sea of stardust, floating mindlessly around the universe for eternity, if not for... You want to know what I want? Redemption. I want to save the galaxy. And I'm going to use you to do it. Why you? Because you won't - you can't - say no. You are psychologically incapable of refusing to save the galaxy, of turning down the chance to be a champion. That's what I mean when I say I know you, Deac Starkiller. I know you're going to say yes. Why is it? I always seem to do it. Is it because I saw half my world burn at the hands of the Empire, not once, but twice? Is it because I think I owe an alien god that saved me from becoming another laboratory experiment? Or is it because...*he remembers a blue haired young woman from a long time ago*...that I owe it to her. I "think all of the above" probably covers it. Deac: Alright, you want to save the galaxy, and you want me to help. It won't be my first time. I'll help you, but you're going to need to tell me who you are, what's threatening the galaxy, and how we're going to save it. *The view was specatular, the enomious structure ment to appear as a figure 8. Made from metal found a mile underneith the surface of the colonial planet. When activated the structure creates a wormwhole from both openings. One was ment outgoing from this system. One coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Talon grined at the opertunities that would outcome of this. He sat in the rear of the shuttle craft as it steamed onward to it's destination. The HQ of the contruction efforts rested on a smaller orbital platform tethered to the central platform that connected, what would in time, be the two vast openings. Large enough to send battle cruisers through... Talon winced as a sharp pain in his mind enteres. No. It can't be...* Behomoth *telepathically* 'I find it quite insteresting to find you in this neck of the universe, and I thought I got away from you. Wait, wasn't you who threw me into an oblivion? Good thing I still had my support system...' Talon *replying back* 'Quiet. It's none of your business how I'm here, or what I'm doing here. Stay out of my mind.' Behomoth 'It's your fault in the first place. You made me, rather you made Davin. And he shared a piece of your, what was, human soul...' Talon 'I said quiet!' Behomoth 'Touchy. You still trying to get that back? The man in the white suit meat you again? All your power, and you're still a silly sod.' *Talon shakes his head hard. And forces the pain away. Bastard, he thought, the excuse for invading my thoughts, only becuase we had once shared a human soul. They're both demons. Full blood. Vicious, killing monsters. And for how meny hundreds of years? Pathetic how Behomoth carries on.* "If he's here, then how long has he been here? Does he know whats out there that I might be able to expect? No. I don't expect him to be. I'll have to arrange another meeting with my old friend..." ((damn, almost 4 mounts and counting. I wonder what it means when you say i'll do it eventually... btw: you all suck. :P i've desided that I need to break reality, cus why? it sucks. Kyle: post again.)) Tatoonie: Basement Lounge *Behomoth rubs his temples, the strain causes a little irritation for himself as well. But it surprised him that Talon would find his way out here in this universe. Where ever it was he was lurking. Apparently controlling an empire on Earth and the Solar System wasn't good enough. Behomoth wondered if Talon ran into that man in the white suit again.* behind behomoth "Tell me there demon? Looks of you, you needs some medicine..." *refering to the apparent headache Behomoth "Sung'chi, can it. Don't you have something better to do? What's the news on more contracts. My wallet hasn't been getting enough attention as of late." Sung'chi "Was about to head down myself. But I wasn't going to go down and tell you about it. You seemed not interested as of late. You are an assasin aren't you?" Behomoth "Well since I did that mission with the military-man, and got a little bit of a licking from that, what do they call em, Jedi... I haven't had the need to go into the inner sector." He stands up from his seat and heads to the elevator to the lower level. Heh... well, I've returned to the Forum after my six month stint of trying to pretend I didn't want to be here (been like six months since I came back, too... interesting...), so I'm around... though I'm not sure exactly what's going on with any of my characters at the moment... ((wouldnt mind picking up...just forgot where i left off...been in SWG alot lately)) Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions-- mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression. Huh. I suppose I should ask the obvious: Anyone interested in continuing? I am, but only if a majority of the old players are... I was supposed to spin up an apocalypse in this thread. I'm sure I can still oblige. (And, if anyone's interested in helping out with it, we could do that too! A co-apocalypse?) (Yes, I know that I should be talking about this in the discussion thread, but that's silly if we don't end up starting the thread again. And with my magical mod powers of magicalness, I can always move it there.) Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions-- mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression. Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions-- mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression. Well, if y'all are in, I'm in. I would like to pull off this apocalypse, just because I spent so much time setting it up . But yeah, if people are interested, I'm totally up for a reboot. What do you suggest, BD? We need to streamline the story somewhat. I would suggest that everyone write a summary od what their characters have done and we try to create a synopsis, rather than going back over the last two threads to try and work out all the nuances of what we were doing a year and a half ago. i remember before i joined it, i read through ALL of them....the first few were the most interesting, after that it was like 'ok wtf is going on this isn't star wars...' but that's just me. Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions-- mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression. Battle is a pure form of expression. It is heart and discipline, reduced to movement and motion. In battle, the words are swept away, giving way to actions-- mercy, sacrifice, anger, fear. These are pure moments of expression. We need to streamline the story somewhat. I would suggest that everyone write a summary od what their characters have done and we try to create a synopsis, rather than going back over the last two threads to try and work out all the nuances of what we were doing a year and a half ago. I totally missed this post, but that's a great idea, BD. Quote: Originally Posted by Writer Well, I don't have a clue what the hell any of my characters were doing, so... maybe a reboot would suit me better Hey, we could always go with "a summary of what their characters have done that we care about." XD Maybe even have a semi-reboot in the style of a time skip, in which anything we don't care about anymore gets resolved offscreen. After all, the title of the thread is "Apocalypse", not "Apocalypse: Now".

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim It's possible that the reason I'm replaying Skyrim yet again is that maybe I want to expect that my choice or say in a matter holds weight, holds meaning towards the end of a long adventure. Extra Credits started doing episodes on agency and the illusion of choice and I have to say, yes , I agree with them. After defeating Alduin (where the victory felt hollow to me), killing Miraak and Harkon, everyone still treats me with a resounding MEH. I never join the Stormcloaks or the Empire because I'm rather tempted by Clavicus Vile's offer to kill off everyone so there'd be no one left to fight. Bam, no more fighting. Did I catch Bethesda trying to create the illusion of choice but failing miserably? Or is it because there's a lack of consequence I'm detecting faintly? Does Skyrim have enough choice to make it feel like what you choose has agency? Mods help, you can screw up compleately if you set the characters to mortal, then killing them, of course, why would you do that when you could potencially set the game off its rails and crash. Mods which add expansion, help somewhat, but do include the set off of being incompatible with some quests and mods. I think Bethesda either made some poor choices in putting together the side quests or simply ran out of time to finish them, as the Mage's College especially is very very short, to give one example of a common gripe.. But even so, they all follow predefined arcs that were never designed to allow for multiple paths and outcomes at the end, same goes for the main quest, and so on.. Looking back on it, pretty much all the others were the same too though, there wasn't too much recognition of the character after completion of side quest lines or main quests in either Morrowind or Oblivion aside from the odd line of dialogue or reward for being a guild master (amounting to a weapon, spell, armor etc usually), etc. Personally I play Skyrim for the sandbox gameplay and mods, as the choice based action that you refered to is a much more prominent thing in other games. It'd be awesome to see that kind of thing implemented in an open world game, but there aren't many potentials for that around (pretty much the only one being the Witcher 3, supposed to be out next year) probably on the basis that it's a massive amount of work to get it all to flow together as a coherent story when it can be manipulated as you progress through it. Thanks for your input, Doom. It could be I was a little angry with Skyrim simply for the amount of imagination I was forced to come up with on the fly. "Uh, yeah, so my parents passed away but left me with a decent inheritance. I decided to use that inheritance to take a trip to Skyrim since Cyrodiil is no longer safe to live in (damn those Thalmor). Uhm, okaayy, I wake up and the first thing I see is a big black dragon that just flew over and roared at me as it was flying north...aaaaannd there's alot of smoke coming from Helgen. Maybe I should jog over there and help the soldiers..............OH MY SHOR this place has been wasted badly. I don't - woah, I don't see many bodies - I hope there are survivors..." In Morrowind I felt I really did something good (aside from gaining favor from the nicer of Daedric Princes, Azura), and I think Skyrim is a good game. Not a great one, but just good. Oh you've found us out! You've uncovered the secret! You were being led by the nose the whole time, no choice, no options, it was all Bethesda forcing you along. Damn, I thought the ruse would have held up a while longer. Here, let me rephrase that. You're adult enough you don't want to be led around like a child through a story, but still childish enough to whine when the game doesn't pat you on the head for defeating the boss. Skyrim is great at being an open-world game, but terrible at being a RPG. Unfortunately, the previous Elder Scrolls suffer from the same problem. I find this odd because ohter Bethesda games, like Fallout 3, actually have branching dialogue and quest options. Why can't they bring that system over to TES? Well you don't have that problem in Fallout 3, because once you save the wasteland the game is over. If you do Broken Steel, people still treat you like dirt. Fallout New Vegas is different though. It's broken in many ways, but they actually have a working reputation system. Hmmm, perhaps if Skryim ended the game immediately after you defeat Alduin, and play a ten minute cut scene, people will stop complaining about the lack of respect. Imagine it: "And so the Lone Dovahkiin wandered off to Akavir and was never heard of again. Lydia picked up the pieces of her shattered life and moved on. Mjoll finally dumps Aerin and moves in with Aela. Etc., etc." Oddly enough, so does Skyrim, but the complainers just want to ignore. Just now, in the past hour, I was addressed as Praefect by an imperial soldier, and Thane by a town guard. True, no one is holding parades in my honor, but I don't need that kind of stroking.

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Linden Ashby Clarence Linden Garnett Ashby III (born May 23, 1960) is an American actor and martial artist . He is known for his roles as Johnny Cage in the film adaptation of Mortal Kombat, and as Dr. Brett Cooper on Melrose Place. He is well known for his role as Sheriff Noah Stilinski in the MTV series Teen Wolf (2011-2017). Early life Ashby was born in Atlantic Beach, Florida, the son of Eleanor (Johnson), a civic organizer, and Clarence Linden Garnett Ashby Jr., a pharmaceuticals manufacturer. Ashby graduated from The Bolles School, a private school located in Jacksonville, Florida. He attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, but dropped out his junior year to pursue an acting career. Ashby studied acting at Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Career Ashby's first role on television, in 1985, was on the ABC soap opera Loving, where he was the second actor to play the role of Curtis Alden. Soon after, he was cast as Lance Reventlow, the only son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton (played by Farrah Fawcett) in the Golden Globe-winning miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story. In the spring of 1997, Ashby starred in the short-lived ABC drama Spy Game. Later that year, he joined the main cast of Melrose Place as Dr. Brett Cooper, a role he had until the start of the seventh season in late 1998. He first appeared on the show in the first season in 1993 as Jo Reynolds's estranged husband Charles, in the episodes "Peanut Butter and Jealousy" and "Single White Sister". He was in the movie Wyatt Earp where he played Morgan Earp, Wyatt Earp's (Kevin Costner) younger brother. He played Cameron Kirsten on The Young and the Restless from 2003 to 2004. He also began playing the role of Paul Hollingsworth on Days of Our Lives in March 2008. Ashby also portrayed Beacon Hills’ Sheriff and father to Stiles Stilinski (played by Dylan O'Brien) on MTV’s Teen Wolf series. Personal life Ashby is married to actress Susan Walters. The couple met on the set of Loving in 1983, where she was a regular and he was filming a guest appearance (he would later become a regular cast member in 1985). They have two daughters, Frances Grace (born 1991) and Savannah Elizabeth (born 1992). Ashby has been a student of martial arts on and off since he was 21 and studied Karate, Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu. Linden has admitted to previously suffering panic attacks before auditions which threatened to shorten his career. Filmography Film Television Director Awards and nominations References External links Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:American male film actors Category:American male karateka Category:American male soap opera actors Category:American male taekwondo practitioners Category:American male television actors Category:Fort Lewis College alumni Category:Male actors from Jacksonville, Florida Category:People from Atlantic Beach, Florida Category:Bolles School alumni

Pages Monday, 10 March 2014 Victoria Falls ready to host Routes Africa 2014 According to Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ), Victoria Falls chapter chairperson, Jonathan Hudson, Victoria Falls is ready to host Routes Africa 2014 forum for the first time. He said while there were no major refurbishments to be expected for the forum to be held from June 22-24, this year, indications were that hosting the event would see the country derive major economic benefits. Routes Africa, the largest route development forum for the entire African region is a forum where airlines, aviation, tourism and government representatives from the continent meet to explore opportunities to develop the aviation industry. The event will be organised by the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ). “As HAZ I think we are ready for the forum which will see about 400-500 delegates in attendance." Much work was done last year as the country prepared to co-host the 20th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly,” he said. Clement Mukwasi, a tourism executive in the resort town said the forum was also coming at a time when the country was making aggressive strides to make Zimbabwe a leading tourism destination. “As operators we feel all is in place. UNWTO last year was a platform that is opening such avenues and we are hoping that such forums pay dividends through increased arrivals by tourists,” he said. Victoria Falls International Airport, situated 21km south of the town, provides easy access to Victoria Falls and is currently served by scheduled domestic and regional flights and charter flights from various parts of the world. The airport is currently implementing a major infrastructure upgrading project at a total cost of $150 million including construction of a new runway, international terminal building and control tower and is expected to be completed by December 2014.

The present invention relates to electronic storage media and, more particularly, to a data card having a retractable handle for use in connection with electronic devices. The utilization of electronic devices has become pervasive in our society. As the need for electronic devices grows, the consuming public demands smaller and more portable devices to promote their convenient utilization. A significant drawback associated with minimizing the size and weight of electronic devices is the countervailing need to provide increasing memory capabilities. The constantly expanding memory requirements of electronic devices often impedes or precludes a manufacturer's ability to reduce the size and weight of the devices. In recent years, though, removable electronic storage media have been developed to expand the functions of electronic devices. Such storage media are small and lightweight. They are adapted to be selectively interchangeable in the device so that the device's memory can be selectively augmented to perform a particular application. Perhaps most common among these media are magnetic tapes, floppy disks and their associated drives, which are often used in connection with personal computers. In other, more portable devices where damage to the electronic storage media is a more significant threat, the media is often placed within a protective shell or housing so that when the storage media is not in use with its associated device, the media is protected from external environmental conditions and physical damage. One increasingly common form of such protective electronic storage devices are data cards. Data cards are well known in the art and typically include a small hard plastic housing for containing the data storage medium. The cards can be interchangeably inserted within the device and easily replaced to provide the device with virtually limitless memory. To add memory, the user need only insert a new data card suited to the particular application. Data cards are particularly useful for hand-held devices where portability is critical, such as with navigation and avionics devices. However, a significant problem has arisen relating to the use of data cards in portable electronic devices. It is inherent in utilization of a data card that it be configured so that the user can grasp the card to insert and remove it from the device when necessary. This configuration necessitates that a portion of the data card extend beyond the device so that it may be grasped. The projection of the data card from the device is not aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, this extension of the data card from the device is likely to be bumped or snagged, thereby damaging the data card and the storage media contained therein. If the device is in use, any physical contact with the data card could impede the functioning of the device or, even worse, cause the device to become nonfunctional. Ironically, the primary utility of the data card--its interchangeability--is also its primary drawback. A variety of current designs for data cards have proved somewhat satisfactory in overcoming this drawback These designs usually entail the substantially complete insertion of the data card into the device so that it presents a relatively flush profile with the outer surface of the device. This flush configuration, however, makes it difficult for the user to manipulate the card to remove it and replace it when necessary. While the flush configuration is desirable for aesthetic reasons and to protect the media contained in the data card, the flush configuration has created significant problems in actually using the data card. If the data card cannot be removed, the practical memory capacity of the device is basically limited to a single card and, thus, the overall utility of the device is substantially reduced.

Defects of mitochondrial electron transport chain in bipolar disorder: implications for mood-stabilizing treatment. Converging lines of evidence indicate that defects in the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) are associated with bipolar disorder (BD), and that mood-stabilizing drugs produce neuroprotective effects. Our objective is to review the most recent findings regarding this research. We searched MEDLINE and have reviewed here the most recently published articles. There are deletions, mutation, and decreased expression of mitochondrial ETC complexes in BD. Because ETC is a major source of reactive oxygen species, these factors, along with decreased expression of antioxidant enzymes in BD, suggest the presence of oxidative damage in this disorder. Numerous recent studies have shown that mood-stabilizing drugs produce neuroprotective effects against oxidative damage and increase expression and activities of endogenous antioxidant enzymes in the rat brain. These findings indicate that the process of oxidative damage could be a significant therapeutic target for the treatment of BD with mood-stabilizing drugs.

require('../../modules/es6.number.is-finite'); module.exports = require('../../modules/$.core').Number.isFinite;

On walking away from BMX Photograph ByDebra L Rothenberg/FilmMagic "I've probably ridden three times in the last two and a half years, and to be honest I don't really miss it. I had a great run and I loved the years that I did compete and all the success that I had, but it felt good to walk away from it," says Mirra.

Chile's Senate votes to impeach education minister for professional misconduct SANTIAGO, Chile – Chile's Senate has voted to impeach Education Minister Harald Beyer for professional misconduct for failing to monitor profits in the education sector. Beyer will be banned from holding public office for five years following the 20-18 vote. The Chamber of Deputies had previously narrowly voted in favor of the measure to remove him from office. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Wednesday's vote was seen as a triumph for Chile's center-left opposition, which hopes to regain the presidency in November elections, and the country's student protest movement, which has held two years of marches to demand free education and an end to for-profit universities. Opposition lawmakers had accused Beyer of not investigating complaints about profits being made at the private Universidad del Mar. Visibly distraught, Beyer thanked his team at the Education Ministry and said that "the worst face of politics has taken precedence."

434 F.2d 617 3 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 69, 3 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 8029D. F. Glover, p/laintiff-Appellant,v.Harold T. DANIEL, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees. No. 29253. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. Nov. 5, 1970. Howard Moore, Jr., Peter E. Rindskopf, Atlanta, Ga., Conrad K. Harper, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit, III, New York City, for plaintiff-appellant. Johnnie L. Caldwell, Richard T. Bridges, Donald A. Page, Thomaston, Ga., for defendants-appellees. Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and DYER and INGRAHAM, Circuit judges. PER CURIAM: 1 This is an appeal from an order of the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, denying injunctive relief, salary payments, and attorney's fees sought by appellant following the school district's refusal to reemploy him as a principal for the 1969-70 school year. Appellant Glover instituted this action on May 2, 1969, against school superintendent Harold T. Daniel and his employer, the Pike County, Georgia, Board of Education. The action was brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1343(3); 42 U.S.C. 1981, 1983, 2000d et seq.; 45 CFR 80.4 and 181 et seq.; the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The complaint asserted that the board's refusal to rehire appellant principal was racially motivated in violation of his federal statutory and constitutional rights. 2 The case was tried to the court without a jury on a single issue: Whether the failure to rehire the plaintiff as principal of the Pike County schools for the 1969-70 school year was or was not for racial reasons in violation of his civil rights. 3 A full plenary hearing was conducted. Eleven witnesses, including plaintiff and defendant Daniel, were interrogated on both direct and cross examination. 4 Plaintiff Glover testified in his own behalf that he is 42 years of age, a member of the black race, holding a position with a county school system during the past year as principal of Pike Consolidated School. He testified that he holds an A. B. Degree, M. A. Degree, and a six-year certificate from the State Department of Education, having received his A. B. Degree from Ft. Valley State College and his Masters Degree from the Atlanta University. He testified further that he had been a principal for 13 years, having served five years at East Pike Elementary School in Zebulon and eight years at Pike Consolidated School, Concord, Georgia. Before that he was a teacher in the Pike County System at Zebulon and at Concord. As a teacher, his principal subject was Social Science. He testified that he improved the average daily attendance and lunchroom attendance, and used a self-study system, using evaluative criteria to upgrade the curriculum of the school. This self-study criteria was testified to be a group of standards got together by experts from all over the country. The purpose was to apply this system against his school and see where it fell short. This happened prior to his going over to Pike County Consolidated School. He testified that he did similar things at the Pike County Consolidated School. 5 The only testimony he gave, bearing directly on the question as to why he thought his discharge was racially motivated, was to the effect that he had given 19 years of good service, that he was professionally trained, and that he could think of no other reason for his discharge other than race. He did testify that the superintendent told him that he 'talked too much' at the principals' meetings and that on one occasion, after his discharge, when the County Board met to reconsider its action, one board member said he wouldn't vote to rehire Glover because none of the white folks wanted him. However, the statement imputed to a board member was made at a meeting called to reconsider their action in not extending him a contract, and was after the original action had been taken not to rehire Glover. 6 The other witnesses called by Glover testified basically and generally to his good character, with little or no evidence upon the issue of racial discrimination. 7 Considering the record as a whole, we hold that plaintiff Glover failed to discharge his burden of proof to substantiate his claims by a preponderance of the evidence. His claims are based upon speculation and suspicion. 8 The district court denied relief, stating that the plaintiff had not shown that his failure to be rehired was racially motivated. The findings of the district court are supported by evidence and are not clearly erroneous. Glover v. Daniel et al., 318 F.Supp. 1070 (N.D.Ga.1969). 9 Affirmed.

Q: sync option in /etc/fstab From the man pages of mount command sync All I/O to the filesystem should be done synchronously. In the case of media with a limited number of write cycles (e.g. some flash drives), sync may cause life-cycle shortening. Does this mean that when providing this option in /etc/fstab (given the following definition of sync command) $ sync --help Usage: sync [OPTION] [FILE]... Synchronize cached writes to persistent storage ...caching of contents (i.e. of memory pages created from the contents of the particular device) is prohibited? A: Read caching is not prohibited. Write caching is prohibited. In other words, writes to the device have to be done immediately, so there is no risk of data loss.

" Show me how to go this place." " (THAI Pai-tang-non-ja)" " No, go to this way?" " (THAI Mai-chai-pai-tang-non)" "(THAI 163/2 Ban-Kok-Putsa)" "Can anyone here speak English?" "I'm looking for this village..." "Seem to have lost my way." "No problem you are here." "This is Ban Kok Putsa." "I have important news to tell you..." "I've come a long way..." ""Amazing Thailand", 6,000 miles." "Another continent, another culture, another planet." "Great feeling to be leaving England behind." "Don't know what to expect... but hoping for something new." "Thailand was Kate's idea to develop our relationship." "But driving from the airport," "Bangkok didn't quite seem what we had expected." "Somehow I'd imagined something a little less... concrete, less western." "Twenty baht, huh?" "Hey, want to look here, madam." "Have everything you want." "Check this." "Come on, Kate." " What're you doing?" " I thought you needed a bed." "Can't you just wait a minute?" "So let's dump the bags..." "then go shopping yeah..." "You want room?" "Have room here." "I'm going out." "Going out where?" "Don't know... somewhere... outside." "Meet some locals." "By yourself?" "For a couple of hours, yeah..." " What?" " Nothing." "Give me a break." "You want a break, fine, have one." "but I won't be here when you get back." " Come on Kate." "You're tired..." " Well, you noticed." "You've been acting funny since you been on the plane." "Yeah... well, travel does that to some people." "And after all I am a woman..." "Tell me about it." "Maybe we should just forget it." "What do you mean?" "Never mind." "No, what do you mean?" "Adam, just go out and meet your locals." "If you've got something to say Kate, just say it." "Adam just leave it." " No... what have you got to say." " Right." "I don't fancy you anymore." "You've brought me all this way to tell me that." "No, Adam." "I've brought myself all this way to relax." "And you are just irritating... and so heavy." "Yes Sir." "I can take you." "A helpful guy in a tuk-tuk offered to show me around..." "VIP Massage, Good for you." "...but gazing at girls in a goldfish bowl isn't really my scene." "And the endless rows of watches, CDs and designer labels... only reminded me of what I'm trying to escape from." "So I wandered off down an old railway track... and got my first taste of Tom Yum soup and Thai wisdom." "Farang, farang." "Sit down, sit down." "Farang?" "What is farang?" "Farang mean foreigner." "You farang." "If you think good, speak good, do good, happiness come." "If you think no good, speak no good, do no good, problem come." "Chork Dee." "Good luck for you." "Kate?" "Adam, I had to cash my cheques, here is your share... sorry, its so bulky but you should get yourself organised next time." "You see, I meant it." "Better we go our separate ways - maybe this trip will make a man of you." "See you on the flight home." "Kisses, Kate..." "PS." "Don't come looking for me." "For a moment, Kate's note was a shock... then there was a weird sense of relief... so when I heard her laughing, it was as if I hadn't known her at all." "Let's get acquainted." "You want to bought me." "I see you look me, madam." "I have everything you want." "Check me." "Day 2 Break up with my girlfriend on first night... going to take a bus south." "Inside." "Chaweng." "Chaweng." "Yeah, I'll take it." "I'm really sorry." "Was that your dinner?" "I'm sorry." "Here." "Um... (Out..." "Mai-ao." "Mai-ao. )" "Um... you have small money?" "No, I haven't." "It's... it's ok." "Mai pen rai." "You speak Thai?" "Oh, just phrasebook stuff you know." "Mai pen rai-no problem." "Isn't that the first thing you learn when you get here?" "Sabai, sabai." "Sabai, sabai." "What does that mean?" "Take it easy..." "Come on." "You want to play or not?" "I'd love to but I don't think they gonna let me." "Sorry, enjoy your food, yeah." "Bye." "(OUT Puchai Khon Nee Loe Dee Nor. )" "(OUT Jai Dee Duay. (Good Heart)" "Let's go." "Finally." "Wait." "Come on." "Your serve." "Where you going handsome man?" "sit down." " No no, I'm just..." " Do you want to drink?" " No no, I'm not stopping." " You got lady?" "No... er... no no no, got no lady." "You want to go with me?" "No... er... well, I'd love to but as I say I'm just looking around, yeah?" "If you go with me, good for you and good for me." "I take care." "No charge for you." "I give for free." "Lor (Handsome)." "Look, maybe I come back." "Yeah..." " Are you sure?" " Maybe." " Sure?" " Sure." "See you later yeah?" "I don't have money." "My family is very poor." "Yeah, baby." "That's sweet." "Excuse me sir." "How old are you?" "Yeah, Sorry, can I have like er..." "local beer," " Thai beer, or something?" " No... no, no, no." "Try some of this local grog, recommended." "Sharpens vision, mildly hallucinogenic." "Sounds like a bit in contradiction?" "New boy in town, ah?" "Yeah, just been acquainting myself with the local customs." "No, no, no, I'll get these." "I'd be careful carrying that lot around if I was you, specially if you're having a couple of these, ha." "Yeah, well... its my divorce settlement." "Ah... not another broken marriage?" "Yeah, Unbelievable, first night." "That's no world record in this place son." "This place does strange things to people." "Sounds like the voice of experience." "Oh yes." "So what do you do, like work here or something?" "I've got my finger in a few little pies, you know." "It's a great life." "Come along, chin-chin." "Oh... fuck me." "Have you tried Thai massage yet?" "Man, you see, the beauty about Thai massage... apart from its health benefits... is that you can just lie back, relax." "For one whole hour... some beautiful young woman is going to pay your body... the biggest compliment its ever received." "And it's Unconditional." " But you've got to pay for it?" " Of course you have to pay." "So it's not exactly Unconditional then is it?" "I'm talking about the emotional stuff." "No need to get all anxious about "satisfying your partner"." "I bet your girlfriend never touched you... without expecting something in return." "And you pay 200 baht for an hour " "I mean, what's that, the price of a Big Mac?" "You know you'd pay ten times that in England, that's if you could even find a genuine massage!" "So it's not an excuse for sex?" "Oh no, no, no, this is a spiritual experience." "Why don't I take you down to Sao's?" "This wouldn't happen to be one of pies you have your finger in?" "You could say that, and a very tasty pie too, I may add." "Hey get it Joey?" "Throw away, Jimmy." "Here, did I tell you to be careful of backstreet blowjobs with ladyboys." "No, it wasn't the first thing on my agenda." "I don't care what you are, if you are a faggot or anything." "I don't care." "But you've got to watch them ladyboys." "Oh..." "I love you long time." "Yeah, I'll show you what they do, right." "Undo your pants." " Fuck off." " Come on." "Undo your pants is a scientific demonstration." " You're having a laugh aren't you?" " This is essential information... which you need to know for your well-being on this island." "God Almighty" "Listen, so they undo your pants... and then they'll pull them down round your ankles, right... and they start giving head, oh... yeah... enjoy... you're counting stars." "and what happens..." "they've got their hand in your pockets." "Catch me..." "So you know the language then, Joey?" "Oh well, you gotta know the essentials." "You know, like Mao-drunk," "Ting Tong-crazy and Fun Dee-sweet dreams." "You gotta watch the tones, you know." "For example, you can describe a woman as suaay-beautiful." "But if you pronounce it suay, it means bad Luck." "I guess you could say some of them around here are both." "Look at this honey, mate?" "Hallo, massage!" "Thanks, Sao." "Me no have." "Hairy arms?" "Glad to hear it." "What do you think?" "Yeah, are these all the girls?" "I can see you're a man of discerning good taste." "Come on inside." "We'll see what we can find in there." "Okay." "Thank you very much." " Nice to meet you." " Bye." "No... no." "Em, this your birthday present." "I had him sent here from England." " Hello." " Hello." "So what do you think?" "Yeah, great." "I'll try one of these Thai massages then." "Enter." "Khob Khun Krub." "Fun dee!" " Hi." " Hi." "Where you come from?" "From England." "Oh." "England have snow." "Yeah, sometimes." "Where do you come from?" "Isaan upcountry." "Long way." "Very beautiful, have mountain, have lake, have fishing." "I like fishing." "I Used to fish when I was a little boy." "Mother and baby sister." "Ah..." "lovely faces." "No father, eh?" "No." "Lie down, please." "Finish." "Thank you." "How long you stay in Thailand?" "Just a few days." "I could stay a lot longer if I like." "Can I take you out for some dinner?" "Cannot." "Working." "What time do you finish work?" "Um..." "Midnight." "Okay, well I'll come back then." "Cannot." "Sleeping." "Can I see you another time?" "Um... tomorrow morning, 10 o'clock." "I'll show you island, OK?" "OK." "See you." "This is another planet." "Thought I knew what life was in England... but this is a whole new reality." "I don't know if I can quite hold it together, but I'm sure I'm not the first." "Hallo, massage." "Hallo, massage." "Em, Em." "Come on in." "I'll catch you." "Cannot, I shy Adam." "Come on." "Cannot." "Day 3." "Em taught me how to pay respect to Buddha." "Sorry." "No problem." "You Farang, you on holiday." "Okay, I like you." "But cannot do like this." "Hom better." "Hom is a Thai kiss." "A sniff, which I haven't quite gonna hang on yet." "Thank you for showing me little Buddha." "Tomorrow I show you big Buddha." "Thank you." "(OUT" " Thai Lung." "Pla-muk-suk-ru-yung?" ") Are the squids cooked?" "I thought you didn't kiss like that." "It's OK.I watch Hollywood movie." "The kiss was everything." "But it wasn't enough." "Darling... you buy me drink?" "Sure." "What would you like?" "What'd you like?" "I want cola." "You forget me?" "Okay, Two cola." " And me." " And me." " And me." " Five cola, that's it." "Short time 1,000 baht." "OK?" "Small money for farang." "How much if I want you all night?" "Love me, longtime, 2,000 baht." "It's too much." "No." "Good price for Farang." "OK?" "Well, I didn't come 6,000 miles to play Connect 4!" "Bye bye, handsome man." "I know it was the booze and flirting which took me to Noi's bar." "But at the time it felt like something else, affecting every action, every thought and word, something more intense, more real." "Walking Noi home I knew that eyes were watching Us." "I was doing something crass... but I went ahead and did it anyway." "Why am I doing this?" "Sorry." "Oh... fuck." "I met this girl and I shouldn't be doing this with you." "Customer often feel confused," "They love his wife, but come to me." "I'm scared that if me and this girl make love it'll mess things Up." "So wait... in Thailand, boyfriend and girlfriend they should wait Until marriage." "Yeah, But I am from England and we have sex before... before we even leave school." "Sure." "Everyone loves sex." "But you have to ask yourself..." ""How do I feel in the morning?"" "How do you mean?" "How you feel afterwards?" "Um..." "Think about eating junk food." "Taste good but afterward your stomach... ah..." "Same-same sex." "If your heart feel happy it's ok." "If your heart feel bad, it's no good." "Heavy heart or heavy balls." "It's Up to you." "So why do you do this work Noi?" "How can I find job which pay me same money." "I Use my body and I also Use my head." "One day I want to buy my own land." "But how can you make love with some of these Ugly, old men?" "I choose customer." "And I choose you... because you are jai-dee and good heart." " Can you stay long time." " No, I have to go." "We make love one time but you give me two times." "Mai-Pen-Rai." "Thank you." "This morning I desperately needed to see Em." "I know I've fucked up." "But did she know?" "Your friends are always joking." "Maybe I'll wait around Until Joey gets back." "You have lady in England?" "No." "Finished." " You have lady in Thailand?" " No." "Are you butterfly man?" "What is a butterfly man?" "Someone who go from lady to lady to lady." "No, I don't think so." "You meet lady last night?" "No, I meet you last night." "After massage, where you go?" "I went dancing, drinking and then walked back to my bungalow, alone." "No problem." "You're on holiday, Pinnochio." "The moment I lied I could feel the effect." "Tham-nai-na?" "(Why?" ")" "Mai-pen-rai-na, Em." "Joey-yak-kouy-dauy-na." "Joey wants to talk to you" "Hi, ya." " How are you?" " Mao (Drunk)." "Are you OK?" "So what are you doing here?" "I come to see you Adam." "Yeah?" "Great." "So er..." "What you want to do?" "You want make love?" "Yeah." "But maybe we should take our time." "You know get to know each other, do other things first." "You don't like me Adam?" "Yeah, of course I like you." "I more than like you." "So Adam, make love to me, mai pen rai." "My birthday begin five minutes." "Okay" "I think I need to lie down." "Must've been too much sun... or beer." " I go." " No." "Please stay." " Better I go." " But it's your birthday." "Em" "You know what?" "I'll come and see you tomorrow?" "OK tomorrow, you sleep now." "Shit!" ""Resort takes no responsibility for anything lost or stolen from bungalow" "We have safety box for valuables. "" "So why don't you show me this before?" "Not my problem." "So you are saying you didn't see anyone." "No." "Hallo Massage." "Em, can I speak to you, please?" "Butterfly Man, no problem." "Me, helicopter woman." "Where is my present?" "Em, I've got a big problem - can I speak to you alone please?" "Sit down." "Can I speak to you over there?" "Where is my present?" "Look, Em." "The reason why I haven't got you a present... is that all my money's been stolen." "After you left me last night," "Someone must have come in my room and taken my bag." "I just wanted to know if you saw anyone?" "What you saying Adam?" "I don't take your money." " No, I just wondered..." " I don't take your money." "No." "I'm not saying you did." "Em, you have work now." "Got to work now." "Better you go." "Okay." "I'll see you later." "No." "Finish now." "Don't come back." "Massage." "No dad, they've taken all my money." "So you're telling that you can't help me." "Fine." "Stop the watch." "Bastard." "One minute, yes?" "No. 60 second is 1 minute." "63 second is 2 minutes." "So, you pay for two minutes." "180 baht sir." "I have 117 baht." "It's all I've got." "Have you ever invited any Thais to your bungalow?" "A bargirl maybe?" "I should confiscate this but we like to help the tourist." "We will contact your embassy." "You should be ready to leave the island tomorrow lunchtime." "No, wait." "If you just give me few days to sort it out." "I got some friends on the island who can help me." " Hi, excuse me, are you British?" " Yeah, what about it?" "Look, I'm really sorry to bother you but I've had all my money stolen..." "I'm just wondering if you can help me out?" "Sorry mate, we're flying tomorrow." "All right, how about a drop of water?" "All right, you can have it." "alright Cheers." "See you later" "Hello, Sao." "I've come to see Em." "Em sleeping." "Em!" "Em!" "Quiet, ladies are sleeping." "Just a few minutes." "I want to apologise to her." "Nothing to apologise for." "It's funny, isn't it?" "You know?" "When the sun shines, it is "Hallo massage"," ""Handsome man", always joking." "Now you are all gone very quiet." "You think we are stupid people." "Thai are not stupid." "You see." "Huh..." "Whatever." "Em." "Em." "I know you can hear me." "I need to speak to you." " Leave my girl alone." " OK.I'm going." "You're right." "I'm a butterfly." "Adam!" "Wait!" "Adam!" "For you." "Buddha take care." "I'm sorry that I lied to you." "I was with another woman the other night." "I know." "Can I make things good again?" "No." "Better we finish now." "Today I started selling my clothes." "The old man in Bangkok had been talking about Karma." "Maybe I got what I deserved," "But making my peace with Em seemed to have changed my luck." "Gin-kao-kon-kha. (Eat)" "Puchai lor jai dee na." "(Handsome man with good heart)" "Buy cola for me?" "Noi!" "Got no money for drink I'm afraid." "Joking, joking, I know." "Whole town talking about crazy farang who lost his money." "Here." "For you." "What's this for?" "Good Luck, Adam." "Yo!" "I've been looking all over town for you, man." "Yeah." "They told me down the massage you've had your money stolen." "Yeah. 'fraid so." "Bad one." "Come on, I'll get you a beer." "I might have a little job you can do for me if you're interested." "Yeah?" "A bit of couriering work." "Pay you enough to get you back to Bangkok." "Maybe a little left over to do some shopping." "Courier work, sounds a bit dodgy." "There's a few of us westerners who have businesses here." "Every ninety days right we need to get our visas renewed." "So this means go all the way down to Malaysia on the train, crossing the border, then hanging around another couple of days... while the passports are stamped." "Well, the thing is, there's someone, on the next island who has the necessary stamp." "So what you've gotta do is hop over there." "Wait around for a couple of days for the passport then come back." "I'll pay you 1,000 Baht Upfront 4,000 on delivery." "Why don't you go yourself?" "Like I said I've got a business to run here, you know, we all have." "So me and my colleague we've chipped in 250 baht." ""Good for me, good for you"." "Why don't you just Use a local it'll cost you a fraction of that price?" "Hey, I'm trying to do you a favour here, man." "You know I need the job doing quickly, not sabai, sabai." "You know I had you down as a reliable conscientious young lad... in a bit of trouble, you know... but..." "if you're not interested..." "No, no, it's not that I'm not interested, but its... just that it isn't legal right?" "Let's just call it a convenience service, bypass a lot of red tape, save a lot of time." "What about the police?" "You're only hopping on and off a boat, aren't you?" "You're not crossing any national borders." "Anyway the police know us, they like having us here." "We make money for the island." "So long as you keep yourself to your self, you'll be fine." "Are you in?" "Okay." "Come and meet Bill, he takes care of our admin stuff." "Hey Bill." "How is it going?" "This is the kid I told you about to do the couriering work for us." "Good, good." "Let's go in the office." "(Moon-Sa-pok)" "Swing that hip." "All right." "Let's go." "I want this back in two days." "Sure." "Where do I go?" "When you disembark you take a songthaew to "Jungle Resort"." "At "Jungle Resort" you give this package... to "No Name" no one else." "Got it?" " "No Name"?" " That's right." ""No Name"" " No papers, no problem." "Invisible." "Yeah, well, if it's all the same to you," "I think I've changed my mind." "I hope we're not going to have trouble with your boy." "No." "We made a deal." "Shook on it." "Isn't an Englishman's handshake his word?" "A little bit before my time." "Anyway, it's no big deal, isn't it?" "I'm sure you'll find someone else." "Okay." "Time out here." "I don't know where you found this timewaster... but you've got two minutes to sort this situation out - two minutes." "Speak to him." "What are you trying to do to me here son?" "You know, you're right, its no big deal." "But we did make a deal." "And to tell you the truth I get a little of pissed off... when people start wasting my time... and I know Mr Kincaid certainly does." "And I tell you something else." "He is not adverse to his hand in at the old Muay Thai Boxing." "He is an ex-champion, you know?" "We made a deal." "It's too late to start going back on it now." "So what if I just fucked off." "Mr. Kincaid has some friends who very high places." "You wouldn't even get back to the mainland." "Fine, whatever." "I'll do the fucking run." "Right." "Bill!" "Are we all friendly again?" "I want you to double my fee." "Ah, how much did you agree?" "1,000 Up front, 4,000 on delivery." "Nine more when you get back." "I want you to be on that boat at 10.30 tomorrow morning." "Fine." "I'll call later, Bill." "I'm sorry to get heavy-handed with you in there, the thing is, Mr. Kincaid is a big guy round here." "He likes a bit of a show, you know." "I know you'll be back." "Yeah, sure." "look I want to see Em." "A friendly word of advice for you ok?" "forget her." "I mean she's a sweet kid but you know this is all she knows... and you're nothing special - you're just passing through." "If I was you I'd pick Up my money and head straight back to England... before this place really fucks you up." "Jungle Retreat." "Good morning Sir." "Welcome to the Jungle Retreat Health and Beauty Centre." "Would you like to come this way," "I would be pleased to tell you... about the full range of service that we offer." "Actually, I've come to see someone called..." ""No Name"." "Is this the right place?" "Certainly, No Name is in the steam room," "Would you like to follow me?" "The steam room." "Please sit down." "Thank you." "Are you waiting for something?" "No." "I'm waiting for someone." "There's no one here." "I'm looking for someone called "No Name"." "That'll be me." "It's funny, I pictured some middle-aged Thai guy with a pony-tail." " You sound disappointed." " No, not at all." "You must be the postman." "Thank you." "They'll be ready tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" "Yeah..." "Follow me." "Where do I stay tonight?" "I think we'll find a space for you somewhere." "In the meantime, feel free to Use the facilities." "Oh and tonight's "Full Moon"." "So you are welcome to hang out with me if you are Up for it." "Hey man, get me a beer." "Come on, boy." "Come on." "Are you butterfly man?" "I can't do this." " Why not?" " No." "How are you feeling today?" "Trashed." "I'm quite impressed actually." "I don't remember last guy to turn me down." "May be I'm getting old." "No." "Not at all." "I think you are absolutely gorgeous." "It's just... you know... some experiences leave an after taste." "And it's that taste that really matters." "Don't you think?" "Anyway, give my regards to the boys." "I think I just pick Up my cash and be on my way." "Good Philosophy." "Take it easy." "I want you to take a look at these." "Hey, I know this lady." "Work bar." "Do they all work for western men?" "Yes, think so." "She work for German, She work for Holland." "And this girl she work for France." "Well these passports have been stamped with visas... to allow these women to go to Europe." "Many lady she want to go to holiday in Europe." "Yeah." "But these are not going on their holiday, are they?" "I'm gonna take this one OK?" "You keep these safe for me." " Hello, Sao." " I'll get Joey." "No." "That's all right." "Joey can wait." "I've come to see Em." "Em working." "Well, can you go and get her please." "Em not here." "Em working outside." "Massage outside." "New boyfriend prefer private room." "Boyfriend?" "How long will she be?" "Hey, Adam." "Welcome back." "What did we agree?" "Was it 9,000 Baht in the end mate?" "Yeah, all in good time," "I want to see Em before I leave this island." "So..." " Where's the package?" " No problem." "It's safe." "You tell Em that I'll meet her at Big Buddha at 5pm." "I'll return the package when I've spoken to her, alright?" "I don't know." "I think he wants just one more chance to win back... his sweetheart or some shit like that." "Yeah." "You know how crazy kids get over these Thai girls." "Yeah..." "I know, I know." "But it's not just the kids." "Okay, same same as before." "But these come as sweets." "Kao-jai-mai?" " Yeah?" "Understand?" " Yes." "You pay your respect to the buddha you Give the kid one of these sweets." "At you signal we'll come to collect him." "Ok?" "Ok." "Em!" "Em!" "How are you?" "Happy to see you." "I thinking about you too much." "Listen, Em." "I've got something very important to say to you." "I want you to come to England with me." "Farang always say this." "Come to England, come to Holland, Come to Germany." "Yeah, well I'm serious." " Do you have a passport?" " No." "Are you sure?" "Don't Understand." "What does it say?" "Someone's made a passport for you and its got a visa for Europe." "I think you'll make a trip abroad quite soon." "They're taking other ladies from the island." "This is a crime against you, do you Understand?" "This is a crime against women, poor women." "It's called human trafficking." "Human trafficking?" "I never hear this word before." "Okay." "Imagine a man, a farang, right," "Any man offers you a job in England." "Maybe a waitress." "Promise you good money, more money than you can get in Thailand." "Money that you can send back to your family." "And you say Okay." "And he says... you have to pay for your own flight and visa." "You say, well... how... how can I do?" "He says he will lend you the money." "Em, lend you the money." "May be 50,000 Baht." "And you come and work for him in England... and pay him back from your earnings." "So you agree, you come to England, maybe with other Thai lady." "And when you arrive, some people, they take you to the workplace." "It's not a restaurant or a bar." "It's a... warehouse, big empty building." "No waitress job, no bar job." "You are going to work as a prostitute and there's no escape." "They'll lock you Up, they'll drug you and beat you." "And if you do go away where can you go?" "You have no friends, no money." "You're in hell." "This is human trafficking!" "Can we pay respect to buddha?" "Sure." "You take one?" "Adam, Me not good." "I have big shame." "At bungalow I make you sleep." "You want to make love?" "Joey take your money." "You make me sleep with you." "He wanted me to make love to you?" "I can't believe I've been so naive." "You lie to me, same same all farang." "You are not special." "You know, my mother and baby sister." "They need money." "Before Sao my boss, but now Joey my boss." "He speak to me not good." "What can I do?" "I cannot stop work now." "You've got to get off this island." "These people have plans for you." "No, Adam." "I need job." "I'll help you." " How?" " I don't know." " You don't have money." " I'll find the way." "My village at Isaan." "You write me." "Maybe I see you one day." " Sure?" " Yes." "Em, promise me one thing." "If someone offers you a job In England, Germany, or anywhere overseas, you don't take it." "Don't think about how much money they say you can get." "It's trap." "These people will hurt you, do you Understand?" "I stay in Thailand." "You have to go now." "This way." "Go now." "You have to say more than prayers." "Where is he?" "He must know something is Up, eh?" "See these, packed with tranquillisers for me." "Do you know what," "I hate this island and I hate this country." "This is one fucked Up twisted place." "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this, eh?" "Very sad about your darling?" "You mean Em?" "What's very sad?" "Em no do massage anymore." "Hey my friend." "Look!" "I can work for farang but what I saw today." "No more!" "Don't you think that you overdid it a bit with that honey?" "Where is Em?" "Joey!" "Finish now." "Listen to me, listen to me." "I'm going to get you out of here." "Cannot, Adam." "Me, bad woman." "No good for you." "No good for you, no good for me." "I'm getting her out of here." "Well, you gonna need a stretcher, son." "That's if her boyfriend doesn't mind?" "What do you mean?" "She hasn't told you?" "What's he talking about?" "She's my girl now." "I'm gonna show her the world." "Romantic, eh?" "Oh... fuck!" "It's enough of the heroics." "Passports!" "They're not here." "Where is my package?" "It's down the road." "I'll take you there." "A little damp... should be alright." "I think I'll clear off now. 9,000 Baht, yeah?" "Maybe we oughta wait." "I think I'll pay you after we put you on the night boat... whiskey set." "Nit!" "Gecko!" "Let's do a brake." "This is very serious." "I can pay." "Lung." "Noo-Mee-RUang-Kab-Farang." "I got in trouble with falang" "Okay, I can take you." " Are you going to be all right?" " Sure." "Thank you, Noi." "Good Luck, Adam." "Are you ok?" "Yes, I'm ok." "Listen Em." "I'd like to see your village." "My village very poor." "No money." "No McDonalds." "Not all Farang eat McDonalds." "My village no have Farang." "Is that a problem?" "Me not your wife, Adam." "I want to sleep." "Big pain." "That's true." "I'm not her husband." "I always thought marriage was something you did once... you knew someone long enough... and figured out that they would be a good partner for life." "I don't really know this girl," "But what I do know is this moment will never come again." "I know it's a crazy idea." "But can you do it?" "No problem." "Can do." "Em..." "Em." "Captain wants to ask you something." "What are you doing Adam?" "I want to see your village." "I know you one week." "Yes, I know you one week." "Can you stand Up?" "So Em." "Do you want to take this crazy Farang to be your husband?" "Adam, I only speak a little English." "I no go to school." "I like you." "I believe you have a good heart." "You save me same same in the movie." "But when you marry Thai lady " "You marry my mother." "You marry my family." "I want a man take care of me and my family." "Can you do that?" "Can do." "I'll take care of your mama." "And baby sister." "And your baby sister." "Okay." "Tonight I marry you." "So Em, do you want to take Adam to be your husband?" "Adam is my darling." "And Adam, can you take Em to be your wife?" "Em is my darling." "Okay you are now married." "Is that all?" "What more do you need?" "Big pain Adam." "She's bleeding." "She's bleeding a lot." "Get the towel Get the towel, quick quick" "Easy." "Easy." "Okay." "Okay." " How far are we from the mainland?" " Maybe one hour." " Have you got the radio?" " No have." "Just hold on, Em Okay?" "We will get you to the hospital very soon." "Promise me... you take me home to my mother." "Yes, I promise you, okay?" "I'll take you home to mother." "We could have gone to the police." "But what good would that do?" "I knew what Em wanted." "I Used the cash in Bill's wallet to buy an old pick-up... and then I made a long journey north." "So you kept your promise." "(OUT" " Thai language" "I regret to inform you that your daughter is dead." "The police in Surat Thani have launched... a murder investigation against a western mafia." "Your daughter was killed by the western mafia." "We carried the coffin to a clearing in the forest." "It was a simple ceremony." "The monks laid flowers and then blessed Em." "This evening family and friends brought food... and drink to mama's house." "As I looked around all I could see were kind faces " "People take care of each other here." "I'm beginning to learn what family means." "Today some children were playing on the road." "They greeted me with smiles and laughter." "Hello." "Hello." "Hello." "What will become of my new family?" "The promise I made to Em to take care of mama and baby sister... could conveniently be forgotten..." "Perhaps it's difficult to believe that..." "I can make my home in a poor farming village." "But this is the heart of Thailand." "And as a western man." "I still have a lot to learn."

Introduction ============ Classical trace amines (TAs), including tyramine, beta-phenylethylamine (β-PEA), tryptamine and octopamine, have been implicated in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders associated with monoaminergic dysfunction, including schizophrenia, major depression, and Parkinson's disease ([@B9]; [@B70]; [@B11]; [@B15]; [@B4]; [@B85]; [@B59]; [@B45]; [@B5]). TAs are structurally, metabolically and functionally related to monoamines, and are synthesized in nerve terminals by decarboxylation of the amino acids that serve as precursors for dopamine (DA), noradrenaline, and serotonin ([@B4]). TAs are present in mammalian tissues at very low (nanomolar) concentrations ([@B34]), and are stored in monoaminergic nerve terminals where they are released together with monoamines ([@B11]). TAs are recognized as substrates for monoamine transporters, suggesting similarities between the regulation of extracellular levels of TAs and monoamines ([@B58]; [@B16]; [@B82]; [@B54]; [@B63]). Neuroanatomical observations and cellular studies indicate that TAs have a modulatory influence on monoaminergic neurotransmission, in particular on dopaminergic transmission, which is expressed across multiple cerebral structures ([@B31]; [@B95], [@B96]; [@B86]; [@B45]; [@B61]). A reduction in TA levels has been proposed to be associated with depressed states ([@B77]; [@B79]; [@B21]; [@B76]; [@B91]; [@B11]). TA levels are enhanced by inhibition of monoamine oxidase A and B in animals where the corresponding genes have been deleted ([@B41]). For a long time the pharmacological effects of TAs were attributed to a direct interference with aminergic pathways, up until the cloning and characterization of a large family of G protein-coupled receptors, named trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs) which were found to be activated by TAs ([@B8]; [@B14]). These receptors responded to the endogenous TAs along with several amphetamines. Outside the central nervous system (CNS), TAAR1 is expressed in pancreatic β-cells, stomach, intestines, thyroid gland, and leukocytes ([@B92]; [@B45]; [@B5]). It is therefore interesting that endogenous 3-iodothyronamine (T~1~AM), which is a derivative of thyroid hormone (thyroxine, or T~4~), has been found to be an endogenous agonist at TAAR1 ([@B80]; [@B36]; [@B26]). The reduction of core temperature and cardiac output induced by T~1~AM, which contrast to the effects induced by thyroxine itself, have been suggested to be mediated by TAAR1 activation ([@B80]; [@B103]; [@B18]; [@B26]; [@B33]; [@B22]). In the brain, TAAR1 is enriched in the major nuclei of the monoaminergic system such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), locus coeruleus and raphe nuclei as well as their projection targets, the hypothalamus, layer V pyramidal neurons of prefrontal cortex (PFC), caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens (NAc), hippocampus, and amygdala ([@B8]; [@B14]; [@B94]; [@B55]; [@B29]; [@B45]; [@B68]; [@B5]). However, the highest TAAR1 mRNA levels are clearly found in the dopaminergic cell groups (VTA and SNc) as compared to other brain regions ([@B57]). The detailed expression pattern of TAAR1 among the different neuronal populations has not been yet fully defined. Nonetheless, since its discovery, TAAR1 has emerged as a modulator of monoaminergic functions and a mediator of psychostimulant effects ([@B63]; [@B97]; [@B22]). Trace amine-associated receptor 1 is coupled with stimulatory G~s~ proteins, but its signaling also involves the G protein independent β-arrestin2/Akt/Glucogen Synthase Kinase-3β (GSK-3β) pathway ([@B35]). The latter pathway is known to be downstream of D~2~ receptors ([@B30]; [@B68]). There is evidence that TAAR1 interacts directly with D~2~ receptor by forming heterodimers, however, a peculiar aspect of the receptor is its intracellular residence ([@B68]). This intracellular localisation of the receptor has been indicated by experiments with tagged TAAR1 proteins where it was observed that the chimeric molecules showed robust intracellular distribution ([@B14]; [@B98]; [@B35]). The elucidation of TAAR1 function has been greatly facilitated by the development of selective pharmacological tools and the generation of mutant TAAR1 animal models. *N*-(3-ethoxy-phenyl)-4-pyrrolidin-1-yl-3-trifluoromethyl-benzamide (EPPTB) is a selective TAAR1 antagonist ([@B10]; [@B87]), whereas several agonists, including RO5166017, binds to TAAR1 with high affinity ([@B73]). TAAR1 knockout (KO) mouse lines have been generated to further delineate the role of TAAR1 ([@B94]; [@B55]; [@B22]). There are no gross behavioral abnormalities in TAAR1 KO mice, but upon closer examination they show an impulsive and perseverative phenotype ([@B94]; [@B28]). Baseline extracellular DA levels in striatum are similar between wild-type (WT) and TAAR1 KO mice ([@B55]; [@B22]; [@B48]; [@B68]). However, electrophysiological experiments have shown that dopamine neurons in VTA and serotonin neurons in dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) from TAAR1 KO mice display increased firing rates compared with WT mice ([@B55]; [@B10]; [@B62]). The endogenous TA, tyramine, specifically decreased the spike frequency of VTA neurons in WT but not in TAAR1 KO mice ([@B55]). Trace amine-associated receptor 1 KO mice have repeatedly been shown to display increased sensitivity to amphetamines, measured as an enhanced increase in locomotor activity and enhanced striatal release of DA compared with WT animals ([@B94]; [@B55]; [@B62]; [@B1]). Accordingly, TAAR1 is thought to act in the mesocorticolimbic system to regulate cocaine-seeking behavior ([@B57]). We have also found an increased behavioral responsivity toward [L]{.smallcaps}-dihydroxyphenylalanine ([L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA) in TAAR1 KO mice rendered unilaterally dopamine denervated by 6-hydroxydopamine injections in the median forebrain bundle ([@B2]). Taken together, studies in TAAR1 KO animals support the role of TAAR1 as a regulator of dopaminergic neurotransmission, underlining the role of TAAR1 as a potential novel target for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. Here we extended the studies of TAs, thyronamines and TAAR1 on dopamine neurotransmission in the dorsal striatum. Special emphasis was put on T~1~AM, which contains the aryethylamine backbone of monoamine neurotransmitters ([@B17]). Remarkably, T~1~AM is a product of the enzymatic deiodination and decarboxylation of T~4~ ([@B40]). We used slices from WT and TAAR1 KO mice and examined the effects of tyramine, β-PEA, and T~1~AM on the phosphorylation state of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), which regulates DA synthesis ([@B20]), along with TH activity. For further evaluation of TH activity, we measured with high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) the levels of [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA after the administration of a DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor. Using the same slices, we also studied effects of T~1~AM on evoked DA release. We also studied effects on the phosphorylation state of the post-synaptic alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor subunit GluA1, which plays a crucial role in regulating transmission and plasticity at excitatory synapses in striatum. Finally, mass spectrometry imaging was used to detect T~1~AM at baseline and upon systemic administration. Materials and Methods {#s1} ===================== Animals ------- The experiments were approved by the local ethical committee at Karolinska Institute (N351/08) and conducted in accordance with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC). Adult male WT and TAAR1 KO mice on a C57Bl6 background were used ([@B22]). They were housed in temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms (20°C, 53% humidity) with a 12 h dark/light cycle. They had access to standard lab pellets and water *ad libitum*. Preparation and Incubation of Dorsal Striatal Slices for Phosphorylation Experiments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mouse brains were rapidly removed and placed in ice-cold, oxygenated (95% O~2~/5% CO~2~) artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) containing (in mM): 126 NaCl, 2.5 KCl, 1.2 NaH~2~PO~4~, 1.3 MgCl~2~, 2.4 CaCl~2~, 10 glucose and 26 NaHCO~3~, pH 7.4. Coronal slices (300 μm thick) were prepared using a Leica vibratome (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany). Dorsal striata were dissected from the slices in ice-cold aCSF buffer. Each slice was placed in a polypropylene incubation tube with 2 ml fresh aCSF buffer. The slices were preincubated at 30°C under constant oxygenation (95% O~2~/5% CO~2~) for 60 min with a change of buffer after 30 min. The buffer was then replaced with fresh aCSF and slices were treated with tyramine (1, 10, 100 μM; Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, United States), T~1~AM (1, 10, 100 μM; synthesized by Servier, kind gift from Mark J. Millan), β-PEA (100 μM; Sigma-Aldrich), SCH23390 (5 μM; Sigma-Aldrich), EPPTB (10 nM, synthesized by Servier, kind gift from Mark J. Millan), KN-92 (10 μM; Sigma-RBI), H-89 (10 μM; Calbiochem, Gibbstown, NJ, United States) and 8-CPT-2Me-cAMP (10 μM; Tocris Bioscience, Bristol, United Kingdom), alone or in combination. The higher doses of all compounds exceeds by far the IC~50~ or Kd values for their respective target, but it is known that much higher concentrations are needed to exert actions in brain slices when compared to cell culture systems ([@B66]). After the drug treatment, the buffer was removed, the slices rapidly frozen on dry ice and stored at -80°C until assayed. Immunoblotting -------------- Immunoblotting was performed as described earlier ([@B71]). Frozen tissue samples were sonicated in 1% SDS, transferred to Eppendorf tubes and boiled for additional 10 min. Small aliquots of the homogenate were retained for protein determination using the bicinchoninic acid protein assay method (Pierce, Rockford, IL, United States). Equal amounts of protein (20 μg) were loaded onto 12% acrylamide gels, and the proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE and transferred to Immobilon^®^-P Polyvinylidene Difluoride membranes (Sigma). Immunoblotting was performed on the membranes using P-Ser^19^-TH (Merck Millipore, Billerica, MA, United States), P-Ser^31^-TH (Millipore), P-Ser^40^-TH (Millipore), P-Ser^845^-GluA1 (UBI), and antibodies, which are not phosphorylation state-specific to estimate total levels of TH (Millipore) and GluA1 (UBI). The antibody binding was detected by incubation with goat anti-mouse or anti-rabbit horseradish peroxidase-linked IgG (1:6000--8000 dilution) and detected using ECL immunoblotting detection reagents (GE Healthcare, Little Chalfont, United Kingdom). Determination of [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA in Dorsal Striatal Slices --------------------------------------------------------------- Dorsal striatal slices were incubated for 5 min with T~1~AM (10 μM) or tyramine (100 μM), and then for 15 min with T~1~AM or tyramine along with the [L]{.smallcaps}-amino acid decarboxylase inhibitor NSD-1015 (100 μM, Sigma-Aldrich). After the removal of the solutions, tissue slices were frozen and sonicated (10,000 *g* for 10 min) in 100 μL perchloric acid (0.1 mM). The pellets were resuspended in 100 μl 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate and the protein content was determined. The level of [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA in the supernatant was determined using HPLC coupled to an electrochemical detection system with a refrigerated microsampling unit (model CMA/200; CMA Microdialysis, Kista, Sweden). The HPLC apparatus comprised an HPLC pump (model 2150; Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology AB, Uppsala, Sweden) that kept a constant flow of 0.2 mL/min of the mobile phase (0.12 m NaH~2~PO~4~H~2~O; 0.09 m EDTA, 0.05 mm 1-octanesulfonic acid, and 15% methanol, pH 4.2) and a pressure of ∼0.5 bar on a reverse-phase ion pair C-18 column prepacked with Biophase ODS 5 μm particles (BAS, West Lafayette, IN, United States). [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA was detected with an amperometric detector (model LC-4C; BAS) and a glassy carbon electrode set at 0.75 V. The limit of detection was ∼10 nM. Amperometry in Dorsal Striatal Slices ------------------------------------- Sagittal striatal brain slices were prepared and maintained as above. Amperometric detection of DA release was performed as described earlier ([@B100]). Carbon fiber electrodes (10 μm in diameter, World Precision Instruments, Hertfordshire, England) had an active part (100 μm) that was positioned within the dorsal striatum in the brain slice. A constant voltage of +500 mV was applied to the carbon fiber via an Axopatch 200B amplifier (Axon Instruments) and currents were recorded with the same amplifier. A stimulating electrode (patch electrode filled with aCSF) was placed on the slice surface, in the vicinity of the carbon fiber electrode. Stimulation consisted of a single pulse (0.1 ms, 8--14 μA) applied every minute, which evoked a response corresponding to oxidation of DA at the surface of the electrode. When the carbon fiber electrode was held at 0 mV, stimulation of the slice did not produce any current. Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) -- Mass Spectrometry (MS) Imaging ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adult male WT and TAAR1 KO mice were injected with saline or T~1~AM (20 mg/kg, i.p.) and killed by decapitation 30 or 60 min post-dose. All brains were immediately removed, snap frozen, and stored at -80°C until further analysis. The frozen brain tissues were cut using a cryostat-microtome (Leica CM3050S; Leica Microsystems, Welzlar, Germany) at a thickness of 14 μm, thaw-mounted onto conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) glass slides (Bruker Daltonics), and stored at -80°C. Sections were dried gently under a flow of nitrogen and desiccated at room temperature for 15 min, after which they were imaged optically using a photo scanner (Epson perfection V500). The samples were then coated with derivatization reagents, 2, 4-diphenylpyrylium tetrafluoroborate (DPP-TFB). Stock solution of DPP-TFB (8 mg in 1.2 ml MeOH) was prepared and diluted in 6 mL of 70% methanol containing 3.5 μL of trimethylamine. An automated pneumatic sprayer (TM-Sprayer, HTX Technologies, Carrboro, NC, United States) was used to spray DPP-TFB solution over the tissue sections. The nozzle temperature was set at 80°C and the reagent was sprayed for 30 passes over the tissue sections at a linear velocity of 110 cm/min with a flow rate of about 80 μL/min. Samples were then incubated for 15 min (dried by nitrogen flow every 5 min) in a chamber saturated with vapor from a 50% methanol solution. MALDI-MSI experiment was performed using a MALDI-TOF/TOF (Ultraflextreme, Bruker Daltonics, Bremen, Germany) mass spectrometer with a Smartbeam II 2 kHz laser in positive ion mode. The laser power was optimized at the start of each run and then held constant during the MALDI-MSI experiment. Data Analysis and Statistics ---------------------------- Autoradiograms from western blotting experiments were digitized using a Dia-Scanner (Epson Perfection 4870 PHOTO). Optical density values were measured using NIH Scion Image for Windows (alfa 4.0.3.2; © 2000--2001 Scion Corporation). Biochemical data were analyzed using one-way ANOVAs followed by Newman--Keuls *post hoc* test. Data from Amperometry were acquired and analyzed with the pClamp 9 or pClamp 10 software (Axon Instruments). Data are expressed as % of the baseline response measured for each slice during the 5--10 min preceding start of perfusion with T~1~AM. Statistical significance of the results was assessed by using Student's *t*-test for paired observations (comparisons with baseline within single groups) or one-way [ANOVA]{.smallcaps} multiple comparison test followed by Newman--Keuls *post hoc* test since the samples from WT and KO mice were loaded in separated gels. The numbers of individual replicates are shown in the graphs, while *p*-values, degrees of freedom and *F* values are detailed in the results part. Results ======= Dose Responses of Tyramine and T~1~AM on Phosphorylation of TH and GluA1 in Striatal Slices From TAAR1 Receptor WT and KO Mice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We first studied the dose responses of the tyramine and T~1~AM on the phosphorylation of TH and GluA1 in striatal slices from TAAR1 receptor WT and KO mice. To study effects of compounds in the both genotypes, their individual baseline was set at 100%. One way ANOVA analysis showed that tyramine caused a significant change of P-Ser^40^-TH in both WT (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 60.28; *p* \< 0.0001) and KO mice (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 9.928, *p* = 0.0003). *Post hoc* test showed that the lower (1 and 10 μM) concentrations of tyramine did not have any significant effect, whereas 100 μM tyramine significantly reduced phosphorylation of P-Ser^40^-TH in both groups of mice, suggesting an effect independent of TAAR1 (**Figure [1A](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). Meanwhile, there were no effects at the same concentration of tyramine on P-Ser^19^-TH (WT: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 2.913; *p* = 0.06; KO: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 2.718; *p* = 0.07) and P-Ser^31^-TH (WT: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.9955; *p* = 0.42; KO: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.9157; *p* = 0.45) in neither WT nor KO mice (**Figure [1A](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). One way ANOVA analysis in T~1~AM treated mice revealed that only in the WT but not in the KO mice, the drug affected significantly the levels of P-Ser^19^ (WT: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 3.641; *p* = 0.0004; KO: *F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.1953, *p* = 0.8983) and P-Ser^40^-TH (WT: *F*~\[3,16\]~: 4.393, *p* = 0.02; KO: *F*~\[3,16\]~: 0.823, *p* = 0.5001). *Post hoc* test showed that 10 μM T~1~AM enhanced P-Ser^19^ and P-Ser^40^-TH in the striatum of WT but not TAAR1 KO mice (**Figure [1B](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). The effects of T~1~AM were biphasic with a further increase in drug concentrations resulting in less phosphorylation of TH. There was no effect of T~1~AM on P-Ser^31^-TH both in WT (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.7911, *p* = 0.5131) and KO mice (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.446, *p* = 0.7228) (**Figure [1B](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). Tyramine altered significantly the phosphorylation of P-Ser^845^-GluA1 in WT (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 9.387; *p* = 0.0004) and KO mice (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 22.89; *p* \< 0.0001) (**Figure [1C](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). In contrast, T~1~AM had no effect on P-Ser^845^-GluA1 in striatal slices from either TAAR1 WT (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.8744; *p* = 0.4709) or KO mice (*F*~\[3,20\]~: 0.4367; *p* = 0.7295) (**Figure [1D](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**). These data suggest that tyramine and T~1~AM act differently on pre- and post-synaptic striatal targets. {#F1} To further study the effect of a high dose of endogenous TAs, we incubated striatal slices from WT mice with the tyramine (100 μM), β-PEA (100 μM) alone or with the D~1~ receptor antagonist SCH23390 (5 μM). As shown in **Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}**, we found that β-PEA, like tyramine, decreased P-Ser^40^-TH (*F*~\[5,18\]~: 68.88; *p* \< 0.0001) while not significantly affecting P-Ser^19^-TH (*F*~\[5,18\]~: 1.442; *p* = 0.2573) or P-Ser^31^-TH (*F*~\[5,18\]~: 1.18; *p* = 0.3574). The effects of tyramine and β-PEA on P-Ser^40^-TH were not affected by SCH23390. On the other hand, tyramine significantly enhanced P-Ser^845^-GluA1 (*F*~\[5,18\]~: 2.455; *p* \< 0.0001), an effect that was reversed to baseline by D~1~ receptor blockade using SCH23390. Likewise, β-PEA tended to increase P-Ser^845^-GluA1, but this effect did not reach significance. The data of β-PEA was further to confirm that classical TAs and T~1~AM act differently. {#F2} Effects of Tyramine and T~1~AM on TH Activity Measured by [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA in Striatal Slices From TAAR1 WT and KO Mice --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was also a baseline increase of TH activity in TAAR1 KO mice as compared to WT mice ([@B22]). To study effects of compounds in the both genotypes, their individual baseline was set at 100%. One way ANOVA revealed significant difference among the groups in WT mice (*F*~\[2,18\]~: 6.856; *p* = 0.0061) (**Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}**). *Post hoc* test showed that T~1~AM (10 μM), but not tyramine (100 μM), induced [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA accumulation in the presence of a DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor in WT mice. No effects were detected in TAAR1 KO mice (*F*~\[2,18\]~: 0.08823; *p* = 0.9159), indicative of a TAAR1-mediated mechanism of action of T~1~AM. ![Effect of tyramine and T~1~AM on TH activity measured by [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA in striatal slices from WT and TAAR1 KO mice. The activity of TH as measured by [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA was enhanced by T~1~AM (10 μM) in WT mice whereas no change was detected in TAAR1 KO mice. Tyramine (100 μM) had no effect on [L]{.smallcaps}-DOPA. ^∗∗^*p* \< 0.01; one-way ANOVA followed by Newman--Keuls test for pairwise comparisons. The number of individual replicates is indicated within each column.](fphar-09-00166-g003){#F3} Effects of T~1~AM Alone or in Combination With H-89, 8-CPT-2Me-cAMP, and KN-92 on Phosphorylation of TH in Dorsal Striatal Slices From WT Mice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To further study intracellular signaling cascades underlying the T~1~AM-induced phosphorylation of TH, we combined the T~1~AM with KN-92 or H-89, inhibitors of CamKII and protein kinase A (PKA), respectively. The effects of T~1~AM on both P-Ser^19^ (*F*~\[7,75\]~: 3.651; *p* = 0.0019) and P-Ser^40^-TH (*F*~\[7,75\]~: 3.871; *p* = 0.0012) could be significantly inhibited by either KN-92 or H-89 (**Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}**). Since TAAR1 is a Gs-coupled receptor and generates cAMP, we also examined the effects of 8-CPT-2Me-cAMP, an EPAC (Exchange Protein directly Activated by cAMP) activator, on TH phosphorylation. 8-CPT-2Me-cAMP alone tended to increase TH phosphorylation, but did not interact with T~1~AM (**Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}**). {#F4} Effects of T~1~AM and EPPTB, Alone or in Combination, on Evoked Dopamine Release and Phosphorylation of TH in Dorsal Striatal Slices From WT and TAAR1 KO Mice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We evaluated the effect of T~1~AM on stimulation-evoked release of DA from DA-containing fibers present in sagittal striatal slices, as shown in **Figure [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}**. We found that bath application of T~1~AM (10 μM) significantly increased the amplitude of evoked DA release measured with carbon fiber electrodes coupled to amperometry in dorsal striatal brain slices from WT mice, and that this effect was significantly reduced in TAAR1 KO mice. In presence of the TAAR1 antagonist EPPTB (10 nM), the effect of T~1~AM on evoked DA release in WT mice was significantly reduced, but not completely blocked (*F*~\[2,20\]~: 7,252; *p* = 0.0043). EPPTB had no effect on evoked DA release by itself (data not shown). Similar to the results as above, T~1~AM significantly increased P-Ser^40^-TH (*F*~\[3,30\]~: 3.384; *p* = 0.0309). This effect was blocked when T~1~AM was combined with EPPTB, suggesting a mechanism of action mediated via TAAR1. {#F5} The Relative Distribution and Abundance of T~1~AM in Sagittal Brain Sections From WT and TAAR1 KO Mice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ T~1~AM was derivatized by 2, 4 diphenyl pyranylium and detected by MALDI-MSI. No clear endogenous signal of T~1~AM was found in uninjected sections neither from WT nor TAAR1 KO mice. However, widespread signals corresponding to derivatized T~1~AM was detected in mice intraperitoneally administered with T~1~AM (20 mg/kg). The concentration of the drug appeared higher after 30 min compared to 60 min post-dose (**Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}**). {#F6} Discussion ========== Our experiments demonstrate that the thyronamine T~1~AM enhance phosphorylation and activity of TH along with evoked DA release in dorsal striatum, while not significantly affecting the phosphorylation of post-synaptic AMPA receptor GluA1 subunits. The effects on TH phosphorylation observed following T~1~AM administration were abolished in TAAR1 KO mice, while the effects on evoked DA release were attenuated in TAAR1 KO mice and following TAAR1 blockade, supporting a role of TAAR1 as a partial mediator of these effects. We can conclude that T~1~AM acts through TAAR1 to enhance the production of dopamine. This *de novo* dopamine creation heightens the synaptic dopamine content and raises extracellular dopamine. In contrast, tyramine and β-PEA reduced TH phosphorylation via a mechanism independent of TAAR1. The Differential Effects of the TAs Tyramine, β-PEA and Thyronamine, T~1~AM, on Phosphorylation and Activity of TH and on GluA1 Phosphorylation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alterations of DA synthesis are regulated via phosphorylation of TH, the rate-limiting enzyme in the synthesis of catecholamines ([@B20]), and Ser^19^, Ser^31^, and Ser^40^ have been identified as the functionally most important sites of TH phosphorylation ([@B39]). Phosphorylation of Ser^19^ is induced by enhanced intracellular Ca^2+^ concentrations and activation of CaM kinase II, whereas phosphorylation at Ser^31^ is induced by extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases, and phosphorylation of Ser^40^ is catalyzed by PKA ([@B37]). TH phosphorylation at Ser^40^ and Ser^31^ leads to increased TH activity, whereas phosphorylation at Ser^19^ exerts a positive modulatory influence on Ser^40^ phosphorylation ([@B7]; [@B27]). Notably, TAAR1 KO animals exhibit a basal increase in TH activity and increased basal phosphorylation at Ser^19^, Ser^31^, and Ser^40^ in striatal slices compared to WT animals, perhaps due to developmental compensations ([@B22]). An increased TH activity at Ser^19^, Ser^31^, and Ser^40^ was observed in WT mice following administration of 1 to 10 μM T~1~AM, but this effect was attenuated upon increasing or lowering the concentration, indicating a bell-shaped dose--response. The effects of T~1~AM on TH activity were abolished in TAAR1 KO mice, identifying TAAR1 as a mediator of these actions. TAAR1 is coupled with stimulatory G~s~ proteins as well as G protein independent pathways and, upon activation, TAAR1 signals through the cAMP/PKA/CREB, β-arrestin2/Akt/GSK-3β and the protein kinase C (PKC)/Ca++/NFAT pathways ([@B8]; [@B14]; [@B67]; [@B35]). Here we found that the T~1~AM-mediated increases on Ser^19^ and Ser^40^ TH were inhibited by blockade of CamKII and PKA by either KN-92 or H-89, respectively. The protein responsible for the phosphorylation of TH at the site Ser^31^ is MAPK ([@B38]). As a consequence we suppose that the TAAR1's activation by T~1~AM stimulates the activity of MAPK, either through PKA or through an alternative direct pathway like β-arrestin2 ([@B69]). In order to confirm that the observed phosphorylation of TH leads to increased enzymatic activity, we made measurements of DOPA with HPLC in striatal slices. T~1~AM induced a higher level of DOPA accumulation in the presence of a DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor in WT mice. This effect of T~1~AM was abolished in KO counterparts. **Figure [7](#F7){ref-type="fig"}** shows a schematic, and somewhat speculative, drawing of the proposed signaling pathway induced by T~1~AM/TAAR1/PKA activation. TAAR1 is a G~s~ protein-coupled receptor and activation results in increased cAMP via activation of adenylyl cyclase and PKA signaling, which directly phosphorylates TH at Ser^40^. Another pathway could involve activation of inhibitor 1 by PKA, which inhibits protein phosphatase 1 (PP-1). PP-1 inhibits the phosphorylation of CamKII, which activates phosphorylation of Ser^19^-TH. CamKII can also inhibit protein phosphatase 2A which activates phosphorylation of Ser^40^-TH. The regulation of the suggested signal transduction pathways could explain how KN-92 and H-89, inhibitors of CamKII and PKA respectively, both can block the effect of T~1~AM. 8-CPT-2Me-cAMP, the EPAC analog, had no influence on TH phosphorylation. In summary, this higher phosphorylation rate leads to the accumulation of DOPA. {#F7} In contrast to T~1~AM, under the present conditions, the endogenous TAs tyramine and β-PEA appeared to elicit mainly non-TAAR1 dependent effects. Tyramine, at a high dose, reduced phosphorylation of Ser^40^-TH, but increased phosphorylation of the post-synaptic AMPA receptor GluA1 subunit in striatal slices from both WT and TAAR1 KO mice. Similarly, another endogenous TA, β-PEA also reduced phosphorylation of Ser^40^-TH and tended to increase phosphorylation of Ser^845^-GluA1 in slices from WT mice. The quantification of GluA1 phosphorylation on Ser^845^, help us to evaluate the status of GluA1 in the post-synaptic membrane of corticostriatal and thalamostriatal synapses, which are the main classes of glutamatergic synapse in the striatum ([@B83]). The corticostriatal and thalamocortical projection neurons innervate the principal population of MSNs, but also various subtypes of interneurons ([@B83]). By measuring the phosphorylation of GluA1 we cannot rule out which types of interneurons and MSNs (D~1~ positive or D~2~ positive) are activated. Nevertheless, it is shown that D~1~ agonists and D~2~ antagonists induce robust increases in GluA1 phosphorylation while D~2~ agonists and D~1~ antagonists have no effect ([@B99]). Considering this fact, we deduce that the effect of tyramine on GluA1 trafficking could be explained by either the post-synaptic regulation of D~1~ or D~2~ receptors. D~1~ receptor blockade by SCH23390 blocked the tyramine-induced phosphorylation of GluA1 subunits, but had no effect on tyramine- or β-PEA-reduced Ser^40^-TH phosphorylation, suggesting that the post-synaptic effects of tyramine are dependent on D~1~-receptor activation. According, GluA1 upregulation may be a consequence of the dopamine's net effect upon D~1~ and D~2~ receptors ([@B99]). In our study, we observed that tyramine attenuated the TH phosphorylation at Ser^40^. However, diminished enzymatic activity of TH does not mean a reduction in dopamine release, whilst a negative feedback mechanism for dopamine control of TH activity has been documented ([@B56]; [@B20]). It is conceivable that tyramine has amphetamine-like effects on the excitability of the post-synaptic membrane and possibly leads to the vesicular leak of dopamine by its interaction with VMAT2 ([@B102]). Moreover, it has been suggested that TAs act like amphetamines and could increase extracellular DA levels by promoting DA release via inducing reversal of the dopamine transporter (DAT) and by displacing DA from vesicular stores ([@B89]; [@B43]; [@B64]). β-PEA, which is structurally related to amphetamine, has been proposed to act as an endogenous amphetamine ([@B42]), and has previously been shown to increase extracellular levels of DA in striatum and NAc via a DAT-dependent mechanism ([@B84]; [@B65]). Notably, Xie and Miller found that TAs, including tyramine and β-PEA, do not directly activate monoamine autoreceptors ([@B96]). However, they have been proposed to indirectly activate dopamine autoreceptors by enhancing the efflux of dopamine ([@B32]). One possible explanation for tyramine's TAAR1 independent effect on GluA1 phosphorylation, may be that this TA acts through MSN-localized TAAR1 to affect the availability of GluN1 and through VMAT2 to alter the surface density of GluA1. Indeed, several studies have supposed that tyramine can affect glutamate receptor membrane availability through MSN-localized TAAR1 ([@B2]; [@B28]; [@B88]). To conclude, our data support the notion that T~1~AM can modulate DA synthesis via a mechanism of action that involves presynaptic TAAR1. Moreover, we suppose a direct effect of tyramine on dopamine release that could lead to the observed decline in TH phosphorylation due to secondary activation of indirect D~2~ autoreceptors ([@B56]). The Effect of T~1~AM on Evoked DA Release in the Dorsal Striatum Using Amperometry ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our experiments suggest that striatal dopamine release can be enhanced by T~1~AM-mediated TAAR1 activation. However, most previous slice experiments addressing the modulatory influence of TAAR1 on the dopaminergic system have been performed in the VTA ([@B55]; [@B72]), which may be a source of discrepancy between our study and previous findings. Previous slice experiments in the VTA of TAAR1 KO mice revealed enhanced spontaneous firing rates of dopaminergic neurons in TAAR1 KO mice compared to WT mice, suggesting that TAAR1 exerts an attenuating effect on dopaminergic neuron activity ([@B55]). This has been supported by slice experiments in mouse VTA using the specific ligands RO5166017 and EPPTB to stimulate and block TAAR1, respectively ([@B10]; [@B73]). However, the increased DA neuron firing rate observed in TAAR1 KO mice did not lead to enhanced basal levels of extracellular striatal DA compared to WT mice as detected by microdialysis ([@B55]). Indeed, mice overexpressing TAAR1, like TAAR1 KO mice, also exhibit an enhanced spontaneous firing activity of monoaminergic neurons of the VTA, DRN, and locus coeruleus ([@B72]). Moreover, it is likely that the functional outcome of TAAR1 activation differs between specific classes of ligand and distinct brain regions depending on the characteristics of the dopaminergic innervation and basal tone. Although midbrain DA neurons are considered to be relatively homogenous, emerging data support a high level of diversity among VTA and SNc neurons as regards electrophysiological properties, synaptic connectivity, protein expression profiles, and behavioral functions ([@B75]). The expression levels of two TAAR1 related proteins, D~2~ receptor and GIRK2, are implicated in the differences between the two subpopulations ([@B10]; [@B74]; [@B6]; [@B12]). In agreement with this, it is reported that TAAR1 has a differential role in dopamine release between VTA and SNc projection sites in striatum ([@B53]). In contrast, [@B22] showed that TAAR1 decreases the amplitude of Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) induced dopamine release both in ventral and dorsal striatum. In the same study it was observed that the TAAR1 agonist, *o*-phenyl-3-iodotyramine (*o*-PIT) blunted the para-chloroamphetamine (PCA) induced dopamine release in both structures ([@B22]). Accordingly, TAAR1 may exert a complex pattern of effects on dopaminergic terminals in ventral as compared to dorsal compartments of the striatum. Furthermore, both the VTA and SNc can be further distinguished regarding the expression of calbindin D28k (CB), with the highest density of CB positive neurons located in VTA ([@B90]). CB positive neurons have the tendency to send projections in CB poor islands in striatum (striosomes), while CB negative cells mainly innervate CB rich regions of the striatum (striatal matrix) ([@B13]; [@B81]). It has been reported that the evoked striatal DA release differs between these two compartments but also that the dopamine release ratio of striosome over matrix is higher in the ventral than dorsal striatum ([@B78]). Consequently, TAAR1 could have diverse effects not only among VTA and SNc neurons but also between CB positive and negative subgroups. Our findings with T~1~AM, may also be explained by differences in the methodologies and protocols employed to evoke and measure dopamine release. For example, the use of strong stimulation intensities might evoke maximal release. Conversely, local, low intensity stimulation, as used in the present study, allows for observation of both inhibition and potentiation of dopamine release. In addition, recent studies have demonstrated that dopamine release in brain slices can be evoked by direct stimulation of dopaminergic axons and indirectly by stimulation of cholinergic interneurons in the striatum ([@B93]; [@B101]). It has not yet been established whether cholinergic neurons express TAAR1 but the contrasting effects of RO5166017 and T~1~AM might result from differences in the involvement of cholinergic control of dopamine release between different experimental paradigms. Taken together, these studies raise the question of a possible differential control of dopamine release by TAAR1 receptors in cholinergic interneurons and in dopamine axon terminals. In this study, we investigated the action of T~1~AM at TAAR1 on dopaminergic terminals as compared to those of TAs. However, T~1~AM is also known to be an agonist of TAAR5 ([@B25]). Moreover, the β-phenylethylamine-like structure affords T~1~AM the ability to bind with various members of GPCR superfamily and ion channels ([@B17]; [@B44]). It is indeed claimed that T~1~AM interacts with α2a adrenergic receptors, β2-adrenergic receptors and muscarinic receptors ([@B46]; [@B23],[@B24]; [@B51], [@B50]). Notably, outside the CNS, T~1~AM has been found to differentially regulate insulin secretion through actions at TAAR1 and α2a adrenergic receptor ([@B17]; [@B52]). Hence, despite blockade of the actions of T~1~AM in KO mice and by pharmacological antagonist, the possibility that it exerts actions via other mechanisms should not be excluded. In this study we incubated the slices in a T~1~AM containing buffer. It is important to access the roles of T~1~AM in the intact brain. We show here that T~1~AM can be detected by MALDI-MSI in mouse brain slices 30 and 60 min after systemic administration. Since T~1~AM was detected in many brain areas, we can conclude that T~1~AM can penetrate the blood brain barrier. This finding is in accordance with previous studies showing effects on glucose metabolism by intraperitoneally administered T~1~AM ([@B47]). Using MALDI-MSI, no clear endogenous levels of T~1~AM could be detected. However, it will be interesting to study T~1~AM levels in pathological states, particularly in hyperthyroid conditions. In addition to a circulating source, direct enzymatic transformation of T~4~ to T~1~AM may occur in neurons. The responsible enzyme for this reaction is ornithine decarboxylase ([@B40]), which is expressed by neuronal and astroglial cell types of the CNS ([@B3]). Apart from T~1~AM itself, its metabolite 3-iodothyroacetic acid (TA1) is implicated in the modulation of histaminergic neurotransmission and might likewise interact with dopaminergic pathways: this remains to be clarified ([@B49]). Conclusion ========== This study demonstrates that TAAR1 mediates the effects of T~1~AM on dorsal striatal TH phosphorylation, activity and evoked dopamine release. No comparable alterations were found after application of tyramine and β-PEA. This simultaneous augmentation in TH phosphorylation and striatal dopamine release after the administration of T~1~AM indicates that this thyronamine favors dopamine synthesis and subsequent secretion through TAAR1. Conversely, TAs act in a TAAR1 independent manner to influence dopamine secretion resulting in feedback inhibition of TH. This study further indicates that the modulatory properties of TAAR1 may differ depending on the identity of the ligand in question, the extracellular milieu, basal levels of monoamines, neuronal circuitry, and the cellular localization of TAAR1, which are mutually regulated by interactions with D~2~ receptors and DAT, and by the available signaling transduction systems. Further elucidation of the complex pattern of influence of TAAR1 upon monoaminergic and other pathways controlling mood, motor function and cognition may lead to the elaboration of urgently-need, novel strategies for improving the treatment of depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and other neuropsychiatric disorders ([@B60]; [@B45]; [@B5]; [@B19]). Author Contributions ==================== Participated in research design: XZ, KC, and PS. Collected the samples and conducted the experiments: XZ, MS, MP, AN, and TY. Performed the data analysis and discussed the data: XZ, IM, AA, TY, JK, PEA, MJM, KC, and PS. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript and to revising it critically for scientific discussions: XZ, IM, AA, MJM, KC, and PS. All authors approved the final version to be published. Conflict of Interest Statement ============================== The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. **Funding.** This study was supported by Konung Gustaf V:s och Drottning Victorias Frimurarestiftelse and the Swedish Research Council to PS. PEA was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Medicine and Health \#2013-3105, Natural and Engineering Science \#2014-6215), the Swedish Brain Foundation, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research \#RIF14-0078 and Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab). MP got a scholarship from CAPES -- Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel. [^1]: Edited by: *Stefano Espinoza, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Technologia, Italy* [^2]: Reviewed by: *Lucia Caffino, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy; Grazia Chiellini, University of Pisa, Italy* [^3]: This article was submitted to Neuropharmacology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology

Batanes Batanes (; , ) is an archipelagic province in the Philippines situated in the Cagayan Valley region. It is the northernmost province in the country, and also the smallest, both in population and land area. Its capital is Basco located on the island of Batan. The island group is located approximately north of the Luzon mainland and about south of Taiwan, separated from the Babuyan Islands of Cagayan Province by the Balintang Channel, and from Taiwan by the Bashi Channel. The entire province is listed in the UNESCO tentative list for inscription in the World Heritage List. The government has been finalizing the site's inscription, establishing museums and conservation programs since 2001. The government aims to push for the site's inclusion between 2018 and 2019. Seven intangible heritage elements of the Ivatan have been set by the Philippine government in its initial inventory in 2012. The elements are undergoing a process to be included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists between 2018 and 2025. Etymology The name Batanes derives from the words Batan, the local word for the Ivatan people. History The ancestors of today's Ivatans descended from Austronesians who migrated to the islands 4,000 years ago during the Neolithic period. They lived in fortified mountain areas called idjangs and drank sugar-cane wine, or palek. They also used gold as currency and produced a thriving agriculture-based industry. They were also seafarers and boat-builders. In 1687, a crew of English freebooters headed by William Dampier came with a Dutch crew and named the islands in honour of their country's nobility. Itbayat was named "Orange Isle" after William of Orange, and Batan was named "Grafton Isle" after Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton. Sabtang Isle was named "Monmouth Isle" after James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. Capt. Dampier stayed for less than three months, and did not claim the islands for the British crown. In 1783, the Spanish claimed Batanes as part of the Philippines under the auspices of Governor-General José Basco y Vargas. The Bashi Channel was increasingly used by English East India Company ships and the Spanish authorities brought the islands under their direct administration to prevent them falling under British control. The Ivatan remained on their idjangs, or mountain fortresses for some time. In 1790, Governor Guerrero decreed that Ivatans were to live in the lowlands and leave their remote idjang. The mangpus, the indigenous Ivatan leader of the islands during that time, made a revolution against the Spaniards afterwards. With much ammunition and steel armors, the Spanish authorities quelled the uprising, effectively subjugating the rebels. Basco and Ivana were the first towns established under full Spanish control. Mahatao was then administered by Basco, while Uyugan and Sabtang, by Ivana. Itbayat was not organized until the 1850s, its coast being a ridge. Soon, Ilocanos came to the islands and integrated with the local population. Roads, ports, bridges, churches and government buildings were built in this time. Limestone technology used by the Spanish was also spread to the islands, making bridges strong and fortified. Some of these bridges still remain at Ivana and Mahatao. By 1890, many Ivatans were in Manila, and became ilustrados, who then brought home with them the revolutionary ideas of the Katipunan. These Ivatans, who were then discontented with Spanish rule, killed the ruling General Fortea and declared the end of Spanish rule. Toward the end of the Spanish administration, Batanes was made a part of Cagayan. In 1909, the new American authorities organized it into an independent province. During the American colonial period, additional public schools were constructed and more Ivatan became aware of their place in the Philippines. In 1920, the first wireless telegraph was installed, followed by an airfield in 1930. New roads were constructed and the Batanes High School was instituted. Because of their strategic location, the islands was one of the first points occupied by invading Japanese imperial forces at the outbreak of the Pacific War. The morning of December 8, 1941, the Batan Task Force from Taiwan landed on the Batan Islands, which became the first American territory occupied by the Japanese. The purpose of the invasion was to secure the existing small airfield outside Basco, which was accomplished without resistance. Japanese fighters from Basco took part in the raid on Clark Air Base the following day. However, over the next several days, the success of the Japanese bombing of Clark Field rendered a base at Basco unnecessary, and on December 10, 1941, the naval combat force was withdrawn to participate in the invasion of Camiguin. One of the first School Superintendents on Batan was Victor de Padua, an Ilocano, who in 1942–45 during the Japanese occupation was made Provincial Governor. Early in 1945 the island was liberated by the Philippine Commonwealth forces of the 1st and 12th Infantry Division of the Philippine Commonwealth Army. In 1984, Pacita Abad, the foremost Ivatan visual artist, became the first woman to be awarded the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) award, breaking 25 years of male dominance. In her acceptance speech, she said, "it was long overdue that Filipina women were recognized, as the Philippines was full of outstanding women” and referred proudly to her mother. In 1993, the Batanes Protected Landscape and Seascape, which encompassed the entire province, was listed in the Tentative List of the Philippines for UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription in the future. In 1997, the Indigenous Peoples Rights act or IPRA was passed in Philippine Congress. the law paved the way for the indigenous territorial rights of the Ivatans. The province has since promoted its Ivatan roots. Part of the Ilocano population has returned to mainland Luzon. In December 7, 2004, Pacita Abad died after finishing her last international art work while suffering from cancer. Geography The province has a total area of comprising ten islands situated within the Luzon Strait between the Balintang Channel and Taiwan. The islands are sparsely populated and subject to frequent typhoons. The three largest islands, Batan, Itbayat, and Sabtang, are the only inhabited islands. The northernmost island in the province, also the northernmost land in the entire Philippines, is Mavulis (or Y'ami) Island. Other islands in the chain are Misanga (or North), Ditarem, Siayan, Diogo (or Dinem), Ivuhos, and Dequey. The islands are part of the Luzon Volcanic Arc. Topography Almost one-half of Batanes is hills and mountains. Batan Island is generally mountainous on the north and southeast. It has a basin in the interior. Itbayat Island slopes gradually to the west, being mountainous and hilly along its northern, eastern coast. As for Sabtang, mountains cover the central part, making the island slope outward to the coast. The islands are situated between the vast expanse of the waters of Bashi Channel and Balintang Channel, where the Pacific Ocean merges with the China Sea. The area is a sea lane between the Philippines and Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is rich with marine resources, including the rarest sea corals in the world. The province is hilly and mountainous, with only 1,631.5 hectares or 7.1% of its area level to undulating, and 78.2% or 17,994.4 hectares varying from rolling to steep and very steep. Forty two percent (42%) or 9,734.40 hectares are steep to very steep land. Because of the terrain of the province, drainage is good and prolonged flooding is non-existent. The main island of Batan has the largest share of level and nearly level lands, followed by Itbayat and Sabtang, respectively. Itbayat has gently rolling hills and nearly level areas on semi-plateaus surrounded by continuous massive cliffs rising from above sea level, with no shorelines. Sabtang has its small flat areas spread sporadically on its coasts, while its interior is dominated by steep mountains and deep canyons. Batan Island and Sabtang have intermittent stretches of sandy beaches and rocky shorelines. The terrain of the province, while picturesque at almost every turn, has limited the potential for expansion of agriculture in an already very small province. Climate Batanes has a tropical climate (Köppen climate classification Am). The average yearly temperature is , and the average monthly temperature ranges from in January to in July, similar to that of Southern Taiwan. Precipitation is abundant throughout the year; the rainiest month is August while the driest month is April. November to February are the coldest months. There is a misconception that Batanes is constantly battered by typhoons. Batanes is mentioned frequently in connection with typhoons, because it holds the northernmost weather station in the Philippines, thus, it is also a reference point for all typhoons that enter the Philippine area; however, in September 2016, Typhoon Meranti impacted the entire province, including a landfall on Itbayat. Administrative divisions Batanes is subdivided into 6 municipalities, all encompassed by a lone congressional district. Barangays The 6 municipalities of the province comprise a total of 29 barangays, with Ihuvok II in Basco as the most populous in 2010, and Nakanmuan in Sabtang as the least. Demographics The population of Batanes in the was people, with a density of . The natives are called Ivatans and share prehistoric cultural and linguistic commonalities with the Babuyan on Babuyan Island and the Tao people of Orchid Island. This divided homeland is a result of the Dutch invasion of Taiwan in 1624 (Dutch Formosa) and Spanish invasion in 1626 (Spanish Formosa). The northern half of the Ivatan homeland, Formosa and Orchid Island which were formally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, fell to the Dutch who were in turn expelled in 1662 by forces of the Chinese Southern Ming dynasty, led by the Chinese pirate Koxinga who then set himself up as The King of Taiwan. The southern half of the Ivatan homeland, the islands of Batanes, was reinforced and fortified by Spanish refugees from Formosa before being formally joined in the 18th century with the Spanish government in Manila. The main languages spoken in Batanes are Ivatan, which is spoken on the islands of Batan and Sabtang; Itbayaten, which is spoken primarily on the island of Itbayat. The Ivatan which is dominant in the province is considered to be one of the Austronesian languages. From college level down to elementary level, the language is widely spoken. Religion The large majority (94%) of the island's people adhere to Roman Catholicism. The remaining faiths are other Christian Churches. Ecology An extensive survey of the ecology of Batanes provided the scientific basis for confirming the need for a national park in Batanes protecting the Batanes protected landscapes and seascapes, proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, submitted on 15 August 1993. An effort is underway to declare the whole province, along with the sugar central sites in Negros, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site by the end of 2020. Flora and fauna The province is the home of the unique conifer species Podocarpus costalis. Although it is reportedly growing in some other places such as coasts of Luzon, Catanduanes and even Taiwan, full blossoming and fruiting are observed only in Batanes. Its fruiting capacity on the island remains a mystery but is likely due to several factors such as climate, soil and type of substratum of the island. Several species of birds, bats, reptiles and amphibians also inhabit the island; many of those are endemic to the Philippines. The island is also a sanctuary of different migratory birds during winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Economy About 75% of the Ivatans are farmers and fishermen. The rest are employed in the government and services sector. Garlic and cattle are major cash crops. Ivatans also plant camote (sweet potato), cassava, gabi or tuber and a unique variety of white uvi. Sugarcane is raised to produce palek, a kind of native wine, and vinegar. In recent years, fish catch has declined due to the absence of technical know-how. Employment opportunities are scarce. Most of the educated Ivatans have migrated to urban centers or have gone abroad. A wind diesel generating plant was commissioned in 2004. Distance and bad weather work against its economic growth. Certain commodities like rice, soft drinks, and gasoline carry a 75% to 100% mark-up over Manila retail prices. Transportation The island province of Batanes is accessible by air via the Basco Airport and Itbayat Airport. There are 3 flights per week from Manila by SkyJetAir, and from Tuguegarao (Cagayan) by small local airliners (as of January 2013). PAL Express flies to Batanes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday since May 1, 2013. Values The Ivatan people of Batanes are one of the most egalitarian societies in the Philippines. The prime motivator of the cultural values of the Ivatans are imbibed in their pre-colonial belief systems of respecting nature and all people. The Ivatans, both the older and younger generations, have one of the highest incidences of social acceptance to minority groups in the country. The Ivatans also have a high respect for the elderly and the prowess of natural phenomena such as waves, sea breeze, lightning, thunders, earthquakes, and wildlife congregations. Discriminating someone based on skin color, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and traditions on nature is unacceptable in Ivatan values. Land grabbing is also a grave crime in Ivatan societies, making ancestral domain certification an important part of Ivatan jurisprudence since the enactment of the IPRA Law. Heritage Natural Sabtang Island is undisturbed and unspoiled. It has intermittent white sand beaches with steep mountains and deep canyons with small level areas sporadically found along the coastline. Southwest of Batan Island, Sabtang is accessible by 30-minute falowa ride from Radiwan Port in Ivana. Sabtang Island is also the take off point for Ivuhos Island from Barangay Nakanmuan. Itbayat Island is located north of Batan Island. Itbayat is shaped like a giant bowl. The island is surrounded by massive boulders and cliffs rising from above sea level and has no shoreline. It has a dirt airstrip for light aircraft. A regular ferry runs the Batan-Itbayat route. Travel time is about four hours by falowa from Basco Seaport. A light plane flies from Basco Airport to Itbayat at around P1,875 per person and leaves only when the plane is full. Batan Island is the most populated island of the province. It is composed of four municipalities: Basco, Ivana, Uyugan and Mahatao. Basco is the center of commerce and seat of the provincial government. Mount Iraya is a dormant volcano standing at whose last eruption was recorded in 505 AD. Mountaineering, trekking and trailblazing are recommended sports activities on the mountain. Walking distance from Basco, the top of Mt. Iraya can be reached in about three hours. Mavulis Island is the northernmost island of Batanes. From this location, one can see Formosa (Taiwan) on a clear day. Tatus or coconut crabs abound in the island surrounded by rich marine life. Di-atay Beach is a cove with multi-colored rocks and white sand ideal for picnics and beach combing. Located along the highway of Mahatao, it is from Basco. Songsong in Chadpidan Bay is an hour of exhilarating trek from Basco proper (). It is famous for its beautiful sunset view. Naidi Hills is walking distance from Basco. Chawa Cave is for the more adventurous. An enchanted cave with a natural salt bed whose mouth opens to the south China Sea and is accessible through the boulders of Chawa Point in Mahatao. It is from Basco. Sitio Diura at Racuj-a-Ide is the fishermens village at Mananoy Bay. Fishing season is marked by a festival in mid-March called Kapayvanuvanua. Visitors are treated with fresh fish delicacies from the Pacific Ocean. Within the area is the legendary Spring of Youth and living cave with crystal limestone formations. The bay is from Basco. Nakabuang Cave is from San Vicente Centro in Sabtang. Mt. Matarem is an extinct volcano at its summit. It is from Basco. White Beach at Vatang, Hapnit and Mavatuy Point, all in Mahatao. Storm-proof Stone houses in Batanes many residents during typhoon made up their already-fortified houses with wood and secured the roofs with nets and ropes. This was done to ensure that the structures—which symbolize the Ivatan's strength and resilience against disasters—outlast the high-pressure winds of typhoon that is expected to unleash. Tapangkos or covering were also installed on the doors and windows of several buildings in Batanes, including the capitol building. During heavy storms it was also a time for bayanihan of the residents as they helped each other tie down roofs. Manmade Radar Tukon was a United States weather station on a hilltop. It offers a magnificent 360-degree view of Batan Island, the South China Sea, Mt. Iraya, Basco proper, boulder lined cliffs and the Pacific Ocean. At present, it houses the northernmost weather station in the Philippines, the Basco Radar Station, and is only from Basco. Old Loran Station housed a US Coast Guard detachment for almost two decades and is about from Basco. Ruins Of Songsong is a ghost barangay which is a cluster of roofless shells of old stone houses abandoned after a tidal wave that hit the island of Batan in the 1950s. It has a long stretch of beach. The ruins are from Basco. San Jose Church in Ivana was built in 1814. It has a crenelated fortress-like campanile. The church fronts the Ivana Seaport and is from Basco. Kanyuyan Beach & Port at Baluarte Bay in Basco is the port of call of the cargo ships bringing goods from Manila. San Carlos Borromeo Church and a convent at Mahatao are from Basco. It was completed in 1789 and still retains its centuries-old features. Idjangs or fortified stone fortresses where the native Ivatans' ancestors migrated to Batanes as early as 4,000 BC lived in them for defensive cover. Fundacion Pacita is a lodging house and restaurant, which was formerly owned by Pacita Abad, the most iconic Ivatan visual artist. The house has been redecorated and filled with numerous art works of Pacita Abad after she died in 2004. Historical Radiwan Point at Ivana Seaport is where the Katipuneros landed in September 18, 1898. It is also the ferry station of the falowas plying the islands of Sabtang and Itbayat. Boat-shaped Stone Grave Markers, Chuhangin Burial Site, Ivuhos Island, Sabtang, Batanes Chavulan Burial Jar Site, Ivuhos Island, Sabtang Island Arrangement of Stone with Holes, Sumnanga, Sabtang Columnar Stones, Post Holes, Stone Anchors, Itbud Idyang, Uyugan, Batanes Arrangement of Stone Walls, Idyang Site, Basco, Batanes Paso Stone Formation, Ivuhos Island, Sabtang, Batanes Columnar Stone with Holes, Mahatao, Batanes Intangible Heritage In 2012, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the ICHCAP of UNESCO published Pinagmulan: Enumeration from the Philippine Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The first edition of the UNESCO-backed book included (1) Laji, (2) Kapayvanuvanuwa Fishing Ritual, (3) Kapangdeng Ritual, (4) Traditional Boats in Batanes, (5) Sinadumparan Ivatan House Types, (6) Ivatan Basketry, and (7) Ivatan (Salakot) Hat Weaving, signifying their great importance to Philippine intangible cultural heritage. The local government of Batanes, in cooperation with the NCCA, is given the right to nominate the 7 distinct elements into the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. Image gallery References External links Batanes Islands Cultural Atlas Northern Luzon cultures Batanes Travel and Tours Batanes Budget Travel Guide TRAVEL TIP: A Guide on Planning a Trip to Batanes Category:Provinces of the Philippines Category:Island provinces of the Philippines Category:Islands of Luzon Category:Protected landscapes and seascapes of the Philippines Category:States and territories established in 1909 Category:1909 establishments in the Philippines Category:Tentative List of World Heritage Sites in the Philippines Category:Former sub-provinces of the Philippines

673 F.Supp.2d 588 (2009) TITAN TIRE CORPORATION OF BRYAN, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 890L, UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, Defendant. Case No. 3:08 CV 2957. United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Western Division. December 11, 2009. *589 Thomas A. Dixon, Heidi N. Eischen, Eastman & Smith, Toledo, OH, Gene R. Lasuer, Davis Hockenberg Wine Brown Koehn & Shors, Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff. John G. Adam, Martens, Ice, Klass, Legghio, Israel & Gorchow, Royal Oak, MI, for Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER JACK ZOUHARY, District Judge. Background This Court entered judgment in this case on October 26, 2009, 673 F.Supp.2d 582, 2009 WL 3426571 (N.D.Ohio 2009), upholding an arbitration award in favor of Defendant United Steelworkers of America, Local 890L ("the Union") (Doc. Nos. 24, 25). That award reversed Plaintiff Titan Tire's decision to discharge Grievant *590 Linda Tracy who, following a workplace accident, tested positive for marijuana use. Instead of discharge, the arbitrator ordered Tracy suspended for ninety days and returned to work. On November 20, Titan filed a Notice of Appeal (Doc. No. 26). This matter is now before the Court on the Union's Motion to Enforce Judgment (Doc. No. 27), and on Titan's Motion for Stay pending appeal (Doc. No. 28). Both parties filed respective Oppositions (Doc. Nos. 29, 33), and Titan filed a supplemental brief upon this Court's request (Doc. No. 32). Titan does not dispute that it has yet to comply with the arbitration award and this Court's Judgment. However, Titan argues it is entitled to a stay pending resolution of its appeal by the Sixth Circuit. In considering whether to grant a stay under Federal Civil Rule 62(c), this Court must consider four factors: (1) the likelihood that the party seeking the stay will prevail on the merits of the appeal; (2) the likelihood that the moving party will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; (3) the prospect that others will be harmed if the court grants the stay; and (4) the public interest in granting the stay. Michigan Coal. of Radioactive Material Users, Inc. v. Griepentrog, 945 F.2d 150, 153 (6th Cir.1991); see also Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 776, 107 S.Ct. 2113, 95 L.Ed.2d 724 (1987) (noting that the factors are the same under Federal Appellate Rule 8(a)). These factors are not separate elements that a movant must satisfy, but are "interrelated considerations that must be balanced together." Griepentrog, 945 F.2d at 153. Furthermore, "the probability of success that must be demonstrated is inversely proportional to the amount of irreparable injury [movant] will suffer absent the stay." Id. Applying these factors, this Court finds that a stay is not warranted in the instant case. Likelihood of Success on Appeal Overturning an arbitration award "should be the rare exception, not the rule." Mich. Family Res., Inc. v. Serv. Employees Int'l Union Local 517M, 475 F.3d 746, 753 (6th Cir.2007). This Court noted the exceedingly deferential standard of review for arbitration awards in its Memorandum Opinion (Doc. No. 24, p. 3-4). With this deference and with these facts, this Court believes reversal of its decision and the arbitration award is unlikely. Titan merely "refers the Court to prior briefs" and asserts that it has raised "serious legal issues for the Sixth Circuit to examine" (Doc. No. 32, p. 3). This bald conclusion fails to convince this Court that Titan is likely to prevail on appeal. Harm to Titan Titan argues it would sustain irreparable harm if Tracy returned to work, because its drug policy might be viewed with skepticism by other employees. This concern was addressed by the terms of the arbitration award, which imposed the significant penalty of a ninety-day suspension on Tracy. Titan also argues that it is currently at minimum staffing levels, and returning Tracy to work would result in a disruption in flow in the workforce. That may be true, but that is simply the necessary cost of complying with the arbitration award. Cf. In re Dist. No. 1-Pacific Coast Dist., Marine Engineers' Beneficial Assoc. (AFL-CIO), 723 F.2d 70, 78 (D.C.Cir.1983) ("It can hardly be claimed that the cost of complying with the terms of an agreedupon arbitration procedure is irreparable harm."). In sum, this Court finds that Titan has failed to show that it will suffer the substantial irreparable harm needed to overcome its low likelihood of success on the merits. *591 Harm to Union and Tracy In contrast, Tracy would suffer substantial harm if this Court issued a stay. Tracy has been out of work since March 2008 and, according to the Union, she is not receiving wages, health insurance, or other benefits. Further deprivation of wages and benefits during the lengthy pendency of an appeal would result in direct and immediate harm to Tracy, even if she is eventually awarded back pay.[1] Public Interest While the public has a serious interest in maintaining workplace safety, this Court is unconvinced that returning Tracy to work would compromise safety at Titan's facility. The arbitrator, well-acquainted with Titan's drug policy and the specific facts of this case, concluded that a ninety-day suspension was sufficient punishment. That punishment would serve the specific objective of impressing upon Tracy the dangers of working under the influence of drugs, as well as reinforce the importance of the drug policy on Titan's entire workforce. Balancing the Factors The two cases cited by Titan in support of issuing a stay are distinguishable. In Exxon Corp. v. Esso Worker's Union, Inc., 963 F.Supp. 58, 60 (D.Mass. 1997), the court issued a stay pending appeal on the review of an arbitration award which had reinstated an employee terminated for testing positive for cocaine. The court found that the appeal raised "serious and difficult questions of law," the potential harms to the parties balanced one another, and the public interest favored a stay. Id. The court put particular emphasis on the public interest prong, because the employee worked as a petroleum tanker truck driver, a job with severe public safety implications. Id. In Ohio Edison Co. v. Ohio Edison Joint Council, 771 F.Supp. 1476 (N.D.Ohio 1990), the court also confronted the issue of a stay pending appeal of an arbitration award reinstating an employee after a drug suspension. The court first found that there was a serious legal question about the applicability of a particular Sixth Circuit case, id. at 1490-91, a finding that was validated by the Sixth Circuit's, later reversal on the merits, see Ohio Edison Co. v. Ohio Edison Joint Council, 947 F.2d 786 (6th Cir.1991). In addition, the court found that there would be harm to the employer in reinstating the employee, because the employee admittedly had an "ongoing problem" with marijuana addiction. Id. at 1491-92. The court also found that the employee would not suffer "substantial injury" and that resolution of the import of "last chance agreements" on appeal was in the public interest. Id. at 1492-93. The balance of factors, different in the instant case than in either Exxon Corp. or Ohio Edison, does not warrant a stay. There is a low likelihood of success on appeal, the balance of harms favors the Union and Tracy, and the public's interest in workplace safety is adequately protected by the terms of the arbitration award. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, Titan's Motion for Stay Pending Appeal (Doc. No. 28) is denied. The Union's Motion to Enforce *592 Judgment pending appeal (Doc. No. 27) is granted. The Union's request for a finding of contempt is denied. IT IS SO ORDERED. NOTES [1] During a phone conference on December 2, 2009, counsel for Titan raised the possibility of Tracy posting a bond for wages and insurance premiums she receives from Titan while the appeal is pending (Doc. No. 30). Neither party addressed this issue in subsequent briefs, and this Court is aware of no authority that would require a prevailing party to post a bond pending appeal.

/* * CDDL HEADER START * * The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the * Common Development and Distribution License, Version 1.0 only * (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance * with the License. * * You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE * or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing. * See the License for the specific language governing permissions * and limitations under the License. * * When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each * file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE. * If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the * fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying * information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner] * * CDDL HEADER END */ /* * Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. * Use is subject to license terms. */ #ifndef _MACH_SDT_H #define _MACH_SDT_H #include <mach/machine/sdt.h> #endif /* _MACH_SDT_H */

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.” The statement came as liberal opponents of Donald J. Trump, some citing fears of vote hacking, are seeking recounts in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where his margin of victory was extremely thin. A drive by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, for recounts in those states had brought in more than $5 million by midday on Friday, her campaign said, and had increased its goal to $7 million. She filed for a recount in Wisconsin on Friday, about an hour before the deadline. In its statement, the administration said, “The Kremlin probably expected that publicity surrounding the disclosures that followed the Russian government-directed compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations, would raise questions about the integrity of the election process that could have undermined the legitimacy of the president-elect.”

Housed in Asian American Studies Department, The Bulosan Center is product of grassroots volunteers On Sep. 29, a fundraising dinner marked the opening of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies. Formed within the Asian American Studies department and located on the third floor of Hart Hall, the center will serve as a space for undergraduate and graduate research and advocacy. The Bulosan Center — named for Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan — was initiated and completed under the leadership of Asian American Studies Department Chair and Professor Robyn Rodriguez. After completing her undergraduate studies at UC Santa Barbara, Rodriguez went on to graduate school at UC Berkeley where she and her peers noticed a need for Filipino representation among faculty. Rodriguez, who became a professor, was recruited by UC Davis for her work with the Filipino diaspora. “Having had the experience I had at graduate school and knowing the state of the field, knowing that I was probably one of only a handful at any UCs to do this kind of work, I thought this could be an opportunity to form a center,” Rodriguez said. The Bulosan Center is also a result of the department’s work on the preservation of Filipino-American history. Assemblymember Rob Bonta, the first Filipino-American California assemblymember, proposed Assembly Bill 123, mandating the inclusion of Filipino-American curriculum in K-12 history and social studies. In response to the need for corroborated accounts, the Asian American Studies department began a grant-funded project for an archive of the Filipino contribution to the 1960s farm workers struggle titled the Welga! Digital Archive. “The problem was there isn’t a whole lot of scholarship or research on that topic and as a community we didn’t have any central archive where our experiences have been recorded and preserved,” Rodriguez said. “Even if teachers wanted to include this history there was very little to work with.” In 2017, according to the UC Office of the President’s Disaggregated Data, there were 12,623 Filipino students in the UC system. Of those, 1,759 were from UC Davis. The Bulosan Center is the first of its kind as a space for Filipino-American Studies at a research university. “It was about time … to have a specific space catering to not just our history but also issues facing our communities locally as well as nationwide as well as back in the Philippines,” said Wayne Jopanda, a Ph.D. student in the Cultural Studies Department and a volunteer at the Bulosan Center. “It’s not just a place for research. It’s a place for community engagement and to build those bridges between academia [and] our community, as well as other marginalized communities.” In the summer of 2018, Rodriguez and a community of graduate and undergraduate students formed a coalition of volunteers interested in expanding the work of the Welga! Project. The idea became the conception of a center for Filipino studies on campus. Volunteers collaborated with the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, Migrante, LEAD Filipino, Philippine National Day Association and UC Davis Filipinx undergraduate student organizations to raise funds and lead up to the center’s launch on the Sep. 29. “It wasn’t until I came to UC Davis and started taking Asian American Studies courses and joined the [Filipino-American] community did I begin learning just how rich Fil-Am history was. I learned what an integral role our predecessors played in shaping my present,” said Leigh Bagood, third-year communication major and one of the center’s social media volunteers. The effort was composed of a core group of volunteers that collected donations internationally and nationally, from the Davis community and from their own personal contributions to amass an amount of approximately $30,000. Their goal is to sustain their donorship for a consistent intake to fund their work in research and expansion. “We want to serve not just the UC Davis community on campus, but the UC system as well,” Jopanda said. “Whether that be through workshops, whether that be through Know Your Rights campaigns, whether that be through connecting with students in Public Health or the medical school and bringing folks around to provide potential health care services for folks who may not have health care or have access to that care. It’s really going to be reactionary to what’s needed in our community.” Future projects for the Bulosan Center include expanding the Welga! Project to archive Filipino contributions to politics and activism, researching the consequences of trafficked Filipino immigrant workers and the funding for a national survey on Filipino health and mental health. Rodriguez attributed the distinctiveness of the Bulosan Center in its capacity for research and its focus on Filipino-American history, compared to other collegiate Filipino centers of study who focus primarily on the Philippines. “If you don’t have representation or support for research for your community from research institutions, and this is true for all minorities, then there’s a real risk that people’s histories and experiences won’t get preserved,” Rodriguez said. “People in the field of Filipino Studies recognize that this is huge even to have a tiny little space at a major research university where you have a center of gravity of people who are working hard and promoting this field of study.” Written by: Elizabeth Mercado — campus@theaggie.org

At subanaesthetic doses, ketamine, an N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, has demonstrated remarkable and rapid antidepressant efficacy in patients with treatment-resistant depression. The mechanism of action of ketamine is complex and not fully understood, with altered glutamatergic function and alterations of high-frequency oscillatory power (Wood et al., 2012) noted in animal studies. Here we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a single blind, crossover study to assess the neuronal effects of 0.5 mg/kg intravenous ketamine on task-related high-frequency oscillatory activity in visual and motor cortices. Consistent with animal findings, ketamine increased beta amplitudes, decreased peak gamma frequency in visual cortex and significantly amplified gamma-band amplitudes in motor and visual cortices. The amplification of gamma-band activity has previously been linked in animal studies to cortical pyramidal cell disinhibition. This study provides direct translatable evidence of this hypothesis in humans, which may underlie the anti-depressant actions of ketamine.

Goniothalamin prevents the development of chemically induced and spontaneous colitis in rodents and induces apoptosis in the HT-29 human colon tumor cell line. Colon cancer is the third most incident type of cancer worldwide. One of the most important risk factors for colon cancer development are inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), thus therapies focusing on IBD treatment have great potential to be used in cancer prevention. Nature has been a source of new therapeutic and preventive agents and the racemic form of the styryl-lactone goniothalamin (GTN) has been shown to be a promising antiproliferative agent, with gastroprotective, antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory effects. As inflammation is a well-known tumor promoter, the major goal of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic and preventive potentials of GTN on chemically induced and spontaneous colitis, as well as the cytotoxic effects of GTN on a human colon tumor cell line (HT-29). GTN treatments inhibited TNBS-induced acute and chronic colitis development in Wistar rats, reducing myeloperoxidase levels and inflammatory cells infiltration in the mucosa. In spontaneous-colitis using IL-10 deficient mice (C57BL/6 background), GTN prevented colitis development through downregulation of TNF-α, upregulation of SIRT-1 and inhibition of proliferation (PCNA index), without signs of toxicity after three months of treatment. In HT-29 cells, treatment with 10μM of GTN induced apoptosis by increasing BAX/BCL2, p-JNK1/JNK1, p-P38/P38 ratios as well as through ROS generation. Caspase 8, 9 and 3 activation also occurred, suggesting caspase-dependent apoptotic pathway, culminating in PARP-1 cleavage. Together with previous data, these results show the importance of GTN as a pro-apoptotic, preventive and therapeutic agent for IBD and highlight its potential as a chemopreventive agent for colon cancer.

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department 995 KA 10-00808 PRESENT: SCUDDER, P.J., SMITH, LINDLEY, VALENTINO, AND WHALEN, JJ. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, RESPONDENT, V MEMORANDUM AND ORDER JUAN C. MEDINA, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT. CHARLES J. GREENBERG, AMHERST, FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT. CINDY F. INTSCHERT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, WATERTOWN (NICOLE L. KYLE OF COUNSEL), FOR RESPONDENT. Appeal from a judgment of the Jefferson County Court (Kim H. Martusewicz, J.), rendered March 15, 2010. The judgment convicted defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree. It is hereby ORDERED that the case is held, the decision is reserved and the matter is remitted to Jefferson County Court for further proceedings in accordance with the following memorandum: Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him, upon his plea of guilty, of attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree (Penal Law §§ 110.00, 205.25 [2]). The record of the plea proceeding establishes that County Court failed to apprise defendant, a noncitizen, that deportation was a potential consequence of his guilty plea. As defendant contends and the People correctly concede, the case should be remitted to afford defendant “the opportunity to move to vacate his plea upon a showing that there is a ‘reasonable probability’ that he would not have pleaded guilty had the court advised him of the possibility of deportation” (People v Fermin, 123 AD3d 465, 466, quoting People v Peque, 22 NY3d 168, 198). We therefore hold the case, reserve decision, and remit the matter to County Court for that purpose. Defendant further contends that counsel was ineffective in failing to inform him that deportation was a potential consequence of the plea (see Padilla v Kentucky, 559 US 356). Inasmuch as that contention is based upon matters outside the record, it must be raised in a motion pursuant to CPL 440.10 (see People v Drammeh, 100 AD3d 650, 651, lv denied 20 NY3d 1098). Entered: October 9, 2015 Frances E. Cafarell Clerk of the Court 

Using religious services to improve health: findings from a sample of middle-aged and older adults with multiple sclerosis. The purpose of this study is to examine the use of religious services to improve health among middle-aged and older adults with multiple sclerosis (MS). Data from the study "Aging With MS: Unmet Needs in the Great Lakes Region" were used to investigate religious service use among 1,275 adults with MS. The findings indicate that nearly two thirds of the sample currently use religious services to improve their health or well-being. Individuals whose MS is stable and those who have had the disease longer are significantly more likely to use religious services to improve their health. Religious organizations should continue providing out-reach and increasing accessibility for individuals with disabling conditions. In addition, health care professionals should be aware of the importance of religious services to individuals with MS and do their part to facilitate participation for those who desire it.

// Copyright (c) 2012 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved. // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be // found in the LICENSE file. #ifndef BASE_LOCATION_H_ #define BASE_LOCATION_H_ #include <stddef.h> #include <cassert> #include <functional> #include <string> #include "base/base_export.h" #include "base/debug/debugging_buildflags.h" #include "base/hash/hash.h" #include "build/build_config.h" namespace base { #if defined(__has_builtin) // Clang allows detection of these builtins. #define SUPPORTS_LOCATION_BUILTINS \ (__has_builtin(__builtin_FUNCTION) && __has_builtin(__builtin_FILE) && \ __has_builtin(__builtin_LINE)) #elif defined(COMPILER_GCC) && __GNUC__ >= 7 // GCC has supported these for a long time, but they point at the function // declaration in the case of default arguments, rather than at the call site. #define SUPPORTS_LOCATION_BUILTINS 1 #else #define SUPPORTS_LOCATION_BUILTINS 0 #endif // Location provides basic info where of an object was constructed, or was // significantly brought to life. class BASE_EXPORT Location { public: Location(); Location(const Location& other); // Only initializes the file name and program counter, the source information // will be null for the strings, and -1 for the line number. // TODO(http://crbug.com/760702) remove file name from this constructor. Location(const char* file_name, const void* program_counter); // Constructor should be called with a long-lived char*, such as __FILE__. // It assumes the provided value will persist as a global constant, and it // will not make a copy of it. Location(const char* function_name, const char* file_name, int line_number, const void* program_counter); // Comparator for hash map insertion. The program counter should uniquely // identify a location. bool operator==(const Location& other) const { return program_counter_ == other.program_counter_; } // Returns true if there is source code location info. If this is false, // the Location object only contains a program counter or is // default-initialized (the program counter is also null). bool has_source_info() const { return function_name_ && file_name_; } // Will be nullptr for default initialized Location objects and when source // names are disabled. const char* function_name() const { return function_name_; } // Will be nullptr for default initialized Location objects and when source // names are disabled. const char* file_name() const { return file_name_; } // Will be -1 for default initialized Location objects and when source names // are disabled. int line_number() const { return line_number_; } // The address of the code generating this Location object. Should always be // valid except for default initialized Location objects, which will be // nullptr. const void* program_counter() const { return program_counter_; } // Converts to the most user-readable form possible. If function and filename // are not available, this will return "pc:<hex address>". std::string ToString() const; static Location CreateFromHere(const char* file_name); static Location CreateFromHere(const char* function_name, const char* file_name, int line_number); #if SUPPORTS_LOCATION_BUILTINS && BUILDFLAG(ENABLE_LOCATION_SOURCE) static Location Current(const char* function_name = __builtin_FUNCTION(), const char* file_name = __builtin_FILE(), int line_number = __builtin_LINE()); #elif SUPPORTS_LOCATION_BUILTINS static Location Current(const char* file_name = __builtin_FILE()); #else static Location Current(); #endif private: const char* function_name_ = nullptr; const char* file_name_ = nullptr; int line_number_ = -1; const void* program_counter_ = nullptr; }; BASE_EXPORT const void* GetProgramCounter(); // The macros defined here will expand to the current function. #if BUILDFLAG(ENABLE_LOCATION_SOURCE) // Full source information should be included. #define FROM_HERE FROM_HERE_WITH_EXPLICIT_FUNCTION(__func__) #define FROM_HERE_WITH_EXPLICIT_FUNCTION(function_name) \ ::base::Location::CreateFromHere(function_name, __FILE__, __LINE__) #else // TODO(http://crbug.com/760702) remove the __FILE__ argument from these calls. #define FROM_HERE ::base::Location::CreateFromHere(__FILE__) #define FROM_HERE_WITH_EXPLICIT_FUNCTION(function_name) \ ::base::Location::CreateFromHere(function_name, __FILE__, -1) #endif } // namespace base namespace std { // Specialization for using Location in hash tables. template <> struct hash<::base::Location> { std::size_t operator()(const ::base::Location& loc) const { const void* program_counter = loc.program_counter(); return base::FastHash(base::as_bytes(base::make_span(&program_counter, 1))); } }; } // namespace std #endif // BASE_LOCATION_H_

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 01-6081 DARRYL A. BABB, Petitioner - Appellant, versus JOHN B. TAYLOR, Warden; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA (Mark Earley), Respondents - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern Dis- trict of Virginia, at Alexandria. T.S. Ellis, III, District Judge. (CA-00-1499-AM) Submitted: April 27, 2001 Decided: May 4, 2001 Before LUTTIG and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Cir- cuit Judge. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Darryl A. Babb, Appellant Pro Se. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). PER CURIAM: Darryl A. Babb seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on his petition filed under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (West 1994 & Supp. 2000). We have reviewed the record and the district court’s opinion and find no reversible error. Accordingly, we deny Babb’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis, deny a certificate of appealability, and dismiss the appeal on the reasoning of the district court. Babb v. Taylor, No. CA-00-1499-AM (E.D. Va. filed Nov. 20, 2000; entered Nov. 21, 2000). In addition, we deny Babb’s motion for leave to file his habeas corpus petition out of time. See Harris v. Hutchinson, 209 F.3d 325, 328-31 (4th Cir. 2000). We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 2 

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT MICHAEL EDWARD ASUNCION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. THE CITY OF GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND; DAVID HUMPTON, No. 95-1159 Gaithersburg City Manager; CITY COUNCIL OF GAITHERSBURG; A. P. YOKLEY, Officer; UNKNOWN POLICE OFFICERS OF THE CITY OF GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND, Defendants-Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt. J. Frederick Motz, Chief District Judge. (CA-93-46-JFM) Submitted: September 20, 1995 Decided: January 3, 1996 Before WILKINS, LUTTIG, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. _________________________________________________________________ Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. _________________________________________________________________ COUNSEL Gary Howard Simpson, Bethesda, Maryland, for Appellant. Paul T. Cuzmanes, Cynthia L. Ambrose, WILSON, ELSER, MOSKOWITZ, EDELMAN & DICKER, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). _________________________________________________________________ OPINION PER CURIAM: Michael Asuncion filed a complaint alleging that Officer A.P. Yok- ley, the City of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and others (collectively, the City) violated his civil rights.1See 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). The alleged violation stems from the arrest and prosecution of Asuncion for disorderly conduct after he was stopped for a routine traffic viola- tion. Asuncion argued before the district court that summary judg- ment on his § 1983 claim was improper because a material issue of fact existed as to whether Yokley had probable cause to arrest him and as to whether the prosecutor had probable cause to prosecute him. Because Maryland law dictates that a prosecution is presumed conclu- sively to be made with probable cause if an arrestee subsequently is convicted, even if that conviction is later reversed, see Zablonsky v. Perkins, 187 A.2d 314, 316 (Md. 1963), the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the City. On appeal, Asuncion argues for the first time that he falls under an exception to this rule. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm. I. On December 11, 1991, Yokley stopped Asuncion and issued him a citation for driving through a red light. After completing the cita- tion, Yokley asked Asuncion to sign the document. Beyond this junc- ture, the parties' stories diverge widely. Yokley contends that Asuncion became agitated and began acting irrationally, creating a disturbance that distracted other drivers on the road, while Asuncion claims that Yokley began to harass him verbally and physically with- out provocation. The conflicting versions of the arrest need not con- _________________________________________________________________ 1 Asuncion does not appeal the district court's grant of summary judg- ment to the City on his state law claims of assault, battery, false arrest, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and malicious prosecution. 2 cern us; the germane fact is that the encounter resulted in Yokley's arrest of Asuncion for disorderly conduct. After a bench trial before the Montgomery County District Court, Asuncion was convicted of disorderly conduct. On appeal, a jury found Asuncion not guilty in a trial de novo in the Montgomery County Circuit Court. See Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 12- 401(f) (Supp. 1995) (providing that certain criminal appeals from the state district court are tried de novo before the circuit court). Asun- cion subsequently brought this action, asserting false arrest and mali- cious prosecution as the bases for his claim that the City violated his civil rights. II. Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires the dis- trict court to enter summary judgment against a party who, "after ade- quate time for discovery . . . fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). To prevail on a motion for summary judgment, the City must establish that:"(1) there is no genuine issue as to any material fact; and (2) it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Harleysville Mut. Ins. Co. v. Packer, 60 F.3d 1116, 1119 (4th Cir. 1995) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)). If Asuncion fails to offer proof of an essential element of his case, all other facts are rendered immaterial, there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, and the City is enti- tled to judgment as a matter of law. See Celotex , 477 U.S. at 323. We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. Henson v. Liggett Group, Inc., 61 F.3d 270, 274 (4th Cir. 1995). To prove his claim under § 1983, Asuncion must show a malicious prosecution under Maryland law that resulted in a deprivation of his constitutional rights. See Goodwin v. Metts, 885 F.2d 157, 160 n.1 (4th Cir. 1989) (stating the same for South Carolina law), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1081 (1990). Under Maryland law, the tort of mali- cious prosecution consists of the following elements: (a) a criminal proceeding instituted or continued by the defendant against the plaintiff, (b) termination of the pro- 3  ceeding in favor of the accused, (c) absence of probable cause for the proceeding, and (d) malice, or a primary pur- pose in instituting the proceeding other than that of bringing an offender to justice. Brewer v. Mele, 298 A.2d 156, 159 (Md. 1972). Because Asuncion is unable to prove the absence of probable cause, an essential element of the tort, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City.2 Under Maryland law, a conviction determines conclusively the existence of probable cause, regardless of whether the judgment is later reversed in a subsequent proceeding. Zablonsky, 187 A.2d at 316. Thus, Asuncion's conviction in the Montgomery County District Court precludes his establishing the absence of probable cause for the disorderly conduct charge, even though the jury later found him not guilty in a subsequent trial de novo in the circuit court. See Quecedo v. DeVries, 321 A.2d 785, 791 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1974) (reaching the same conclusion under similar factual circumstances). Because Asuncion cannot prove an essential element of malicious prosecution under Maryland law, he cannot establish his claim under § 1983. See Bussard v. Neil, 616 F. Supp. 854, 856-57 (M.D. Pa. 1985) (granting summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff's § 1983 claim based on malicious prosecution where plaintiff failed to prove absence of prob- able cause because of an earlier conviction that was later reversed). On appeal, Asuncion argues for the first time that his case falls within a narrow exception to the Maryland rule that a conviction determines conclusively the existence of probable cause: if a convic- tion is "`obtained by fraud, perjury or other corrupt means,'" the con- viction loses its conclusive effect. Zablonsky , 187 A.2d at 316 (quoting Restatement of Torts § 667 (1938)). Asuncion contends that his disorderly conduct conviction was obtained through the perjured _________________________________________________________________ 2 The probable cause inquiry with respect to the false arrest claim is essentially the same as the probable cause inquiry with respect to the malicious prosecution claim because all of the evidence of the crime of disorderly conduct used to prosecute Asuncion was before the arresting officer. Accordingly, because we find that there was probable cause to prosecute Asuncion, there was necessarily probable cause for the arrest. 4 testimony of Yokley, and therefore he should be allowed to prove the absence of probable cause. Asuncion's argument is meritless. We first note that we are not required to address this argument on appeal because Asuncion failed to argue and raise it in the proceedings before the district court. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976) ("It is the general rule, of course, that a federal appellate court does not consider an issue not passed upon below."). Second, in any event, Asuncion's mere recitation of factual inconsistency is insuffi- cient to demonstrate perjury by Yokley during the trial before the state district court. See United States v. Griley, 814 F.2d 967, 971 (4th Cir. 1987) (holding that inconsistencies in testimony create, at most, a credibility question for the jury; they do not establish perjury). Thus, we reject Asuncion's argument. III. Because we find no genuine issue of material fact concerning the existence of probable cause and because we find Asuncion's belated perjury argument unavailing, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City. AFFIRMED 5 

News Watch: Mojo Market, Sea Point’s brand new foodie hotspot When it comes to food, Sea Point’s Regent Road is sizzling. The latest addition to the restaurant road is Mojo Market; a vast indoor market offering everything from potjie to poke. We visited the market in their first week to take some of the stalls for a test drive. The results were delicious!

Zippered Cover “Alpha Zone” (NEGATIVE ION) 3D mesh fabric for air ventilation & Upholstery fabric for the border. Bottom side is taped and top side is zippered. Unique look with Turkish Tailoring… Inner cotton cover… Special Mattress Ticking ALPHA ZONE explanation; Electrical signals spread from the brain can be measured by receivers connecting to the head. The signals measured by the tool called Electroencephalogram are called brain waves. Alpha waves locating in these waves provide comfort, awareness and receptivity. When alpha waves are normal, the body performance is saved and calmness and tranquility are provided. According to the experiments, it is stated that subjects who closed their eyes spread the brain waves.

Q: Consume API with basic authentication using Javascript without exposing key pair I have a private API, where I'm using basic authentication as my security layer. Right now the API is consumed by my iOS app, so no one is able to see the key pair. I'm creating the same app for the web now, using React and Javascript and need to consume the same API using basic authentication. How can I use my API key pair in Javascript without exposing that key pair to the public? Is such a thing even possible? A: As @Andrew mentioned, that is not possible, you can just make it harder to get, but it'll be there somewhere on the client code, and that's enough to say you're exposing it. If you're open to alternatives, I suggest you to use a per user authentication for the first request, and then a token based authentication for further requests. That token can be a JSON Web Token and it's the flow I'm talking about: This is the way it works, taken from JWT's official documentation: In authentication, when the user successfully logs in using their credentials, a JSON Web Token will be returned and must be saved locally (typically in local storage, but cookies can be also used), instead of the traditional approach of creating a session in the server and returning a cookie. Whenever the user wants to access a protected route or resource, the user agent should send the JWT, typically in the Authorization header using the Bearer schema. The content of the header should look like the following: Authorization: Bearer <token>

We make use of cookies to enhance your user experience. By clicking "OK" without altering your cookie preferences, you are giving us your consent to use cookies. For further information, please read our information on the use of cookies.OK Badstuber celebrates winning return vor 2 Stunden FC Bayern defender Holger Badstuber returned to action in his hometown of Memmingen on FridayNew signing Juan Bernat lined up against the Red Baroons fan club at the sold-out Fußball ArenaDavid Alaba netted twice, with 17-year-old Daniel Hägler also on target in the routine 3-0 win Memmingen - After 594 days out through injury, Holger Badstuber made his long-awaited comeback in FC Bayern München's 3-0 summer friendly win over fan club Red Baroons Dietmannsried e.V. on Friday. The 25-year-old defender was handed the captain's armband and completed 58 minutes of a decidedly one-sided encounter at the heart of a in his first appearance following cruciate ligament surgery. Like father like son Robert Lewandowski, Franck Ribery and Claudio Pizarro missed out, but there were debuts for summer signings Juan Bernat and Sebastian Rode alongside the more familiar faces of Tom Starke, Rafinha, David Alaba and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. 18-year-old Lucas Scholl, son of legendary Bayern midfielder Mehmet, also completed the full 90 minutes, with the game itself wrapped up in the first half thanks to an Alaba brace and a well-taken effort from Under-19s midfielder Daniel Hägler. Free! Get the Bundesliga newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up today!

Вышедший из порта Джейхана 5 марта танкер с азербайджанской нефтью Azeri Light для Мозырского НПЗ пришвартуется в порт Одессы 12 марта во второй половине дня. Нефтепроводные системы двух стран – "Одесса-Броды" на территории Украины и "Броды-Мозырь" на территории Беларуси готовы к прокачке, сообщил агентству "Интерфакс-Запад" пресс-секретарь концерна "Белнефтехим" Александр Тищенко. "Танкер с азербайджанской нефтью прибудет в Одессу сегодня во второй половине дня, нефтепроводная система готова к прокачке", - сказал Тищенко. Он также отметил, что НПЗ в Мозыре имеет опыт переработки легкой нефти. Пресс-секретарь также сказал, что система прокачки нефти из Одессы в Беларусь выстроена таким образом, чтобы не оказывать влияние на транзит российской нефти по нефтепроводу "Броды-Мозырь". Как сообщалось, Госнефтекомпания Азербайджана (ГНКАР) в марте поставит для Беларуси три партии нефти общим объемом около 250 тыс. тонн через порт Одессы и нефтепровод "Одесса-Броды". В том числе Socar Trading поставит в порт Одессы еще два танкера - 80 тыс. тонн нефти сорта Urals из Новороссийска и 80 тыс. тонн нефти сорта Azeri light из Супсы. Как сообщалось ранее со ссылкой на председателя концерна "Белнефтехим" Андрея Рыбакова, Госнефтекомпания Азербайджана может поставить в Беларусь в 2020 году до 1 млн тонн нефти. Поставки нефти из Азербайджана в Беларусь через Одесса-Броды осуществлялись в 2011 году. Контракт предусматривал поставки 4 млн тонн, однако фактический объем отгрузок составил около 900 тыс. тонн. Поставки нефти в Беларусь на южном направлении через Украину возобновлены из-за отсутствия импорта от крупных российских НК из-за разногласий в цене. Премьер-министр Беларуси Сергей Румас после переговоров в среду в Москве с премьер-министром РФ Михаилом Мишустиным заявил, что Беларусь будет ежемесячно закупать не менее двух танкеров нефти из альтернативных РФ источников даже в случае достижения договоренностей с крупными российскими НК о возобновлении поставок нефти в республику, которые отсутствуют с начала этого года из-разногласий в цене поставок.

The basis of “American Dream” macroeconomics theory is this: when workers are scarce, wages rise, and the supply of workers increase. This is the way it should work and most of us have been told it does. But that’s the lie. In reality, what happens is that workplaces set their payroll budgets months ahead of time, get anchored to a price, and incentivize mid-level managers to find workers at those wages, no matter what. Those mid-level managers exert more and more effort to find worse and worse employees until some other problem reduces demand or increases the supply of workers. Then, next year, because it worked last year, mid-level managers are incentivized to keep payroll level. If it’s a good year and there’s revenue to spend, it gets spent on more staff, not better pay for the same staff. To understand why this is a problem, you need to understand “Elasticity”-the amount of change a party will endure before changing behavior. You know it best in regards to price: how much can gas go up before you drive less? That decision reflects your price elasticity in regards to gas. If you’re going to buy, in the same amount, no matter the price, you are very elastic. If you start cutting back as soon as gas rises a few cents, you are very inelastic. I can feel your eyes glazing over as my 4th graders do in group dynamics when I start talking about effective communication, but let me explain how this applies to camp counselors and male staff specifically: There is also wage elasticity, and men are (in general) far less elastic about the jobs they’ll take. (I’d like to leave the subject of the wage gap to longer and better articles, as much as I can. It is a thing and it is a problem, and this is one of the effects, but I don’t want to get away from my point. Men have more and better choices in the American economy, and that’s wrong. ) Men between 18 and 22 have a lot of options for summer jobs that are less open to women- basically any outdoor labor job, among others. Women are also more likely to take a job despite low pay. Women are also directed towards jobs in childcare, so it’s natural that they are more motivated to find a job in camping. That motivation makes women more elastic than men- willing to accept more problems, lower pay, harder work, etc, and still take the job. I’m certainly not advocating that men should be paid differently than women in camping. I’m pointing to your struggles to find male counselors as a symptom, a tell-tale about the problem. Why is it hard to find male counselors? Because your camp doesn’t pay counselors enough. You just don’t. The time has come, with low unemployment and years of no wage growth in camping, that elasticity has stretched to its breaking point. It’s no longer worth it.

Search Listings: Hope: The Sequel That Obama should find himself on the losing end of a dash for cash is, to anyone familiar with his 2008 campaign, mind-boggling. Four years ago, the upstart candidate had the temerity to take on not only Hillary Clinton but the Clinton fund-raising juggernaut—and kick its ass. The mythology today is that the prodigiousness of Obama’s buckraking was all due to small donors and the juju of the web. Not so. Obama went toe-to-toe with Clinton in competing for Wall Street donors and whipped McCain among the Masters of the Universe. And the expectation was that his fund-raising prowess would be all the greater as a sitting president. Obama would raise $1 billion. His White House–sanctioned super-PAC would haul in at least another $100 million. Obama might fail to secure reelection, but his team would never find itself in the position of hoarding its pennies. And yet here we are. Although Obama is surely raising a boatload of dough, it appears his campaign (combined with the DNC) could fall short of its goal of $750 million. (Its April fund-raising total declined to $43.6 million from $53 million in March.) Meanwhile, the pro-Obama ­super-PAC, Priorities USA Action, has raised less than $10 million since setting up shop more than a year ago—$2 million of it from Jeffrey Katzenberg—leading a highly placed Democrat involved in the reelection effort to describe it to me as a “fucking abysmal failure.” Bill Burton, the former White House deputy press secretary who is one of two men running the super-PAC, disagrees. It’s still early, he says, and professes “no doubt” that his group will reach its $100 million target. But Burton allows that the task has been harder than he anticipated. “We had to spend a year talking to donors, educating them about why super-PACs would matter, even though in 2008, I, as the president’s spokesperson, and the president himself were saying, ‘Do not give to outside groups,’ ” he says. “And we had to do that with the group of people who are automatically skeptical of money in politics.” But one of the most vaunted fat-cat-wranglers in Democratic history tells me that this is only part of the story. “There are several things going on,” this person explains. “Number one is the shabby treatment the president has given his donors. Unlike Clinton, who loved them and accommodated them, Obama announced he didn’t like big money and gave them the back of the hand. Point two is the president’s campaign announced—or not announced, they let it out, it got in the press, it got in the ether—that they were going to raise $1 billion. So when they come to you and say, ‘We need two-fifty,’ the answer is, ‘What the fuck do you need my two-fifty for? You’re going to raise a billion! Not a hundred million. A fucking billion dollars!’ You’re getting into federal-budget territory with that kind of claim. “Three is the Obama donors aren’t scared. They think this is a slam dunk. They don’t think the president’s in trouble. They look at the Republican-primary process and say, That group of fucking clowns? Fourth, Burton and his partner are great guys, but they have no experience in fund-raising. They thought that with the patina of the White House, the checks would just roll in. Wrong. “Then, everybody looks to George Soros. ‘Why won’t George throw in?’ I know George pretty well. Early on, he wanted to come in to make his case on the economy. George doesn’t want legislation tweaked. He doesn’t want a rule changed. He wants his ideas heard out. But George couldn’t get a meeting in the White House. And then George is saying, ‘Where are the Obama money people with their 5 and 10 million dollars? Where is Penny Pritzker, Exhibit A? Why isn’t she throwing in 10 million?’ And that is a very good question.” A prominent private-equity player in Gotham who supports Obama agrees with all of that but adds another insight. “Among rich Republicans, the view of Obama is that he’s the Devil,” this person says. “But on the Democratic side, certainly on Wall Street, there’s no visceral reaction against Romney. So if I give $10 million, I’m out the $10 million, and I’m gonna pay more in taxes if Obama wins. And I’m doing it against somebody who—I may not agree with his social views, but I don’t think he’s a bad person. And I’m not really into negative advertising, which is what a super-PAC would do … Then there’s the fact nobody on Wall Street thinks Obama gives a shit about them. They think his attitude is, ‘If I lose Wall Street, it’s not the end of the world.’ And they’re right.”

This photograph depicts Theodore (Ted) Pedersen's homestead at Bear Cove in the summer of 1953. It was likely taken by Roxolana (Roxy) Pomeroy, and the title is a translation of a caption written in German on the back of the photograph in her...

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Q: use data attribute in animate function I want to use the data attribute value in the jquery animate function in order to set speed of the animation depending on the data attribute value. html <li class="layer" data-depth="2"><img src="imgs/logo/zaincorp logo.png"></li> <li class="layer" data-depth="4"><img src="imgs/logo/creative hands logo.png"></li> <li class="layer" data-depth="6"><img src="imgs/logo/la logo.png"></li> jquery function slide(){ layer.animate({ 'left': '+='+data('depth')*20+'px' },100, 'linear',function(){ slide(); }); } slide(); A: You'll need to iterate the elements: function slide() { var $this = $(this); $this.animate({ 'left': '+=' + $this.data('depth') * 20 + 'px' }, 100, 'linear', slide); } $('.layer').each(slide);

Assume that the surface of a table on which a workpiece is mounted is flat, and the thickness (plate thickness) of the workpiece is substantially uniform. In this case, a measured height of the top surface of the workpiece at a desired position may be regarded as the height of the top surface of the workpiece. When a hole is machined out in the workpiece, the depth of the hole is generally designated on the basis of the surface of the workpiece. Accordingly, if the position (height) of the top surface of the workpiece is determined, a hole which is superior in depth-direction accuracy can be machined out. There may be a variation in the plate thickness of the workpiece. In this case, the height of the top surface of the workpiece may be measured at every place to be machined. Alternatively the height of the top surface of the workpiece may be measured at a plurality of places, and an average value of the measured values may be regarded as the height of the top surface of the workpiece when the workpiece is machined. When a hole is machined out with a mechanical drill, a surface height Zn of a workpiece at a place to be drilled is detected, and compared with an average value Zm of surface heights at N positions, which have been drilled immediately before the aforementioned place to be drilled. When the absolute value of the difference (Zn−Zm) is smaller than a predetermined value δ, drilling is performed. When the absolute value is not smaller than the value δ, it is decided that swarf or the like is caught between the workpiece surface and a substrate pressure plate, and the machining is suspended. Drilling is resumed after such a cause is removed (Patent Document 1). In recent years, lasers have been used as means for machining small-diameter holes. When a hole is machined by use of a laser beam, the outer shape of the laser beam is shaped into a desired shape by an aperture, and converged by a lens so that an image of the aperture is formed, for example, on the surface of a workpiece. In this case, the allowable value for height variation of the image position is not larger than 30 μm. Patent Document 1: JP-A-9-277140 The time of machining by a laser is an order of milliseconds. It is therefore not practical to measure the height of the surface of a workpiece in every machining time as shown in Patent Document 1. Even when the height of the top surface of the workpiece from the surface of the table is measured only at a plurality of places, the measuring time becomes longer than the machining time. Thus, the total machining time becomes impractically long. The plate thickness of a workpiece where holes will be machined by a laser is generally substantially uniform. It has been therefore believed that the machining quality will be uniform if the height of the top surface of the workpiece is measured at one place. However, there has occurred a variation in machining quality in spite of the uniform plate thickness of the workpiece. The present inventors discovered the following fact. That is, there may be irregularities of about 10-30 μm high in the table surface which has been regarded as flat. The height of those irregularities is close to the allowable value for height variation of the image position. Thus, there occurs a deterioration in machining quality.

The gastrointestinal absorption of 'biologically incorporated' plutonium-239 in the rat. Growing potatoes have been labelled by foliar applications of plutonium citrate. Approximately 0.4% of the radioactivity was taken up by the tubers. The potatoes were fed to rats and the gastrointestinal uptake of plutonium was estimated to be 0.34%. The significance of these results in relation to the uptake by humans is discussed.

Indian Health Service Urges Native Parents To Protect Pre-Teens With Vaccines Campaign urges routine check-ups for 11- and 12-year-olds As children approach their teen years, parents often worry about how to protect them from new risks and potential dangers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is partnering with the Indian Health Service to launch a campaign informing American Indian and Alaska Native parents and other caregivers about the importance of a preteen medical check-up and preteen vaccines. Research shows that preteens generally do not get preventive health care, visiting the doctor only when they are sick. One goal of this campaign is to encourage parents to take their preteens in for an 11- or 12-year-old check-up, which is a comprehensive, preventive health exam. During the checkup, the doctor takes a complete medical history, screens for diseases like diabetes, discusses puberty and other issues such as how to stay healthy and avoid substance abuse, and ensures that immunizations are up to date. “Many parents may not be aware that there are vaccines that preteens need to protect them against potentially serious diseases, including meningitis, pertussis, influenza, and the virus that causes cervical cancer,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "Vaccinations play an important role in protecting your child’s health. But they do more than protect children. By ensuring you and your family receive recommended vaccines, you help to prevent the spread of disease and protect the health of the community." Three vaccines are specifically recommended for the preteen years: MCV4, which prevents some types of meningitis and its complications; Tdap, which is a booster against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis or “whooping cough;” and for girls, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which protects against the types of HPV that most commonly cause cervical cancer. Annual seasonal flu shots and vaccination against H1N1 influenza are also recommended for preteens, just as they are for younger children starting at age 6 months, and for older children, through age 18. Preteen vaccine recommendations are supported by the CDC, IHS, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine. “There is a common perception that check-ups are only for infants, but this isn’t true,” said Dr. Michael Bartholomew, a member of the Kiowa Tribe and chief of pediatrics at the Fort Defiance Indian Hospital in Arizona. “Eleven- and 12-year-olds also need a check-up to ensure that they stay healthy as they enter their adolescent years.” CDC and IHS have developed posters and flyers to educate parents about the preteen check-up and preteen vaccines, which can be ordered or downloaded from the campaign Web site at www.cdc.gov/vaccines/preteen/aian. These materials were created with input from American Indian and Alaska Native parents in the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. Other campaign activities include outreach to American Indian and Alaska Native media, partnerships with American Indian and Alaska Native organizations that reach parents and healthcare providers, and a community-based education project in New Mexico. For more information about the campaign, please visit www.cdc.gov/vaccines/preteen/aian.

Bad news for "gold-bugs"—bullion's current beginning-of-the-year rally will not only lose steam, but prices could drop sharply by the end of 2014, according to Goldman Sachs' Jeffrey Currie. Currie, Goldman's head of commodities research, told CNBC on Monday he had an end-of-year price target of $1,050 per ounce for gold, a 16 percent drop based from current prices of $1,251. The main culprit? Economic recovery. "Our view there really is driven by the expectation of the U.S. economy reaching escape velocity," Currie said on "Squawk on the Street." "Essentially when you think about a short on gold ... it's essentially just a bet on a substantial recovery in the U.S. economy." (Read more: Gold inches off 1-month high as rally evaporates) Sebastian Derungs | AFP | Getty Images Gold prices ballooned in the years since the 2008 financial crisis, driving prices to record highs thanks to ultra-low interest rates from the Federal Reserve's economic stimulus programs. Prices dropped last year amid fears the Fed would scale down those programs earlier than expected, but a weaker-than-expected December employment report re-ignited interest in gold last week. Currie said gold still worked as a hedge against inflation; he just doesn't see any strong inflationary pressures in the next few years. He said once the economic recovery picks up more momentum, inflation would follow and gold may become attractive again. Gold's early 2014 rally won't last, he said. (Read more: 'Lofty' market ripe for at least 10% drop: Goldman) "I get it all the time—'Why are you bearish on gold when you expect the U.S. economy to recover?'" Currie said. "You have to think about it in different phases of the business cycle." (Read more: Gold jumps after weak US jobs report)

Peptide Self-Assembled Biofilm with Unique Electron Transfer Flexibility for Highly Efficient Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalysis. Inspired by natural photosynthesis, biomaterial-based catalysts are being confirmed to be excellent for visible-light-driven photocatalysis, but are far less well explored. Herein, an ultrathin and uniform biofilm fabricated from cold-plasma-assisted peptide self-assembly was employed to support Eosin Y (EY) and Pt nanoparticles to form an EY/Pt/Film catalyst for photocatalytic water splitting to H2 and photocatalytic CO2 reduction with water to CO, under irradiation of visible light. The H2 evolution rate on EY/Pt/Film is 62.1 μmol h(-1), which is about 5 times higher than that on Pt/EY and 1.5 times higher than that on the EY/Pt/TiO2 catalyst. EY/Pt/Film exhibits an enhanced CO evolution rate (19.4 μmol h(-1)), as compared with Pt/EY (2.8 μmol h(-1)) and EY/Pt/TiO2 (6.1 μmol h(-1)). The outstanding activity of EY/Pt/Film results from the unique flexibility of the biofilm for an efficient transfer of the photoinduced electrons. The present work is helpful for designing efficient biomaterial-based catalysts for visible-light-driven photocatalysis and for imitating natural photosynthesis.

Show #63 Jason Fried, 37signals and REWORK Bob interviews Jason Fried, co-founder and president of 37signals and co-author of Getting Real and now REWORK. Jason is the archetype of a successful web-based software company founder (Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Backpack), a strong proponent for a reality-based (versus VC-funded) approach to building a tech company with a point of view, and a strong believer most of the accepted ways of doing business don’t scale down to startups. In this interview, we dig into not just Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson’s new book about the business of startups, but why and how they arrived at 37signals’ successful approach to building a software company. Jason generously shares a range of advice and experience about building your startup that is anything but a rehash of all the other advice you’ve heard. Also, If you’re a web designer or web developer, open source or .NET, Microsoft WebsiteSpark and StartupToDo.com have free Microsoft software for designers and a six month scholarship to StartupToDo.com you may be interested in. For details and how to apply, visit http://startuptodo.com/websitespark/. 2 Responses For what matters to my ‘young business’ most right now, Jason has some very good points in this podcast. Amongst them the idea that business ‘physics’ apply even at tiny size businesses (or ‘young businesses’) seems to be the most helpful one

Silver Must Resign ‘Three Amigos’ ain't so funny anymore Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, walks out of a New York court house after being arrested on federal corruption charges on January 22, 2015 in New York City. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Days after he was placed in handcuffs and led into a courtroom, Sheldon Silver agreed to step aside temporarily as speaker of the state Assembly. You now know everything you need to know about the ethical and moral rot that has taken over Albany. Even after his indictment on serious corruption charges, Sheldon Silver simply is incapable of surrendering power. All he can do is loosen his grasp ever so slightly while he tries to avoid spending the better part of his old age in prison. Sheldon Silver should resign and Assembly Democrats ought to choose a new speaker as soon as possible It’s not enough. Sheldon Silver should resign and Assembly Democrats ought to choose a new speaker as soon as possible. A clean break is necessary because—and this may come as a surprise not only to Mr. Silver but to Albany’s legion of lobbyists and hangers-on—the issues confronting New York are far more important than the speaker’s elevated sense of entitlement. Albany does not lack for politicians willing to use their political clout for personal enrichment. More than two-dozen state legislators have left office because of criminal or ethical issues since 1999, according to the Citizens Union. But even in this moral cesspool, Mr. Silver stood out as an exemplar of everything public service should not be. The indictment brought against him last week simply confirmed what many suspected: Mr. Silver’s association with the law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg was a conflict-of-interest charge waiting to happen. The Observer reported last week that the same law firm was also outrageously generous to two other New York pols tied to the Moreland Commission, now-Congresswoman Kathleen Rice and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. We call upon them to return the contributions from the law firm alleged to have showered more than $5 million upon the speaker. More than a century ago, during another ethical crisis in Albany, Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker was called to testify about his many private business deals and the ways in which he manipulated public policy to benefit those interests. A lawyer for a special investigative committee was taken aback by Croker’s candor. “You are working for your pocket, aren’t you?” asked the lawyer, Frank Moss. “All the time,” Croker responded. The same question should have been asked of Mr. Silver years ago; although it’s unlikely he would have answered as honestly as Croker did. (Former Gov. George Pataki came close—as Michael Goodwin of the Daily News noted, during a contentious budget meeting more than a decade ago, Mr. Silver’s opaque machinations led Mr. Pataki to ask him, “Who’s your client?”) Those kinds of questions ought to be asked of every member of the Legislature, and they should be required to answer in painstaking detail. Technically our Assembly members and State Senators are part-time workers and are allowed to supplement their incomes with outside work. Mr. Silver did just that with enthusiasm, adding to his $121,000 annual salary with millions in dubious legal fees from Weitz & Luxenberg. What Mr. Silver did on a grand scale is being done every day by his colleagues, although it should be noted that they have not received a raise since 1999, while Mr. Silver, who refused to fight for a raise for his friends and allies, has been raking in his fees on the side. New Yorkers have been hearing promises from governors and attorney generals for years about their burning desire to change the way Albany does business. And yet nothing, or very little, changed. Few would-be reformers were more insistent than Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and yet it was he who disbanded a Moreland Commission investigation just as it seemed to be making headway. Mr. Cuomo’s decision outraged U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who immediately took up the fallen standard of reform. The Silver indictment grew out of Mr. Bharara’s investigation. And the prosecutor suggested there may be more to come. In a speech at New York Law School the day after Mr. Silver’s arrest, Mr. Bharara made it clear that the days of business as usual in Albany are coming to a close. He wondered aloud why it was that crucial decisions were made by just three men—the governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker. Just two days earlier, Mr. Cuomo had made a playful reference to the “three men in a room” ritual, referring to himself and his two colleagues as the “Three Amigos.” People laughed at the reference. They’re not laughing now, least of all Mr. Cuomo.

Q: Temporary managed objects are not properly merged from child context to main context I have a multi-threaded application where I need to merge a private context to the main context which in turn is connected to the persistent storage controller. I also have the need to create temporary objects that are NOT managed (until I later on decide to manage them). First, I tried to create my temporary objects as follows; NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"User" inManagedObjectContext:myMainQueueContext]; User* user = (User *)[[User alloc] initWithEntity:entity insertIntoManagedObjectContext:nil]; After deciding to keep the object or not, I then simply; [privateContext insertObject:user]; Before I made the application multi-threaded, this worked great, but now after having torn things apart slightly and added the multi-thread concurrency by child/parent contexts, the result is NOT as expected. By looking at the context's "registeredObjects", I can see that my created, and now inserted, user is managed in the privateContext. After saving it, the mainContext changes accordingly and I can see that it hasChanges and that there are now one object in the registeredObjects. But looking closer at THAT registeredObject in the mainContext, reveal that it's emptied. No contents. All attributes are nil or 0 depending on type. Hence, one would expect that this might be because of the objectId is not the same... but it is ;( It's the same object. But without contents. I tried to get some input on this concern in a different post here, but without success. Child context objects become empty after merge to parent/main context Anyhow, I finally got things to work by changing how I create my objects; User* user = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"User" inManagedObjectContext:privateContext]; Suddenly my child objects are merged to the mainContext without loosing their contents, for reasons to me unknown, but unfortunately this has also lead to the fact that I cannot any longer create temporary unmanaged objects... ;( I read that Marcus Zarra backed my first approach when it comes to creating unmanaged objects, but that does not work with merging contexts in my multi-threaded app... Looking forward to any thoughts and ideas -- am I the only one trying to create temporary objects in an async worker-thread, where I only want to manage/merge a subset of them up to the mainContext? EDIT Concrete code showing what's working, and more importantly what's NOT working; //Creatre private context and lnk to main context.. NSManagedObjectContext* privateManagedObjectContext = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] initWithConcurrencyType:NSPrivateQueueConcurrencyType]; //Link private context to main context... privateManagedObjectContext.parentContext = self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext; [privateManagedObjectContext performBlock:^() { //Create user NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"User" inManagedObjectContext:self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext]; User* user = (User *)[[User alloc] initWithEntity:entity insertIntoManagedObjectContext:nil]; [user setGuid:@"123123"]; [user setFirstName:@"Markus"]; [user setLastName:@"Millfjord"]; [privateManagedObjectContext insertObject:user]; //Debug before we start to merge... NSLog(@"Before private save; private context has changes: %d", [privateManagedObjectContext hasChanges]); NSLog(@"Before private save; main context has changes: %d", [self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext hasChanges]); for (NSManagedObject* object in [privateManagedObjectContext registeredObjects]) NSLog(@"Registered private context object; %@", object); //Save private context! NSError* error = nil; if (![privateManagedObjectContext save:&error]) { //Oppps abort(); } NSLog(@"After private save; private context has changes: %d", [privateManagedObjectContext hasChanges]); NSLog(@"After private save; main context has changes: %d", [self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext hasChanges]); for (NSManagedObject* object in [privateManagedObjectContext registeredObjects]) NSLog(@"Registered private context object; %@", object); for (NSManagedObject* object in [self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext registeredObjects]) NSLog(@"Registered main context object; %@", object); //Save main context! [self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext performBlock:^() { //Save main context! NSError* mainError = nil; if (![self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext save:&mainError]) { //Opps again NSLog(@"WARN; Failed saving main context changes: %@", mainError.description); abort(); } }]; }]; The above does NOT work, since it create a temporary object and then insert it into context. However, this slight mod make things work, but prevent me from having temporary objects...; NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"User" inManagedObjectContext:self.modelManager.mainManagedObjectContext]; User* user = (User *)[[User alloc] initWithEntity:entity insertIntoManagedObjectContext:privateManagedObjectContext]; Hence, I'm wondering; what's the difference? There must be some difference, obviously, but I don't get it. A: As far as I can tell, this is another CoreData bug. I can somewhat understand the "how" but not the "why" of it. As you know, CoreData rely heavily on KVO. A managed context observe changes to its objects like a hawk. Since your "Temporary" objects have no context, the context cannot track their changes until they are attached to it, so it does not report changes to the parent context correctly (or at all). So, the parent context will get the "committed value" of the inserted object which turns to nil as soon as you insert your object to the context using insertObject: (this is the bug I guess). So I have devised a cunning plan :D We will swizzle our way out of this! introducing NSManagedObjectContext+fix.m: //Tested only for simple use-cases (no relationship tested) + (void) load { Method original = class_getInstanceMethod(self, @selector(insertObject:)); Method swizzled = class_getInstanceMethod(self, @selector(__insertObject__fix:)); method_exchangeImplementations(original, swizzled); } - (void) __insertObject__fix:(NSManagedObject*)object { if (self.parentContext && object.managedObjectContext == nil) { NSDictionary* propsByName = [object.entity propertiesByName]; NSArray* properties = [propsByName allKeys]; NSDictionary* d = [object committedValuesForKeys:properties]; [propsByName enumerateKeysAndObjectsUsingBlock:^(NSString* key, NSPropertyDescription* prop, BOOL *stop) { if ([prop isKindOfClass:[NSAttributeDescription class]]) { [object setValue:[(NSAttributeDescription*)prop defaultValue] forKey:key]; } else if ([prop isKindOfClass:[NSRelationshipDescription class]]) { [object setValue:nil forKey:key]; } }]; [self __insertObject__fix:object]; [object setValuesForKeysWithDictionary:d]; } else { [self __insertObject__fix:object]; } } This might help you keep your code a bit more sain. However, I would probably try to avoid this type of insertion altogether. I don't really understand your need for inserting an object to a specific context and leaving it hanging until you decide if it is needed or not. Wouldn't it be easier to ALWAYS insert your objects into the context (keeping the values in a dictionary if needed for extended period of time). but when you decide the object should not "hit the store", simply delete it? (this is called weeding BTW)

Background ========== Protein-protein interactions participate in myriad processes of the cell such as replication, transcription, translation, signal transduction, immune response, metabolism, membrane-associated processes and development (e.g., \[[@B1]-[@B4]\]). Protein-protein interactions offer an excellent way of combining its limited working parts, the proteins, to achieve large functional diversity using a limited genetic repertoire \[[@B5]\]. Abnormal interactions between proteins within the cell or from pathogens cause many human diseases \[[@B6]\]. Protein binding can also elicit an allosteric response. Allostery is an integral and pervasive mechanism employed by nature to modulate cellular processes \[[@B7]-[@B11]\]. It serves as a key mechanism for obtaining fine-tuned regulation in several cellular processes -- from metabolic pathways, signalling systems \[[@B12]\] to gene regulation \[[@B13]\]. Functional modulation is achieved either by enhancing (positive co-operativity) or decreasing (negative co-operativity) levels of function. The effect at target site can be varied, e.g., activation of catalysis, regulation of ligand-binding, control of complex formation\[[@B9]\]. Given their importance, several high-throughput interaction assays \[[@B14],[@B15]\], such as yeast two-hybrid and tandem affinity purification, have been developed to supplement the dataset of protein-protein interactions from low-throughput methods \[[@B16],[@B17]\]. However, such large-scale experimental methods suffer from high false-positive rates \[[@B18]\]. The gold standard for protein-protein interactions is usually a dataset of complexes of interacting proteins solved using X-ray crystallography \[[@B19]-[@B21]\]. Although it is a much smaller and incomplete dataset in comparison to high-throughput protein-protein interaction datasets, it is reliable and enables mapping of interaction regions and structural changes which accompany interactions. Several derived databases provide protein-protein interaction datasets in various easy to --study and --use formats. SCOPPI \[[@B22]\], iPfam \[[@B23]\], SNAPPI-DB \[[@B24]\], 3D Complex \[[@B25]\], InterEvol \[[@B26]\] and ProtCID \[[@B27]\] are some of the available 3D structural databases of protein-protein complexes. Protein-protein interactions can be classified into different kinds \[[@B28]\]: homo-oligomers and hetero-oligomers; obligate and non-obligate complexes; permanent and transient complexes. Non-obligate complexes form an important class since they serve as key regulators in maintaining and regulating cellular homeostasis \[[@B29]-[@B31]\]. They are also valuable from the viewpoint of structural biology since both the unbound and bound forms can be crystallized owing to their stability. Several such structures have been solved by various groups and deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) \[[@B32]\]. An invaluable non-redundant dataset of structures of both the interacting partners solved in unbound and bound form has been collated, curated and updated by Weng and colleagues \[[@B33],[@B34]\]. The ComSin database provides a unique collection of structures of proteins solved in unbound and bound form, targeted towards disorder--order transitions \[[@B35]\]. Earlier studies of structures of protein-protein complexes using both the unbound and bound form of proteins reveal that proteins undergo changes in their structure upon binding. Betts and Sternberg \[[@B36]\] were the first to compare the bound and unbound forms using a dataset of 39 complexes. Martin et al. \[[@B37],[@B38]\] analyzed a dataset of 83 complexes in terms of local structural variations. The alterations in structure as a result of protein-protein interactions manifest either as a rigid-body shift of a segment or as a conformational change from one secondary structural form to another \[[@B39]\]. The extent of conformational change observed at the interface upon binding prompted several studies to understand and predict these changes \[[@B40]-[@B42]\]. Such studies aim to improve protein-protein docking methods \[[@B43]\] and help in the accurate docking of protein-protein interactions, which can be used to understand the mechanism of functioning of the complex or design inhibitors. In this work, we have used a curated and non-redundant dataset of 76 protein-protein complexes, solved using X-ray crystallography in high resolution in both unbound and bound form, to address questions about the nature, extent and location of structural changes upon binding. We noticed that, in addition to changes in the interface, possibly allosteric changes causing structural alteration occur in about half of the complexes, indicating a much higher prevalence of this phenomenon caused due to protein binding than appreciated before. Results ======= Proteins bound to other proteins undergo larger structural changes than unliganded proteins ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Structural change observed in different forms of a protein could be due to experimental artifacts \[[@B44]\], intrinsic flexibility \[[@B45]\] or due to a biologically important external perturbation \[[@B46]\], such as ligand binding or post-translational modification. To differentiate structural changes potentially related to protein-protein interactions from those which are artefacts, we compared variations occurring in the dataset of protein-protein complexes with two control datasets (see Additional file [1](#S1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S1). The first control set (named Control -- Rigid) consists of 50 structures, solved at a resolution ≤2.5 Å, of two fairly rigid and extensively studied proteins: bovine ribonuclease A and sperm whale myoglobin, and provides an indicator of co-ordinate uncertainties. The second control set (named Control -- Monomer) consists of a non-redundant set of 95 clusters of structures of monomers, also solved at a resolution ≤2.5 Å, which serve as a heterogeneous set since this dataset contains both rigid and flexible proteins, thus serving as a control set for understanding intrinsic flexibility. The main dataset of our study named PPC (Protein-protein complexes) is an extensively curated dataset of non-obligatory proteins with their 3-D structures solved in both unbound and bound forms (Additional file [2](#S2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S2). It consists of 76 non-obligatory complexes representing members of diverse functions (25 enzyme-inhibitor, 11 antigen-antibody and 40 'other' complexes, which largely comprises of signalling proteins). The number of proteins involved in the 76 complexes represent the major SCOP (Structural Classification of Proteins) \[[@B47]\] classes (all α - 32, all β - 84, α/β - 57, α + β - 37). Since the dataset has been pruned to exclude cases with a large percentage of missing residues at the interface, disordered proteins are under-represented. The complexes predominantly involve two-chain interactions and some interactions involving three chains, in which two chains are considered as a single entity (for example, in the case of light and heavy chains of antibody and in the case of G~β~-G~γ~ subunits in heterotrimeric G-proteins). The proteins constitute a mixture of single-domain and multi-domain members. Although some of the structures in the PPC dataset are solved at a resolution poorer than 2.5 Å, the highest resolution of the Control-Rigid and Control-Monomer datasets, the magnitude of structural changes captured across the datasets can be compared since 50/76 complexes of the PPC dataset were solved with a resolution ≤2.5 Å. The conclusions of comparison of various parameters capturing structural change in the different datasets, discussed below, remained unaltered when using either the '50' or '76' set of complexes (data not shown). The conclusions described below are for the entire dataset of 76 complexes. Three parameters were used to analyze structural change occurring in the different types of residues (see Methods) in a protein: root mean square deviation (RMSD), %PB change (PBc), PB substitution score (PBSSc). Although RMSD captures the magnitude of structural change, it does not distinguish the type of structural change -- i.e. rigid body movement (or) conformational change. The use of Protein Blocks (PBs) enables this distinction since small yet significant changes in local conformation of a protein can be captured using PBs. Protein Blocks consists of 16 standard conformational states of pentapeptides \[[@B48],[@B49]\]. PBs can be used to represent precisely backbone conformation of all the protein structures known so far. This efficient design has been employed in several applications, including prediction of long fragments and short loops, and in identifying proteins with similar structures \[[@B49],[@B50]\]. A PB change between the unbound and bound forms for the equivalent residue indicates a conformational change -- either subtle or drastic. The % PBs altered between two structures serves as a metric for capturing the extent of structural change (PBc). A substitution matrix derived earlier \[[@B50]\] was used to calculate the magnitude of structural dissimilarity between two structures in terms of their PB changes (namely PBSSc). A lower PBSSc indicates unfavourable changes (i.e. drastic conformational change -- for example, a helix to a strand) whereas a higher PBSSc indicates milder conformational changes (for example, change between a curved helix and a linear helix). Analysis of the three parameters revealed that all types of residues (buried, surface, interacting) undergo higher structural change upon binding to another protein than in the unliganded form (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). These values are calculated at per-protein level for the different classes of residues. RMSD (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}A) and PBc (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}B) clearly showed higher structural variation of protein-bound forms in comparison to the unbound forms whereas PBSSc (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}C) showed a marginal trend. This is because the PB changes could be of two kinds: favourable (high PBSSc) and unfavorable (low PBSSc) and both are represented in the graph. As expected, buried residues showed the least deviation of all the classes and interacting residues the highest change. Buried residues are mostly invariant, as seen from the box plot depicting the distribution of PBc (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}B), where \~50% of the values are zero for the control datasets. Surprisingly, \~90% of buried residues of protein-protein complex structures show at least a single conformational change, as characterized by change in PB (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}B). However, the observed changes are mostly minor. In the rare cases when it is a large change, the residue is seen to have slight exposure to solvent. {#F1} In order to distinguish structural variations caused due to protein binding from those occurring due to crystallographic artifacts, the upper bound values corresponding to the Control-Rigid dataset were used as reference for the three parameters (see Additional file [3](#S3){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S1). It is observed that the main protein-protein complex dataset comprises of complexes with varying range of interface area and size of proteins (see Additional file [2](#S2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S2). Therefore, dependence of the parameters capturing structural change for interface area and size of the protein (represented as length of the protein) were analyzed. The analysis indicates that there is slight dependence of RMSD, PBc and PBSSc for interface area buried by the complex whereas the parameters have negligible dependence on the lengths of proteins (see Additional file [4](#S4){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S2). Independently, we also captured structural change using all-atom RMSD which includes consideration of sidechain atoms. Although there is expected variation in all-atom RMSDs for interacting residues (see Additional file [5a](#S5){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S3), there is no profound variation when the Cα RMSDs are compared with corresponding all-atom RMSD values (see Additional file [5b](#S5){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S3). Therefore, the present analysis is confined to Cα RMSD based comparison in this study. Pre-made interfaces predominantly bind to structurally-altered interfaces ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The extent of structural change at both the interfaces of various complexes has been assessed. Proteins are classified into three categories based on the extent of structural change at the interfaces of various complexes: pre-made, induced-fit, and other. Interfaces exhibiting Cα RMSD of \<0.5 Å (which is the maximum deviation between any two proteins of the Control-Rigid dataset) are considered pre-made, while those with Cα RMSD of \>1.5 Å are considered induced-fit. The interfaces showing structural changes between these two values are classified in the 'other' category. We identify 33 pre-made interfaces, fitting the lock-and-key hypothesis proposed to explain protein-ligand binding \[[@B51]\]. Such a large number is surprising since the proteins would always be primed for interaction. Nature's regulatory control of the primed pre-made interfaces appears to be achieved via its partner interface. It appears that although one of the interfaces is pre-made, the other interface undergoes substantial changes (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}A, blue coloured points) in the final stable bound form (sometimes \>1.5 Å Cα RMSD, the cut-off for identifying 'induced-fit' interfaces). 9 protein-protein complexes, 5 from 'Other' category and 4 from Enzyme-Inhibitor category, show this behaviour. 17 of the 33 pre-made interfaces had almost no PB changes, implying near complete absence of conformational changes. However, the interaction seems to be modulated by the structural changes occurring in the partner interface. In 14/17 of these cases, the partner's PBc is \>15%; in three cases it is \>40% (Average PBc is 26 ± 14). Only five of the 33 pairs seem to be pre-made in both interfaces. However, inspection of PBc for these 'pre-made interfaces' revealed that there are substantial conformational changes of smaller magnitude captured using PBs which use atomic positions of N, C and O atoms apart from Cα as opposed to Cα-based RMSD (see Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}B). For instance, the complex of cytochrome C peroxidise and iso-1-cytochrome C forms a pre-made interface (see Additional file [6A](#S6){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S4), with Cα RMSD of 0.37 Å and 0.31 Å for the interacting proteins. However, the conformations of side chain positions of interface residues changes drastically in 3/18 interface residues. This example supports the hypothesis that almost all interacting partners undergo changes upon binding, even if one of the interfaces is pre-made, and PBs help in identifying subtle changes than classical RMSD measures. In essence, there are no 'completely pre-made' interfaces. {#F2} Usually, interfaces with an average Cα RMSD of ≥1.5 Å showed substantial changes at interface, exemplifying the concept of induced-fit hypothesis \[[@B52]\] for formation of protein-protein complexes (see Additional file [6B](#S6){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S4). 35 interfaces with average Cα RMSD of ≥1.5 Å are found. Of these predominantly altered interfaces, 10 are partners of pre-made interfaces, 4 are partners of like-wise induced-fit interfaces and the rest have values in between (see Additional file [6C,D](#S6){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S4). Comparison of the structural change in terms of Cα RMSD and normalized PB substitution score can help in distinguishing cases of rigid body movements from conformational changes. Induced-fit interface regions with 0% PB change at interface can be considered to have rigid-body movements (see Additional file [7A](#S7){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S5). However, since PBs are very sensitive to backbone torsion angle changes, two very similar PBs will also be considered as PB changes. Therefore, normalized PB substitution score is a more pertinent metric to grade the local conformational change (see Additional file [7B](#S5){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S5). Large structural changes could result for different reasons such as to avoid steric clashes and/or optimize binding. In some cases, global changes in the molecule (both interface and non-interacting surface RMSDs are ≥1.5 Å) are observed. These complexes either move out (Figures [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}A, Additional file [8E](#S8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S6) (or) move in (Additional file [8B](#S8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S6) to relieve steric clashes/optimize binding, respectively. In most cases, changes were localized at the interface, comprising of rigid-body movements (Additional file [8C](#S8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S6) or conformational changes (Additional file [8D](#S8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S6) or conformational changes with movement (Additional file [8A](#S8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S6), to mainly optimize binding (Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}B) or relieve steric clashes (Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}C) or both (Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}D). Local rearrangements at the interface are identified based on the normalization-based metric (see Methods section). This criterion allows us to identify interfaces with proportionately larger localized changes at the interface although the magnitude is smaller (≤1.5 Å) (Additional file [6D](#S6){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S4). In cases where the change is larger (≥2 Å), rearrangement seems to be mainly targeted at avoiding steric clashes. In cases where the change is moderate (1.5 Å \~ 2 Å), the rearrangements appear to be mostly for proper optimization of interface. ![**Structural changes observed in interfaces.** Protein undergoing change is shown as cartoon, with unbound form in light cyan and the bound form in blue, and its partner as a ribbon, with unbound form in light orange and bound form in magenta. Direction of movement is indicated as black arrow. **A**) Large (\~10 Å Cα RMSD) *moving out* to avoid steric clash (alpha actin & BNI1 protein; 1Y64). **B**). Movement to optimise interaction with partner (GTP binding protein & Rho GTPase activating protein; 1GRN). **C**). Conformational change accompanied by movement mainly to avoid steric clashes with the partner (Glycoprotein Ib alpha & von Willebrand factor; 1 M10). In B) and **C**), the region of interest is colored green and red in the unbound and bound forms, respectively. **D**). An interface (actin & deoxyribonuclease I; 1ATN) where certain region moves away to avoid steric clash (colored in red), some region undergoes conformational change with movement to optimise an interaction (depicted in green for the unbound form and brown for the bound form) and another region undergoes rigid body movement to optimise its interaction (colored in lemon yellow in the unbound form and orange in the bound form). All the figures containing protein structures were generated using PyMOL \[[@B77]\].](1472-6807-12-6-3){#F3} Non-interacting regions away from the interface undergo substantial structural changes on binding ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In general, interacting residues undergo larger structural change than non-interacting surface residues (≥10% residue surface accessibility (RSA)). Comparison of the three parameters quantifying structural changes studied for individual proteins showed that this trend holds true even in these cases (Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, Additional file [9](#S9){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S7). Indeed, interacting regions need to undergo rearrangement to form an optimal fit. The general trend of comparatively larger changes at interface regions was seen for RMSD and PBSSc (see Additional file [9](#S9){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S7). However, the parameter PBc provided a new insight, highlighting cases with almost no conformational change at the interface but with considerable change in the rest of the surface (Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, green ellipse). This emphasizes that there exist complexes in which non-interacting regions undergo structural variation upon binding even though the interface remains largely unchanged. 6% of the complexes exhibited 10%-25% PBc and one case showed 50% PBc in the non-interacting surface region (Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). {#F4} Although interacting regions undergo large structural changes in comparison to the rest of the surface, about one-half of the cases in the PPC dataset reveal large changes away from the interface (Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, Tables [1](#T1){ref-type="table"} &[2](#T2){ref-type="table"}). PB changes in non-interfacial regions can be divided into two cases. *(i)* Change in non-interacting regions even when there are almost no changes in interacting regions (*n* = 22) (Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}). (*ii*) Change in non-interacting regions accompanying changes in interacting regions (*n* = 12) (Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}). The two categories combine to provide a dataset of 34/76 complexes exhibiting substantial structural change in non-interfacial surface regions. Interfaces represented in the first case can be considered as pre-made since no PB change is observed on complexation. As expected, the partner protein for these interfaces exhibited much larger change at the interface. ###### Features of proteins with substantial structural change in non-interacting regions and no/moderate change at interface   **PDB code** **Cα RMSD** **Normalized PB substitution score** ------------------------------------- -------------- ------------- -------------------------------------- ----------- ----------------- ------ ----------- ----------------- Protein Bound Unbound IR\* NIR_PBc\* Difference IR\* NIR_PBc\* Difference           (NIR_PBc -- IR)     (NIR_PBc -- IR) PIP3 kinase (O) 1HE8_r 1E8Z 0.49 8.45 7.96 1.25 -1 -2.25 HISF protein (O) 1GPW_r 1THF 0.68 8.10 7.42 1.68 -1.31 -2.99 UCH-L3 (O) 1XD3_r 1UCH 1.30 5.11 3.80 1.35 -1.05 -2.4 Son of Sevenless (O) 1BKD_r 2II0 1.33 4.91 3.57 1.39 -0.82 -2.21 TGF-beta (O) 1KTZ_r 1TGK 0.66 4.41 3.75 2.1 -0.95 -3.05 HPr kinase C-ter domain (E) 1KKL_r 1JB1 1.76 4.00 2.24 1.95 -0.98 -2.93 Cystatin (E) 1YVB_l 1CEW 0.63 3.85 3.21 2.43 -1.24 -3.67 DH/PH domain of TRIO (O) 2NZ8_r 1NTY 1.33 3.77 2.43 1.25 -0.78 -2.03 Actin (O) 2BTF_r 1IJJ 1.08 3.77 2.68 1.76 -0.81 -2.57 Alpha-1-antitrypsin (E) 1OPH_r 1Q1P 0.92 3.50 2.58 1.35 -1.39 -2.74 TGFbeta receptor (O) 1B6C_l 1IAS 1.17 3.14 1.96 1.28 -1.04 -2.32 Vitamin D binding protein (O) 1KXP_l 1KW2 1.53 3.11 1.57 1.66 -0.77 -2.43 TolB (O) 2HQS_r 1CRZ 1.37 3.04 1.67 2 -0.81 -2.81 RCC1 (O) 1I2M_l 1A12 0.40 3.00 2.60 2.43 -0.99 -3.42 Sporulation response factor B (O) 1F51_r 1IXM 0.78 2.70 1.92 1.1 -0.97 -2.07 Ran GTPase (O) 1A2K_l 1QG4 0.33 2.57 2.24 2.56 -1.03 -3.59 HEW lysozyme (A) 1BVK_l 3LZT 0.31 2.57 2.25 2.86 -1.06 -3.92 Transferrin receptor ectodomain (O) 1DE4_l 1CX8 0.94 2.51 1.57 1.04 -1.16 -2.2 Anthrax toxin receptor (O) 1T6B_l 1SHU 0.27 2.32 2.05 2.15 -0.75 -2.9 Xylanase inhibitor (E) 2B42_r 1T6E 0.33 2.25 1.91 2.06 -0.95 -3.01 Fab (A) 1E6J_r 1E6O 0.75 1.98 1.22 2.48 -0.73 -3.21 Complement C3 (O) 1GHQ_r 1C3D 0.21 1.58 1.36 1.92 -0.69 -2.61 \*The abbreviations used are: IR - Interface regions, NIR_PBc -- Non-interacting regions with PB change, l -- ligand (smaller of the two proteins in the complex), r -- receptor (bigger of the two proteins in the complex), E -- enzyme-inhibitor complex, A -- Antigen-antibody complex, O -- Other complexes. The proteins are listed in decreasing order of average Cα RMSD of NIR_PBc values. The average Cα RMSD of IR and NIR_PBc is 0.89 and 3.75, respectively. The normalized PB substitution score for IR and NIR_PBc values is 1.78 and -0.98, respectively. ###### Proteins with substantial structural change in non-interacting regions and interfacial regions   **PDB code**   **Cα RMSD** **Differences from global RMSD** **Normalized PB substitution score** -------------------------------- -------------- --------- ------------- ---------------------------------- -------------------------------------- --------------------- -------------------------- ------- ----------- Protein Bound Unbound IR\* NIR_PBc\* Global RMSD IR\* -- Global RMSD NIR_PBc\* -- Global RMSD IR\* NIR_PBc\* Arf1 GTPase (O) 1R8S_r 1HUR 5.19 5.42 3.02 2.17 2.40 0.79 -0.67 Ras GTPase (O) 1BKD_l 1CTQ 4.39 4.43 2.21 2.18 2.22 0.63 -1.82 CDK2 kinase (E) 1FQ1_l 1B39 4.39 4.26 2.04 2.35 2.22 1.31 -1 FC fragment of human IgG 1 (A) 1E4K_r 2DTQ 3.17 3.77 2.18 0.99 1.59 0.95 -0.99 Ran GTPase (O) 1I2M_r 1QG4 3.27 3.51 1.91 1.36 1.60 0.58 -0.8 Cystein protease (E) 1PXV_r 1X9Y 3.99 3.47 1.48 2.51 1.99 1.2 -1.04 Rab21 GTPase (O) 2OT3_l 1YZU 4.65 3.30 1.71 2.94 1.59 0.1 -0.6 CDC42 GTPase (O) 1GRN_r 1A4R 2.66 2.97 1 1.66 1.97 1.31 -0.96 Rac GTPase (O) 2NZ8_l 1MH1 3.87 2.68 1.17 2.70 1.51 -0.03 -1.18 Actin (O) 1ATN_r 1IJJ 6.09 2.58 1.54 4.55 1.04 0.97 -0.59 Rac GTPase (O) 1I4D_l 1MH1 2.31 2.52 0.81 1.50 1.71 1.15 -0.65 Glycoprotein IB-alpha (E) 1M10_l 1MOZ 3.95 2.12 0.89 3.06 1.23 0.91 -0.95 \*The abbreviations used are: *IR* - Interface regions, *NIR_PBc* -- Non-interacting regions with PB change, *l* -- ligand (smaller of the two proteins in the complex), *r* -- receptor (bigger of the two proteins in the complex), *E* -- enzyme-inhibitor complex, *A* -- Antigen-antibody complex, *O* -- Other complexes. The proteins are listed in decreasing order of average Cα RMSD of NIR_PBc values. The average Cα RMSD of IR and NIR_PBc is 3.99 and 3.42, respectively. The average difference in RMSD values for IR and NIR_PBc from global RMSD are 2.33 and 1.75, respectively. The normalized PB substitution score for IR and NIR_PBc values is 1.737 and −0.95, respectively. Changes occurring in the non-interfacial regions are classified as near the interface region or away from the interface. All non-interfacial residues in a protein which are within a distance of ≤6 Å Cα distance from any of the interacting residues were considered as 'residues nearby interface', since they occur in the vicinity of the interfacial residues and are important for the formation of the structural scaffold \[[@B53]\]. Figure [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"} shows that in most of the proteins, the residues nearby interface do not undergo much change (Mean -- 15.19%, Median -- 12.31%); the highest peak is at 10%, which means that most of the changes occurred away from the interface. This fact was also confirmed by visual inspection of the structure of the protein-protein complexes. {#F5} Conformational changes occurring away from the interface are potentially allosteric: Literature-based, structure-based and normal mode analysis ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To ascertain any known or potential biological relevance for these changes, all the 'non-interacting regions with PB change' in the identified proteins were analyzed using following parameters: (i) Crystallographic temperature factor (B-factor). Regions with low flexibility and different conformations are likely to have adopted the particular conformation. Studies report that interacting sites have lower B-factors than rest of the protein surface on average even in the unbound form \[[@B54]\]. (ii) Known functional roles of residues: SITE records listed in PDB files and Catalytic Site Atlas (CSA) \[[@B55]\] were consulted to identify if any of the known functionally important residues for the protein of interest are present in the non-interacting regions with PB change. (iii) Literature survey: Relevant literature of the crystal structures was studied to check for any previously known information about these observed PB changes for each protein. The information gathered from the above sources is listed in Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}. The B-factor distribution for the non-interacting residues with structural change varied from 'low' (normalized B-factor \< −1, see Methods) to 'very high' (normalized B-factor \>3, see Methods) values. Unfortunately, PDB SITE records and CSA did not provide information in most cases. Literature survey, although unable to account for all the structural changes observed in the non-interfacial region, indicates that many of these changes are allosteric (15/34) \[[@B56]-[@B70]\]. ###### Features of non-interacting regions with substantial conformational change upon protein-protein interaction -------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Protein** **B-factor** **PDB SITE record/Crystal atlas** **Crystal packing** Bound Unbound *Proteins with almost no structural change at the interface* PIP3 kinase (O) Poor resolution and many missing residues NI \- HISF protein (O) *H* *H* Catalytic site residues not present in NIR_PBc/IR \- *UCH-L3 (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *Out of 4 active site residues, one in IR* *NIR_PBc is near IR and are rigid in unbound form, one of the symmetry-related molecules is situated \~6Å towards this region.* Son of Sevenless (O) H Nh NI \- TGF-beta (O) Missing residues near this region NI \- HPr kinase C-ter domain (E) Resolution of PDBs is 2.8 Å NI \- Cystatin (E) *H* *H* NI \- DH/PH domain of TRIO (O) Temperature factors for region under consideration abnormally high! NI \- *Actin (O)* *H* *Not so high* *4/12 important residues are present in NIR_PBc* *Region involved in dimerization in unbound form* *Alpha-1-antitrypsin (E)* *H* *H* *Important residues present in IR* *-* *TGFbeta receptor (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *3/5 of active site residues are present in NIR_PBc* *-* *Vitamin D binding protein (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *NI* *NIR_PBc values are close to the ones observed are IR and rigid in unbound form, one of the 4 symmetry-related molecules comes \~7Å towards this region. Another NIR_PBc value is far away from IR and is slightly mobile - the same symmetry-related molecule comes \<5Å close to this region!* *TolB (O)* *Nh* *H* *NI* *-* Ran GTPase (O) Nh (nearby IR), H H, Nh NI \- Sporulation response factor B (O) Missing residues near this region NI *-* Ran GTPase (O) H Nh One important residue present in IR \- *HEW lysozyme (A)* *Nh* *Nh* *Catalytic site residues not present in NIR_PBc/IR* *-* Transferrin receptor ectodoma in (O) Poor resolution. Important residues not present in IR/NIR_PBc *-* Anthrax toxin receptor (O) Missing residues near this region NI *-* Xylanase inhibitor (E) *H* *H* Catalytic site residues not present in NIR_PBc/IR \- Fab (A) *H* *Very high* NI \- *Complement C3 (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *Important residues are not present in NIR_PBc/IR* *-* *Proteins with substantial structural change at interface* *Arf1 GTPase (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *-* *-* *Ran GTPase (O)* *Nh* *Nh* *Important residues are present in NIR_PBC/IR* *-* -------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We observed that most of the proteins with changes are signalling proteins (17/22 in Case 1: Conformational changes in non-interacting surface regions of proteins with invariant interfaces & 8/12 in Case 2: Conformational changes in non-interacting surface regions of proteins with altered interfaces). Therefore, 25/40 'other' complexes (predominantly signalling proteins) from the PPC dataset show significant structural changes at distal sites, indicating prevalence of this phenomenon in signalling proteins. In contrast, only 7/25 and 3/11 complexes of the enzyme-inhibitor and antigen-antibody classes, respectively, show such changes. Detailed information about the residue positions and the nature of conformational change observed in the residues possibly forming the target site for all examples of Case 1 and Case 2 are listed in Additional file [10](#S10){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S3 & Additional file [11](#S11){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S4, respectively. Although literature studies implicate allosteric communication to be the reason for the observed structural changes away from the interface in nearly half of the complexes, we did not get clues for the other cases. Since flexibility of a region is known to be good indicator of functional relevance \[[@B45]\], we used this as a metric to identify the biological relevance of the structural changes in all the cases. Coarse-grained normal mode analysis (NMA) \[[@B71]\] is an effective and widely used method to identify intrinsic dynamics of biomolecules at equilibrium conditions solely based on their 3-D structures. This approach computes all possible vibrational modes in which the molecule can move. Studies show that biologically important functional motions are almost always captured within one or many low-frequency modes, since they require the least energy for conformational transitions \[[@B72]\]. Each mode indicates an intrinsic tendency for collective reconfiguration at particular regions. Coarse grained NMA has been applied to various aspects of structural biology, ranging from prediction of functionally relevant motion in proteins and assemblies, refinement of cryo-EM structures, identification of notable evolutionarily conserved dynamic patterns in protein families, to guiding protein docking to proceed along trajectories deemed to be functionally relevant \[[@B72],[@B73]\]. Specifically, a study of four protein-protein complexes using different variations of NMA to identify the regions and directionality of structural change revealed that these changes correlate with intrinsic motions of the protein in the unbound form \[[@B74]\]. A Gaussian network model (GNM) --based NMA of the unbound proteins in Case 1 and Case 2 sets that contain 'non-interacting regions with PB change' with low B-factors in both unbound and bound forms were carried out using oGNM web server, to identify regions exhibiting intrinsic motion, which has largely been observed to correlate with biologically relevant regions \[[@B75]\]. A summary of the normal mode analysis results are presented in Table [4](#T4){ref-type="table"}. NMA indicates that structural changes away from the interface in some of the complexes are functionally relevant. A study by Chennubhotla and Bahar indicates that a method that combines information theoretic concepts with normal mode analysis can be used to determine the communication mechanisms encoded in the structural topology of the protein \[[@B76]\]. Based on these studies, allostery, which has already been observed in 15/34 complexes according to literature reports, appears to be the most likely mechanism to explain the structural changes occurring at regions away from the interface arising from protein binding. ###### Results of normal mode analysis for proteins with 'non-interacting regions with PB change' **PDBcode** **Region of interest** **Mobile/Rigid?** **Whole/Embedded** **Mode** ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ ------------------- -------------------- ---------- *Cases with substantial change in non-interacting residues whereas interacting region has very less change* 2HQS:A Interface region Highly mobile Whole 5   NIR_PBc far away (mainly 86-91) Highly mobile Whole 3 1GHQ:A Interface region Highly mobile Whole 1   NIR_PBc far away (264-274) Partially mobile Embedded 1 1OPH:A Interface region Highly mobile Whole 1   NIR_PBc far away (120-123) Mobile Embedded 1   NIR_PBc near interface (191-194) Mobile Embedded 1 1KXP:D Interface region Rigid \- \-   NIR_PBc far away (314-325) Low mobility Embedded 1   *NIR_PBc near interface (250-258)* *Rigid* *-* *-* 2BTF:A Interface region Rigid \- \-   *NIR_PBc far away (156-158)* *Rigid* *-* *-* 1XD3:A Interface region Partly mobile Embedded 2   *NIR_PBc near interface (89-93)* *Rigid* *-* *-* 1BVK:F Interface region Partly mobile Whole 1   NIR_PBc with interface (100-105) Mobile Embedded 2 1B6C:B Interface region Rigid \- \-   NIR_PBc near interface (15-22) Mobile Whole 3   NIR_PBc near interface (152-157) Mobile Embedded 4 *Cases with substantial change in non-interacting residues near interacting region as well as in interacting region* 1I2M:A Interface region Rigid \- \-   NIR_PBc far away (145-149) Mobile Embedded 4   NIR_PBc near interface (32-29) Partly mobile Embedded 2 \*The abbreviations used are: *IR* - Interface regions, *NIR_PBc* -- Non-interacting regions with PB change. This table lists the results of the analysis using NMA regarding the intrinsic tendency for regions of interest to be rigid or mobile. The term 'Embedded' indicates that the region under consideration possesses intrinsic mobility as part of a segment, whereas the term 'Whole' indicates that the region is independent. NIR_PBc which are indicated to be mobile are shown in bold formatting and those indicated to be rigid are italicized. Note that the PDB codes and chains provided are for the bound form whereas the corresponding unbound form structure was used for NMA. Apart from NMA, the extent of evolutionary conservation of these regions was also determined, using Jensen-Shannon divergence measure. For regions where normal mode analysis did not provide an indication of intrinsic motion, we analyzed whether crystal packing effects could provide an explanation for conformational changes. To determine this, symmetry-related molecules were generated for the bound and unbound molecule using PyMOL \[[@B77]\], and checked to find any crystal packing which could cause the change. A discussion of a few specific cases is presented below. a\) TolB -- Peptidoglycan associated lipoprotein (Pal) complex. The proteins TolB and Pal constitute the complex used by *Escherichia coli* and other 'group A colicins' to penetrate and kill cells \[[@B78]\]. TolB protein comprises of two domains -- a smaller N-terminal domain and a larger C-terminal β-propeller domain which interacts with Pal protein. Large rigid-body motions and conformational changes were seen far away from the interface between the unbound and bound forms of the TolB protein (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}A, encircled region). The biological relevance of these changes is supported by experiments which prove that Pal binding results in conformational changes being transmitted to N terminal α/β domain of TolB \[[@B79]\]. Further, a recent study shows that TolA binds to the N-terminal region exhibiting structural change in TolB \[[@B80]\], indicating that the structural changes occurring upon Pal binding serves as an allosteric signal. Additional support comes from GNM-based normal mode analysis of the unbound form. The region of our interest (mainly residues 86--91), was seen to have intrinsic tendency for reconfiguration in the second most significant mode pertaining to local motions (mode 3, Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}A, purple coloured region). However, we identify that this region is not evolutionary conserved and most of the sites occurred in the least conserved bin of residues in the protein. {#F6} b\) Complement C3 and Epstein-Barr virus receptor C2 complex. Complement component C3d binds to antigenic molecules. This binding helps in further amplification of B cell responses as a consequence of the simultaneous binding of antigen-bound C3d with complement receptor type 2 and binding to B cell receptor via bound antigen \[[@B81]\]. Complement C3's interaction with C2 receptor causes conformational changes, identified using PBs, at residues 264--274. No literature information specific for this region was available. However, GNM analysis of the unbound form indicated that the region near to interface and the region in the opposite side have intrinsic motion (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}B, purple coloured regions). The region of our interest occurs opposite to the interface and is indicated to be partly flexible, implying that this motion could be biologically relevant (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}B, green coloured segment in purple coloured region). However, this region is moderately conserved. c\) Ran GTPase and Regulator of chromosome condensation (RCC1) complex. Ran GTPase is a key component of G-protein signaling. It serves as a molecular switch which cycles between GDP- and GTP- bound states. It requires regulators for enhancing its low intrinsic hydrolysis and nucleotide dissociation rates. Guanine nucleotide exchange factors form the latter group which bind to G-proteins and induce rapid dissociation of bound GTP and hence enable fast activation to GTP bound form. The structure under consideration is a complex of Ran GTPase with the guanine nucleotide exchange factor RCC1 \[[@B82]\]. Ran GTPase, which adopts the P-loop containing nucleoside triphosphate hydrolases fold, contains two regions of interest, one near the interface (residues 41--44) and the other far away from the interface (residues 151--155) (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}C, encircled regions). The interface also undergoes substantial changes on binding. The region of interest near the interface is seen to be intrinsically mobile in the second most important mode. The region of interest far away from the interface is seen to be a part of a mobile region in the fourth important mode. This region is very near to GDP-binding site in the unbound form. It appears that binding of Ran GTPase and RCC1 causes structural changes at distant sites (GDP-binding site) to bring about exchange of nucleotides. This case provided a clear example of signal transduction within the molecule to bring about the desired biochemical effect. Such sites can also probably be targeted by human intervention to prevent disease manifestations, such as cancer in Ran signalling pathway \[[@B83]\]. The sampling of homologous sequences was not diverse enough to obtain a reliable answer about its evolutionary conservation. Structural changes away from the interface observed largely in proteins with structurally altered interfaces ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Since structural changes away from the interface appear to be common on protein binding (*n* = 34/76), we studied the structures of the proteins in the complex to understand if there are any common characteristics of the protein exhibiting these changes (target protein) versus the binding partner (effector protein). When we analysed the type of interface (pre-made, induced-fit, other) in the target protein, we observe that pre-made interfaces constitute only 7/34 complexes undergoing structural changes away from the interface. Induced-fit and moderately induced-fit ('other' interfaces) constitute the bulk, accounting for 15/34 and 13/34 complexes, respectively. Allostery appears to be the most plausible explanation to connect protein binding with structural changes away from the interface, as discussed in the previous section. Therefore, most of the proteins comprising of pre-made interfaces (26/33) do not appear to be the target proteins involved in allosteric communication. On the contrary, they seem to serve as the effector molecules for transmitting the allosteric signal to the partner protein. Comparison of the global RMSDs of case 1 complexes indicates that the target proteins (Cα RMSD = 1.52 ± 0.71 Å) are significantly more flexible than their effector proteins (Cα RMSD of 0.86 ± 0.60 Å with a *p* value of 0.0018 for a Wilcoxon paired test). However, the disparity in the values could be partly caused due to the differences in lengths (effector - 183 ± 91, target - 389 ± 247, Wilcoxon paired test *p* value - 0.0006) since RMSD is dependent on the number of residues. For proteins of case 2 complexes, there is no significant variation in terms of their lengths (Effector proteins -- 236 ± 105, Target proteins -- 245 ± 88, Wilcoxon paired test p value -- 0.73). However, the global RMSDs of the target proteins (1.65 ± 0.64) are slightly yet significantly higher than those of the effector proteins (1.04 ± 0.67) (p value -- 0.0342, Wilcoxon paired test). Therefore, it appears that binding of an effector protein causes changes at the interface of the target protein that are propagated towards the distant allosteric site, providing credence to the views implicating flexibility in allosteric modulation \[[@B84]\]. Discussion ========== Availability of bound and unbound structures of proteins provides an opportunity to address various questions regarding structural alterations occurring due to protein-protein interactions. Our study underlines that macromolecular liganded forms of proteins undergo larger structural alterations in terms of change in local conformation (captured using PBs) as well as atomic positions (captured using RMSD) compared to unliganded proteins (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). These changes are much larger than those observed due to random fluctuations characteristic of intrinsic flexibility or experimental artifacts (see Additional file [3](#S3){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Figure S1). Non-obligatory complexes occupy a niche position as key regulators of cellular homeostasis. Their specific and timely association and dissociation are crucial for bringing about required biological function. Spatial and temporal regulation of the interacting proteins is one of the ways of avoiding unsuitable complexation \[[@B85]\]. The other mechanism could be the use of different conformations of binding sites, which provide favourable or unfavourable binding-competence to the partner. Transformation of binding site structure into the active form can serve as a switch to ensure correct binding at the appropriate time. Our analysis of structural alterations provides credence to this view. Surprisingly, pre-made interfaces, which are structurally invariant upon binding, shows distribution of %PB changes similar to that observed for induced-fit interfaces. This indicates that there is some extent of conformational change in all interfaces; only the nature and magnitude varies (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}B). Additionally, interface of the partner of pre-made interface is usually observed to undergo significant structural changes (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}A). In essence, there are no 'completely pre-made' interfaces in non-obligatory complexes. Crucially, significant structural changes are observed at backbone level in most of the interfaces used in this study. It is well known that side-chains undergo large structural changes upon protein-protein complexation \[[@B86]\]. Considered together, these results support the view that structural conformations by themselves can serve as a good mechanism to implement the required tight regulation. Lower magnitude of structural changes is generally observed to optimize complex formation, whereas larger magnitude of structural changes is observed to remove steric clashes. We also observe a substantial proportion of instances with significant conformational changes in non-interacting regions away from the interface (Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). Identification of these cases is facilitated by the ability of PBs to capture subtle structural variations. Observation of structural changes away from interface changes has been reported previously \[[@B87]-[@B89]\]. They could be due to various factors: 1\. Flexible regions are dynamic and can take up several distinct conformations, which can have specific functional relevance \[[@B45]\]. Several studies have revealed that flexibility is localized to certain regions of protein structure and such dynamic sites are usually involved in both small and large molecular interaction \[[@B90],[@B91]\] and enzymatic catalysis. In our study, the interface regions of TolB - Pal complex (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}A) and Complement C3 - Epstein-Barr virus receptor C2 complex (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}B) are shown by normal mode analysis to be intrinsically mobile. 2\. Studies show that thermodynamic entropy redistribution is a common outcome of protein-protein interaction, irrespective of the net change in entropy after complexation \[[@B92]\]. Loss of entropy at interacting sites is many times accompanied by gain of entropy in other regions of surface. 'Entropy-entropy compensation' may be due to significant intermolecular motion between the interacting molecules, which recovers about half of the entropy lost due to rotational and translational components \[[@B92]\]. This compensatory mechanism has been postulated to be the mechanism responsible for high-specificity binding of multiple ligands at the same region of a protein. 3\. The region may be functionally relevant, for e.g. a ligand/macromolecule binding site, whose conformation is regulated by an allosteric mechanism. Since binding sites are observed to be a combination of flexible and rigid sites \[[@B90]\], the signal based on protein-protein complexation may alter the stability and facilitate conformational change at the functionally relevant distant region. The complex of Ran GTPase with its cognate guanine nucleotide exchange factor probably utilizes this mechanism since complexation helps in altering the accessibility to the ligand on Rho protein (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}C). 4\. Crystallization is known to induce substantially altered conformations \[[@B44]\]. In our study, we ensure that this bias is accounted for (Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}) and that the conformational changes observed are not due to such effects. 5\. Trivial factors, such as missing residues near the region of interest (or) the region being near termini, could contribute to such changes \[[@B93]\]. Since we ruled out complexes exhibiting such changes (Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}), the changes observed have other biological origin. In-depth analysis of several complexes using rigorous coarse-grained NMA and literature survey indicates that a fair proportion of structural changes upon protein-protein complexation are allosteric (Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}, Tables [4](#T4){ref-type="table"}). Such communication is largely enriched in signalling proteins, which seems plausible considering the complex regulation of signal transduction pathways achieved using the interplay of several modular elements \[[@B12]\]. The lesser frequency of occurrence of such changes in enzyme-inhibitor and antibody-antigen complexes is expected. In the case of the former, their interaction is usually the result of an allosteric modulation and in the latter, a very high-affinity complex is formed, which needs to be cleared. The classical view of allostery is as a mechanism of effector binding causing functionally relevant conformational changes at a distant site \[[@B10]\]. The salient features of the models involves two key attributes: the presence of two conformational states of the protein, one stabilised in the unbound state and the other favoured upon binding of the allosteric effector, and induction of structural change at the target site leading to functional modulation. However, studies in the last two decades have thrown new light on this phenomenon. The observations of allosteric modulation in the absence of conformational change \[[@B94]\] and the introduction of allosteric perturbation in non-allosteric proteins \[[@B95]\] have raised the viewpoint that all dynamic proteins are possibly allosteric \[[@B96]\]. These studies indicate that proteins in their unbound states exist in several conformational sub-states, characterized by different population densities \[[@B97]\]. Allosteric perturbation results in change in the relative populations of these conformers \[[@B98]\]. Such studies resulted in a paradigm shift in the understanding of allostery from a structure-centric to a thermodynamics-centric phenomenon \[[@B98]\]. Although newer studies on allostery indicate that change in dynamics also enables allosteric communication in many cases \[[@B94]-[@B96],[@B98],[@B99]\], in this study we have confined ourselves to the study of allostery in the classical sense, as communicated by structural changes. Surprisingly, allosteric communication established only via structural changes appears to be established in almost half of the complexes upon protein binding. Consideration of dynamics along with structural changes would most probably lead to uncovering of many more protein-induced allosteric changes. Therefore, our study suggests that protein-protein binding in the case of signalling complexes, is often likely to result in downstream effects. The smaller of the two proteins in a complex, usually comprising of an unaltered interface upon protein-protein complexation, appears to be the effector molecule in most cases. The binding event generally causes changes at the interface and concomitant structural changes at the target site. Signalling proteins are key drug targets and the usage of allosteric modulators as drugs is gaining acceptance \[[@B100],[@B101]\]. In such a scenario, the understanding that most protein-protein interactions in signalling proteins are allosteric provides impetus for the design of allosteric modulators as drugs. Allosteric regulators provide certain advantages over traditional drugs, which are usually competitive inhibitors. Binding of an allosteric drug at a distant site provides reduced side-effects, saturability, modulation in the presence of true agonist etc. \[[@B84],[@B100]\]. We hope that knowledge of possible allosterically modified sites identified in the signalling complexes studied in our analysis (see Additional file [10](#S10){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S3 & Additional file [11](#S11){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S4) serves as a starting point for combating disease manifestations. Conclusions =========== Comparison of bound and unbound structures of protein-protein complexes enables us to address various questions regarding structural alterations occurring due to interaction. Non-obligatory complexes occupy a niche position as key regulators of cellular homeostasis with appropriate and timely association and dissociation which are crucial for eliciting the necessary biological function. Structural alterations in most of the interfaces of these non-obligatory complexes support the view that conformational features by themselves can serve as a good mechanism to implement the required tight regulation. The interface is the most altered region in the entire protein structure upon protein-protein binding, as expected. The modifications are largely conformational in nature. In the rare case of one the partners remaining unaltered, the other partner is usually observed to undergo significant structural modification, thereby supporting the 'induced fit hypothesis' \[[@B52]\] more than the 'lock and key hypothesis' \[[@B51]\]. The observation of a substantial proportion of instances with significant structural changes in non-interacting regions away from the interface implies that the binding is likely to result in downstream effects. In-depth analysis of several complexes using rigorous coarse-grained NMA and literature survey indicates that these changes have functional relevance, with most of them being allosteric. The observation of allostery-like structural changes in about half of the transient complexes suggests this phenomenon is much more prevalent in signalling complexes than appreciated before. It also appears that the reversible nature of protein-protein association and dissociation, characteristic of transient complexes, affords nature with an attractive means to bring about allostery which is generally a reversible process. Methods ======= Datasets used ------------- Two kinds of control datasets are used. a\) *Rigid-proteins dataset (Control dataset 1):* A dataset of 50 independently determined structures of two rigid proteins (see Additional file [1](#S1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S1), bovine ribonuclease (32 structures) and sperm whale myoglobin (18 structures), were taken from Rashin et.al \[[@B44]\]. Values calculated from this dataset for different parameters are used as thresholds to account for positional coordinate uncertainty. b\) *Monomeric-proteins dataset (Control dataset 2):* To get a general idea about the flexibility in atomic positions for a random dataset, the PDB was mined for crystal structures of proteins with the following criteria: a single chain is present in the asymmetric unit and biological unit; crystallographic resolution of the structure should be 2.5 Å or better and the structure should not contain DNA, RNA, DNA-RNA hybrid, or other ligands bound to the protein. These molecules were clustered at a sequence identity of 95% and length coverage of 100% using BLASTCLUST (<http://www.csc.fi/english/research/sciences/bioscience/programs/blast/blastclust>). Finally, the clusters were refined to contain only one entry for each PubmedID per cluster, which ensures that mutants are not considered, to arrive at a dataset containing 95 clusters (see Additional file [2](#S2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S2) of 319 independently solved protein structures. ### Protein-protein complex (PPC) dataset The set of curated non-obligatory protein-protein interaction complexes solved in both unbound and bound form is taken from Benchmark 3.0 dataset \[[@B34]\]. The set was further pruned using PISA \[[@B102]\] and PDB biological unit information to exclude cases containing different non-biological oligomeric forms of a protein in the unbound and bound forms (eg. X-X in unbound form and X-Y in bound form) and bound to other small ligands or peptides. All antibody-antigen complexes in the original dataset in which only the bound structure of the antibody was solved were discarded since the corresponding unbound form was not available. The final dataset consists of 76 non-obligatory complexes (see Additional file [2](#S2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S2). The resolution of these entries is 3.5 Å or better. Proteins in every interacting pair in the dataset is non-redundant at the level of SCOP family \[[@B47]\]. Although a much larger dataset can be compiled if only one of the interacting proteins is available in unbound and bound form, such a dataset was not used since our objective is to compare the changes occurring in both the proteins upon complexation. Although our dataset is intended to contain entries of identical proteins or protein domains available in both protein-bound and free forms, practically there could be some differences in the length and region of known 3-D structures in the bound and free forms. However the overwhelming majority of the same protein available in bound and free forms have \>90% sequence identity (see Additional file [2](#S2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}: Table S2) indicating that the bound and unbound forms are almost the same. In all the cases with % sequence identity less than 90%, it is observed that the aligned region is identical or contains very few substitutions. Further, of the 3 cases showing large length variation between the bound and unbound forms (PDB codes: 1gcq, 1qa9, 1e6j) only 1e6j features in our analysis of cases showing structural changes away from the interface. So, it appears that the analysis is robust to length variations between bound and unbound forms of a protein. As mentioned before the dataset used in the present analysis was derived from the robust list of protein-protein complexes proposed by Weng and coworkers \[[@B34]\] in their protein-protein docking benchmark version 3.0. In this dataset the authors have carefully avoided the complexes with significant extent of disordered regions. Indeed in the dataset used in the current analysis none of the complex structures used has any disordered residue at the protein-protein interfaces. This could be ensured on the basis of information on missing residues given in the PDB file, by checking the distance between Cα atoms of putative adjacent residues and by checking for the presence of all the expected atoms in a residue. Identification of interfacial residues -------------------------------------- If the distance between any two atoms of residues from the two proteins is less than sum of their van der Waals radii + 0.5 Å, the two residues are considered to be in the interface \[[@B53]\]. The van der Waals radii were taken from the literature \[[@B103]\]. Classification of residues based on solvent accessibility --------------------------------------------------------- The residues in a structure are classified on the basis of their residue surface accessibility (RSA) which is calculated using NACCESS \[[@B104],[@B105]\]. This parameter provides a normalized measure of the accessible surface area of any residue in the protein, calculated with respect to the extended form of the residue, using the NACCESS program. The cut-offs employed are: ≤5% RSA (buried residues) and ≥10% RSA (surface residues). The 5% cut-off was adopted from \[[@B106]\], who optimized and used it to define residues buried in monomeric proteins. Buried, surface, and interface residues constitute \~25%, 75% and 10-20% of the residues in a protein, respectively. Quantification of structural change ----------------------------------- Structural change is estimated for a given residue in unbound and bound forms. A sequence alignment of the unbound and bound forms performed using CLUSTALW \[[@B107]\] provides the residue equivalences. Structural change is captured using two measures: RMSD and Protein Blocks. Structural change is classically captured by means of root mean square deviation (RMSD), where RMSD is calculated as follows: $RMSD = \sqrt{1/N\sum di^{2}}$ for *i* ranging from residue 1 to *n* of the dataset and *d* is the distance between N pairs of equivalent atoms. Two measures of RMSD have been employed: Cα RMSD and all-atom RMSD, based on deviation between the Cα positions of the same residue in unbound and bound forms in the former and between all-atoms of the same residue in unbound and bound forms for the latter. Deviation in side chain positions are generally expected \[[@B86]\] whereas large backbone changes are comparatively uncommon. Therefore, the deviation between the Cα positions of the same residue in unbound and bound form is used as an indicator of structural change mainly. The changes are captured at structural level and averaged out for the entire protein or a set of residues in a protein (for e.g. interface residues) and the averaged measures are used in the analysis. Small yet significant changes in local conformation of a protein can be captured using Protein Blocks \[[@B48]\]. The three dimensional structural information in the bound and unbound forms is represented in a one-dimensional form using Protein Blocks (PBs). They consist of 16 structural prototypes, each of which approximates the backbone of a five-residue peptide. Given a 3D structure, each overlapping sequence of 5-residue fragments is associated with its closest PB. The sequence of PBs is annotated in the sequence alignment obtained using CLUSTALW. Two parameters are calculated using this measure. The first parameter indicates the presence of conformational change and is calculated as % changes in PBs between unbound and bound form (PBc). The second parameter indicates the magnitude of observed change and is calculated using PB substitution score (PBSSc) for the equivalent residues. 'Pre-made' versus 'induced-fit' interfaces ------------------------------------------ An interface with ≥0.5 Å Cα RMSD difference between the bound and unbound forms is classified as 'pre-made' interface whereas an interface with ≥1.5 Å Cα RMSD difference between the bound and unbound forms is classified as an 'induced-fit' interface. However, there are some interfaces with lower difference in terms of magnitude but with substantial difference at the interface in comparison to the rest of the surface residues (≥10% RSA). This cut-off was chosen since 90% of the interface residues have an RSA equal to or greater than this value in the unbound form. A normalization-based metric was used to identify induced-fit interfaces exhibiting smaller structural changes as $N = \frac{C\alpha RMSD_{I}}{C\alpha RMSD_{\mathit{ROS}}}$ where 'CαRMSD~I~' indicates the average Cα RMSD difference between bound and unbound form for interface, and 'CαRMSD~ROS~' indicates the average Cα RMSD difference between bound and unbound form for the rest of the surface. For example, a value of two indicates a doubled change in magnitude of the interface with respect to the rest of the surface. This value is used as a cut-off to identify substantial changes localized to the interface. Identification of proteins with substantial structural change in non-interacting regions ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To identify cases where the interface is largely invariant/moderately altered: *Criterion 1:* Average Cα RMSD of 'non-interacting residues with PB change' should be ≥1 Å than the average Cα RMSD of the interface residues. For this comparison, the individual segments under consideration, were superimposed using SUPER (B.S.Neela, unpublished). *Criterion 2:* Normalized PB substitution score of 'non-interacting residues with PB change' should be ≤ −2 than the normalized PB substitution score of interacting residues. To identify cases where there are large changes at interface: *Criterion 1:* Average Cα RMSD of both 'non-interacting residues with PB change' and interacting region should be ≥2 Å. *Criterion 2:* Average Cα RMSD of both 'non-interacting residues with PB change' and interacting region should be \> \> global Cα RMSD. Analysis of B-factors --------------------- The B-factor (temperature factor/atomic displacement factor) of an atom reflects the degree of isotropic smearing of electron density around its center \[[@B108]\]. A low B-factor indicates small uncertainty in the position of an atom. A high B-factor can be caused by different factors: high thermal fluctuations, alternate conformation of an atom, and domain motion, to name a few. To ascertain the flexibility/rigidity of a particular residue in a structure, its normalized backbone B-factor was considered \[[@B109]\]. Normalization with respect to all the other residues provides an idea of increase/decrease in flexibility on a standard scale. Only surface residues (≥10% RSA) were considered for the normalization since all interacting residues and non-interacting surface residues form the crux of this study. The three most N-terminal and C-terminal surface residues were excluded since their B-factors are usually high and can affect the 'mean' of the values. B-factors of only backbone atoms were considered as we are studying backbone changes and also since side chain are generally more flexible than backbone atoms. The normalized B-factor per residue (*B*~*i,N*~) was computed as $B_{i,N} = \frac{B_{i} - < B_{i} >}{\sigma_{\mathit{Bi}}}$ where *B*~*i*~ is the B-factor of residue *i*, \<*B*~*i*~\> is the mean B-factor of the protein surface residues and σ ~*Bi*~ is the s.d. for the same. Residues with backbone B-factors ≥3, ≥2, and \<1 standard deviations from the mean backbone B-factors for surface residues can be considered to have 'very high', 'high' and 'low' flexibility, respectively. Identification of regions of protein structure with intrinsic collective motions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GNM-based NMA of the unbound form of a protein was undertaken to identify intrinsic collective motions of the molecule. In this model, the biomolecule is modelled as a harmonic oscillator with every residue represented as a single site, connected by springs to nearby residues \[[@B73]\]. The oGNM web server \[[@B75]\] calculates low frequency normal modes for the unbound structure based on GNM. In GNM, the motions are isotropic by definition, thereby predicting only regions exhibiting intrinsic motion and magnitude of change. The directionality of motion cannot be predicted using GNM models. The server constructs the elastic network model of the structure by considering each of the Cα atoms as a node and identifying all interacting nodes using a distance cut-off of 10 Å. The six most low frequency modes were analyzed to check whether any of the 'non-interacting regions with PB change' far away from the interface show probable biologically relevant intrinsic motion. Determining the extent of conservation of non-interacting residues with conformational changes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- xBased on the assumption that evolutionary conservation of a site in a protein family is an indicator of its functional relevance and/or structural integrity, the degree of conservation of all sites in a protein family was calculated using the Jensen-Shannon divergence measure. This metric operates on the premise that most sites in a protein family are not under any evolutionary pressure and hence have a distribution similar to background amino acid distribution. Sites under evolutionary pressure, such as functional or stabilizing sites, show amino acid distribution significantly different from the background distribution. Homologous sequences for every protein in our PPC dataset were identified by a search employing PSI-BLAST \[[@B110]\] against the UNIREF90 \[[@B111]\] database at an e-value cutoff of 0.0001 for 3 iterations. Further, only sequences with ≥30% identity were considered. A multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of the query sequence with only the aligned regions of the homologous sequences was generated using CLUSTALW. The conservation scores for every site in the MSA was calculated using Jensen-Shannon divergence measure \[[@B112]\]. The sites with top 30% conservation scores are considered to be well conserved \[[@B112]\] and sites with bottom 30% conservation scores are considered to be poorly conserved. Generation of symmetry-related molecules using PyMOL ---------------------------------------------------- Symmetry-related molecules were generated for the bound and unbound molecule using PyMOL \[[@B77]\]. The crystal packing after generation of symmetry-related molecules was checked to ascertain if any crystal packing could cause the observed structural changes in a complex. Competing interests =================== The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors' contributions ====================== NS and AdB conceived and designed the experiments. LSS and SM performed the experiments. LSS, SM, AdB and NS analyzed the data and wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Supplementary Material ====================== ###### Additional file 1 **Table S1.** List of PDB codes of structures of control datasets used in this analysis. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 2 **Table S2.** Details of various features of PPC dataset. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 3 **Figure S1.** Distribution of parameters capturing structural change for Control and Test datasets. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 4 **Figure S2.** Distribution of parameters capturing structural change with respect to 'interface area' and 'length of protein'. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 5 **Figure S3.** Distribution of all-atom RMSD values for PPC dataset. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 6 **Figure S4.** Different kinds of interfaces. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 7 **Figure S5.** Parameters for identifying rigid-body movements. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 8 **Figure S6.** Different types of structural changes seen at interfaces. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 9 **Figure S7.** Distribution of parameters for interface vs. non-interacting surface regions per protein. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 10 **Table S3.** Details of non-interacting surface residues with PB change in Case 1 complexes. ###### Click here for file ###### Additional file 11 **Table S4.** Details of non-interacting surface residues with PB change in Case 2 complexes. ###### Click here for file Acknowledgements ================ This research is supported by Indo-French collaborative grant (CEFIPRA/IFCPAR number 3903-E) between AdB and NS. Part of this project is also supported for NS by Department of Biotechnology (DBT). Part of this was supported for AdB by grants from the Ministry of Research, University Paris Diderot -- Paris 7, National Institute for Blood Transfusion (INTS) and the Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM). LSS and SM are supported by CEFIPRA/IFCPAR and DBT, respectively. The authors are grateful to Dr. Manoj Tyagi for providing the program to perform PB assignments and to Dr. Agnel P. Joseph for providing the PB substitution matrix. The authors express their immense gratitude to Professor Ruth Nussinov for key suggestions.

Blog: Uncategorized Every once in a while, I have something that I feel so strongly should be presented because of its importance to community, change and capital that I write it without a question from my readers. Ken Saxon’s work is one such example. Ken Saxon rightly is seen in the Santa Barbara community as the guru of leadership and the nonprofit world. He has a background from a great business school and has proven his ability as an entrepreneur. He is extremely bright, a systems-thinker with great humanity and commitment to helping our community and world. Besides all that, he is I started this column wanting to highlight how people can have an impact or create positive change, find personal meaning, and sometimes even make money doing it. I hoped to spotlight new and existing opportunities to benefit our community—what’s out there and what can be done to achieve these goals, who is doing it and what we can learn. I wanted to address individual change as well as community change. I hoped to introduce and discuss innovative processes and new tools to balance individual fulfillment and capital needs in the world of “causes,” plus share impact investing avenues and other QUESTION: Why are there so many stores downtown that are empty? There are other towns like San Luis Obispo and Palm Springs that have made successful efforts. Why isn’t Santa Barbara doing more? . . . Mathew in Montecito Clearly, there are problems with downtown retail struggling all over the country as online purchasing grows and consumer needs shift. However, Mathew, to answer your question I went to a person who is personally and professionally connected to this issue and is putting in great efforts toward addressing the problems. I met with Amy Cooper, who owns Plum Goods on State QUESTION: One of the biggest challenges I face as a member of the Santa Barbara community is what to do about climate change. Can you help? . . . Greg in Goleta Thank you for your question, Greg. I went to John Steed for an answer. He is the President of the Board of the Community Environmental Council (CEC), a leading environmental organization in Santa Barbara. John is a fit, very bright, well-read and highly articulate man who looks much younger than his years, with a quiet intensity and occasional flashes of deep emotion. He speaks easily and with well-formed What really matters in life? What experiences shape our journey? How is today a reflection of our journey and what we have learned and experienced along the way? And mainly, what causes a person to dedicate their life to philanthropy? I have been writing about community, change and capital for months now and I thought I should talk to someone who has spent and does spend the majority of his life dealing with those three concerns. Ron Gallo is a high-energy, intelligent, and charming man with a great sense of humor and who is passionate about effective philanthropy and giving QUESTION: Dear Dr. Brill. I have appreciated much of what you have written. I understand that you are interested in what produces change. With the crises in our ocean, could you say something about that? . . . Marlene in Carpinteria Thank you, Marlene. I thought I would try to answer your question in a different way—by telling you a story of a journey. Many people know the work of author Joseph Campbell. He described myths and an important one was “the hero’s journey”. A hero’s journey is one that starts with an adventure, intended or not, where the QUESTION: It is clear to me that you are passionate about impact investing. I am having trouble finding my passion. How did you do it? . . . Michael from Santa Barbara Thank you for the question; it really caused me to think. Very few people actually just walk into passion and success. Passion, like great loves, develops over time. When I first retired at 52, I didn’t like the term retirement. It seemed to focus on withdrawal. I was also interested in how people do this stage of life well. So, I started a radio show called “The What makes a person great? If they are rich enough, are they great? What do we look for when we say they are wise? What does it mean when we say they make a difference? If we want to make a difference, are there models we can emulate or admire? I have been answering questions put to me in this column by others so I thought this month I would ask myself a few of my own. I came across someone who I think is a great person, and who has taken me a long way toward answering my questions. Tom QUESTION: I have felt betrayed in my love life and also at work. Can you help me to get over these feelings of hurt? . . . Patricia in Goleta Thank you for your question, Patricia. It is an important question and a large topic. You have given me very few details of either situation, so I am going to have to write in general. I am not going to address betrayal at work in this column, but perhaps in another, as it is a broad topic and deserves one of its own.You have caused me to think deeply about QUESTION: I hear there are 1,000 non-profits in Santa Barbara. I am newly retired and moved here from Chicago after selling my business. I look at an organization like the Girl Scouts which provides for a significant portion of their financial needs by selling cookies and other things. Why don’t more of these organizations find ways to create revenues to help them sustain themselves? . . . Stephen in Montecito That is an excellent question, Stephen. I feel that this is such an important question that I hired a research assistant, Mariah Miller from UCSB, to help me research it Peter Brill is the founder and first Executive Director of Sustainable Change Alliance. He is also a founding board member of SCA Inc., a profit impact investing firm. In addition to serving on their board, he is exploring ways to change the conversation regarding how people think about affecting social change at the community level by launching his Discovering What Matters with Dr. Peter Brill communication campaign which includes a monthly column in the Montecito Journal as well as his Blog www.dwmblog.com. He received his M.D. from U.C.L.A. and became a board-certified psychiatrist after his residency at the University of Pennsylvania. He also attended the Wharton School of Business where he became a Senior Fellow. He founded and directed the Center for the Study of Adult Development affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He consulted to over 150 organizations, founded and ran two national companies, while carrying out a private practice. He is a best-selling author who has appeared numerous times on radio and television, and has also lectured internationally. Since moving to Santa Barbara, he became the Director of the Third Age Foundation where he lectured and led groups and workshops. His latest publication is Finding Your J Spot, Joy in Midlife and Beyond. He also hosted a radio show titled The Third Age. Additionally, he has served on several boards in Santa Barbara and wasa member of Social Venture Partners where he served on the executive committee for 3 years. To stimulate conversation about transformative social and environmental change. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.

Experts discuss moving past mine spill Scientists at a multi-day conference continued to raise concerns about long-term effects resulting from the Gold King Mine spill, particularly as the Animas River's spring runoff starts Buy Photo Shiprock farmer Gilbert Yazzie voices his concerns during a discussion of the environmental condition of the Animas and San Juan watersheds on Wednesday at the Henderson Fine Arts Building at San Juan College.(Photo: Steve Lewis/The Daily Times)Buy Photo Story Highlights Scientists say heavy metals from the Gold King Mine spill have formed a compound called jarosite. As spring runoff begins, the jarosite may dissolve and wash down the Animas River. Because many rely on the river for agriculture, experts worry the toxins will spread through the food web. Organizers plan to make this week's conference an annual event that fosters collaboration. FARMINGTON — Long-term effects from the Gold King Mine spill remained the focus of today's conference at San Juan College, as scientists and local officials addressed the public on how to move forward from the disaster. The discussion concluded a multi-day conference on water contamination issues surrounding the Gold King Mine spill last August, when a crew from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working near Silverton, Colo., accidentally released millions of gallons of mine waste into the Animas River. While the EPA has since declared the river safe, experts at the conference warned of lingering issues. Scientists at the conference presented evidence that heavy metals released from the blowout have formed into a compound called jarosite, and remain settled on the river bottom near Durango, Colo. As spring runoff begins and the river chemistry changes, the jarosite may dissolve and heavy metals may wash downstream once again. Concerns also remain over health risks from exposure to the mine waste. Many people in the region use the river for agricultural purposes, and experts worry this can spread the toxins throughout the food web. "The EPA model for exposure is focused on a hiker drinking water," said Karletta Chief, a professor at the University of Arizona. "But the reality is much more complex." She said screening levels need to be adapted to address the risks associated with everyday water use. The EPA has been criticized for its involvement and response to the spill. However, officials at the conference said the outcry symbolizes a fundamental lack of trust in the government, which needs to be rebuilt within the community. EPA representatives attended the conference. Jane Watson is a department chief at the agency’s region 6 office, which encompasses New Mexico. She was at the conference and said she took extensive notes on the public's concerns to present to agency officials. Moving forward, the EPA is seeking a Superfund designation for the mining district surrounding the Gold King site. The classification would provide funding for reclamation efforts on the dozens of mines that still pose a threat to local water sources. “We’ve got to stop blaming people and move forward.” San Juan County Executive Officer Kim Carpenter Experts say the Superfund designation will not prevent occasional blowouts, though, and local agencies should focus on how to prepare for future incidents. The city of Farmington, which draws its drinking water from the Animas River, has installed sensors that can detect contamination and automatically shut down supply pumps. The state has developed a long-term monitoring plan that collects data from a variety of sources. Bio-monitoring and well-water testing services are also underway in San Juan County. The conference, which brought together a broad spectrum of scientists, ranging from geologists to fish biologists, is expected to become an annual event. Speakers said it's important exchange information to fully conceptualize the issues at hand. "We're need to look at this in a holistic way," McQuillan said. "It's going to require lots of collaboration." Brett Berntsen covers government for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4606.

459 S.E.2d 151 (1995) 194 W.Va. 40 Jessica DUNN and Jason Dunn, et al., Plaintiffs, v. KANAWHA COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al., Defendants. No. 22550. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Submitted February 28, 1995. Decided May 19, 1995. *153 Guy R. Bucci, Robert C. Chambers, Bucci, Chambers & Willis, L.C., Charleston, and James T. Cooper, Henry R. Glass, III, Lovett, Cooper & Glass, Charleston, and Carl S. Kravitz, David N. Webster, Caplin & Drysdale, Washington, DC, for plaintiffs. David L. Shuman, Shuman, Annand & Poe, Charleston, and Avrum Levicoff, Brown, Levicoff & McDyer, Beckley, and Michael Fisher, Offutt, Eifert, Fisher, Duffield & Nord, Huntington, and William J. Cooper, Jacobson, Maynard, Tuschman & Kalur, Charleston, for amicus, WV General & Plastic Surgeons. Arden J. Curry, II, Pauley, Curry, Sturgeon & Vanderford, Charleston, for amicus, The Builders Supply Ass'n of WV. Jeffrey M. Wakefield, William L. Ballard, Christine Fox, Richard D. Jones, Tracy L. Webb, Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso, Charleston, for defendant, Kanawha County Bd. of Educ. Paul M. Friedberg, David Johnson, Lewis, Friedberg, Glasser, Casey & Rollins, Charleston, and Donald W. Fowler, Joe G. Hollingsworth, Katharine R. Latimer, Bruce J. Berger, Spriggs & Hollingsworth, Washington, DC, for defendant, Velsicol. Charles R. McElwee, Robinson & McElwee, Charleston, for amicus, The WV Hosp. Ass'n. Anita R. Casey, Renatha S. Garner, Meyer, Darragh, Buckler, Bebenek & Eck, Charleston, for amicus, CSM Systems, Inc. A.L. Emch, Anthony Majestro, William D. Esbenshade, Jackson & Kelly, Charleston, for amicus, WV Retailers Ass'n. Cheryl A. Eifert, Blake Benton, Offutt, Eifert, Fisher, Duffield & Nord, Huntington, *154 for amicus, American Medical Ass'n and West Virginia State Medical Ass'n. *152 FOX, Judge:[1] We accepted this certified question from the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, West Virginia, to consider whether a good faith settlement between a plaintiff and a defendant in a multiparty lawsuit extinguishes the rights of non-settling defendants to seek indemnification from the settling defendant. The sixty-seven plaintiffs from three consolidated lawsuits are students, parents, teachers, and others who allege injuries resulting from exposure to toxic substances at Andrew Jackson Junior High School, in Cross Lanes, West Virginia. One of the toxic substances was a termiticide known as chlordane. The plaintiffs initially asserted numerous theories of liability against various defendants, including negligence, willful, wanton, and reckless misconduct, breach of warranty, strict product liability, and deliberate intent to injure an employee. However, the focus of this certified question is the plaintiffs' product liability claim against Velsicol Chemical Corporation. Velsicol is the only United States manufacturer of technical chlordane, which is chlordane in its purest form and is used to make other chlordane-containing compounds.[2] In addition to suing Velsicol, the plaintiffs are pursuing product liability claims against others in the chain of distribution, including distributors and applicators of chlordane. Defendants Kanawha County Board of Education and Robert Klatzkin, a former principal at Andrew Jackson Junior High School (hereinafter referred to collectively as the BOE), contend the defendant manufacturer Velsicol is ultimately responsible for damages caused by its defective product. On 1 April 1994, the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss all claims against Velsicol in exchange for a substantial monetary settlement. Pursuant to court order, the amount of the settlement remained confidential, but non-settling defendants were informed and given the opportunity to challenge its reasonableness. Velsicol intends for this settlement, reached prior to a judicial determination of liability, to extinguish all potential claims arising from this lawsuit, including claims for implied indemnity. However, because Velsicol's settlement agreement did not include therein a release from liability, the non-settling defendants in the chain of distribution want to be able to seek indemnification from Velsicol if they are subsequently made to pay damages to the plaintiffs for injuries they contend Velsicol was solely responsible for as the manufacturer of the defective product. On 22 April 1994, the plaintiffs and Velsicol jointly requested that the circuit court find their settlement was in good faith in order to extinguish any potential claims against Velsicol for both contribution and indemnification. The non-settling defendants potentially affected by this settlement objected on the grounds that (1) a factual determination of good faith was premature, and (2) a finding of a good faith settlement does not extinguish claims for implied indemnity.[3] Following a hearing, the circuit court tentatively found the settlement was in good faith but deferred *155 its ruling on the settlement's effect on any cross-claims against Velsicol. After a second hearing on 6 May 1994, the circuit court concluded the settlement was negotiated in good faith and it barred claims for contribution against Velsicol. However, the circuit court ruled that claims for implied indemnity would not be extinguished by the good faith settlement. On 24 May 1994, the plaintiffs and Velsicol moved for reconsideration of the 6 May 1994 ruling on the implied indemnification issue. The circuit court denied the motion for reconsideration on 31 May 1994, and an order certifying the indemnification issue to this Court was entered on 8 July 1994. On 12 October 1994, this Court granted the joint petition for review of the following certified question: Whether a good faith settlement by a defendant extinguishes rights of non-settling defendants and others for implied indemnity against the settling defendant under West Virginia law? The Circuit Court of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the Honorable Paul Zakaib, Jr., presiding, answered the question in the negative, finding there is a legal and factual distinction between claims of implied indemnification and claims for contribution. Relying primarily on language found in Smith v. Monongahela Power Co., 189 W.Va. 237, 429 S.E.2d 643 (1993), the plaintiffs and Velsicol now contend the 6 May 1994 circuit court ruling was erroneous, and argue this Court's prior decisions establish that their good faith settlement extinguishes all contribution and indemnification claims the non-settling defendants might wish to assert against Velsicol. However, the BOE argues the plaintiffs and Velsicol have confused the issues by treating contribution and indemnification as identical legal concepts, when, in fact, "the concept of indemnification plays a unique role and is clearly distinct from contribution in product liability cases." We agree. Indemnification and contribution are separate and distinct legal concepts. "The idea of indemnity implies a primary or basic liability in one person, though a second person is also for some reason liable with the first, or even without the first, to a third person. Discharge of the obligation by the second person leaves him with a right to secure compensation from the one who, as between themselves, is primarily liable."[4] There are two types of indemnity. Express indemnity is based upon a written agreement between the parties, while implied indemnity is based upon the relationship between the parties. In syllabus points 1 and 2 of Sydenstricker v. Unipunch Products, Inc., 169 W.Va. 440, 288 S.E.2d 511 (1982), this Court explained: 1. "The general principle of implied indemnity arises from equitable considerations. At the heart of the doctrine is the premise that the person seeking to assert implied indemnity—the indemnitee—has been required to pay damages caused by a third party—the indemnitor. In the typical case, the indemnitee is made liable to the injured party because of some positive duty created by statute or the common law, but the actual cause of the injury was the act of the indemnitor." Syllabus Point 2, Hill v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, Inc., 165 W.Va. 22, 268 S.E.2d 296 (1980). 2. Implied indemnity is based upon principles of equity and restitution and one must be without fault to obtain implied indemnity. "Very broadly, contribution is the right of one who owes a joint obligation to call upon his fellow obligors to reimburse him if compelled to pay more than his proportionate share of the obligation. Limiting this definition to the tort context, contribution is a method to promote an equitable distribution of loss among those who are jointly and severally liable for a given wrong."[5] Contribution *156 was distinguished from indemnity in syllabus point 4 of Sydenstricker: The doctrine of contribution has its roots in equitable principles. The right to contribution arises when persons having a common obligation, either in contract or tort, are sued on that obligation and one party is forced to pay more than his pro tanto share of the obligation. One of the essential differences between indemnity and contribution is that contribution does not permit a full recovery of all damages paid by the party seeking contribution. Recovery can only be obtained for the excess that such party has paid over his own share. The doctrine of contribution and the effect of a good faith settlement between a plaintiff and one of multiple joint tortfeasors on the rights of non-settling joint tortfeasors to contribution were discussed at length by this Court in Board of Education of McDowell County v. Zando, Martin & Milstead, Inc., 182 W.Va. 597, 390 S.E.2d 796 (1990). In syllabus point 2, we explained: A defendant in a civil action has a right in advance of judgment to join a joint tortfeasor based on a cause of action for contribution. This is termed an "inchoate right to contribution" in order to distinguish it from the statutory right of contribution after a joint judgment conferred by W.Va.Code, 55-7-13 (1923). Further, in syllabus point 6 of Zando, this Court explained that contribution rights are terminated by a good faith settlement, stating that "[a] party in a civil action who has made a good faith settlement with the plaintiff prior to a judicial determination of liability is relieved from any liability for contribution." However, whether a good faith settlement terminates a non-settling defendant's right to seek implied indemnification against the settling defendant is an issue that has not been addressed by this Court until now. The principles of Zando regarding contribution rights among joint tortfeasors were reiterated in Smith, supra, an opinion in which this Court set forth specific criteria to aid in determining whether a settlement is in fact made in good faith. As we noted above, the plaintiffs and Velsicol now rely upon language found in Smith to support their contention that the law in West Virginia is that any indemnification claims a non-settling defendant might wish to assert against the settling defendant are also extinguished by a good faith settlement. In Smith, John Q. Hutchinson was electrocuted when he was working on a truck manufactured by Dico which came into contact with a power line owned and operated by Monongahela Power Company. Dennis Dwight Smith, as administrator of Hutchinson's estate, sued Monongahela Power for negligence, and Monongahela Power filed a third-party complaint against manufacturer Dico for contribution, alleging that defective truck design was a proximate cause of Hutchinson's death. Smith, 429 S.E.2d at 646. Dico settled with the Hutchinson estate before trial. After the verdict, Monongahela Power and the estate reached a settlement, under which Monongahela Power reserved its right to pursue contribution claims from others, including Dico. Dico moved to dismiss Monongahela Power's claim on the grounds that its settlement with the estate insulated it from Monongahela Power's claims for contribution. The trial court granted Dico's motion. Id. at 647. The issue in Smith was whether a settlement entered into between a nonparty (Dico) and a claimant (Smith) prior to the instigation of a lawsuit would discharge the nonparty (Dico) from further obligation to either the claimant (Smith) or the nonparty's joint tortfeasor (Monongahela Power). This Court agreed with the lower court's finding that Monongahela Power's right to seek contribution from nonparty/joint tortfeasor Dico was extinguished by the good faith settlement between Dico and Smith. In the case now before us, the plaintiffs and Velsicol rely heavily on Smith because of the following language contained in the opinion: "Accordingly, we find Monongahela Power's right to seek contribution or indemnification from Dico was extinguished by the settlement between the Hutchinson estate and Dico, provided that the settlement was in *157 good faith." Id. at 649 (emphasis added). Despite this reference to indemnification, the facts indicate quite clearly that Smith was only about a claim for contribution.[6] This single reference to indemnification was unnecessary in the context of the opinion.[7] Smith is also distinguishable from the case now before us because the relationship between Monongahela Power and Dico did not give rise to a right of implied indemnity. Monongahela Power and Dico were joint tortfeasors. Dico settled with the claimant before trial, and Monongahela Power settled afterwards. The issue was whether Monongahela Power had a right to pursue a contribution claim against Dico, not an indemnification claim. A non-settling defendant's right to seek indemnification from the settling defendant following a good faith settlement in a product liability case is the only issue now before this Court. Reliance upon Smith as precedent is pointless, because although that case addressed a similar question, the issue was raised in the context of contribution claims. To argue that both contribution and implied indemnity claims should be extinguished by a good faith settlement is to ignore the substantive differences between the two legal concepts. "While contribution permits one tortfeasor to shift a part of the loss to another, the purpose of indemnity is to shift the whole loss."[8] As we noted above, a fundamental distinction between indemnity and contribution is the absence of fault on the part of the party who seeks indemnification. Contribution claims involve joint tortfeasors who share some degree of fault; their liability is premised upon independent negligent acts. However, the only real tortfeasor in an implied indemnity action is the indemnitor, who commits the tort which causes injury. In product liability cases, the manufacturer is often the culpable tortfeasor as a result of conduct associated with designing or manufacturing a defective product. Product liability law in this State permits a plaintiff to recover where the plaintiff can prove a product was defective when it left the manufacturer and the defective product was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. Morningstar v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 162 W.Va. 857, 253 S.E.2d 666, 677 (1979). Strict liability in tort relieves the plaintiff from proving the manufacturer was negligent, and instead permits proof of the defective condition of the product as the basis for liability. Because the product manufacturer is not always accessible to the plaintiff, strict liability extends to those in the product's chain of distribution. Thus, an innocent seller can be subject to liability that is entirely derivative simply by virtue of being present in the chain of distribution of the defective product. Extending liability to those in the chain of distribution in this manner is meant to further the public policy that an injured party not have to bear the cost of his injuries simply because the product manufacturer is out of reach. The liability of a party in the chain of distribution is based solely upon its relationship to the product and is not related to any negligence or malfeasance. For this reason, this Court acknowledged the right of *158 implied indemnity in note 22 of Morningstar, supra. In syllabus point 1 of Hill v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, 165 W.Va. 22, 268 S.E.2d 296 (1980), we held that "[a] seller who does not contribute to the defect in a product may have an implied indemnity remedy against the manufacturer of the product, when the seller is sued by the user." "[I]n the field of product liability, the concept underlying allowance of indemnity is that the indemnitee has been rendered liable because of a nondelegable duty arising out of common or statutory law, but the actual cause of the injury has been the act of another person." Hill, 268 S.E.2d at 301. The remedy of implied indemnity provides an innocent seller, or indemnitee, with the means to seek restitution from the actual wrongdoer, or indemnitor. Again, we emphasize that the right to seek implied indemnity belongs only to a party who is without fault. If a seller in some way contributes to a product defect, the seller and manufacturer are jointly responsible for damages the product causes, and the seller has no right to seek implied indemnity. Instead, because of the shared fault, the rules of contribution would apply. However, the rules of both contribution and indemnity could apply where a seller does not contribute to a defect in a product, but commits an independent act of negligence or is at fault in some other manner. Indemnification is a remedy available to innocent parties who have been held strictly liable and made to pay for injuries caused by others. It would defeat all notions of fairness and equity to deprive an innocent party of the means to seek reimbursement from a culpable manufacturer simply because that manufacturer reached a "good faith" settlement with the injured plaintiff. Velsicol now complains that: "Notwithstanding Velsicol's good faith, its payment of substantial proceeds to plaintiffs, and its motivation to buy peace, Velsicol has not obtained peace. Velsicol has instead bought only the risk of continued liability via implied indemnification claims and the burden of having to continue to defend its products." However, we believe if Velsicol truly wanted to "buy peace," then, as the manufacturer of the allegedly defective product, Velsicol should have included lesser defendants in the chain of distribution within the terms of the settlement agreement, thereby eliminating its own risk of continued liability via implied indemnification claims. If chlordane is determined to be a defective product, and it is also determined the non-settling defendants did nothing independently wrong or in no way contributed to the defect, then equity demands that Velsicol indemnify the non-settling defendants if they are ultimately found liable for damages caused by its product. Therefore, our answer to the certified question is negative: In a multiparty product liability lawsuit, a good faith settlement between the plaintiff(s) and the manufacturing defendant who is responsible for the defective product will not extinguish the right of a non-settling defendant to seek implied indemnification when the liability of the non-settling defendant is predicated not on its own independent fault or negligence, but on a theory of strict liability. In fact, it is arguable that basic fairness and sound public policy dictate that a settlement by a plaintiff with the manufacturing defendant solely responsible for the defective product covers all damages caused by that product and extinguishes any right of the plaintiff to pursue others in the chain of distribution who did not make the product, contribute in any way to the defect, or commit any independent acts of negligence or fault. However, this issue was not raised by this certified question, and we leave its resolution for a later time. Certified question answered. Justice BROTHERTON did not participate. Judge FOX sitting by temporary assignment. NOTES [1] Pursuant to an administrative order entered by this Court on 18 November 1994, the Honorable Fred L. Fox, II, Judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, was assigned to sit as a member of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals commencing 1 January 1995 and continuing through 31 March 1995, because of the physical incapacity of Justice W.T. Brotherton, Jr. On 14 February 1995 a subsequent administrative order extended this assignment until further order of said Court. [2] The defendant BOE states that in October 1987 the EPA issued a Final Cancellation Order prohibiting all sale, use, or distribution of chlordane after 15 April 1988. [3] The non-settling defendants who objected to the settlement were the Kanawha County Board of Education and Robert Klatzkin, Bruce Terminex of West Virginia, Inc., Terminex International Company, L.P., and Forshaw Distribution, Inc. According to the defendant BOE, Forshaw Distribution, Inc., a distributor of chlordane, was sued because it sold chlordane to a commercial applicator. Forshaw and other defendants have since settled. The Board, Alford Termite & Pest Control (which has not participated in the defense of this case), and General Exterminating (which has not entered an appearance in this case) are remaining defendants. [4] Leflar, Robert A., Contribution and Indemnity Between Tortfeasors, 81 U.Pa.L.Rev. 130, 146 (1932). [5] Stoneking, James B., Beyond Bradley: A Critique of Comparative Contribution in West Virginia and Proposals for Legislative Reform, 89 W.Va.L.Rev. 167, 170 (1986). [6] Although indemnification and contribution are separate and distinct legal concepts, leading commentators have noted that these terms are sometimes incorrectly treated as interchangeable: There is an important substantive difference between, first, an order distributing loss among tortfeasors by requiring others each to pay a proportionate share to one who has discharged their "joint" liability and, second, an order requiring another to reimburse in full one who has discharged a common liability. In the prevailing usage, the first is referred to as contribution; the second, as indemnity. Because of either confusion or deliberate departure from prevailing usage, however, there are decisions in which full reimbursement has been allowed under the name of contribution, or some form of distribution has been allowed under the name of indemnity. W. Page Keeton, et al., Prosser and Keeton on Torts, § 51 (5th ed.1984) (footnotes omitted). [7] We realize this language could again be cited to support the proposition that a good faith settlement between a plaintiff and defendant in a multiparty litigation extinguishes a non-settling defendant's right to seek indemnification from the settling defendant. We believe, however, that the inclusion of "or indemnification" in the Smith case was mere surplusage and, therefore, should be disregarded. [8] Stoneking, supra, note 9, at 168.

View Transcript Transcript Wally says, "I need to spend the next year optimizing the WDNW system" Boss says, "I've never heard of the WDNW system." Wally says, "You only hear about the systems that have problems." Wally says, "If everything goes as planned, you'll never hear about WDNW again." Boss says, "What does the WDNW system do?" Wally says, "It keeps our zeros and ones from accidentally forming tens." Boss says, "That can happen?" Wally says, "Not on my watch." Dilbert says, "How's the 'Wally Does No Work' project?" Wally says, "The acronym helped."

Introduction {#sec1-1} ============ Image-guided Percutaneous Needle Biopsy (PNB) is an interventional procedure performed by radiologists ([@ref1]-[@ref5]) with the aim to obtain cells or tissue for diagnosis by the insertion of a needle into a suspected lesion. It's a relatively non-invasive procedure, and it has absolute advantages compared to open or excisional biopsy. Success of PNB is related to proper patient selection, preparation and adequate procedural planning ([@ref6]-[@ref8]). Planning and procedural phases {#sec1-2} ============================== PNB implicates the involvement of interventional radiologists in multidisciplinary boards ([@ref9]-[@ref21]). The radiologyst has a key role in the pre-procedural phase: to evaluate potential contraindications and risks of PNB, to confirm the indications for PNB and to identify the optimal target and the selection of the proper imaging guidance. Indications to PNB are the characterization of nature (benign or malignant) of a lesion ([@ref22]), the diagnosis and staging of a tumor, and biological or immunohistochemical/genetic analisys on tissue ([@ref7], [@ref23]). Although PNB is a relatively non-invasive procedure, there are some contraindications, such as the alteration of coagulation status (specially if it can't be correctable) and bleeding risk, the patient's clinical status (to tolerate bleeding or anesthesia) and cooperation. The main imaging-guide modalities are ultrasound (US) ([@ref24]-[@ref26]) and computed tomography (CT) ([@ref27]-[@ref35]); other uncommon imaging techniques are fluoroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ([@ref36]-[@ref47]), and positron emission tomography CT (PET-CT) ([@ref6], [@ref7], [@ref48]). US guidance has a wide use because of portability, lack of ionizing radiation, and low operating cost. Real time imaging allows to visualize and track the needle throughout its entire pathway and is useful even in lesions moving on respiratory motion; Color-Doppler ([@ref24]) aid in vascular structures visualization. Furthermore, in selected patients, US contrast-injection increases lesion characterization on the surrounding tissue. Freehand or needle-guided technique are both suitable. Compared to the freehand technique, the guided technique is limited by a fixed angle. Limits of the US-guidance technique are the operator experience and the appropriate acoustic window view, such as the difficulty to penetrate air-filled structures and bone ([@ref49]). Compared to US, CT has a better preprocedural planning of PNB, because of its high spatial resolution and large field of view. It permits multiplanar reformations (MPR) to obtain a more adequate path of needle. An intravenous contrast injection may be required to increase accuracy on lesion visualization. Other imaging guidance modalities are: CT-fluoroscopy, that allows a real-time visualization of the needle, advancement reducing procedural time, but it exposes operators and patients to radiation doses; MR-guidance, despite excellent soft tissue contrast and lack of ionizing radiation, isn't currently feasible because of increased costs and procedure time, the lack in appropriate open-scanner and MRI-compatible instruments; PNB includes two basic techniques for sample acquisition: fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and core needle biopsy (CNB) ([Figg. 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}-[6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}) ([@ref50], [@ref51]). {#F1} {#F2} {#F3} {#F4} {#F5} {#F6} FNAB device extracts individual cells for cytological evaluation using a small needle (18-25G) with inner stylet. Once in place, the stylet is removed, a syringe is attached to the needle, and cells are aspirated. Small lesions, necrotic tumors or lesions close to critical structures are its main targets. The most commonly devices used in retroperitoneal biopsies are the spinal needles and the Chiba needles ([@ref52]). CNB devices use larger needles (9-20G) with different mechanisms (manually or automatically cutting systems) to extract a piece of tissue for complete histologic evaluation ([@ref53]). A safe and proven technique is the use of coaxial needle: the biopsy needle is introduced coaxially into a guide needle (9-19G), previously advanced nearby the target. It doesn't increase the recurrence of complications and allow multiple specimen samples in a single puncture and decrease the tumor cells seeding risk along the needle tract ([@ref48], [@ref54]-[@ref58]). The extracted samples are then smeared on glass slides and fixed (FNAB) or placed in formalin (CNB); for bacteriological analysis the sample is sent in saline for culture ([@ref59], [@ref60]). Post-procedural phase {#sec1-3} ===================== Retroperitoneal PNB is considered a minimally invasive and safe procedure. There are major and minor complications, related to the technique (bleeding, infection, perforation, tract seeding) or to organ specific injury (such as haematuria, pneumothorax, haemoptysis, air embolism). After the procedure and before discharge, imaging control is generally obtained and documented to detect immediate possible complications; equally, vital signs monitoring and clinical observation are required for a few hours following the procedure. In case of major complications, hospitalization in appropriate environment should be guaranteed. Technical success of PNB varies greatly depending upon the size and location of the target, benign or malignant nature of the lesion, number of samples obtained, availability of an onsite cytopathologist, IRs' and pathologists' experience, equipment availability ([@ref61]). Clinical success of PNB is the usefulness of the procedure in terms of improvement of patient care. In case of non-diagnostic biopsy a repeated biopsy should be considered, such as different techniques or approaches modalities (surgical biopsy or open access) ([@ref62]-[@ref67]). Conclusions {#sec1-4} =========== Retroperitoneal Percutaneous Needle Biopsy is a minimally invasive, well established and safe procedure, with a low rate of complications and high diagnostic yield. Radiologist plays a critical role in the entire management of the patient, since the procedure planning until the patient discharge. PNB is gaining an even more crucial role, specially with the development of molecular personalized treatment, so avoiding in several patients more invasive diagnostic procedure. Ethical approval: {#sec1-5} ================= This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. Conflict of interest: {#sec1-6} ===================== None to declare

Wired Magazine Produces Special Lex Luthor Cover For CES You may already know that the January issue of Wired magazine ran a “faux” interview with Lex Luthor, which was reproduced online here. It may have been a featured sponsored by Warner Bros, but it probably made more of an online impact than any of the magazine’s “real” articles in the past few years, and it seeded loads of ideas and concept that we assume will be showing in future DC shared universe movies beyond the obvious Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice hyping. The magazine has now taken the idea one step further, producing a special version of the January issue with an alternative cover featuring Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg variation) which was only available at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. It even includes a specially redesigned logo. Now, that’s what we call a collectable.

Persebi Bima Persebi stands for Persatuan Sepakbola Bima (en: Football Association of Bima). Persebi Bima is an Indonesian football club based in Bima, Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara. Club played in Liga Indonesia First Division. References External links Liga-Indonesia.co.id Category:Football clubs in Indonesia

Q: can't convert Array into String - add tag I have the following controller code: class NodesController < ApplicationController def index @nodes = Node.com_name_scope("27").find(:all, :conditions => ['COMPONENT_NAME LIKE ?', "#{params[:search]}%"]) respond_to do |format| format.js {render :js => @nodes.map { |node| "<li>#{node.COMPONENT_NAME}</li>"}} end end When I do: http://localhost/myproject/nodes.js I get the following list: <li>Value A</li> <li>Value B</li> <li>Value C</li> <li>Value D</li> I would like to insert a <ul> tag at the start and end of the list so that it look as follows: <ul> <li>Value A</li> <li>Value B</li> <li>Value C</li> <li>Value D</li> </ul> But when I do: format.js {render :js => "ul" + @nodes.map { |node| "<li>#{node.COMPONENT_NAME}</li>"}+ "</ul>" } It is giving me the following error message: TypeError in NodesController#index can't convert Array into String My question is how do I include the <ul> tag in front and at the end of the list. Thanks a lot for your help A: @nodes.map { |node| "<li>#{node.COMPONENT_NAME}</li>"} returns an array of strings, you need to join them in some way before merging them with the string. format.js { render :js => "<ul>#{@nodes.map { |node| "<li>#{node.COMPONENT_NAME}</li>"}.join}</ul>" }

Note: Javascript is disabled or is not supported by your browser. For this reason, some items on this page will be unavailable. For more information about this message, please visit this page: About CDC.gov. Privacy Act System Notice 09-20-0160 This page contains several links to PDF files which may require a browser plug-in to view correctly. If you do not have the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, or are having difficulty viewing the PDF, download the plug-in here. System name: Records of Subjects in Health Promotion and Education Studies. HHS/CDC/NCCDPHP. A list of contractor sites where individually identifiable data are currently located is available upon request to the system manager. Categories of individuals covered by the system: Adults and children, including health and education agency administrators, school health personnel, teachers, parents, and students who participate in studies and surveys designed to obtain data on their knowledge, attitudes, and reported behavior related to a variety of health problems and/or other potentially preventable conditions of public health significance; also included are control group participants. Categories of records in the system: Responses to questionnaires by adults and children, including health and education agency administrators, school health personnel, teachers, parents, and students, pertaining to health knowledge, attitudes and behavior, site visit data, organizational data regarding health education in school curriculum, course content, medical histories, demographic data of the survey population as well as identification data for follow-up purposes. Authority for maintenance of the system: Public Health Service Act, Section 301, "Research and Investigation" (42 U.S.C. 241). Purpose(s): This record system enables the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials to develop and evaluate existing health promotion programs for disease prevention and control, and to communicate new knowledge to the health community for the implementation of such programs. Routine uses of records maintained in the system, including categories of users and the purposes of such uses: Disclosure may be made to CDC contractors in the conduct of research studies covered by this system notice and in the preparation of scientific reports, in order to accomplish the stated purpose of the system. The recipients will be required to maintain Privacy Act safeguards with respect to such records. Disclosure may be made to a congressional office from the record of an individual in response to a verified inquiry from the congressional office made at the written request of that individual. In the event of litigation where the defendant is: (a) the Department, any component of the Department, or any employee of the Department in his or her official capacity; (b) the United States where the Department determines that the claim, if successful, is likely to directly affect the operations of the Department or any of its components; or (c) any Department employee in his or her individual capacity where the Department of Justice has agreed to represent such employee, for example, in defending a claim against the Public Health Service based upon an individual's mental or physical condition and alleged to have arisen because of activities of the Public Health Service in connection with such individual, disclosure may be made to the Department of Justice to enable that Department to present an effective defense, provided that such disclosure is compatible with the purpose for which the records were collected. Policies and practices for storing, retrieving, accessing, retaining, and disposing of records in the system: Storage: Computer tapes/disks, CD ROMs, and file folders. Retrievability: Name of individual, identification number, school name and year tested are some of the indices used to retrieve records from this system. Safeguards: Authorized Users: Access is granted to only a limited number of researchers and designated support staff of CDC or its contractors, as authorized by the system manager to accomplish the stated purposes for which the data in this system have been collected. Physical Safeguards: Access to the CDC Clifton Road facility where the mainframe computer is located is controlled by a cardkey system. Access to the computer room is controlled by a cardkey and security code (numeric keypad) system. The hard copy records are kept in locked cabinets in locked rooms. The local fire department is located directly next door to the Clifton Road facility. The computer room is protected by an automatic sprinkler system, numerous automatic sensors (e.g., water, heat, smoke, etc.) are installed, and a proper mix of portable fire extinguishers is located throughout the computer room. The system is backed up on a nightly basis with copies of the files stored off site in a secure fireproof safe. Security guard service in buildings provides personnel screening of visitors. Computer work stations and automated records are located in secured areas. Procedural Safeguards: Protection for computerized records both on the mainframe and the National Center Local Area Network (LAN) includes programmed verification of valid user identification code and password prior to logging on to the system, mandatory password changes, encryption, limited log-ins, virus protection, and user rights/file attribute restrictions. Password protection imposes user name and password log-in requirements to prevent unauthorized access. Each user name is assigned limited access rights to files and directories at varying levels to control file sharing. There are routine daily backup procedures and secure off-site storage for backup tapes. When Privacy Act tapes are scratched, a special process is performed in which tapes are completely written over to avoid inadvertent data disclosure. Additional safeguards may be built into the program by the system analyst as warranted by the sensitivity of the data. CDC and contractor employees who maintain records are instructed to check with the system manager prior to making disclosures of data. When individually identified data are being used in a room, admittance at either CDC or contractor sites is restricted to specifically authorized personnel. Privacy Act provisions are included in contracts, and the CDC Project Director, contract officers and project officers oversee compliance with these requirements. Upon completion of the contract, all data will be either returned to CDC or destroyed, as specified by the contract. Implementation Guidelines: The safeguards outlined above are in accordance with the HHS Information Security Program Policy and FIPS Pub 200, “Minimum Security Requirements for Federal Information and Information Systems.” Data maintained on CDC’s Mainframe and the National Center LAN are in compliance with OMB Circular A-130, Appendix III. Security is provided for information collection, processing, transmission, storage, and dissemination in general support systems and major applications. Retention and disposal: Records are retained and disposed of in accordance with the CDC Records Control Schedule. Records are maintained in agency for two years. Source documents for computer disposed of when no longer needed by program officials. Personal identifiers may be deleted from records when no longer needed in the study as determined by the system manager, and as provided in the signed consent form, as appropriate. Disposal methods include erasing computer tapes, burning or shredding paper materials or transferring records to the Federal Records Center when no longer needed for evaluation and analysis. Records destroyed by paper recycling process when 20 years old, unless needed for further study. Notification procedure: An individual may learn if a record exists about himself or herself by contacting the system manager at the above address. Requesters in person must provide driver's license or other positive identification. Individuals who do not appear in person must either: (1) submit a notarized request to verify their identity; or (2) certify that they are the individuals they claim to be and that they understand that the knowing and willful request for or acquisition of a record pertaining to an individual under false pretenses is a criminal offense under the Privacy Act subject to a $5,000 fine. An individual who requests notification of or access to medical records shall, at the time the request is made, designate in writing a responsible representative who is willing to review the record and inform the subject individual of its contents at the representative's discretion. A parent or guardian who requests notification of, or access to a child's medical record shall designate a family physician or other health professional (other than a family member) to whom the record, if any, will be sent. The parent or guardian must verify relationship to the child by means of a birth certificate or court order, as well as verify that he or she is who he or she claims to be. The following information must be provided when requesting notification: (1) full name; (2) the approximate date and place of the study, if known; and (3) nature of the questionnaire or study in which the requester participated. Record access procedures: Same as notification procedures. Requesters should also reasonably specify the record contents being sought. An accounting of disclosures that have been made of the record, if any, may be requested. Contesting record procedures: Contact the official at the address specified under System Manager above, reasonably identify the record and specify the information being contested, the corrective action sought, and the reasons for requesting the correction, along with supporting information to show how the record is inaccurate, incomplete, untimely, or irrelevant. Record source categories: Individuals, and participating public and private schools which maintain records on enrolled students.

When elders reach a phase in life where more thorough care and assistance are needed, it might be time for the family members to consider moving them into assisted living facilities. Throughout the years, there is a misconception on what assisted living really is. It certainly is not “locking up” the elderly in a care home, as most people perceive it to be. Assisted living is a community where the elder is helped by the staff in doing their daily activities, such as eating, bathing, and many more. The elderly does not have to be severely ill to be living with assistance. In fact, assisted living is more like an vibrant alternative to the confined nature of staying at home, since it is generally a difficult feat for the elder to move around, go out of the house, and live a normal and fulfilling life at their old age. So, what really are the concepts behind assisted living? First and foremost, it should be defined what assisted living is not – a nursing home. Assisted living homes do provide medical care, but only minimally. Assisted living facilities do not have in-house nurses and doctors and are not for illness treatment. Elders with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease (and without serious medical requirements) are sometimes placed in assisted living because of sundowning, a case where they manifest agitation and confusion late in the day. They would generally need more assistance during that time, and assisted living homes provide and specialize in these services. Assisted living facilities also have homey centers where the seniors could gather and socialize with each other and feel that they belong in a community. This is one feature of assisted homes that may be a difficult task if the elders stay at their own houses. Transportation is also another feature of assisted living. Elders who need to get to places such as shopping centers and hospitals but are not capable are serviced by the homes as well. Essentially, as mentioned above, assisted living aims to make the senior feel that his/her life is “normal” and easier despite the complexities that are associated with old age. According to the Assisted Living Federation of America (ALFA), each state provides unique regulations for the senior care industry.

For years, the appendix got no respect. Doctors regarded it as nothing but a source of trouble: It didn’t seem to do anything, and it sometimes got infected and required an emergency removal. Plus, nobody ever suffered from not having an appendix. So human biologists assumed that the tiny, worm-shaped organ is vestigial — a shrunken remainder of some organ our ancestors required. In a word: Useless. Now that old theory has been upended. In a December issue of The Journal of Theoretical Biology, a group of scientists announce they have solved the riddle of the appendix. The organ, they claim, is in reality a “safe house” for healthful bacteria — the stuff that makes our digestive system function. When our gut is ravaged by diseases like diarrhea and dysentery, the appendix quietly goes to work repopulating the gut with beneficial bacteria. “In essence,” says William Parker, a chemist who co-wrote the paper, “after our system crashes, the appendix reboots it.” The theory may explain the location of the appendix: Positioned at the beginning of the colon, it often escapes being voided when a sick colon violently empties itself out the bottom. If the appendix is indeed crucial, why don’t people who have their appendixes removed die? Because in the modern world hygiene and medicine can keep our levels of healthy bacteria adequate. The appendix may have evolved its rebooting function back when our ancestors lived a more vulnerable life — and an entire village might suffer catastrophic diarrhea. In that situation, each gut had to rely on its own resources to recover after a collapse, so the appendix was crucial.

Facebook Bowes to Israel Deletes “Third Palestinian Intifada” Page Unjustly - ArabGeek http://arabcrunch.com/2011/03/while-obama-is-calling-for-violence-facebook-bowes-to-israel-deletes-third-palestinian-intifada-page.html ====== kstenerud Facebook is actively hiring government insiders in the hopes of gaining more political influence, and so they are changing in order to become more in-line with US foreign policy and thus further improve the relationship. ------ ArabGeek this is unjust the page did not have any calls for violence but calls for peaceful demonstrations to end the Israeli occupation

634 F.Supp.2d 201 (2009) Luis Alfredo SANTIAGO-SEPULVEDA, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ESSO STANDARD OIL COMPANY (PUERTO RICO), INC., et al., Defendants. Civil Nos. 08-1950 (CCC)(JA), 08-1986(CCC)(JA), 08-2025(CCC)(JA), 08-2032(CCC)(JA), 08-2044(CCC)(JA). United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico. June 23, 2009. *203 Juan H. Saavedra-Castro, Juan H. Saavedra Castro Law Office, Manuel L. Correa-Marquez, Xana M. Connelly, Correa, Collazo, Herrero & Fortuno, Carlos E. Montanez, Carlos E. Montanez Law Office, Ana M. Nin-Torregrosa, Lourdes M. Santos-Gutierrez, Nin & Rodriguez Law Office, Roberto Buso-Aboy, Buso Aboy Law Office, Gerardo Pavia, Pavia & Diaz Garcia, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs. PHV Mark Andrew Klapow, Howrey, LLP, Washington, DC, Luis G. Parrilla-Hernandez, Sepulvado & Associates, Jenyfer Garcia-Soto, Jorge A. Galiber-Sanchez, Lee Sepulvado-Ramos, Sepulvado & Maldonado, PSC, Angel E. Rotger-Sabat, Maymi, Rivera & Rotger, P.S.C., San Juan, PR, for Defendants. OPINION AND ORDER JUSTO ARENAS, United States Chief Magistrate Judge. This matter is before the court on motions by defendants Total Petroleum Puerto Rico Corporation ("Total") and Esso Standard Oil (Puerto Rico), Inc. ("Esso"). *204 On April 29, 2009, Total filed a motion to preclude further participation of plaintiffs in cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025. (Docket No. 247.) On May 8, 2009, Esso moved for an entry of final judgment in its favor as to all claims in cases 08-1950, 08-1986, 08-2025, 08-2032, and 08-2044. (Docket No. 248.) Plaintiffs from cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025 ("Group I plaintiffs") filed their opposition to the motions filed by Esso and Total on May 11, 2009. (Docket No. 249.) On May 18, 2009, those plaintiffs filed an informative memorandum in further support of their opposition. (Docket No. 252.) Plaintiffs from case 08-2044 and 08-2032 ("Group II plaintiffs") filed oppositions to the entry of final judgment on May 21, 2009 and May 23, 2009, respectively. (Docket Nos. 256, 260.) On June 3, 2009, Total filed a reply[1] to plaintiffs' opposition to the entry of final judgment, and moved to strike plaintiffs' informative motion in further support of their existing opposition motion. (Docket Nos. 267, 268.) For the reasons set forth below, Total's motion is GRANTED and Esso's motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. I. PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND The facts of this case have been recounted multiple times. See Santiago-Sepulveda v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (P.R.), 582 F.Supp.2d 154, 156-174 (D.P.R.2008); (Docket Nos. 118, 145, 149, 228.) In March 2008, Esso announced that it would terminate its Puerto Rico gasoline retail franchises, effective September 30, 2008. Id. at 156. The company later changed the effective termination date to October 31, 2008. (Docket No. 41.) On August 26, 2008, a large group of Esso franchisees filed a complaint under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act ("PMPA") (15 U.S.C. § 2801, et seq.) to enjoin Esso from terminating the franchises. (Docket No. 2.) Four other complaints were subsequently filed in four separate cases, all of which were consolidated into this one. (Docket No. 46.) On September 4, the retailer plaintiffs in the consolidated case (Civil No. 08-1950) moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Esso from terminating their franchises. (Docket No. 7.) Total moved to intervene in the consolidated cases on September 9, 2008, as the motion for preliminary injunction posed a threat to Total's plans to purchase the gasoline retail stations whose franchises Esso sought to terminate. (Docket No. 10.) On September 17, 2008, this case was referred to me, and on October 9, 2008, I granted Total's motion to intervene. (Docket Nos. 30, 91.) On October 7, 2008, I issued an order acknowledging an agreement between the Group II plaintiffs and the defendants, and retaining supervision and jurisdiction over the parties until final resolution of the matter. (Docket No. 81.) On October 18, 2008, I issued an opinion and order denying plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction. (Docket No. 118.) On October 29, 2008, plaintiffs in case 08-1986 announced that they had agreed to accept the franchise agreements offered by Total. (Docket No. 146.) Between that date and October 31, 2008, all but two plaintiffs signed agreements with Total. (Docket No. 157, at 5, ¶ 2.) In the time since that date, the parties appear to have been adhering to their *205 mutual obligations under the contract. Esso and Total now contend that this court has already deemed them compliant with the PMPA. Thus, Esso argues for entry of final judgment and Total moves for "an order precluding [Group I plaintiffs] to [sic] appear in any further proceedings....." (Docket No. 247, at 7.) Plaintiffs, however, argue that the court has decided only that a permanent injunction will not issue against Total and Esso. (Docket No. 249, at 2.) They contend that they are still entitled to a ruling on the legality of the franchise contracts, which Total offered to them on a "take it or leave it" basis. (Docket No. 155, at 3.) In plaintiffs' view, final judgment may not be entered before such a ruling. The franchise agreement offered to plaintiffs by Total consists of three separate contracts: a Lease Contract, a Franchise Contract for Total's convenience store enterprise known as "Bonjour," and a Sale and Supply Contract. (Docket Nos. 155, at 3, 155-4.) Plaintiffs have argued that the following provisions of those contracts are illegal and should not be imposed upon them: Paragraph 2 of Article 4.1 of the Lease Contract: The Retailer [plaintiffs] expressly acknowledges that the Company shall be entitled to lease to third parties parts or portions of the lands or structures where the Station is located, and that the Retailer shall have no right to discounts or credits of any kind as a consequence of the above. (Docket No. 108-3, at 3.) Article 4.4 of the Lease Contract: [T]he parties agree that the Minimum Rent may be increased to account for any additional investment the Company [Total] may make ... at any time while this Contract is in effect ... at its sole and absolute discretion. (Docket No. 108-3, at 4.) Article 11.2 of the "Bonjour" Franchise Contract: The Retailer agrees to purchase for sale at the store only those Products and Services of the type, brand and quality recommended and/or approved by the Company.... The Retailer agrees to purchase only from those suppliers and providers authorized by the Company.... The retailer must refrain from selling any product or service that is not authorized by the Company.... (Docket No. 155-4, at 15.) Article 9.3 of the "Bonjour" Franchise Contract-Non-Competition Agreement: The Retailer agrees, for the duration of the Contract, and for an additional period of twelve (12) months after its termination or expiration, not to engage in or acquire any interest, directly or indirectly, in a convenience store type of business within the territorial jurisdiction of the municipality where the BONJOUR Franchise object of this agreement is located, or any adjoining municipality. The Retailer will be deemed to be engaged in such business indirectly if he is an employee, officer, director, trustee, agent or partner of a person, firm, corporation, association, partnership, trust, or any other legal entity that is engaged in such a business within the aforementioned area. The above shall not be understood as a prohibition from having any interest in a corporation or entity for investment purposes without intending to acquire control or majority interest in securities traded in a recognized stock market. (Docket No. 155-4, at 11.) Article 8.1 of the Sale and Supply Contract—Discontinuation, Substitution of Products: *206 The Company shall have the absolute right to discontinue or subtitute [sic] any engine fuel, petroleum product or any of the Total Products object of this Contract for industrial reasons, inventory reasons, world-wide supply of materials, or for marketing or competition decisions, and the retailer agrees to acquire the substitute products as long as the Company sells them within the Territory instead of the substituted product. (Docket No. 155-5, at 8.) Each of the three contracts also contains language relating to the interpretation of the contracts themselves: This Contract shall be interpreted consistent with and governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. (Lease Agreement, Article 19.1, Docket No. 108-3, at 21; Franchise Contract, Article 17.1, Docket No. 155-4, at 24; Sale and Supply Contract, Article 23.1, Docket No. 155-5, at 23.) All three contracts also provide for the severability of contract terms under certain circumstances: The intention of the parties appearing herein is for all provisions on this Contract to be complied with in their entirety as allowed by law. Therefore, should a court with jurisdiction find that the scope of some of the provisions is too broad to be complied with as written, the intention of the parties is that the court must modify such provision until its scope is one that the court finds may be enforceable. However, should any provision in this Contract be found to be unlawful, invalid, or unenforceable under present or future laws, said provisions shall be nullified; this Contract shall be interpreted and governed as if said unlawful, invalid or unenforceable provision had never been a part thereof, and the rest of the provisions in this Contract shall remain in force and will not be affected by the unlawful, invalid or unenforceable provision or its elimination. (Lease Agreement, Article 20.10, Docket No. 108-3, at 23; Franchise Contract, Article 18.3, Docket No. 155-4, at 25; Sale and Supply Contract, Article 24.3, Docket No. 155-5, at 24.) II. DISCUSSION A. Prior Rulings The first issue is the extent to which I may order relief to plaintiffs in light of prior rulings in this case. Total suggests that final judgment has already been issued in this case. (Docket No. 268, at 4, ¶ 15.) It has not. Nowhere in any opinion or order issued by the court in this case has there appeared an order for entry of judgment. Nor has any judgment been entered into the civil docket under Rule 79(a). Fed.R.Civ.P. 58(c)(1)-(2) (judgment is only entered when "the judgment is entered in the civil docket under Rule 79(a)."). Indeed, if judgment had already issued, Esso would not be moving for entry of final judgment. (Docket No. 248.) See Total Petroleum P.R. Corp. v. Torres-Caraballo, 631 F.Supp.2d 130 (D.P.R. 2009). Both parties suggest that judgment is appropriate because the decisions already made by the court leave nothing left to rule upon. It is true that I held in the opinion and order issued on October 18, 2008 that "Esso has complied with the notice requirements under the PMPA, and Total's offering of nondiscriminatory franchise contracts generally complies with Esso's obligation to assure that its franchisee is offered a non-discriminatory contract...." Santiago-Sepulveda v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (P.R.), 582 F.Supp.2d at 185. I have acknowledged that "Esso and Total ... had complied with the requirements of the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act...." (Docket No. 197, at 2; see *207 also Docket No. 228, at 20-21.) Those holdings remain effective. Plaintiffs are correct, however, that my denial of plaintiffs' motion to enjoin the termination of their franchises was not the same as a declaration that all terms of the franchise agreements are valid. See Riverdale Enter., Inc. v. Shell Oil Co., 41 F.Supp.2d. 56, 68 (D.Mass.1999) (finding franchisor justified in terminating franchise under the PMPA despite a finding that at least one term of replacement franchise offer was impermissible); Coast Vill. Inc. v. Equilon Enter., LLC, 163 F.Supp.2d 1136, 1180-1181 (C.D.Cal.2001) (same). Indeed, the only controlling issue in the October opinion was "whether a permanent injunction will issue." Santiago-Sepulveda v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (P.R.), 582 F.Supp.2d at 185. While I did tangentially discuss some specific contractual provisions, I concluded only that "[t]he proposed Total terms are not subject to court-ordered modification at this time." Santiago-Sepulveda v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (P.R.), 582 F.Supp.2d at 182 (emphasis added). Accordingly, the issue of whether the terms of Total's franchise offers are acceptable has been reserved to this point. Even if I had made a finding on the legality of certain contract terms, this would not constrain my power to modify such a finding. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides that "any order or other decision, however designated, that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties ... may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims...." Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). Moreover, "the law of the case doctrine does not prevent a judge from changing his mind, so long as there was an explanation and the court took into account justified reliance." City of Bangor v. Citizens Commc'ns Co., 532 F.3d 70, 100 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing Fiori v. Truck Drivers, Local 170, 354 F.3d 84, 90 (1st Cir.2004)). Here, neither party has indicated that it has placed any detrimental reliance on the contractual provisions at issue. I am therefore not prevented from addressing the legality of the contractual provisions about which plaintiffs complain. B. Section 2805(f) of the PMPA The next issue is whether the PMPA provides a basis for relief if any of Total's terms are found illegal. Section 2805(f) of the PMPA provides: No franchisor shall require, as a condition of entering into or renewing the franchise relationship, a franchisee to release or waive ... any right that the franchisee may have under any valid and applicable State law. 15 U.S.C. § 2805(f)(1)(B). There is some question as to whether section 2805(f) provides an independent remedy under the PMPA, especially where, as here, the franchisee has already accepted the franchisor's offer. The First Circuit has yet to interpret section 2805(f) explicitly, but it has found that the Act "requires that franchisees faced with objectionable contract terms refrain from ratifying those terms by executing the contracts (even `under protest') and operating under them" if they wish to be protected under the PMPA. Marcoux v. Shell Oil Prods. Co. LLC, 524 F.3d 33, 49 (1st Cir.2008), cert. granted by Mac's Shell Serv. v. Shell Oil Prod. Co. LLC, 2009 WL 1650201 (U.S. Jun.15, 2009) and cert. granted by Shell Oil Prod. Co. LLC v. Mac's Shell Serv., Inc., 2009 WL 1650202 (U.S. Jun.15, 2009). That holding parallels a Seventh Circuit ruling explicitly interpreting section 2805(f): if a "statutory `franchise' has been renewed, [the] franchisee must seek redress at the state level to enforce its contract rights under the franchise agreement—i.e., violations of § 2805(f)(1) that do not constitute a non-renewal under the *208 PMPA but are instead ordinary contract disputes." Dersch Energies, Inc. v. Shell Oil Co. & Equilon Enter., Inc., 314 F.3d 846, 865-66 (7th Cir.2002). In this case, all but two plaintiffs ratified the terms of Total's offer over seven months ago. There is therefore reason to question plaintiffs' right to contest contractual terms at this stage in the litigation. This case, however, differs materially form Marcoux and Dersch. Whereas "[t]he stumbling block" for plaintiffs in Marcoux and Dersch was that they did not "insist on receiving notices of [franchise] nonrenewal," Marcoux v. Shell Oil Prod. Co. LLC, 524 F.3d at 49, before signing new agreements, plaintiffs in this case received notices of franchise termination in March, 2008 and filed suit before the effective termination date. Santiago-Sepulveda v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (P.R.), 582 F.Supp.2d at 156. Whereas there was neither actual franchise termination nor constructive nonrenewal in Marcoux and Dersch, there was actual franchise termination here. Where there was no jurisdiction under section 2802 of the PMPA in those cases, there is in this case. Accordingly, Marcoux and Dersch do not operate to preclude recovery for plaintiffs under section 2805(f). Given that this court has jurisdiction under the PMPA, there is no reason not to apply a plain reading of section 2805(f). Thus, plaintiffs may have a remedy under section 2805(f) if they can demonstrate the illegality of any of Total's contractual terms. C. Legality of Terms 1. Leases to Third Parties Article 4.1 of the Lease Agreement permits Total to lease portions of the leased premises to third parties, and provides that plaintiffs "shall have no right to discount or credits of any kind as a consequence...." (Docket No. 108-3, at 3.) "Under Puerto Rico law, three elements characterize a lease contract: (1) the thing; (2) temporal duration; and (3) a price." Pico Vidal v. Ruiz Alvarado, 377 B.R. 788, 794 (D.P.R.2007) (citing In re Daben Corp., 469 F.Supp. 135, 148 (D.P.R. 1979)). "Unlike the common law, the civil law allows that a leased thing not be entirely defined." In re Daben, 469 F.Supp. 135 at 148. "The enjoyment and use of the [leased] premises," however, is "the essence of the lease agreement." Nolla v. Joa Co. of Fla., 102 D.P.R. 428, 2 P.R. Offic. Trans. 538, 541 (1974) (finding lessee was entitled to compensation from a third party that had taken possession of validly leased premises during the lease period). Article 4.1 borders on the unconscionable. Under the Article's terms, Total would have the right to lease 99% of a given gasoline retail station to a third party while still charging the franchisee 100% of the rent expense. While Puerto Rico law does not require that the "leased thing" be entirely defined, it must still be at least identifiable. Article 4.1 simply leaves too much room for arbitrary or discriminatory actions by Total. See Avramidis v. Atl. Richfield Co., 623 F.Supp. 64, 67 (D.Mass.1985) ("[W]ithout stated standards, [the franchisor] could apply the [pricing scheme] in an arbitrary, or even discriminatory[ ] manner...."). Moreover, Article 4.1 defies the spirit, if not the letter of Puerto Rico's Department of Consumer Affairs Rental Regulation Number 2823, Section 6, Article 10,[2] which limits the rent charged in connection with a lease of a gasoline station to 10% of the market value of the station to be rented. If "the station to be rented" includes only *209 that portion of the premises occupied the franchisee, the fair market value of that "station" could become quite small if Total leases a significant portion of the premises to a third party. In that situation, the full rental price charged by Total may come to exceed 10% of the market value of the remaining area occupied by plaintiffs. This would contravene Regulation 2823. Accordingly, I find that Article 4.1 requires the franchisees to waive existing rights under state law and is therefore impermissible under section 2805(f) in its present form. Total is within its rights to lease portions of its station to third parties, but it may not insist that "the Retailer shall have no right to discounts or credits of any kind as a consequence" of such third party leases. 2. Additional Rent Article 4.4 of the Lease Agreement provides that the rent "may be increased to account for any additional investment [Total] may make ... at its sole and absolute discretion." (Docket No. 108-3, at 4.) In Puerto Rico, "[t]he rules for determination of price in purchase and sales agreements are applicable to leases." In re Daben Corp., 469 F.Supp. at 148. The rules for determination of price in purchase and sales agreements provide that "[t]he determination of the price can never be left to the judgment of one of the contracting parties." P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 3745. Here, the determination of rent is explicitly and exclusively left to the judgment of Total. Under Article 4.4, if Total wishes to increase the rent charged to the retailer, it may do so unilaterally by an additional investment in the retail station. The retailer would have no say in the matter. There is no law prohibiting Total from investing in its service stations or from negotiating with its franchisees for a fair contribution to absorb the associated cost. Article 4.4 of the Lease Agreement is, however, invalid to the extent it allows Total to take these actions "at its sole and absolute discretion." 3. Restrictions on Products and Services Purchased Article 11.2 of the Franchise Contract provides that "[t]he Retailer agrees to purchase only from those suppliers and providers authorized by the Company...." (Docket No. 155-4, at 15.) Law No. 77 of June 25, 1964, created Puerto Rico's Office of Monopolistic Affairs, and vested it with the power "[t]o promulgate... such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for the enforcement of [the legislative Act on Monopolies and Restraint of Trade]." P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 10, § 272(5). The rules and regulations of the Office of Monopolistic Affairs "have the force of law" once approved. Id. Article 4(e) of Regulation I (Number 994) of the Office of Monopolistic Affairs was approved on August 19, 1965, in conformity with Law No. 77. It is still effective.[3] Article 4(e) provides that it is illegal, in a gasoline franchise relationship, "to compel or attempt to compel the retailers to sell products manufactured, distributed, endorsed, or in any way favored by the distributors."[4] Total is thus proscribed from requiring plaintiffs to sell the products it endorses or favors. To the extent it does so, Article 11.2 of the Franchise Contract is illegal. *210 4. Non-Compete Agreements Article 9.3 of the Franchise Contract prohibits the retailer from engaging in "a convenience store type of business within the territorial jurisdiction of the municipality where the Bonjour Franchise object of [the] agreement is located, or any adjoining municipality" for "an additional period of twelve (12) months" after the contract's expiration. (Docket No. 155-4, at 11.) Under Puerto Rico law, noncompetition clauses are subject to four conditions. Arthur Young & Co. v. Vega III, 136 D.P.R. 157, 275, 1994 P.R.-Eng. 909262 at 15 (1994). "First, the employer must have a legitimate interest in [the] agreement, that is, if the employer were not protected by a noncompetition clause, his business could be seriously affected." Arthur Young & Co. v. Vega III, 136 D.P.R. at 175, 1994 P.R.Eng. 909262 at 15-16. Here, Total has a valid commercial interest in protecting its brand and its trade secrets, which are in the midst of a delicate transition phase in the Puerto Rico market. "Second, the scope of the prohibition must fit the employer's interest, insofar as object, time, and place of the restriction or clients is concerned.... The noncompetition term should not exceed twelve months...." Arthur Young & Co. v. Vega III, 136 D.P.R. at 175, 1994 P.R.-Eng. 909262 at 16. Here, the Total's term is for exactly twelve months, and the clause circumscribes the restrictions on the retailers to "convenience store type of business." (Docket No. 155-4, at 11.) "Third, the employer shall offer a consideration in exchange for the employee signing the noncompetition covenant." Arthur Young & Co. v. Vega III, 136 D.P.R. at 176, 1994 P.R.-Eng. 909262 at 17. In the employment context, such "consideration could even be that a candidate gets the position he wished for in the company." Id. Analogizing this rule to the present franchise relationship context, I find that it is sufficient that the franchisees got "the position [they] wished for" as franchisees of the Total brand. Finally, the fourth requirement of Arthur Young—that the non-compete agreement be reduced to writing—has also been satisfied here. Id. Accordingly, I find that the non-compete agreement is valid under Puerto Rico law. 5. Non-Branded Gasoline. Article 8.1 of the Sale and Supply Contract reserves for Total the right to discontinue or substitute any engine fuel, petroleum product or any of the Total Products for other products under a variety of enumerated reasons. (Docket No. 155-5, at 8.) I have addressed the issue of unbranded gasoline at length in my most recent opinion and order at Docket No. 287. The ruling of that decision was based on plaintiffs' request for an injunction against the use of allegedly unbranded gasoline; it did not address the legality of Article 8.1. The law and the reasoning I applied in that decision are nonetheless equally availing here, and I incorporate that opinion and order herein, mutatis mutandis. Under the PMPA, there is no requirement that Total provide only gasoline refined by Total itself. Accordingly, there is nothing illegal about Article 8.1. D. Severability Given that Articles 4.1 and 4.4 of the Lease Contract and Article 11.2 of the Franchise Contract all violate section 2805(f) of the PMPA to some extent, the next issue is what remedy to afford plaintiffs. I find that each of these clauses is severable to the extent they are declared invalid above. Each of the three contracts offered by Total contains an explicit severance or "savings clause." "[S]hould any provision in [the] Contract be found to be unlawful, invalid, or unenforceable under present or future laws, said provisions shall be nullified," and the contract should be treated as if the violative provision never *211 existed. (Docket No. 108-3, at 23, art. 20.10.) "[T]he rest of the provisions in [the] Contract shall remain in force...." (Id.) The First Circuit approves the use of a standard "savings clause:" A "savings clause" preemptively resolves conflicts between contract language and applicable law in order to preserve the remaining, non-conflicting contract language. "Savings clause" is somewhat of a misnomer. The contractual language in conflict with applicable law is not saved. The non-conflicting language is saved. In the absence of a savings clause, the decision maker, be it an arbitrator or a court, decides the remedy for resolving a conflict between contract language and applicable law. That remedy, driven by an assessment of the intent of the parties, could be as small as severance of the offending contract language, or it could extend to outright non-enforcement of portions of the contract that include the offending contract language or the contract in its entirety. In essence, a savings clause serves as an expression of the intent of the parties that limits the remedies an arbitrator or court may use in situations of conflict between contract terms and applicable law. Kristian v. Comcast Corp., 446 F.3d 25, 48 n. 16 (1st Cir.2006) (severing a portion of arbitration agreement where the savings clause in question "emphasize[d] the use of severance as a remedy," and declaring the remainder of the contract valid); see Cherena v. Coors Brewing Co., 20 F.Supp.2d 282, 286 (D.P.R.1998) (doing the same with regard to a non-competition covenant); see also Coast Vill. v. Equilon Enter., LLC, 163 F.Supp.2d at 1180 (citing Graham Oil Co. v. ARCO Prods. Co., 43 F.3d 1244, 1248-49 (9th Cir.1994)) ("[T]he Ninth Circuit has expressly held that invalidation under Section 2805(f) does not lead to invalidation of the entire agreement so long as the term(s) are severable from the rest of the agreement."). It is true that "a `contract is entire, and not severable, when, by its terms, nature, and purpose, it contemplates and intends that each and all of its parts, and material provisions are common to the other, and interdependent.'" Graham Oil Co. v. ARCO Prods. Co., 43 F.3d at 1248 (quoting Hudson v. Wylie, 242 F.2d 435, 446 (9th Cir.1957)). Here, however, the clear intent of the parties as expressed in the contract is that any invalid terms be severed from the contract in order to save the remainder of the agreement. The essence of the agreement—the existence of a franchise relationship—remains in tact in the absence of the three severable clauses. Accordingly, those contract provisions that violate Puerto Rico law are to be severed, while the remainder of the three contracts is binding and enforceable. III. SUMMARY Esso and Total have complied with the PMPA. Total's franchise agreements with the Group I plaintiffs are valid with the exception of the following provisions, which are hereby PROHIBITED from appearing in any contract between the parties: • Those portions of Article 4.1 of the Lease Contract that permit Total to lease to third parties parts or portions of the lands or structures where the station is located without allowing plaintiffs the right to discounts or credits. (See Article 4.1 of the Lease Contract, Docket No. 108-3, at 3.) • Those portions of Article 4.4 of the Lease Contract that permit Total to increase the minimum rent to account for any additional investment Total may make at its sole and absolute discretion. (See Article 4.4 of the Lease Contract, Docket No. 108-3, at 4.) • Those portions of Article 11.2 of the Franchise contract that require the retailer *212 to purchase only those products and services manufactured, distributed, endorsed, or an any way favored by Total. (See Article 11.2 of the Franchise Contract, Docket No. 155-4 at, 15.) Finally, it is hereby ORDERED that partial, final, appealable judgment be entered in cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025, pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). Such a judgment "as to fewer than all the claims [or parties] in a multi-claim action [is permissible] `upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay.'" Quinn v. City of Boston, 325 F.3d 18, 26 (1st Cir.2003) (quoting Fed. R.Civ.P. 54(b)). The First Circuit bears a "long-settled and prudential policy against the scattershot disposition of litigation," Quinn v. City of Boston, 325 F.3d at 26 (quoting Spiegel v. Trs. of Tufts Coll., 843 F.2d 38, 42 (1st Cir.1988)), but it will nonetheless tolerate such a disposition where a district court "make[s] specific findings and set[s] forth its reasoning," Quinn v. City of Boston, 325 F.3d at 26 (citing Spiegel v. Trs. of Tufts Coll., 843 F.2d at 42), or where "the record, on its face, makes it sufficiently apparent that the circumstances support an appeal from a partial judgment." Quinn v. City of Boston, 325 F.3d at 26 (approving of partial final judgment where the claims upon which partial judgment was entered were distinct from the remaining claims, and where public interest favored immediate appeal) (citing Spiegel v. Trs. of Tufts Coll., 843 F.2d at 43 n. 4). Here, cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025 were filed to enjoin Esso from terminating its Puerto Rico gasoline retail stations. I have denied such an injunction, have concluded that Total and Esso are compliant with the PMPA, and have invoked the severance provisions of Total's franchise contracts in three instances. As to those three cases, there is no just reason for delay because all issues of any substance have now been ruled upon. The public interest would best be served by the rapid resolution of any outstanding points of contention upon immediate appeal. I abstain from entering final judgement in cases 08-2032 and 08-2044 because the parties in those cases reached an agreement in October 2008, over which I am to retain supervision and jurisdiction. (Docket No. 81.) IV. CONCLUSION Total's motion (Docket No. 247) is GRANTED. Esso's motion (Docket No. 248) is GRANTED to the extent it requests final judgment as to cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025; it is DENIED to the extent it requests final judgment as to cases 08-2032 and 08-2044. Total's motion to strike plaintiffs' informative memorandum (Docket No. 268) is DENIED. There being no just reason for delay, the Clerk is ORDERED to enter partial final judgment as to cases 08-1950, 08-1986, and 08-2025 dismissing them in their entirety. SO ORDERED. NOTES [1] Caveat. Rule 7.1(e) of the Local Rules for the District Court of Puerto Rico provides that "[a]ll memoranda shall be ... in a font size... no less than twelve (12) points." Local Rules of the U.S. District Court for the District of P.R., Rule 7.1(e) (2004). Counsel for Total violated this rule by submitting a reply in a nine (9) point font. Local Rule 7.1(e) is "unambiguously clear." Ortiz v. Hyatt Regency Cerromar Beach Hotel, Inc., 422 F.Supp.2d 336, 339 (D.P.R.2006). [2] This regulation is listed as current on the Microjuris legal database. Microjuris database, microjuris.com (last visited Jun. 16, 2009). [3] The regulation is listed on the website of the Puerto Rico Department of Justice, http://www.justicia.gobierno.pr/rs_template/v2/Asu Mon/asumon_reg.html # 0994 (last visited Jun. 15, 2009). It is listed as current on the Microjuris legal database. Microjuris database, microjuris.com (last visited Jun. 15, 2009). [4] The court's translation.

Unisport look of: The Red Devils take over the streetscape In today’s Unisport Look of we zoom in on one of the world’s most popular football clubs. We are naturally talking about the Red Devils from Manchester United. The last couple of years haven’t been the clubs most impressive, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show your colours all the same. Manchester United started building their popularity in the nineties, where players like Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Peter Schmeichel and many other legends helped bring the club countless trophies from domestically and on the European front. Today the club is in a different state, but the red colours still dominate the streets. Manchester United are more than a club. They are an institution that has attracted fans from around the globe. And if you are a proud fan, this hoodie from Nike’s popular AW77 collection is a perfect way to show your loyalty, not only in the stands, but on the streets too. If you want to match your outfit, without compromising on quality, then the Team Orange/Team Red/Hyper Jade/Cedar Roshe Run Hyperfuse is the perfect icing on the cake. The Roshe Run is one of Nike’s most popular sneakers, because the combination of technological ingenuity and modern design is hard not to fall for. Manchester United are well on their way to regaining their former strength and reclaiming their lost throne. Superstars like Angel Di Maria, Falcao, Van Persie and Rooney are certainly not players to be trifled with on the pitch, but now United can show their strength off the pitch too with this line of fashion wear. Are you a loyal Red Devil? E-Trade awards User Award in 2011 and 2012, Social Commerce in 2012, B2C in 2013, E-Commerce Price Gold in 2013. Bronze at European E-Commerce Award 2013. Cross-border 2014 and 2016. Users Favorite in 2017. #unisportlife Get the best football experience with the latest boots , gear and reviews. Share your best football moment with #unisportlife

Kampfer Episode 2 October 8, 2009 Well this episode was a bit of a mixed bag. I’m kind of in limbo about the series as a whole now. Things pick up from Akane’s gunshot last time, with Natsuru jumping in to save Kaede from getting her head blown off. The school bell chimes shortly afterwards and the Schwert attacks cease; the “mysterious” assailant doesn’t want to be late for class it seems.A more pressing problem comes up though — Kaede wants Natsuru to introduce her to the tall, blue-haired beauty who saved her twice now and on a whim, he actually agrees to do so. On the suggestion of Akane, Natsuru reluctantly tries to make Kaede hate his female self, but finds himself unable to do so when Kaede goes out on a limb and asks “her” out. Before Natsuru gets a chance to respond to her feelings, Shizuku shows up and attacks him while using Kaede’s well-being to egg him on. With Akane’s help, he’s able to beat the student council president and get her to agree not to involve Kaede anymore. However, Shizuku says she’ll continue to fight other Kampfers in order to figure out the purpose of it all. The next day, Natsuru and Akane learn that Shizuku was able to wipe Kaede’s memories of the incident, but she’s unable to calm the commotion in the school over Natsuru’s female presence. To disperse the rumors going around, Shizuku gets Natsuru to join the classes on the girls’ side of the school. As you may recall, I was concerned about the pacing of the manga and how that would translate to the anime. Well it seems like the producers were thinking the same thing, because they just consolidated A TON of material and plowed right through it. Now I’m concerned about the exact opposite — things are going way too fast. For one, it looks like they completely removed the date that Natsuru and Kaede were supposed to have gone on. I have no idea whether or not they’ll bring it back in some form later on, but I’d imagine they have something planned at the rate they’re going. In addition, the battle between Natsuru/Akane and Shizuku should’ve dragged out a fair bit longer, with the whole sprinkler bit serving a bigger purpose than a mere distraction. That I didn’t mind so much though, because the suspense they were going for in the lengthier version just wasn’t worth the effort. On the plus side, the comedy I enjoyed from the first episode was still prevalent here. The scene with Akane in Natsuru’s room was a good example of that, in conjunction with all the foul-mouthed stuff that Kampfer Akane spouts out. Mizuki Nana also made her appearance as Shizuku’s Messenger, Kanden Yamaneko, along with the inaugural seiyuu shot to welcome her to the series. Story-wise, they hinted at the idea that all the stuffed animals Kaede gives out end up becoming Messengers. Seeing how early signs indicate this will be a 1 cour series (i.e. 12-13 episodes), I just hope the plot starts coming together around either that or something else.

He wanted to make a mirror. Glass, mercury and a wooden frame- the perfect mirror. But he was no good at it. So he went to the people he knew and asked them for a mirror. All they could give him were bits of old mirror. He took these home, stuck them on a board and hung it up. It's a mirror.

// Copyright 2008-2018 Yolo Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. https://www.comblockengine.com #include "db_exception.h" #include "db_interface_redis.h" #include "db_interface/db_interface.h" namespace KBEngine { //------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DBException::DBException(DBInterface* pdbi) : errStr_(static_cast<DBInterfaceRedis*>(pdbi)->getstrerror()), errNum_(static_cast<DBInterfaceRedis*>(pdbi)->getlasterror()) { } //------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DBException::~DBException() throw() { } //------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bool DBException::shouldRetry() const { return (errNum_== REDIS_ERR_OOM) || (errNum_ == REDIS_ERR_OTHER); } //------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bool DBException::isLostConnection() const { return (errNum_ == REDIS_ERR_IO) || (errNum_ == REDIS_ERR_EOF); } //------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- } // db_exception.cpp

Chicago Stars quarterback Dean Robillard is the luckiest man in the world. But life in the glory lane has started to pale, and Dean has set off on a trip to figure out what's gone wrong. When he hits a lonely stretch of Colorado highway, he spies something that will shake up his gilded life in ways he can't imagine. A young woman . . . dressed in a beaver suit. Blue Bailey is on a mission. As for the beaver suit she's wearing . . . Is it her fault that life keeps throwing her curve balls? Witness the expensive black sports car pulling up next to her on the highway and the Greek god stepping out of it. They're soon heading for his summer home, where their already complicated lives and inconvenient attraction to each other will become entangled with a charismatic but aging rock star; a beautiful, fifty-two-year-old woman trying to make peace with her rock and roll past; an eleven-year-old who desperately needs a family; and a bitter old woman who hates them all. Does this woman lace the pages of her books with crack? Again, I didn't want to close one of hers. As the pile of pages remaining got smaller and smaller, I kept wishing more would magically appear. An A-. Dean Robillard first showed up in MMIYC, the hot new football player Heath wants to sign and who becomes friends with Annabelle. From the very beginning, I was completely charmed. My reaction to SEP's heroes are usually more in line with how I felt about Heath, in that book: I always want to kick their asses first, but as the book progresses, they win me over. With Dean, it was nothing like that. It was love at first sight, in spite of his being a God's-gift-to-women type. As NBC starts, Dean is heading to the farm he's bought in East Tennessee. Life is great: he's at the top of his game, he's got money to burn and women want him. But this is not as exciting as it was at the beginning, and so he's bought himself a place to regroup and relax. The house is still under renovation, but since his housekeeper seems to have that under control, he still expects to be able to rest. As Dean is driving across Colorado, he's astonished to see a young woman in a beaver suit walking along the road. By this point, Dean is a bit bored, so he gives her a ride and witnesses her confrontation with her ex. When he finds out the young woman, Blue Bailey, is completely broke, Dean accepts to give her a ride to a bigger town. After all, as I said, he's bored, and also Blue is very cute and sexy under her combatively non-cute, non-sexy clothes. Blue ends up travelling with Dean all the way to the farm in Tennessee, and once he sees what's waiting for him there, he refuses to let Blue leave. See, Dean has a secret. He's the son of a rock and roll legend and a groupie, and this has left him with some understandable abandonment issues. His father, "Mad Jack" Patriot, was never part of his life, other than paying child support. Dean didn't even find out who he was until he was in his teens, and even after that, they only met a couple of times. As for his mother, April was an addict and a groupie who spent her life following musicians and sleeping with them. Let's just say this didn't make Dean's childhood particularly stable or secure. Oh, financially, it was ok, but not emotionally. So when he grew up, Dean separated himself completely from his parents. He found success completely on his own and he likes it that way. Both parents have tried to bring about a rapprochement with him, but he wants nothing to do with them. But when he arrives to his house, he receives a big surprise. The mysterious housekeeper who's managing his renovation for him, and with whom he's never managed to speak on the phone, turns out to be his own mother. April has been clean for years now. She's rebuilt her life and after a few abortive tries, she's finally resigned herself to the fact that she can't fix her relationship with her son. But before she gives up for good, she wants to do something for him... give him a gift, basically. Thus her hard work on his house. Dean still wants nothing to do with her. His first impulse is to send her away, but it soon becomes clear that if she's not there, the renovation will go to hell, and so he allows her to stay. But he still doesn't want any contact with her, and for that, he needs a buffer. And since Blue is right there... But then things get even more complicated. First Riley shows up. Riley's Dean's half-sister, Jack's daughter from his marriage to a country star. Her mom has just died, and Riley has been pretty much left alone among people who care nothing about her, so she runs away to meet the brother she's not supposed to know is her brother. And then Mad Jack comes after Riley, and the four of them end up spending time on the farm, and almost against their will, slowly repairing their damaged relationships. And as this happens, Blue and Dean are building theirs. Blue understands Dean's issues perfectly, because her childhood was similar, in a way. Only Blue doesn't feel comfortable accepting she's angry about it, because her mom didn't abandon her for drugs or sex, but to save the world. I guess you can tell from my (very long *sigh*) description that there's some heavy emotional stuff going on here. Mad Jack and April have hurt each other and their children, and Blue, Dean and Riley have been deeply hurt by their parents. The healing and reconciliation are heart-wrenching, as well as very, very satisfying. The only reason this doesn't get too heavy is that SEP has written her story with her trademark humour. This is not the laugh-a-minute book the first scene with the beaver-suit might suggest, but there's still plenty of incredibly funny stuff to lighten up things when they threaten to drag the book down. And the peace circles thing was almost as good as the cereal killer crack! Now, how about the romance? I loved Dean and Blue together. The grumpy Blue was the perfect match for golden-boy Dean, just the right person he needed besides him. They're sweet and sexy and fun together. I wasn't completely sold on the secondary romance, though. I never completely warmed to Jack, and I thought April deserved better than him. I liked that they'd forgiven each other, but I would have preferred April to get her HEA with someone else. Even so, I loved practically every minute of this. I want a new SEP now! Read more... >> Thursday, March 29, 2007 I've been meaning to read more Lois McMaster Bujold books for ages, ever since I read Shards of Honor. When I finished that one, I was all fired up to keep reading, but I had some trouble finding an affordable copy of the next book. That problem is solved now (most, if not all her books are available as e-books), but by the time this happened, I'd become a bit overwhelmed by the length of the Vorkosigan series. Troubled young Fawn Bluefield seeks a life beyond her family’s farm. But en route to the city, she encounters a patrol of Lakewalkers, nomadic soldier–sorcerers from the northern woodlands. Feared necromancers armed with mysterious knives made of human bone, they wage a secret, ongoing war against the scourge of the "malices," immortal entities that draw the life out of their victims, enslaving human and animal alike. It is Dag—a Lakewalker patroller weighed down by past sorrows and onerous present responsibilities—who must come to Fawn’s aid when she is taken captive by a malice. They prevail at a devastating cost—unexpectedly binding their fates as they embark upon a remarkable journey into danger and delight, prejudice and partnership . . . and perhaps even love. It took me the longest time to decide how to grade this book. Vol.1: Beguilement and Vol. 2: Legacy are not book and sequel, they're really two halves of a very long book. Well, duh, you say, couldn't you guess that from the fact that they're called Vol. 1 and Vol. 2? Well, no, I'm an idiot. I just assumed the whole Volume thing was some kind of affectation. *shrugs* My bad for not doing enough research, but the fact remains that I wish I'd known and waited until July to read them both together. Read as a single book, Beguilement feels very unbalanced. The action is all at the beginning, and it's pretty fast-paced and exciting. Then the rest of the book is purely about the hero and heroine falling in love and working on the world accepting the seeming mismatch. I loved both parts, especially the second, as a good romance reader, but it still felt weird that there was nothing else about the rest. The external threat doesn't show up again at all. Obviously, we'll get that in the second book, but the fact remains that there's not even a small, intermediate climactic moment. So technically, I'd say this book is pretty flawed. But you know what? I rate books for my enjoyment of them, not really for technical considerations, and this first volume of The Sharing Knife is a good example of it. I loved it, totally adored reading it, even as I saw the flaws. So I'll have to go with an A-. Ok, on to the actual story. Our hero, Dag, is a Lakewalker patroller. The Lakewalkers are a separate cultural group (and also a different race, I believe) from what they call the farmers; i.e. the regular, mundane humans. The main difference seems to be that through time, the Lakewalkers have been able to retain a kind of mystical connection with the forces underlying all matter, whether inanimate or alive. They can sense these forces and sometimes even manipulate them. It's hard to explain, you'd have to read the book to really understand As it is, most farmers don't get this at all, and it, together with the Lakewalkers' main activity, have won them a reputation for black magic. This main activity of the Lakewalker patrols is to rid the land of malices. Just what is a malice? Well, we don't get all the answers here, but they seem to be mysterious forces that periodically rise up and grow, blighting more and more land around them. A malice kills everything alive that it comes in contact with. More than kills: it even leeches inanimate objects of their "ground", that force of them that the Lakewalkers sense. Left unchecked, a malice could conceivably eat up the whole world. Malices are not easy to destroy. The only way to get rid of them is with what the Lakewalkers call "sharing knifes". Bujold has crated a fascinating concept here: these malices are immortal in that they don't know how to die, so, to kill them, one needs to teach them how. Thus the sharing knife, which is "activated" or "loaded" with the death of a person. Don't think gruesome thoughts of human sacrifices here... Lakewalkers simply always carry an inactive sharing knife with them, and when they're at the edge of death, they simply speed the process by actually causing it with this knife, activating it in the process. So, before I disgressed and started talking about how this world works, I mentioned that Dag is a Lakewalker patroller. As the story starts, he's hunting a malice with his patrol. Fawn, the heroine, is a young farmer's daughter who's run away from home after becoming pregnant by one of the neighbours. To cut a long story short (and I really, really need to learn to write shorter!), Fawn finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she and Dag end up facing the malice together. And during this confrontation, something unheard of happens: Fawn manages to accidentally activate the inactive sharing knife Dag was carrying. This is done in such a way that gives Fawn some moral right over this knife, and so, after consultation with Dag's patrol's leader, it is determined that both she and the knife will travel with Dag to consult with an expert maker of knives, so that the events and its repercussions can be truly understood. As long as it took me to write it, this all happens relatively early in the story, and that's about it for the external plot. The malices fade into the background completely, and for the rest of the book, we get to see Dag and Fawn's relationship develop into love. We also learn more about this strange and intriguing world, and most especially about Lakewalker/farmer relations. Because romances between the two groups happen, but they're not meant to last, not like Dag and Fawn soon decide they want theirs to. They'll have to face a lot of opposition from both sides, and not just because of their different origins, but because of the significant age difference between them. In this Volume 1, we explore the resistance among the farmers, Fawn's family, and we see how out protagonists manage to win them over. I'm not sure, but from what's going on when the book ends, I suspect in Volume 2 we'll be moving into Lakewalker territory, and that the opposition will be just as adamant. Without much plot left, Beguilement becomes a quiet, romantic book, and I loved every minute. It's the wonderful main characters that carry the book. My first impulse was to say "Dag", not "the main characters", and I fear I was making the same mistake Fawn's family made and underestimating her. She's quite wonderful on her own, but in a less-than-obvious way. I loved the way she grows in this book from a scared young girl to a woman willing to face the entire world over her love. As for Dag... ahhh, Dag. Most of the reviews I've read are by long-time Bujold readers, and they draw some fascinating parallels between Dag and her other heroes. Being a novice Bujold reader and more into romance than anything else, I'll make a different comparison. Dag reminded me a lot of some Carla Kelly heros. It's the honour and gruff kindness and weariness, together with the less-than-perfect appearance and the unassuming demeanor. Dag is the very opposite of the arrogant, all-knowing alpha, and he has plenty of vulnerabilities. I even loved the May-December aspect of the romance. It actually surprises me that it works so well, because I tend to find dramatic age differences icky, and Dag is much older than Fawn... much, much older. He's got even more years on her in life experience, too, because Fawn has always lived quite a sheltered life. The reason it didn't matter to me is that I never got the feeling Dag was drawn to Fawn's innocence or purity, or anything else creepy like that. I truly believed he'd fallen in love with the inner woman, the "spark" from which his nickname for her arose. This is actually a pretty hot romance, which surprises me, because I don't think this is the usual for Bujold. As it is, I think many romance authors should take notes, because her love scenes are fantastic. Hell, some erotica authors should read her and take note on how to create sex scenes with emotional connections. Put this one in your TBR, even if you're not a regular fantasy reader. Just don't read it yet; wait until July! Read more... The universe isn't what it used to be. With the new alliance between the Triad and the United Coalition, Captain Tasha "Sass" Sebastian finds herself serving under her former nemesis, bio-cybe Admiral Branden Kel-Paten—and doing her best to hide a deadly past. But when an injured mercenary falls into their ship's hands, her efforts may be wasted … Wanted rebel Jace Serafino has information that could expose all of Sass's secrets, tear the fragile Alliance apart—and end Sass's career if Kel-Paten discovers them. But the bio-cybe has something to hide as well, something once thought impossible for his kind to possess: feelings...for Sass. Soon it's clear that their prisoner could bring down everything they once believed was worth dying for—and everything they now have to live for… Well, wow. Spaceships! A half-robot hero! Yummy romance and a really cool plot! What more could I ask for? An A-. The Triad and the United Coalition have just established a new alliance, and U-Cee Captain Tasha Sebastian and other members of her team have been assigned to serve on the Triad's most famous and impressive ship, the Vaxxar. The assignment is the result of a direct request made by the Triad's most famous and impressive admiral, bio-cybe Branden Kel-Paten, who commands the Vaxxar. This is quite a big surprise for Tasha, because during the war between their two sides, she kind of made it her mission to thwart and annoy Kel-Paten as much as she could, so she can't understand why he'd want her and her people on his ship, unless it's for some nefarious purpose. We soon find out that it's not for any nefarious purpose. Kel-Paten has been madly in love with Tasha for years, since their first encounter, and now that the war is over he's decided to make a last-ditch attempt to get close to her. He knows it won't be easy, especially because he's a bio-cybe -a kind of hybrid between man and machine-, but he needs to try. Unfortunately, he won't be able to devote all his time only to this project, because events soon intervene. I won't go into all the plot, because there's a lot of it, but among many other things, we get vortices, a former mercenary telepath with a chip implanted in his head by a rogue Triad government agency, someone wanting to kill either Tasha, Kel-Paten or the mercenary, a trip to a strange dimension and a mysterious Bad Thing which has Tasha and her friend Eden's pet furzels very worried. GoC is a perfect combination of sci-fi adventure and romance. The adventure is well-developed and interesting, with a fully-realized world and a plot that feels fresh. I mentioned there's a lot going on, but the action never gets confusing or feels episodic. And, at the same time, we get great characters and great romances. Yes, romances, because we get two for the price of one. And not even really a main romance and a secondary one. Both share the spotlight. There's Tasha and Kel-Paten, and there's also Tasha's friend Eden, the doctor, and Jace, the mercenary telepath who has that little problem with the implant in his brain. I got the feeling Tasha and Kel-Paten were a bit more important, but that might have been because I was much more interested in their romance. Eden and Jace, well, on its own, their story would have been good enough, but next to the other two, it was a bit overshadowed. It's probably that Tasha and Kel-Paten's relationship seemed to have been tailored especially to my taste. I love virgin heroes and I love it when the hero has been hopelessly in love with the heroine for years and years. Even more, I love still-waters-run-deep heroes, those guys who seem to be cold and unflappable, but who, in reality, are a seething mass of feelings. And as a cybe, Kel-Paten was the ultimate. I also love seeing heroes like this paired with strong, experienced heroines, and Tasha was all that. She's extremely competent, and a bit older than usual, which was great. Definitely not a low-level officer, terribly impressed by the mythical Admiral Kel-Paten, Tasha's got rank and power on her own, and the confidence of her people. I also adored the way Sinclair wrote their relationship. When the story starts, Kel-Paten is already completely crazy about Tasha, and he's trying his best to somehow make her see him in a different light, but having trouble making her see him as more than an unemotional machine. His feelings for Tasha are so strong, that they've broken through actual programmed emotional blocks, have actually inspired him to basically hack his own mind and go around those blocks. But it's not easy, because these blocks are still active, and both that and having had them for so long make normal, regular-guy reactions and, say, banter, very hard for him. Add to that a lot of shyness and vulnerability, and getting close to Tasha is pretty much impossible. But Kel-Paten perseveres and keeps trying, even risking being reported as a mal-functioning cybe (they're not supposed to have feelings, after all). I loved the guy to death, and seeing him struggle was heart-breaking. Every time Tasha unwittingly said something that seemed to indicate she thought of him as nothing more than a robot, I cringed, and when things finally started happening between them, I practically did a happy dance, because he so deserved to be happy. It takes a huge thing for Tasha to see him differently. It takes her accidentally discovering how HE feels, and I liked how Sinclair showed us the evolution of Tasha's feelings since that moment. It's not a matter of her immediately loving him because she discovers he has feelings for her. No, the discovery simply makes her look at him again, and her feelings move forward from that point, and she has to overcome a huge fear of her own to get to a point in which she can return his feelings. And as if I needed any more reasons to love this romance, Sinclair makes things better and better. For instance, how about the fact that Kel-Paten has the utmost respect for Tasha and her abilities? He doesn't go all caveman "must protect" on her, doesn't try to shield her from danger, when it's her job to face that danger. Or how about Sinclair's treatment of Tasha's secrets? Tasha has a very hush-hush past as a mercenary, something that could prove disastrous if the Triad were to find out about it, and I half feared we'd get a horrible overreaction when they were finally revealed, but Sinclair took a wholly different tack with that. They're revealed at the precisely right point, and Kel-Paten's reactions are perfect. The only thing about how Tasha and Kel-Paten were written that wasn't perfectly wonderful was that I would have liked to know more about them. I mean, Sinclair painted them both so well that I felt I knew the people they were now, but I remain very curious about their past, because about that, we get nothing more than what amounts to some very tantalizing hints. Just what is Tasha's story, how did she become Lady Sass, the mercenary? What brought her to that point? Just what happened on Lethant? (I couldn't help but think of Gabriel's Ghost, and the heroine's experiences at the beginning of it) And Kel-Paten, there's a reference to him having been a perfectly regular human until age 16 (or 17? can't remember exactly), when they turned him into a biocybe, and I somehow got the impression that it wasn't a wholly voluntary process. Just what happened there? Is it related to the other reference we get much later in the book about his being so-and-so's brother? There just seems to be so much story behind these two characters, and I wanted to know more! Paragraphs and paragraphs, and I still haven't talked about Jace and Eden at all! See what I mean when I say the other two overshadowed them? I might not have paid enough attention to them, really, because in all their scenes, I kept wishing the action would move back to the other romance. Plus, there just wasn't all that much tension there. They fall in love very quickly, and after that, the only thing keeping them apart is the external problems. I was actually more interested in seeing the development of the relationship between Jace and Kel-Paten (they pretty much hate each other at first sight) and the warm friendship between Tasha and Eden. If not for two things, I would have gone for a straight A with this book. One was that the ending felt a bit rushed. The problem wasn't that we didn't get a "perfect" HEA ending. I mean, we do get a great HEA love relationship-wise, but the situation is not one where these two couples will simply spend their life with no more worries other than loving each other. What's going on around them, in their universe, is still pretty huge, and very much unsettled. I wouldn't be surprised if we got a sequel, maybe with another couple, showing us how this struggle proceeds. Ok, I got a bit sidetracked here. The thing is, some very huge things happen in the last few pages. Enormous, world-changing things, and I felt they got short-thrift. They were over in about 10 pages of my ebookwise, and that's probably no more than 4 or 5 in a regular paperback. This is a long book (over 500 pages, according to what I see in amazon), so it's not like 20 more pages were going to make a difference, and in this, they were needed. The second negative... I feel evil for saying it, but those furzels, they were nauseatingly cute. They didn't belong in this very grown-up story, they belonged in a 12-year-old girl's Mary Sue fanfic. I understand the role they played in the plot, and that was great, but their voices needed to be toned down drastically. It's a shame, because they had the potential of being good cute. But hey, all that wasn't big enough to make even a dent in my enjoyment of this book. Sinclair is an author I'll definitely be watching. I'll also be hoping she's so successful that she can single-handedly create a renaissance in the subgenre of sci-fi romance. Meanwhile, I'll be reading Accidental Goddess, and waiting for her next book to come out. Read more... >> Monday, March 26, 2007 You met star quarterback Kevin Tucker in This Heart of Mine. Now get ready to meet his shark of an agent, Heath Champion, and Annabelle Granger, the girl least likely to succeed. Annabelle's endured dead-end jobs, a broken engagement . . . even her hair's a mess! But that's going to change now that she's taken over her late grandmother's matchmaking business. All Annabelle has to do is land the Windy City's hottest bachelor as her client, and she'll be the most sought-after matchmaker in town. Why does the wealthy, driven, and gorgeous sports agent Heath Champion need a matchmaker, especially a red-haired screw-up like Annabelle Granger? True, she's entertaining, and she does have a certain quirky appeal. But Heath is searching for the ultimate symbol of success -- the perfect wife. And to make an extraordinary match, he needs an extraordinary matchmaker, right? Soon everyone in Chicago has a stake in the outcome, and a very big question: When the determined matchmaker promised she'd do anything to keep her star client happy . . . did she mean anything? If Annabelle isn't careful, she just might find herself going heart-to-heart with the toughest negotiator in town. It took me a while to finally read this one. First my sister took it, then a friend (who took it on her honeymoon), then even my mother. By the time it returned, the urgency to read it had abated, and so it took me another month to start it. I wish I hadn't waited so long. I wish I'd wrested it out of little sister's greedy hands and hid it under the bed. It's that good. No wonder every time mom asks me for a book now, she tells me she wants "something like that Susan Elizabeth Phillips book I borrowed the other time". An A. The plot is vintage "how the hell will she make this work" SEP. Annabelle Granger has just taken over her late grandmother's matchmaking firm. The company's on the low end of the spectrum and doesn't have a particularly lucrative client base, but in spite of her family's pressure (and there is a lot of it... her whole family consider Annabelle a flighty screw-up and keep trying to get her to be something serious, like a doctor or a lawyer), Annabelle is determined to turn it into a powerhouse business. Her best plan to do so involves getting herself a high-profile, glamorous client and succeeding in finding him the perfect match, to popular acclaim. Heath Champion seems to be her best bet. Heath, a sports agent nicknamed The Python for his merciless way, is determined to marry the perfect wife before he turns 35. It's all part of his life plan. Heath has managed to rise from his trailer-trash beginnings, and he wants a wife who will enhance his image, and at the same time, be the perfect mom. I don't think I can remember all the requirements Heath feels his wife must fulfill, because they are myriad. She must be sweet and classy, well-bred and sexy, athletic and submissive, able to cook an impromptu dinner for the kids from scratch and to plan a dinner party for rich guests. And above all, an incredibly attractive woman who idolizes him and thinks he can do no wrong. Yeah, I wanted to bang the guy's head against the wall. Heath's too busy to look for this wonder himself, so he has hired Chicago's premier matchmaking agency: Power Matches, to find her. When Molly, wife of one of his best clients, Kevin Tucker (both from This Heart of Mine) asks him to listen to a pitch from her friend Annabelle, Heath agrees only to keep her happy. Molly's not just his client's wife, she's also the sister of the owner of the Chicago Stars (Phoebe, from It Had To Be You), who absolutely hates Heath, so he's very interested in keeping her happy. He doesn't plan to do much more than give this Annabelle Granger five minutes of his time, so he's very surprised when she manages to manouver him into giving her a shot. She'll get the chance to do one introduction, and only if her candidate is outstanding (and Heath really doesn't expect her to be), she'll get Heath as a client. Heath is astounded when the woman Annabelle comes up with is outstanding, and so he ends up signing on with her. And they start spending more and more time together as she tries to find him the perfect wife. I give SEP chances I wouldn't give to other authors. Her books never sound like something I like, and yet, I know I'll like them, so I just ignore any apprehensive feelings and buy them. And when I start the books, I always start out disliking her heroes intensely, and yet I keep on reading, knowing the feeling will go away and I'll love them to pieces. It's all about trust. And I needed a lot of trust here, because Heath starts out really, really dense. Forget about banging his head against the wall; I wanted to strangle him. But this first impression slowly changed, and I ended up really, really liking the man. Not that I didn't enjoy the way SEP drags him through hell before he can get Annabelle, but by the end of the book, I understood where his misguided ideal woman came from, and I was willing to forgive him for his denseness (especially because he fully realized he'd been dense). I had no mixed feelings about Annabelle; I liked her from the very first. She's funny and smart and warm-hearted and I liked that she didn't let Heath walk all over her (quite an accomplishment, because he's naturally very dominating). She's also very much a SEP heroine, in that she's unappreciated by all those around her but ends up understanding her own worth. Speaking of that, one of my favourite scenes was the one at Annabelle's birthday dinner party, because it turned what I felt about her relationship with her family on its head. I was totally expecting a scene in which Heath would defend her against her family's bullying and excessive pressure, but then SEP showed us what their relationship looked like from Heath's point of view, and damned if he didn't have a point. A big part of the book's charm was its fully realized and extremely entertaining secondary characters. This is part of her football series, so obviously, there are a lot of football players around, and I liked that there is not that much romantization of them. All right, they're all really sweet guys, apparently, for all their arrogance and sense of entitlement, but it seems SEP's got her eyes wide open about them. I loved the scene in which Heath is going on about how his poor clients are being taken advantage of by those awful gold diggers, who sometimes even get *gasp* pregnant on purpose, and Annabelle asks him: which poor guys? The ones who go *you*, *you* and *you* on the hotel lobby, and then when they get to the room start explaining all the reasons why they won't wear condoms? Right on, Annabelle! See what I meant when I said she's not afraid of standing her ground with him? In addition to those football players (including the to-die-for Dean Robillard, the hero of the next book, which I'll probably also be reviewing this week), the characters of SEP's other related books are a big part of the plot. I'm never happy when an author parades her older characters around just to show us how deliriously happy they are, but this wasn't like that at all. Phoebe and Molly and Kevin and Dan and the rest of them play an important role here, and they never felt extraneous. On the contrary, I felt they added a lot to the book (and I loved Heath's run-ins with Molly's daughter. Hah!) Oh, and there's also a secondary romance, between Portia Powers, the owner of Power Matches, Annabelle's rival agency, and Heath's rough-looking chauffer and good friend. Portia is a fascinating character. She's portrayed like super-bitch, and she really does act like it (those weekly weigh-ins she had at her company, anyone?), but I could see the twisted logic and the good intentions behind what she was trying to do, and I just wish SEP hadn't brought her down so completely before she got her HEA. But that's a small complaint, compared to how much I loved everything else in the book. Just thinking about it now, I'm wearing a huge grin. This was a book I didn't want to end, and there's no better compliment than that! Read more... >> Friday, March 23, 2007 Ok, next week, to show Cindy why I'm not in a slump, I'll be talking only about the great books I've recently read, but to end this week, another of the blahs: Ever Yours, by Gabriella Anderson. Could a letter change her life? Ivy St Clair doesn't think so, but she's certain that the missive from eccentric Lord Stanhope, who has named her as one of his heirs, will at least provide adventure. And adventure is the one thing sure to be missing from her life when she marries Neville Foxworthy as her family expects her to do. To inherit from Stanhope, she must deliver a portrait to reclusive Auburn Seaton, Earl of Tamberlake. No one has seen the man, badly injured in a carriage accident, for more than five years. But Tamberlake's scars are far less interesting than his melancholy, and Tamberlake himself--gentle, kind, and dangerously appealing--is everything her distasteful fiance is not. Before long Ivy realizes that the unlikely friendship they find together has deepened into the kind of love she will risk name and fortune to claim... I've lost count of how many times I've said this recently: this book started out well enough, but after a while, it completely derailed. The main problem here was a conflict that didn't convince me. A C-. Lady Ivy St. Clair is very surprised to receive a bequest from a man she's never met, her mother's former suitor, Lord Stanhope. Because of his fond memories of her mother, Stanhope has left her a house of her own and some money, but only if she'll perform a small service for him. She must go to Wales and deliver a package to the Earl of Tamberlake. Ivy has recently succumbed to her father's pressure to marry, but she manages to convince her parents to allow her to have this last adventure before her betrothal is announced. And so, she sets off with her brother and Lord Stanhope's former housekeeper, who'll act as a companion. The Earl of Tamberlake has been a recluse since the carriage accident that disfigured his face, and the sudden appearance of Lady Ivy and her companions is not a pleasant surprise. And even less pleasant is that the package Ivy brings is a portrait of him before his accident. But Ivy seems to be different from other women. For starters, she doesn't seem to be repulsed by his appearance. A carriage breakdown forces Ivy and her party to stay in Tamberlake's house for a while longer, and as they spend some time together, she even appears to be attracted to him. But Ivy has promised to marry her fiancé, and she's not one to make a promise lightly. And then her fiancé suddenly appears to bring her back to town... The first part was basically all right, a nice "Beauty and the Beast" story. Ivy and Tamberlake connect nicely and I bought that they'd fall in love. Both are interestingly-drawn characters, and likeable enough, and I liked how Tamberlake was so gruff on the outside and so obviously a marshmallow on the inside. However, after the first 150 or so pages, we get what to me was basically a fake conflict. Ivy is in love with Tamberlake, Tamberlake is in love with Ivy, and they both know it (or at least, know that the other would like nothing more than a marriage between them). But there are still 170 more pages to go, and there needs to be conflict. Sure, ok. Problem is, the way the conflict was created involved making the characters behave like fools, especially Ivy. She loves Tamberlake and he actually told her that he's in danger of losing his heart to her and that it might even be too late already. She dislikes her fiancé and even thinks badly of him for his unkind comments about Tamberlake. The only reason she agreed to marry him was because her father told her to, and she's well aware that her father is a selfish lout and cares nothing for her. She doesn't even appear to particularly care for her father. So what the hell is the problem? "Oh, I said I'd marry him and my father has already announced the betrothal" just doesn't cut it, when she doesn't care a whit about society's opinions and marrying an incredibly rich Earl would obviously fix any scandal that would be generated. Ivy needed to grow a spine, fast. And Tamberlake doesn't get off scot-free. He's got the perfect way of convincing Ivy to change her mind about marrying her fiancé, because he knows a huge secret about him, and he doesn't use it, for no reason. Instead, he runs around for weeks making things extremely hard for Ivy, apparently not caring that he's creating a situation in which she'll get immense pressure and disapproval from her father. And it wasn't just this that I found unconvincing. I thought most of the characters' motivations were iffy. Ivy's father is a cartoon, and I never understood why he was so adamant about Ivy marrying her fiancé. And what about Stanhope? Why is he so insistent on matchmaking between Ivy and Tamberlake? (don't tell me it's not obvious from the very first that this is what he's doing). He doesn't really know her, how does he know she won't take a look at his face and be repelled? Of course, all this isn't enough to carry that many pages, so we get The Other Woman bent on mischief and a booooring suspense subplot about someone wanting to kill them. Anderson voice is nice and smooth, but her story... not so much. Read more... >> Thursday, March 22, 2007 After I'd had the cover of A Most Suitable Duchess, by Patricia Bray on my sidebar for a few days, jmc emailed me wondering if she was seeing correctly. Since not everyone is as eagle-eyed as she is, click here to see a larger version of the cover, and read the title carefully. I've checked the actual book and the title is fine there, so I wonder where that image came from (obviously, I didn't scan it. I just searched for it with google images). Is it someone's idea of a joke? I don't think this book had more than one printing, so it can't have been fixed in the reissue. Just strange. Marcus Heywood, the new Duke of Torringford, must take a wife in three weeks or lose the country estate he's unexpectedly inherited. But how can he possibly find a suitable mate in so short a time? His brother, Reginald, suggests an advertisement in the papers, something Marcus refuses to consider, until a wine-fueled evening when he pens one in jest. Now, in a horrible mix-up, the ad has been printed and Marcus is mortified. Yet a week later, he is no closer to being wed than before. That's when the lovely Miss Penelope Hastings suddenly enters his life and his heart. A Spinster Longing For Love At one and twenty, Penelope's spinsterhood seems onfirmed; she'll never find a man she can marry. But her half-brother thinks otherwise. Without her knowledge, he answers the Duke of Torringford's advertisement for a wife and signs her name to it. When an announcement of her upcoming wedding to the Duke appears in the papers, Penelope knows she must take her place as his wife, or her honor will be ruined. But it will be a marriage in name only, that she's sure of; until the handsome good looks and warm smile of her new husband make her heart pound in a most unsettling way... Best word for this book is "pleasant". Bray has a smooth style of writing and the book is very readable. It's got some very nice touches, but it's not particularly excellent or exciting, just... pleasant. Since it was just what I was wanting to read at the time, and it hit the spot perfectly, I'm giving it a B-. Marcus Heywood has unexpectedly inherited a dukedom, after everyone else who was in line for it managed to pass away. Unfortunately, though, to inherit all the unentailed wealth that would come with the title, Marcus needs to be married before he turns 30... in barely a month. Marcus is perfectly happy with his placid life in his farm, so he wouldn't mind passing on the inheritance. He intends to do just that, until he finds out that the former heir borrowed heavily against his prospects. This guy, BTW, was the reason for the "must be married by 30" clause... the old duke thought he was an irresponsible twit and that marriage would steady him. He had no idea that the guy who'd ultimately inherit would be as steady as Marcus. Anyway, Marcus' overdeveloped honor just won't let him ignore those debts, but there's no way he can pay them on his normal income. Ergo, he'll need to claim that inheritance; ergo, he'll need to get married quickly. But.. who to marry, and so fast? Talking with his brother, they joke about how easy it would be if he could simply put an ad in the paper for candidates to the post of duchess, the same way they're advertising for a kennelmaster for Marcus' estate. They even write a mock ad with the attributes this duchess should possess. A few days later, Marcus is horrified to discover that his brother took the wrong piece of paper to the newpapers, and everyone is talking about that crass new Duke of Torringford, who's advertising for a wife. He's even got a pile of replies, and since he's no closer to finding a wife on his own, he's persuaded to actually meet with the most likely candidates. One of those candidates is Penelope Hastings, but she wasn't the one who answered the ad. It wasn't her brother, either, as it says on the back cover, but her brother's jealous fiancée. Penelope meets with the duke thinking he called her to talk about a contribution to one of the societies she's a member of, and is stunned to discover what has happened. She explains, Marcus explains, she politely refuses to consider any possibility of marriage, and leaves. But oops! Everyone's seen her come out of his office, and rumours start flying that she was one of those trashy women who answered the ad. As a result, her nitwit of a brother, spurred on by the mean fiancée, gives her an ultimatum: either go through with the marriage, or retire to the middle of nowhere. Penelope, a total city girl and no nitwit herself, goes for the marriage, and so she and Marcus begin what's a very classic marriage of convenience. As you can see from my description, the whole book is based on a chain of errors and jokes and mean people behaving meanly, but there are no big misunderstandings, and that was something I loved about how Bray set things up. Penelope and Marcus actually talk to each other and quickly set things straight, going into their marriage understanding the circumstances perfectly. They are both quite interesting characters, too. City-girl Penelope has quite a full live, with plenty of good friends and lots of different interests. She's not a social butterfly, but she makes the most of living in Edinburgh, participating in a bunch of societies. She's smart and sensible, and a pretty well-drawn character, with her own very individual flaws. For instance, Penelope has a bit of a sharp tongue. She doesn't tolerate any impertinence with the Torringford servants, who at first are predisposed to think badly of her and the new duke, and she doesn't like it when her friends try to gently remonstrate with her for something she does. It's definitely a fault, but one that makes her more distinct and human, and I liked her more for having it. As for Marcus, he's very much the country gentleman, who just lives for his farm and his crops and his dogs. He's uncomfortable in his new role as duke and really wishes he could just ignore all this nonsense and continue with his comfortable life. I liked seeing the slow development of their relationship, with their increasing fondness for each other and growing physical attraction. On this subject, I must mention that the door is banged on the reader's face during the sex scenes. Usually, I tend to prefer to actually see the sex (yeah, prurient interest, but not just that. Sex scenes can tell you a lot about characters and their relationship, if done right), but in this case, there wasn't any particularly hot chemistry going on, so I don't know. Maybe instead of going through the motions of a love scene just for the sake of a love scene, better to just skip it and be told they enjoyed themselves very much. In this area we get the only misunderstanding in the book. Or rather, I don't know if I should call it a misunderstanding. What happens is that when it comes to their feelings, both think the other is happy with the original agreement of a marriage that's purely of convenience, while the reality is that both have fallen in love. But it's, well, such an understandable misunderstanding, and one true to their personalities and relationship. It makes sense that neither of them would feel comfortable going out on a limb and expressing their innermost feelings, and it's completely in-character for both that they prefer to wait and see. And anyway, this doesn't go on for an excessively long time. As pleasant as this book was, it still had a couple of problems and annoyances. Near the end, a subplot develops about Penelope's former suitor reappearing. The guy is obviously up to no good, etc., etc. This was very uninteresting and came completely out of the blue, but I did like how it was solved, with complete honesty between Marcus and Penelope. Something else I wasn't completely convinced by was about how Marcus and Penelope are supposed to be passionately in love. Hmmm. I just didn't see that much passion there. It looked more like great fondness and being best friends, but I guess it could have been simply a quiet, warm love. Still, not wholly convincing. Finally, there's the issue of just how and where they will live that is left a bit hanging. All throughout the book, Penelope is presented as loving life in the city. As I said, she's not one for lavish balls and parties, but she does like having culture and sophisticated company nearby. Marcus, on the other hand, obviously hates the city. So once their feelings are expressed and seen to be returned, and they decide to have a true love marriage, what happens? How do they live? My impression is that they're living in Torringford, but what about Penelope? I'm willing to assume that Marcus will spend some time with her in the city, but it's not stated, and all I'm basing my assumption on is a feeling that Marcus is a decent man, so surely he'll be willing to spend some time there so that Penelope will have what she so loves at least a few months every year. >> Wednesday, March 21, 2007 One of these challenging invitations is accepted by Jarrett, Lord Dering, a family outcast who lives by his own rules...the other by Kate Falshaw, a high-tempered actress on the run from a scandalous past. The exclusive resort promises to fulfill every desire, but beneath the glittering surface deadly games are in play... Jarrett and Kate, with nothing in common and nothing to lose, are forced into a dangerous alliance against a powerful enemy. But the daring masquerade that hides their true purpose also sets them on a journey of self- discovery. When Kate's antagonism yields to Jarrett's seductive charm, the unexpected passion engulfs them both. Jarrett longs to understand the secrets of his tormented and beautiful new companion. And as the two work their way into the dark heart of Paradise, through its perils and mysteries, they discover that Kate's own past could prove to be the gravest threat of all. Well, Kerstan can definitely write, but the story she tells has an unconvincing, cliché-ridden plot and characters I never particularly cared about. A C-. Jarrett, Lord Dering is barely surviving by gambling in the London hells and clubs, when he receives a mysterious summons. "You are summoned, for your failures, your guilt, and your debts ... ", the letter starts, and it introduces him to the members of the mysterious Black Phoenix society, devoted to righting wrongs the authorities can do nothing about. Through a mix of pressure and bribes and mild threats, Jarrett is recruited by the Black Phoenix into undertaking a dangerous mission. He's to spend some time at Paradise, an infamous resort which caters to rich noblemen's every whim, no matter how decadent. Another Black Phoenix operative will contact him, there, and together, they're supposed to investigate a series of crimes. The other Black Phoenix operative is former actress Kate Falshaw, who's been performing in Paradise as the exotic gypsy dancer Gaetana. It just so happens that the resort owner has given Kate an ultimatum: if she wants to keep working at the resort, she'll have to make her sexual attentions available to the guests in an auction. Just dancing doesn't cut it any more, because the clients have began to complain that Paradise's promise that everything can be had, for a price, is not being fulfilled. Kate decides to kill two birds with one stone. She needs to be able spend time with Jarrett unsuspected, so to do so, while at the same time saving herself from the owner's demands, she creates a complicated charade. Her plan involves her humiliating Jarrett on their first meeting, so that this not-particularly-rich guy will be able to win the auction because his fellow noblemen will relish seeing the proud Gaetana demeaned and owned by the very man she was so uppity with. The plan works, and so Kate and Jarrett find themselves working together to accomplish their mission, while having to keep up the public appearance of the sexually-charged roles they're playing. The set-up of DD asks for a huge suspension of disbelief from the get-go, and I'm afraid it never fully got it from me. The whole concept of the Black Phoenix society felt suspect. Even worse, I might have accepted it if it had appealed to me in some way, but I didn't find the idea of such an organization intriguing in the least. I'd even go as far as to call it contrived and silly. I didn't much like them, actually. Yes, they are against evil, and everything, but what right do they have to go around judging people and deciding that their "sins" merit that they should risk their lives doing their dirty work? I also never saw why Jarret and Kate would volunteer for those plans. For your guilt, for your sins, for your debts? (paraphrasing here). Oh, please. Ok, Jarret does say something about being bored and accepting for that reason and for the money he'd get, but Kate? No reason I can see for her to do so, except for a martyr complex, and absolutely no reason for the Black Phoenix to use her and make her do what they were ready to make her do. When Jarrett arrives at Paradise, that got another groan from me. Yeah, yeah, another Hellfire Club-type plot. Can we move on, please? Maybe if the romance had been good, I would have been able to overlook the dubious plot, but it wasn't. I didn't feel any real fondness and not even much real attraction between Kate and Jarrett. And what attraction there was was tainted by the seedy feel of the roles they were acting, of dissipated rake and his sexual plaything. I guess that might have felt piquant, if done right, but it felt dirty instead. The humiliation Kate was feeling in some of those situations was too real for me to enjoy most scenes. And yet another annoyance: the last 80 pages felt tacked on. They take place after the events in Paradise and after all danger emanating from it is over, and they were just not organic to the book. I was very puzzled by all the new characters coming out of the woodwork and the unnecessarily complex plans to fix Kate's past. Maybe it's a way of introducing characters who'll star in the next book in the series, but I really don't think I'll be looking for that one. Read more... When Rachel had offered to help Matthew Riordan undress after a party her intentions had been purely innocent. She'd been trying to avoid a scandal -- instead, she found herself being blackmailed! Yet, Matthew oozed sex appeal. He simply didn't need to blackmail Rachel into his bed! Or was this some kind of revenge plan because Rachel had clashed with him over a business deal? Matthew certainly wanted Rachel as his mistress. But was he driven by desire -- or deception? Hmm, what a quandary. It seems a shame to give away this book's plot, because part of the fun at the beginning is discovering what the hell is going on. But if I don't say anything, people will assume that the back cover copy actually describes what happens, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Ok, just forget that awful title and back cover copy, at least the second paragraph. What mistress? What blackmailing into his bed and into being his mistress? What clash over a business deal? All come only from the fertile mind of whoever writes these things at Harlequin. To give you a very vague idea of the plot, it involves apparently compromising photos of a situation that was actually perfectly innocent. Someone is trying to cause trouble with them, and at first, Matthew thinks Rachel is trying to blackmail him, while Rachel thinks it's exactly the opposite. And while trying to straighten out the situation, they end up falling in love. It doesn't sound particularly interesting, but what makes the book good is that the characters have a high degree of individuality. They and, especially, their history have plenty of quirks that make them different from the usual. And in Matthew's case, there's something very remarkable. It would be a spoiler to say, so just highlight the following if you want to know: [[What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a virgin widower. Yep, you read that right, a virgin widowER; Matt, not Rachel is the virgin, and I completely bought the explanation of why he was one. Napier reveals this at just the right point, too, and like it happened in the other one of her books with a virgin hero, it made me rethink some of the previous scenes and go "ahhh, now I understand!"]] Anyway, this was one of the better Napiers that I've read. The characters are interesting, the plot is pretty good and there's plenty of chemistry and steam. A B. Now, No Reprieve, from almost 10 years earlier, was a very different book. Seven faced a real problem It didn't really matter to the quiet librarian that her Aunt Jane had become Madam Zoe, medium and spiritualist. Nor that she often enlisted Seven's aid. But that was before Jake Jackson's mother wanted Madam Zoe to trace her missing grandchild. Jake, editor and owner of a crusading newspaper, wanted no part in their plan. Seven knew that any future she dreamed of with Jake was in jeopardy. Trying to extricate Aunt Jane while maintaining her own anonymity was going to be next to impossible. Especially when this forceful abrasive man turn up at every corner... For starters, No Reprieve (I started to write "NR", but that will forever be "Nora Roberts" to me) has much more of a plot, and it's one that could have been excellent, if done right. The heroine, Seven, is psychic, but for years, she's been trying to block out the outside world. She doesn't read the paper, or watch TV, or do anything that might trigger her visions. One day, while throwing away some years-old newspapers in her Aunt Jane's house, she sees a photo of a missing child, and gets a flash telling her that the girl is just fine. Seven isn't particularly bothered by this vision because she assumes that since she got this particular feeling, it means the case was resolved favourably. She mentions it to her aunt, and leaves it at that. Aunt Jane, however, doesn't leave it at that. She checks it out, and discovers the girl is still missing. So what does she do? Well, that stupid old bitch has been pretending to be a psychic, using Seven's occasional comments. So she goes to the girl's grandmother and tells her she had this vision of her child and asks her for money to help find little Rebecca. And when the girl's father, who turns out to be this cynical tabloid owner, finds out, the shit really hits the fan. This could have been really good, because both Seven and Jake are interesting characters (quite individual, just as Rachel and Matthew in the book above) and the plot had potential. However... For a book that has at its heart the search for a missing little girl, the book is weirdly not about the efforts to do so. Seven's actions to find Rebecca are very unfocused. I kept wondering why she didn't try harder. For instance, we discover after a while that being in the girl's former room might trigger visions. And yet she doesn't do this until days after she becomes involved in the case. Both she and Jake seem curiously leisurely about the whole thing. And then there's Aunt Jane. I HATED her, I truly did. I thought she should be shot for her cruelty and the way she courted publicity no matter what the consequences to Jake and his mother and to Seven. She seemed like a child in her selfishness and her lack of concern about the consequences of her actions, and yet, though Seven and Jake did disapprove of her behaviour, they seemed to find it, at worst, mildly reprehensible. >> Monday, March 19, 2007 From This Day is a very early book from one of my favourite authors, Nora Roberts. It's from 1983, and the "Other books by this author" page has only 6 other titles, so she must have been a real newbie back then! An Unexpected Dilemma When B.J. Clark, the young and pretty manager of the Lakeside Inn, met the new owner, Taylor Reynolds, she was fully prepared to dislike him. For she feared -with good reason- that he planned to transform her sleepy old hotel into a resort for jet-setters. That sparks should fly between them was inevitable. But that these should be fanned by a mutual passion was not in her plans. Against all reason, B.J. found herself torn between her professional antagonistm and her growing attraction to the man she had sworn to despise. It's been a while since I've done one of these, so follow me as I read From This Day.... pg 27 - This is one of those "heroine against modernity" books. BJ is the manager of the old-fashioned Lakeside Inn, in Vermont, and Taylor Reynolds is the new owner, who wants to modernize it. Conflicts ensue (how's that for a concise summary? I'm getting better!) It's been only a few pages, and BJ is already driving me crazy. It's been a while since I've seen a more childish, narrow-minded, judgemental, unprofessional heroine. One of her arguments not to make a few changes to the inn? "I don't want any plastic surgery on my inn". And her retort to Taylor's reminder that he is the owner, so he does have the right to make those changes, and as the manager, the final decision is not hers? Does she make a calm argument about why as the manager, she's the one who knows the inn best and so he should listen to her thoughts? Nope, when told that her position as manager does not entitle her to a vote, she cries "Your position as owner doesn't entitle you to brains!" Real professional, that. Fortunately for the idiot woman, Taylor is a smart guy and recognizes that she might have something valuable to say, so he ignores the little temper tantrum. pg 36 - Oh, give me a break! She's watching a horror movie, Taylor shows up, and the twit literally throws herself into his arms in fright at the monster... twice! Mindbending. He's your boss, you idiot! And of course, here we start with the inappropriate kisses. pg 45 - Finally, finally, BJ starts behaving a little more professionally and giving some real arguments against turning the inn into a resort. About time! BTW, so far, no hero's POV. Do we get any? I don't want to spend all the book in BJ's mind! pg 61 - This is the kind of book where the heroine's mind turns to putty the minute the hero puts his hands on her, no matter how much she tells herself she despises him. Sigh. pg 91 - Half the book is over, and all I know about Taylor is that he owns the inn, drives a Mercedes, is a bit imperious and is attracted to BJ (for some unfathomable reason). Oh, and he kisses well, though BJ is (of course!) a virgin, and doesn't really have much basis for comparison. Nothing else. Pretty flat characterization, so far. pg 93 - Oh, fuck it. Just what was missing, the evil other woman, miles more sophisticated than BJ. Ah, and she behaves towards Taylor, her boss, in a way that obviously suggests that there's more than business between them... not that Taylor seems to notice, of course. These old-style heroes always were pretty oblivious to the Evil Other Women's machinations. I'm so looking forward to see BJ feel jealous and make even more of an ass of herself... not! pg 106 - Ahh, now she cries. I knew she'd do so at some point. pg 140 - We're now in Palm Beach, where Taylor has taken BJ with him to show her how his other hotels are run. Blah. And I still know nothing about Taylor other than what I mentioned already. p 180 - "We're getting married, we will live in this house here, your mother is sending me your birth certificate so that you can get a passport, so we can fly to Rome in a couple of weeks." Whaaa?? Out of the blue, much? Yeah, imperious is an understatement for this guy (who I still don't know, BTW). p 186 - The end. This was BAD. Stupid conflict, a twit of a heroine, a cardboard hero and no chemistry whatsoever. Nora Roberts has really come an incredibly long way from this. Unfortunately, this early effort rates only a D+. Read more... >> Friday, March 16, 2007 I've accumulated piles and piles of Harlequins in my TBR, but in this "tame the TBR" project I'm working on, I've kind of been avoiding them in favour of single titles. I'm consciously going to be trying to read more of them from now on. First up: Trick Me, Treat Me (excerpt), by Leslie Kelly. HIS TRICK... After spending more than a year overseas doing research, true crime writer Jared Winchester is dying for some excitement. So when he receives an invitation to a party his first night back—an in-character Halloween party, at that—he decides to go for it. For one night he’ll be secret agent Miles Stone. Too bad he doesn’t know that the party already took place—last year. Or that one certain woman will find secret-agent men irresistible… ...WILL BE HER TREAT! Gwen Compton is tired of playing it safe. For months she’s thrown all her energy into turning an old haunted house into a bed-and-breakfast. Now it’s Halloween. The inn is ready…and so is Gwen! She’s going to find herself a man—a dangerous man, an exciting man! And she doesn’t have to look very far….. Late that night she discovers a dark, sexy stranger in the kitchen. He says he’s on a secret mission. But Gwen has other thrills in store for him…. This one was hard to grade. I was thinking a C+, but its charm and fun factor raise it to a B-. The plot sounds crazy and wacky, like the author just threw everything in but the kitchen sink. We've got ghosts and gangsters and amnesia and mistaken identity and old family secrets, not to mention a spooky, gothic-sounding old house. It's like this: Jared Winchester is a true-crime writer who's just returned home after spending over a year abroad, doing research for his next book. One of the first things he sees when he gets back is a Halloween invitation from his cousin. Cousin Mickey is organizing a pretty unique bash: a role-playing weekend in the scary house he and Jared were fascinated by as kids. It sounds like fun, and Jared needs some light-hearted amusement after his intense past year, so he decides to go. Plus, he hasn't been in his hometown for a while, so he's overdue for a visit, anyway. But here's the thing: Jared's mail service sucks, and the invitation he got was actually for the previous Halloween. In the year since, Gwen Compton and her aunt, Hildy, have turned the old Marsden place into a gangster-themed inn. This Halloween weekend is their grand opening, just in time to take advantage of the house's reputation for ghostly activity. Obviously, Jared has no idea of this, and when arrives in the middle of the night, fully characterized as secret agent Miles Stone (and this is one elaborate role-playing party... Jared's got a complex mission and plenty of props, from a fake weapon to fake IDs), and meets a lovely young woman in the kitchen (and wearing a sexy nightgown, too!), he thinks she's role-playing, just like he is. Gwen is startled when a strange man suddenly appears in her kitchen (she's not used to having guests all over the place yet), but that's nothing next to her alarm when he reveals he's a secret agent, going after an international arms dealer who's staying at her inn. It sounds like a wild tale, but the man has ID and plenty of proof, including official-looking documents. But things get weirder still, when light flirting leads to a kiss, and Aunt Hildy comes into the kitchen and sees this stranger seemingly attacking her niece. Auntie is carrying a bag with rolled pennies, which she puts to good use by hitting the guy over the head and putting him out cold. And guess what ensues? Why, yes, amnesia! When Jared wakes up, he has no idea who he is, and so Gwen helpfully brings him up to date: he's agent Miles Stone, in a mission to catch an arms dealer. The same evidence that convinced Gwen of the story's authenticity convinces Jared, as well, and off they go, trying to catch the dealer together and falling in love in the process. Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but surprisingly, I thought it read much more plausible than a simple description would suggest. Well, not exactly plausible, but at least it doesn't depend on the characters acting like morons. Gwen and Jared act like normal people would ask if they were stuck in this unlikely, crazy situation. Maybe slightly gullible normal people, but at least their emotions ring true, especially Gwen, whose current sedate life has had her yearning for some excitement. Oh, and I especially liked that Jared comes clean with Gwen as soon as he gets his memory back, even though he's worried she might not be as interested in a boring writer as she was in an exciting secret agent. Both of them are likeable characters, and there's some very nice chemistry between them. And not just chemistry, they seem to like each other very much and enjoy spending time together, so I bought that a relationship would develop between them, in time. In time, I say, because what I didn't buy was that they'd be "in love" after this one very crazy weekend. The book would have worked better if the HEA had simply been Jared and Gwen deciding they had a nice beginning of a relationship and were going to be seeing what developed. But well, this is just light fun. No deep issues or characterization, but a nice way of spending a couple of hours. Read more... ...This is less a review of the book as a whole, than a review of parts. There was a lot going on in Lover Revealed and I realize that the romance between Butch and Marissa, in hindsight sort of takes the back seat to my impressions of the other plot elements. Nevertheless, I give it a B+ too. Butch And Marissa I think JR Ward deserves a gold star. Or a governmental investigation for mind control, LOL! Like Rosario, I wasn't interested AT ALL in this book. I didn't think there was anything remotely interesting about a whiny, boozing, depressed has-been cop and a sheltered, ex-Queen, society princess. Not to mention the fact that both were to a certain extent the dumpees from Dark Lover. No, I was going to read the book for Vishous insights and more Rhevenge/The Reverend. And maybe some John Matthew. Boy was I ever wrong. Though I still had my doubts, I ended up enjoying all the story lines in this installement, including the main romance. If that guy had been any more crazy in love with Marissa, he'd have been locked up. And the resolution was very much in JR Ward style so I was only mildly annoyed. Though, to be fair, she did hint at something like that in the previous book. I also couldn't help thinking about Harry Potter, especially when the side-effects of the Omega's gift kick into action. Marissa is definitely the breakthrough character here since her transformation is purely internal. Not only is she conscious of vampire females lesser status, but she decides she won't put up with it. Paranormal female empowerement at it's best. If there hadn't been the whole century-old virgin thing, I'd have voted M as Council leahdyre. The theme Call me Decontruction Girl but I think LR's theme is acceptance. Personal acceptance but also social acceptance. Actually, one can't happen without the other. I also believe the titles give away the plot. Butch was in between two worlds, the human and the vampire. His inadequacy issues, as we learn later in the book, take their roots in his family history. Marissa isn't exempt of her own self-esteem issues, particularly since she's ostracized by the Glymera since Wrath's repudiation. We also meet other misfits, of sorts : Vishous, John Matthew, Payne, Rehvenge/Reverend. The Love Quadrangle Each book seems to feature a love/lust triangle of sorts and in this one, it's even a love quadrangle. There are two people who, consciously or not, don't want want Bush and Marissa to get together: Rehvenge, who loves Marissa but knows his two Big Secrets can never make him an acceptable companion for her; and Haverswho's obviously not over Wrath's rejection of Marissa and who can't even conceive of his sister hooking up with a mere human of questionable origin. New Characters/Aspects We're introduced to new vampires in this book and the one I love the most is Xhex (visually painful spelling is still a problem for me). A kick-ass female who sounds like a dom. She's officially made my list of characters to watch. She's portrayed as a strong working woman, with an equally strong sexuality. I wonder what kind of hero wil l be worthy of her trust, caring and loyalty. And of her secret. Speculation time: How cool and seemingly inappropriate would it be if Havers was paired with her? (Rosario says: yep, Arielle was the friend I mentioned who suggested the idea to me). Seriously, she lives on the fringe, a victime of an unfair and rigid society while he's never had to question (until his sister's adventures, anyway) whether or not he belongs. IMO, this bad girl and that good boy are made for each other. And I bet it's going to be kinky as hell... The Glymera We get to see more or the Glymera and it ain't pretty. Definitely inspired by the Regency Ton. Elitist, priviledged and very rigid. With the changes slowly but surely being initiated since bk 1, it's going to get ugly when the shit hits the fan. I also wonder about this Princeps Council. Obviously, the Lessers are getting more daring and violent and yet the PC's decision regarding sehclusion seemed...stupid. Hello, you guys are getting killed left and right and the master plan is locking up the womenfolk? These people need a little revolution to get the blood flowing in their brains again. Training Camp Vampire Boot Camp is also fun to see. And John Matthew, baby, I'm sooo in love. I can't wait so see his transition, first feeding etc. So many questions: how many of his classmates will die during transition or even their first fight? Will JM use a Chosen? Also can't wait to see how he works out his problems with Draco...I mean Lash (another HP moment, folks). Blaylock, on the other hand, seems to be set up as the best friend / sidekick. Hope he doesn't die. My New Boy Toys The two men I'm dying for: Rehvenge and Vishous. Rehvenge/Rehverend, is that going to be explosive or not? I just know he's going to fall for a Glymera Girl. Unless she's human. But I know it's going to be hot and dangerous. And that's just his sex life, LOL! The tight rope of his double-life is sure to make for a compelling future book. I'm also really interested in discovering the full extent of his sympaths abilities. What can he do when he's not drugged up? As for V, I'm more intrigued than ever. Thank God his book is coming soon. Anybody read the sneak peek on the boards? I just knew it was something like that. I'm happy I was right. (Rosario says: What, what? I don't go on the boards, what's on the sneak peek?) JR Ward might have said in her AAR interview that she doesn't plan the sensuality level beforehand but there is no doubt that both these guys are going to have very hot books. What I didn't like Since writing the first draft of this, I've reread this book and now have time to stop and think about the cons. And definitely, this couple is not equal in treatment in the book. Marissa is more interesting to me in her development than Butch. I also felt, as my friend Helga put it, that the romance just didn't shine. And, contrary to some people I know, I thought the first make-out scene in the hospital was a little yucky, especially the, euh, conclusion. (Rosario says: er, I think someone's talking about me...) For the most part, the other stories overshadowed B&M's romance for me. Even the Lessers were more interesting for me to read about this time around. I like the prophecy angle but not very much the treatment. It seemed this centuries old prophecy was understood a little too quickly. Still, jumping from one story to the next was distracting, especially where B&M are concerned. Havers was such a jerk in this book, I wanted to bitchslap him, several times. And yet I still like him. I'm sticking with my prediction that Xhex is the girl for him. He's also one of the few civilians we actually do see in their daily lives. I'm pretty sure JR Ward is going to move the focus more and more towards the rest of Vampyre society, and not just the Brotherhood. I can't wait. Even in this book, the Brothers seem to live outside of their society, and more so the females. I might want a Brother (or two or three) but I sure don't want to be his female if it means some Council can just lock me up at will. Like Ro said, I'm also pretty sure she will tone down V's sexual preferences. I thought Butch and V had great chemistry together but her fans are against homosexual Brothers and so that's not the nature of these two characters relationship. I feel like she's closed the chapter on the strangely sexual vibe between these two, and frankly I'm going to miss it. It was hot. Together, these guys were hot. And totally dug the BDSM, and that was a surprise to me, LOL! But the one WTF? moment I had was with Butch's sister. Ok, I get it we needed backstory AND confirmation but did we really need the sister so much? I was hoping he'd go visit her or the mom at dusk and the truth would come out or something. Or, as my friend Heidi said, I thought she was going to be killed. Instead she gets all these pages. Utterly superfluous, IMO. That said, LR whetted my appetite for V's book and Rehvenge's book. And John Matthew and Phury and Thor (where is that man, anyway?). I read it's an open-ended series now, and that sounds scary. I don't want to get bored with this series, even if LR was in a way less exciting than the previous titles. Read more... >> Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Butch and Marissa were never really the characters I was most intrigued by in this universe of J.R. Ward's, but I was still very anxious to read Lover Revealed (excerpt) I haven't even tried not to go into spoilers below, so if you haven't read this book, you'd be better off if you stopped reading now. Like I said in my review of the last one, if you want to know if these books would be for you, read reviews for the first one, Dark Lover. Here's mine: In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there's a deadly war raging between vampires and their slayers. And there exists a secret band of brothers like no other - six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Now, an ally of the Black Dagger Brotherhood will face the challenge of his life and the evil of the ages. Butch O'Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard living, ex-homicide cop, he's the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world- to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He's got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, an aristocratic beauty who's way out of his league. If he can't have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers... Fate curses him with the very thing he wants. When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead, found by a miracle, the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him... I keep wondering if Ward is going to be able to keep up the intensity, and so far, she does. Lover Revealed was just as absorbing as the previous books, and it left me just as desperate to get the new installment. A B+. I'm afraid LR left my mind spinning so fast that I can't really offer a coherent review. Here are some disjointed thoughts: Z's story had been more of a traditional romance than the first books, with the focus more on Z and Bella. Lover Revealed goes back to being a story about the whole universe Ward is creating. Yes, there is somewhat a focus on the romance and on Butch and Marissa as characters, and the romance is perfectly satisfying, but again, what's going on around them is so interesting that it sometimes risks overshadowing what's going on between them. I thought it was amazing, the way Ward managed to maintain the tension, even the sexual tension, between Butch and Marissa, when they acknowledge that they love each other practically at the beginning of the book. There are just so many issues there, what with Butch being so screwed up and having to deal with the Omega's little present, and Marissa still needing to come into her own, that the relationship never becomes boring in the slightest. Butch's feelings towards Marissa were at times a little too earnest and made me cringe, but mostly, I thought it was sweet that he was so incredibly silly and ga-ga about her. Marissa's final realization that brings her back to Butch for good was well done, I thought. It felt right. I hadn't thought of the fact that she was doing to him a similar thing to what Havers did to her, but it's true. And it made Havers' actions a bit more understandable. I still think he should be flogged for what he did to her, but at least I understand where he was coming from. Oh, and back to Marissa deciding to finally accept Butch, with his mission, and all: I liked that she had already made up her own mind before the other wives came to talk to her. They simply provided reafirmation, Marissa wasn't browbeaten into chaging her mind. I liked that, in certain ways, Ward did tackle the issue of the sexism of the vampires' world, with the threat of mandatory sehclusion being imposed on all unmated females and the lack of resources available for a female whose mate is violent. And I LOVED how Marissa stuck it to the glymera in this matter! Related to this, I was very surprised to see that of all the heroines so far, Marissa is the first to actually decide to do something outside the house. I think that's what many of us mean when we say that we'd prefer it if the females' lives weren't just about being in the Brotherhood's compound, waiting for their men. We're not necessarily asking for them to go hunt lessers with the Brothers (though I do like the idea of the female warrior who's coming up, Payne. I wonder when we'll be introduced to her?), but there's so much they can do, even if it's not that. Marissa perfectly demonstrates this. Also related to sexism in the books: Rhage can't feed from Mary, and though Mary would prefer that he could, she has been able to accept without much effort that he feed from one of the Chosen. But Butch just can't take that Marissa might feed from someone other than he, even before he finds out that there are possibilities that he might be able to feed her. I guess it might be a vampire / human thing; that is, that vampires attach a deeper meaning to the act of feeding, so Butch, with his vampire blood, instinctively reacts that way, while the still-human Mary doesn't, but when Butch needs to feed from Beth, Marissa doesn't really seem to mind all that much, and neither did Beth in Dark Lover. Butch's change into a vampire: I can't say I didn't suspect it would turn out to be something like this, but even though I didn't think this would be a good move for the story, I ended up liking where Ward went with it, especially because it wasn't a magical, effortless bit of deus ex machina. It was hard and difficult and dangerous, and given Butch's history, I understood why he'd be ready to risk everything going for it. I also liked that as desperate as he was to do it, he loved Marissa enough to be ready not to do it, if she asked him not to. LOL at Butch's new name. He's the Destroyer from the prophecy, so his new name is Dhestroyer. Let's throw in an "h", just for the hell of it! Otherwise he'll be embarrassed before the other brothers. Best name of them all, though: Hhurt. I was laughing out loud in that part, in spite of the seriousness of the context. I actually thought "oh, poor Hhurt! He's dead and here I'm making fun of his name!" Yep, as much as I love these books, and as much as I've (mostly) gotten used to the names, they are still silly as hell! This Hhurt actually dies in his change, and I enjoyed the new insight into what this process might be like, with Butch going through it, but also the young vampire, Blaylock, and John's preparations for it. Speaking of John, his storyline remains fascinating. I can't wait to see what develops of his 4 AM walks with Zsadist. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed the lesser subplot this time, and very much. The whole deal about why the prophecy was so important to Mr. X was intriguing, and what it turned out to be surprised me, and made perfect sense. I was also surprised by how touching and even tragic I found that final scene of Mr. X's. Does it speak badly of me that I would have prefered the guy, evil as he was, to get his wish? I wouldn't wish the Omega on anyone! Vishous' feelings for Butch. I don't think anyone can deny the homoerotic vibes now! Though I'm still left with many, many questions about the exact nature of Vishous' feelings. Some of the description was a bit oblique. Everything about Vishous left we with question after question, actually. The hints about his past were tantalizing, and the whole BDSM thing was something I expected, but didn't expect to be interested by. Will there be an element of this in his romance? Part of me hopes not, because BDSM is just not my cup of tea, but on the other hand, if there isn't, there's the risk of having a message there that V has been "cured of this perversion" by the love of a virtuous woman, or some such rot. Hmmm, we'll have to see. Who was the surgeon who ends up being Butch's father? My first thought was Vishous, given his comment about being a pretty good medic, and it would give a different interpretation to his feelings of Butch being "his". But the homoerotic vibe would become very disturbing, if this were so! Is it just me or was the slang a little less heavy this time? But this was compensated by the increase in brand-name dropping. Gah! The Scribe Virgin was less annoying this time, a lot less unreasonable. The scene with her and Butch when he was about to undergo his turning was very funny, and provided a much needed break in the tension. The idea of the other Brothers practically banging their heads against the wall at Butch's constant, involuntary questions made me smile. Xhex: will she turn out to be this almost mythical "Payne"? I hope so, that would be interesting! And a friend suggested a possible romance between her and Havers. Hey, that would be fun enough to watch if Xhex were just Xhex, but if she were part of the Brotherhood, even better. That should give the little bastard a couple of strokes! I broke my rule and read the excerpt for Vishous' story, Lover Unbound. Damn, damn, damn! Now I need the book NOW! >> Tuesday, March 13, 2007 Nope, The Vampire Viscount, by Karen Harbaugh isn't about a Trad Regency author getting on the vampire bandwagon. This is a 1995 book, from long before having paranormal elements became de rigueur. Being a vampire is okay--you get to stay up all night, women find you irresistable, you're strong, fast, and magic is yours for the taking. But Nicholas, Viscount St. Vire finds all of that means little in the face of impending insanity and the eventual deterioration of his senses. Only the the willing embrace of a virginal young woman can reverse his condition. Who better for his wife-to-be than the impoverished Leonore Farleigh, whose abusive father sells her to St. Vire to pay off gaming debts? Leonore agrees to marry him--how else is she going to save her sister and her mother from their poverty and pain? But she soon finds she's stepped into a marriage of inconvenience… and possible death. Disappointing, disappointing, disappointing. That seems to be the word of the week. TVV started out very well, but things first fizzled and then plunged down a cliff. A C. Nicholas, Viscount St. Vire is sick of being a vampire, so when in his studies he comes across a method to reverse his vampirism, he's willing to go to some lengths to pull it off. The spell requires a virgin's blood, freely given in the marriage bed on the summer solstice, so he needs to find himself a virgin bride willing to marry him fast. Nicholas doesn't have the time or inclination to do his courting the traditional way, so he simply researches possible candidates, and on his first night out, succeeds. The father of the most likely candidate is as inveterate a gambler as reported, and on his first try, Nicholas manages to make him lose more than he can afford. When Nicholas proposes that the man give him his daughter hand in marriage to cancel the debt, his offer is accepted. Leonore Farleigh is shocked when her father announces that he's practically sold her off, but when she meets Nicholas and sees he's not the old, depraved lecher she feared, she begins to see the positive side of the situation. Things at home aren't good (to say the least), and marrying this guy is a good way to escape. And things begin to look up even more when she spends some time with him and realizes that they might even manage to build a good marriage between them. But after a while, it becomes clear that Nicholas has some secrets he isn't telling her about... The first parts, with the proposal and marriage, and the first weeks of their marriage, were really, really, really good. For some strange reason, there's something about the won-in-a-card-game plot that intrigues me, and I liked the clear-headed way in which Leonore accepted the marriage, realizing it was her best way of escaping her father's control and quickly understanding that she and Nicholas could rub along quite well. I also enjoyed the sort of courting period they had, and how they started getting to know each other even before the wedding, getting a good start in building a good, solid marriage. After a while, however, the book did lose a bit of the momentum that had made me wonder, at first, if I might not have a keeper in my hands. I just wasn't getting the emotional depths I was hoping for, so when we were told these two were in love, I just didn't feel it. Plus, the whole thing about the virgin blood requirement and all that made me roll my eyes. Magic hymen to the max! But all right, I was liking the book well enough. But then, disaster. We needed external conflict, apparently, so we got an evil other (vampire) woman determined to wreak havoc. This didn't just completely change the tone of the story, it was also very boring. I especially disliked how monumentally stupid Nicholas' way of dealing with things was. The only thing his actions achieved was hurting and humiliating Leonore, and he should have known better. As I neared the end, it became harder and harder to resist the temptation to start skimming (and yeah, I did give in to the temptation for some stretches). Still, even if in the end, TVV wasn't a success, it was interesting to take a look at one of the precursors of one of today's trendiest trends. Main difference? No twists here; Nicholas is a very old-school vampire. I guess all the twists we get today are authors attempts (sometimes successful, sometimes not so much) to make their stories feel fresh. 12 years ago that just wasn't necessary. Having a vampire hero was twist enough on its own, I guess. Read more...

Ruby Passeys’ condition means she is extremely selective (Picture: Mikey Jones/Mercury) A mum claims her autistic daughter is starving because Tesco discontinued the only food she would eat for dinner. Nicola Passey’s daughter Ruby, 5, will not eat dinner unless she is served Tesco own-brand Potato Alphabet Crispy Letters. Mystery over where £50,000,000,000 of UK banknotes are Her condition means she is extremely selective and her mother says she would rather starve than eat anything else. The 31-year-old said the situation is so serious it is now ‘life or death’ as the family only have four bags of the frozen potato bites left. ‘She would rather starve than eat anything else,’ said Nicola, from Rugeley, Staffordshire. Her mum, Nicola, says the situation is now a matter of life or death (Picture: Mikey Jones/Mercury Press) ‘Her condition means that she doesn’t like change. It has to be the Tesco’s own brand potato alphabet shapes. ‘If they smell different, are different sizes, are a different colour, she just won’t eat them. She’ll always have them with either Birdseye chicken dippers or Bernard Matthews turkey dinosaurs. Lancashire 'to be placed under coronavirus curfew on Friday' ‘But if she doesn’t have the potato letters she won’t eat them either. She’s had the letters for years.’ Nicola first discovered that Tesco were discontinuing the frozen potato letters around three weeks ago after she tried to buy some online. Local stores informed her they also stopped stocking the product and she has since contacted the chain’s headquarters begging them to change their mind. Nicola has started a petition to reintroduce the frozen shapes to stores (Picture: Mikey Jones/Mercury) ‘She’s more anxious now and she’s started to make excuses to not eat already, saying things like she has tummy ache. She’s drinking less now too,’ she added. ‘People who don’t really understand autism might think that I’m being petty, but it really is that serious.’ Map shows coronavirus hotspots as North East is met with a curfew Nicola has gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for Tesco to bring their potato letters back for her daughter’s well-being. A Tesco spokesman said: ‘We constantly review the products that we sell, and always try to have the right range and products available for our customers. ‘Unfortunately this particular product is no longer available at Tesco but we will speak to the customer to find if there are other ways we can help.’ MORE: Virgin Trains staff announce 48-hour strike later this month MORE: Emirates expertly trolls United Airlines over doctor being dragged of flight

Jonathan Wolfe, Holmes’s attorney, confirmed the deal in a statement to PEOPLE magazine. “The case has been settled and the agreement has been signed. We are thrilled for Katie and her family and are excited to watch as she embarks on the next chapter of her life,” he says. Katie’s attorney adds, “We thank Tom’s counsel for their professionalism and diligence that helped bring about this speedy resolution.” No details surrounding the agreement have been leaked yet, but sources close to Tom and Katie say their biggest concern remains their daughter Suri. They’re reportedly working on an arrangement where Suri lives with Katie in New York and Tom will have visitation rights. Publicists for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes released a joint statement earlier today from the couple. The statement says, “We are committed to working together as parents to accomplishing what is in our daughter Suri’s best interests. We want to keep matters affecting our family private and express our respect for each other’s commitment to each of our respective beliefs and support each other’s roles as parents.” Weren’t we all expecting more fireworks? Such a speedy resolution is surely going to spark those “marriage contract” rumors. We’re looking forward to seeing more of Katie as she reignites her career. She has already taped a guest spot for Project Runway All Stars.

Q: Implement SOAP 1.2 service in asp.net core I'm trying to implement OCPP 1.5 under ASP.Net Core 2.2. The standard makes use of SOAP 1.2. The issue comes from poor interpretation of the MessageHeader attribute. Properties with MessageHeader should be in header, but they are not. Source code: https://github.com/delianenchev/OcppDemo I use SoapCore under ASP.Net Core. My initialization looks like this: var transportBinding = new HttpTransportBindingElement(); var textEncodingBinding = new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement(MessageVersion.Soap12WSAddressingAugust2004, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8); var customBinding = new CustomBinding(transportBinding, textEncodingBinding); app.UseSoapEndpoint<ISampleService>("/SOAP/service.wsdl", customBinding, SoapSerializer.DataContractSerializer); My demo model with the MessageHeader and MessageBodyMember attributes. [MessageContract] public class MessageModelRequest { [MessageHeader] public string Id { get; set; } [MessageBodyMember] public string Name { get; set; } [MessageBodyMember] public string Email { get; set; } } I test API with SoapUI. This is my API under ASP.NET core with SoapCore. <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:tem="http://tempuri.org/" xmlns:mod="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/Models"> <soap:Header/> <soap:Body> <tem:TestMessageModel> <!--Optional:--> <tem:inputModel> <!--Optional:--> <mod:Email>?</mod:Email> <!--Optional:--> <mod:Id>1</mod:Id> <!--Optional:--> <mod:Name>?</mod:Name> </tem:inputModel> </tem:TestMessageModel> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope> Correct API from WCF project for IIS. <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:tem="http://tempuri.org/"> <soapenv:Header> <tem:Id>34</tem:Id> </soapenv:Header> <soapenv:Body> <tem:MessageModelRequest> <!--Optional:--> <tem:Email>3</tem:Email> <!--Optional:--> <tem:Name>4</tem:Name> </tem:MessageModelRequest> </soapenv:Body> </soapenv:Envelope> A: Well, judging by the source code of SoapCore it seems to support message headers for reading the SOAP message as it uses MessageEncoder for that purpose which knows exactly how to read a SOAP message, but when it comes to serializing a response in your case it uses a native DataContractSerializer for writing the body that ignores any message contract attributes you have on your class and furthermore it doesn't have any part for writing header, just the message body. So I guess you need to implement the header support in response messages by yourself. First of all, add IgnoreMemberAttribute (or XmlIgnoreAttribute if you switch to SoapSerializer.XmlSerializer) on the properties you intend to add to your response message header so that data contract serializer doesn't add them to the body of the message. Finally, you will need to locate the properties decorated with MessageHeader attribute manually and add them to your header. Luckily SoapCore has multiple options for doing that as suggested here. As alternative if you plan to include the source of SoapCore in your solution, you could easily achieve the goal somewhere along these lines. It's easy to do so because at this place you have the full control of the message and the response you got from your service method. With the aid of reflection, you can easily find the properties of responseObject which need to be moved to the header and just forward them to responseMessage.Headers. I know it's a bit nasty, but well... this is the price of using SOAP in .NET Core.

Q: Examining Binary File for Information using Bit Masks I have been given the following programming task (edited to obscure mission-specifics): The raw (binary) file (needed for Phase II implementation) can be interrogated to detect if pods are present. Format is dependent on the source of the file – FormatX vs. FormatY. Using a wordsize of 16 bits, the following bit masks can be used to determine presence of pods from the file: Word # Mask Value Indicates 1 0xFF00 0x8700 Little Endian (Format X) 1 0x00FF 0x0087 Big Endian (Format Y) 13 0x0200 0x0200 right pod installed (Format X) 13 0x0002 0x0002 right pod installed (Format Y) 13 0x0100 0x0100 left pod installed (Format X) 13 0x0001 0x0001 left pod installed (Format Y) How I have approached this problem so far: I have the file on my local file system, so I use System.IO.File.OpenRead to get it into a Stream object. I want to read through the stream 16 bits/2 bytes at a time. For the first "word" of this size, I try applying bitmasks to detect what format I am dealing with. Then I skip forward to the 13th "word" and based on that format, detect right/left pods. Here's some preliminary code I have written that is not working. I know the file I am reading should be Format Y but my check is not working. int chunksRead = 0; int readByte; while ((readByte = stream.ReadByte()) >= 0) { chunksRead++; if (chunksRead == 1) { // Get format bool isFormatY = (readByte & 0x00FF) == 0x0087; } else if (chunksRead == 13) { // Check pods } else if (chunksRead > 13) { break; } } Can anyone see what's wrong with my implementation? How should I account for the 2 byte wordsize? Edit based on response from @Daniel Hilgarth Thanks for the quick reply, Daniel. I made a change and it's working for the first word, now: byte[] rawBytes = new byte[stream.Length]; stream.Read(rawBytes, 0, rawBytes.Length); ushort formatWord = Convert.ToUInt16(rawBytes[0] << 8 | rawBytes[1]); bool formatCheck = (formatWord & 0x00FF) == 0x0087; I just need to find an example file that should return a positive result for right/left pod installed to complete this task. A: You are mixing bytes and words. The word at position 13 is about whether the left or the right pod is installed. You are reading 12 bytes to get to that position and you are checking the 13th byte. That is only half way. The same problem is with your format check. You should read the first word (=2 bytes) and check whether it is one of the desired values. To get a word from two bytes you read, you could use the bit shift operator <<: ushort yourWord = firstByte << 8 | secondByte;

Old Documents Following is a list of documents originally on www.invisiblenet.net/i2p/ and rescued via the Wayback Machine. They are quite dated and may or may not be accurate. However, the I2CP and I2NP documents in particular have some good information.

Q: how generate chart from Views Aggretation Plus I created a table from webform submission data (group and compress) using Views Aggregator Plus I would like to generate a pie chart from this table (industry as the label and turnover as the values). Any hints to generate the pie chart would be appreciated. A: Now I can do that, (a) Exclude the Company field (b) In the VAP setting, disable the summary sum in the footer (b) Then use highcharttable module to create the pie chart.

#!/bin/bash # Script for running all tests in this directory # This script has to be run in its directory, as shows the usage. # main ------------------------------------------------------------------------ if test "$#" -ne 0; then echo "Usage: ./test_all.sh" exit 1 fi mkdir -p log TIMESTAMP=`date +'%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S'` LOGFILE=log/$TIMESTAMP-test_all.sh GITVERSION=`git version` if [[ "$GITVERSION" ]]; then echo 'Git is available in the working directory:' >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 echo ' Merlin version: ' "`git describe --tags --always`" >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 echo ' branch: ' "`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`" >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 echo ' status: ' >> ${LOGFILE}.gitstatus 2>&1 git status >> ${LOGFILE}.gitstatus 2>&1 echo ' diff to Merlin version: ' >> ${LOGFILE}.gitdiff 2>&1 git diff >> ${LOGFILE}.gitdiff 2>&1 echo ' ' fi bash ./test_install.sh >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 source ../src/setup_env.sh python ./test_classes.py >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 bash ./test_training.sh >> $LOGFILE 2>&1

Well folks, I did purchase the 12.9 inch model. I use it as an e-reader, but simply cannot figure out what else it can do (besides e-mail and basic surfing). There must be a more productive use for this devise. Any input would be great. I did get MS Office (subscription), but do not use it because I do not know where any of the documents are stored or how to retrieve them. The good folks at the Apple store also do not know.

<?xml version="1.0"?> <ZopeData> <record id="1" aka="AAAAAAAAAAE="> <pickle> <global name="ProxyField" module="Products.ERP5Form.ProxyField"/> </pickle> <pickle> <dictionary> <item> <key> <string>id</string> </key> <value> <string>my_description</string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>message_values</string> </key> <value> <dictionary> <item> <key> <string>external_validator_failed</string> </key> <value> <string>The input failed the external validator.</string> </value> </item> </dictionary> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>overrides</string> </key> <value> <dictionary> <item> <key> <string>extra_context</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>field_id</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>form_id</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> </dictionary> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>tales</string> </key> <value> <dictionary> <item> <key> <string>extra_context</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>field_id</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>form_id</string> </key> <value> <string></string> </value> </item> </dictionary> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>values</string> </key> <value> <dictionary> <item> <key> <string>extra_context</string> </key> <value> <list/> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>field_id</string> </key> <value> <string>my_description</string> </value> </item> <item> <key> <string>form_id</string> </key> <value> <string>BaseConsulting_FieldLibrary</string> </value> </item> </dictionary> </value> </item> </dictionary> </pickle> </record> </ZopeData>

Caffeic acid-assisted cross-linking catalyzed by polyphenol oxidase decreases the allergenicity of ovalbumin in a Balb/c mouse model. Ovalbumin (OVA) is the most abundant egg white protein, but is also a major egg allergen. Desensitization of OVA may be a good way to control an egg allergy. In this study, caffeic acid-assisted cross-linked OVA catalyzed by polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was prepared, the effect of cross-linking on the allergenicity of OVA was tested in a Balb/c mouse model. Mice were orally sensitized with OVA or cross-linked OVA using cholera toxin as adjuvant. Clinical signs of allergy, specific antibody levels, serum histamine levels, mast cell protease-1 (mMCP-1) concentrations, morphological structure of duodenum, and cytokines were determined after mice were challenged with OVA or cross-linked OVA. Both OVA and cross-linked OVA induced allergic diarrhea in Balb/c mice, however, histological symptoms of small intestine were much milder in mice fed with cross-linked OVA than in those fed with OVA. A tendency toward decreased allergen-specific IgE, IgG, IgG1 and IgG2a levels, as well as serum histamine and mMCP-1 concentration were observed in cross-linked OVA group, accompanied by an inhibition of IL-4, IL-5, IL-13 and IFN-γ production in the stimulated spleen cell. It could be concluded that caffeic acid-assisted PPO-catalyzed cross-linking significantly reduced the potential allergenicity of OVA, but may not completely eliminate it.

Permafrost temperature has increased by 1°C to 2°C in the Russian north during the last 3 decades ([@CIT0001]). Northern Alaska and northern Canada also have warmed to a comparably high level during the same period ([@CIT0002]). Recent observations indicate that this warming is highly coupled with a shortened winter season and the degradation of the ice-rich permafrost ([@CIT0003]--[@CIT0005]). In the Arctic, these impacts are profoundly affecting communities because even relatively small landscape changes due to warming have been shown to impact the fragile tundra socio-ecological systems out of scale with their spatial extent ([@CIT0005],[@CIT0006]). Most terrestrial and aquatic components of the Russian tundra are seasonally exploited by the indigenous nomadic reindeer herders, hunters, and fishers ([@CIT0005]). Because of the high level of interdependence between the human and environmental conditions and poor access to health services in the Russian far north, rapid shifts in hydrologic cycles in the tundra are expected to have far-reaching consequences on health and the social fabric of the local indigenous communities ([@CIT0007]). Across the Russian north, non-emergency medical care is provided through a sparse network of small, village-based health clinics. Nomadic Nenets use the traditional reindeer sled, walking, and increasingly, the snowmobile, as their means of transportation across vast distances. They migrate several hundred kilometers with large reindeer herds in the spring and autumn. The migration paths connect the summer pastures on the nutrient-rich grassy tundra zone along the Arctic coast and the winter pastures within the forest-tundra zone. During these migrations, the nomadic reindeer herders pass through the same villages that are located on the long-established annual migration routes. Non-emergency visits to the health clinic typically take place during these transmigrations, when the herder families receive maternal, preventative, and primary care. It is reasonable to assume that the appearance of new lakes, marshland, and streams as well as a rapid change in the size of the existing water bodies is likely to pose new geographic barriers that may reduce or preclude the herders' access to the already sparse, remote, and often difficult to reach preventive and health care services. According to 1 study of Nenets herders, the main effects of the recent warming are increases in open water in the tundra and frequent, unusually warm, autumns ([@CIT0008]). These events create transportation conditions that are difficult and unpredictable ([@CIT0005]). In the summer months, when the herders are in the coastal tundra, they are the furthest from medical help. The appearance of a new stream in the previously dry valley from 1 year to another can block the most direct route to the village and its clinic and make travel there exceedingly difficult. In some cases, this could add several days of travel on new and unfamiliar terrain to an already long journey to reach medical care. Fall-through-ice events may occur along these new routes and may present additional health hazards. However, the data on these incidents was not available at the time this article was being written. Traditionally, autumn transmigration began with the arrival of stable sub-freezing temperatures, which establish firm ice on the fresh water bodies allowing the herders and thousands of reindeer to cross the rivers and lakes. The recent rapid warming created delayed formation of stable ice and concomitant setbacks for herders in leaving remote coastal pastures and in accessing health clinics. It also may extend the herders' stay in the grassy tundra pastures on the Arctic coast, often hundreds of kilometers from the closest settlement. In the Arctic, where geographic access to kin and communities of other herders are critical for survival, ability to reach other herders, scattered across dozens of camps on the vast tundra, is also affected by the nascent hydrological and environmental changes. For example, when footpaths that once linked age-old camps of different families become inundated the herders cannot access other camps by foot or sled. Other problems related to the recent hydrologic changes reported by Nenets herders include loss of the valuable reindeer grazing and calving habitats to newly appeared lakes and marshland, loss of the long-established campsites and traditional migratory routes, and loss of the sacred religious sites and burial grounds to inundation ([@CIT0009]). Reported problems securing food include impeded access to wild berries and mushrooms and to hunting and fishing areas; these problems may affect the nutritional status of the herders ([@CIT0008]). Securing food is critical for nomadic Nenets because reduced access to traditional food forces a greater reliance on non-traditional food that is only available in the distant villages, which in turn become less geographically accessible due to the changing, wetter landscape ([@CIT0010]). Nomadic Nenets and reindeer husbandry in the Russian Arctic {#S0002} =========================================================== Nenets are indigenous Arctic people living predominantly along the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia, and many still practice reindeer herding and the nomadic way of life. The nomadic Nenets and their predecessors began hunting and harnessing reindeer during migrations between 500 and 1100 AD ([@CIT0011]); herding became progressively more intensive after 1600 AD ([@CIT0012]). Nenets retain a unique culture, which strongly emphasizes their ties to the reindeer, the tundra, and to the nomadism, with stewardship of the tundra ecosystem playing a key role. In the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), families engaged in full-time reindeer herding annually migrate up to 1,200 km with their herds between the grassy summer pastures on the coast and the winter pastures in the forest tundra south of the NAO and in the Arkhangelsk Oblast ([@CIT0008]). The NAO ([Fig. 1](#F0001){ref-type="fig"}) is home to the second largest Nenets populations in the world ([@CIT0013]). In 2008, the NAO (176,700 km^2^) was home to 5,623 Nenets, who constituted 13.5% of the total population of the Okrug ([@CIT0008]). {#F0001} Reindeer (*Rangifer tarandus* L.) are important nutritionally, economically, and socio-culturally within the tundra socioecological system (SES). Reindeer husbandry is the key traditional occupation and a way of life for Nenets in the NAO where the *Rangifer tarandus* population is the second largest in Russia ([@CIT0009]). There were 157,000 domesticated reindeer in the NAO in 2007, and Kanin Peninsula in the far northwestern NAO had the largest reindeer population in the Okrug ([@CIT0008]), providing the main source of protein to the herder familes, as well as skins and income from sales of surplus deer meat. The total territory of reindeer pastures is 132,000 km^2^, or 75% of NAO land area ([@CIT0008],[@CIT0009]). There are some 20 indigenous reindeer herder groups and the number of individuals employed in reindeer husbandry recently grew from 818 (2003) to 1,100 (2007). Approximately, two-thirds of the NAO\'s herders still lead nomadic lives. Reindeer husbandry on Kanin Peninsula {#S0003} ===================================== Our study site is Kanin Peninsula (14,673 km^2^), located in the extreme northwestern NAO---surrounded by the White Sea to the west and the Barents Sea to the north and east. Kanin is relatively flat, undulating, low-laying grassy tundra, punctuated by many small lakes and vast expenses of marshland, rivers, and streams that are deeply cut into the surface and not crossable during the summer months. The southern part of the peninsula is called Kanin Neck. This area is especially narrow and is composed of low-lying lakes and marshland, and thus is largely impassable in the summer. During transmigrations, when herders travel with thousands of reindeer and loaded sleds, they can only cross in and out of Kanin Peninsula when the open water on Kanin Neck is frozen, which creates an objective measure of the warming\'s effect on the timing of transmigration and on arrivals to the clinic. Unlike some of the other parts of the NAO, Kanin has not been affected by the recent hydrocarbon development boom in the region and the local population remains very small, with 5 villages and the only full-time health clinic and hospital in Nes (2007 pop., 1,256). During the Soviet era, the herders were organized into Obshini (communities) with non-overlapping calving and grazing territories for their herds, and this structure is still largely in place. On Kanin Peninsula, there are 2 herder communities, Kanin Obshina (370 members) and Yamb-To Obshina (230 members) each comprising of smaller, kin-based herder groups ([@CIT0008],[@CIT0009]). The Kanin Obshina community\'s territory is along the White Sea coast of the peninsula and the Yamb-To territory is on the eastern side of the peninsula along the Barents Sea. During the spring and fall migrations, Kanin Obshina herders pass through the village of Nes where the health clinic is located, while the Yamb-To Obshina pass through the village of Vizas. The location of Nes, on the traditional migration paths of the Kanin Obshina just south of Kanin Neck, makes it an important hub for herders---where they stop to resupply and to seek health care during spring and autumn migrations ([Fig. 1](#F0001){ref-type="fig"}). The local health care providers and the tundra residents have reported that temperature change and shorter, warmer winters have led to the expansion of the bodies of water, which causes hitherto unseen changes in the landscape and delays migration along the traditional routes travelled by generations of reindeer herders during the annual migrations ([@CIT0008]). Since 1979, dates have been recorded for the herders' fall arrival at the Nes clinic during their transmigration south and for some of the spring arrivals during their transmigration north. These dates provide useful information on the chorology of the change in tundra conditions with respect to health care access. The purpose of this research is to quantify the effects of temperature anomalies and of increases in open water on transmigration and health care access by Nenets reindeer herders in northern Russia. Materials and methods {#S0004} ===================== We hypothesized that a pronounced increase in temperature will have an impact on access to health care in the Arctic due to its effect on transportation and on other aspects of nomadic herder livelihoods. The raising temperatures are most likely to affect access due to new barriers to transmigration and to visits to the Nes health clinic, namely because of a shorter winter season and more open water. We employed clinical records on dates of arrivals in Nes for the reindeer herders during the fall migrations from 1979--2011 ([Fig. 2](#F0002){ref-type="fig"}); these were collected by one of the authors (L. Zubov). We also used a water bodies mask derived from daily surface reflectance images produced by moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) from 2004--2011 in order to calculate the total territory of the open water in the tundra. {#F0002} We used the mean of the temperature anomalies ([@CIT0014]) for the 4 autumn migration months for quantitative analysis of the relationship of interannual autumn temperature anomalies trends and autumn arrivals to the Nes clinic. Remotely sensed water bodies data {#S0004-S20001} --------------------------------- The main challenge in identifying water surfaces from remotely sensed data is the high variability of their spectral signatures. The spectral property of water is determined by the electromagnetic interaction of light with the constituent components of water via absorption or scattering processes either within the water column, at the water surface, or on the bottom of the body of water ([@CIT0015]). Consequently, the water-leaving radiance detected by the sensor shows great spatial and temporal variability, which makes its reliable discrimination particularly difficult ([@CIT0016]). In the framework of this study, we used a methodology proposed by Pekel et al. in 2012 to detect open water surfaces in near real time. The method is based on a colorimetric approach. The rationale we employed is that the perceived color in a color composition is directly determined by the shape of the spectral signature of the signal\'s target. Our novel approach permitted us to associate both land and water surfaces with unique colors. We identified a set of thresholds to detect the open water surfaces on a 10-day basis at a resolution of 250 meters. Some false water surface detections were manifested by a low temporal frequency. These false detections resulted from the remaining perturbations after atmospheric correction and cloud removal. Indeed, over our area of interest, the MODIS standard flags were not masking all the contaminated values; these were then included in the compositing process and induced reflectance instability and consequently some false detection. In order to discard these false detections from our analysis, we considered only the water surfaces showing an occurrence (i.e. number of water detections divided by the number of available observations) above 35% on an annual basis. Indeed, because the false detections occurred randomly, both spatially and temporally with a low temporal frequency, the lower occurrence concentrated the false detections. One drawback of this approach is that temporary water surfaces also characterized by low annual occurrence were discarded. Obviously, it decreased artificially the number of water surfaces considered in our study but because the same criterion were applied for each year, and because we used these detections in a relative way, it did not significantly impact our results. For this research, the new water body mask products were created for the period 2004 to 2009 and were mapped. An operational open water detection product from 2001 to the present will be made available in the near future. {#F0003} Temperature anomaly data {#S0004-S20002} ------------------------ To assess changes in temperature trends, we used monthly anomalies in air temperature data at 1.0 degree spatial resolution from the Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (CAMS) monthly gridded and station data produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\'s Climate Prediction Center ([@CIT0016]), shown in [Fig. 3](#F0003){ref-type="fig"}. In the world of climate studies, the term "anomaly" means the difference between the value of a quantity and its climatological mean value. A "monthly anomaly" is the difference between the original monthly value of a quantity in a given month and the monthly climatological value for that month of the year. The monthly temperature anomaly equation is written as$${r^{\prime}}_{ij} = r_{ij} - \frac{1}{N_{i}}\sum\limits_{j = 1}^{N}r_{ij}$$ Here, for months *i* and years *j*, *r′* ~*ij*~ is the monthly temperature anomaly, *r* ~*ij*~ is the original monthly value, and the remainder of the equation is the calculation of the monthly temperature (which is subtracted from the original monthly values). For CAMS, the long-term average is computed from 1950 to the present. For the Kanin area, we computed a monthly temperature anomaly average over a territory that covers the entire study area. The data were extracted from the CAMS data set using the Ingrid code. The CAMS data set is located at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (IRI/LDEO) Climate Data Library at Columbia University and available at: <http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu> ([Fig. 4](#F0004){ref-type="fig"}). {#F0004} Data analyses and statistical methods {#S0004-S20003} ------------------------------------- To assess changes over time in herd movement, a Spearman correlation between calendar year (1979--2011) and week of arrival at Nes village was computed, along with a 95% confidence interval; parametric analysis was not attempted due to sparsity of data. To assess change over time in autumn migration season (September--December) temperature for the years 1950--2011, a local regression or LOESS plot was generated that strongly suggested a relationship between calendar year and mean temperature as having two linear components: one relevant to the years 1950--1991, the other to the post-1991 period ([Fig. 4](#F0004){ref-type="fig"}). LOESS is a strategy for fitting smooth curves to empirical bivariate data for visualization and further time series analysis. The LOESS statistical procedure is a fairly direct generalization of traditional least-squares methods for data analysis. A mixed linear model was therefore constructed, with mean temperature for September--December as the dependent variable, calendar year as the predictor, modeled as a continuous piecewise linear relationship with a slope cut point at 1991 (in other words, as a linear spline with a single predetermined knot). First order autoregressive moving-average (ARMA (1,1)) structure was used to model autocorellation. Model residuals suggested 1974 to be an outlier year; results presented here exclude data for that year. ArcGIS 10 (ESRI, Redlands, California) software was used for mapping and SAS Release 9.2 (SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina) software was used for statistical analysis. Results {#S0005} ======= [Figure 4](#F0004){ref-type="fig"} displays the CAMS temperature anomalies data for Kanin for the years 1950--2012 and the LOESS plot of the autumnal anomalies for the same period. Temperature anomalies data show the recent increase in positive anomalies throughout the year. The LOESS plot strongly suggests an increase in more recent mean autumnal temperature anomalies (September--December) after 1991 as having 2 linear components: one relevant to the years 1950--1991, the other to the post-1991 period, when the temperature began to raise sharply. Correlation of the field-collected data on the herders' fall arrival at Nes and the calendar year for the last 32 years produced r = 0.64, p-value of \<0.001, and 95% CI (0.31; 0.82). Regression analysis estimated that mean temperature anomalies during the fall migration in September--December were stochastically stationary pre-1991 (−0.0157 Cdeg/year, SE = 0.0140, 95% CI \[−0.0437, +0.0122\], p = 0.265) but have risen significantly (p \< 0.001) since then. The rate of change is estimated at 0.7 to 2.0 Cdeg/decade +0.1351 Cdeg/year, SE = 0.0328, 95% CI (+0.0694, +0.2007); test of slope change at 1991: p = 0.001. The amount of detected open water area and the number of water bodies per year (2004--2009) have fluctuated significantly within the study area on Kanin Peninsula---from approximately 600 km^2^ to more than 800 km^2^. This illustrates the current instability of the total water area within the migration range of the herders. Specifically, in some years (e.g. 2004), a rapid increase in open water area is followed by a sharp drop the next year, indicating rapid draining of many water bodies. More research is needed to better understand these novel biophysical processes and their future implications on the well-being of Arctic social and ecological systems. Visual inspection of the overlays of the annual water masks with the transmigration routes in a geographic information system or GIS revealed that many newly detected water bodies lay directly on the routes. We examined one such area on Kanin Neck (shown in [Fig. 5](#F0005){ref-type="fig"}), where large interannual changes in open water were detected by our method, and noted that there---and in many low areas on Kanin---even a modest increase in open water area caused several lakes to merge into single large bodies of water, thereby creating impassible barriers to ground transportation. In [Fig. 5](#F0005){ref-type="fig"}, Lake A has increased from 4.94 km^2^ in 2005 to 15.35 km^2^ in 2006 because the new water areas that appeared in the spring of 2006 (depicted by the red pixels) appear to have connected the previously small Lake A to the larger lake system. {#F0005} Discussion {#S0006} ========== Temperature anomalies on Kanin have increased by approximately 1.4°C per decade since 1991. During the same period, there has been a marked trend of delays in herders' arrivals to the Nes clinic. These changes are likely due to the lengthening of overall migration routes in order to avoid open water as well as to the necessity of waiting until later in the fall or early winter in order for the swampland and open water to freeze making the crossing possible for both humans and reindeer. Over the last 3 decades, unusually warm autumns have progressively delayed the herders' crossing of Kanin Neck on their way to winter pastures; their arrival at the Nes clinic has shifted from October to December ([@CIT0008]) ([Fig. 2](#F0002){ref-type="fig"}). Concomitantly, until approximately 10 years ago, herders migrated later from winter pastures near the inland villages to Kanin Peninsula and arrived in Nes on April 6--10. In recent years, these spring arrivals to the clinic shifted to March 24--28 in order to avoid earlier thaws on the herders' journey to points north ([@CIT0008]). It appears that, in order to reach the summer calving areas before ice on Kanin Neck melts and renders the summer pastures unreachable, the herders shortened winter stays near the villages and stayed longer in Kanin, where they have virtually no access to non-emergency health care. The study\'s findings corroborate our hypothesis that a relationship exists between the recently observed warming trend and the delays in the herders' arrival at the Nes clinic. Formation of new lakes and streams, expansion of the existing water bodies, and a shorter winter (when these bodies of water are crossable over ice) all present formidable barriers to travel by foot, sled, and snowmobile. Spatial and temporal overlap of these environmental changes and their combined effect on transmigration may be responsible for the recent difficulties experienced by the herders in accessing primary and preventive care. There are several practical reasons for this. The current increase and rapid fluctuation in the size and number of water bodies renders ground travel unpredictable because the herders and their herds must travel around the new water bodies and thus traverse greater distances in order to reach the clinic. For example, in 2006, in order to travel across the area shown in [Fig. 5](#F0005){ref-type="fig"}, the herders had to either wait until stable ice was formed over the lakes or deviate from their familiar historic routes and travel with large herds around the perimeter of the entire new water body (circled). Such deviations into unfamiliar terrain would increase total travel distance and might also increase the likelihood of injuries to humans and animals. The changes in the tundra hydrology reported here and their affect on livelihoods and access have been corroborated by the reindeer herders and local health care providers. Yet, if the current warming trend continues, it is not clear how these changes will affect the Nenets communities, such as Kanin Obshina, and other circumpolar peoples in the future. For example, do temperature anomalies and open water increase in a linear fashion or will they follow a different spatial pattern? More research is required to better understand the complex interrelationships between surface temperature increase, permafrost dynamics, shortened winter period, and increases in open water. Further development of scientifically sound methods for monitoring these changes at the community scale, as well as translating the data to be used by the community stakeholders and public health authorities, are critical steps in developing adaptation strategies in order to increase community resilience, advance healthcare delivery, and improve well-being in the changing circumpolar north. Conclusions {#S0007} =========== In this study, we used a novel approach to measure the relationship between temperature anomalies and access to a health care clinic by an indigenous population by combining clinician observations (arrival dates at the Nes clinic), CAM temperature anomalies, and MODIS-derived detection of open water. Until very recently, our ability to measure hydrologic change due to warming and to study its effects on to the health of Arctic peoples was severely limited by the dearth of high quality spatial and temporal data suitable for time-series analysis. Our novel use of clinic visit data, temperature records, and remotely sensed imagery permitted us to report on the recent interannual temporal shift in the herder families' visits to the Nes health care clinic. It also demonstrated a relationship between the annual temperature increase, changes in surface water along the herder migration routes, and the capacity of the herders to sustain the levels of mobility needed for accessing viable pasture grounds for the reindeer while attending to their own health care needs. We further argue that this temporal shift is related to the warming temperatures on Kanin. However, similar direction of hydrologic changes has been reported in other regions of the circumpolar north that also have warmed to a comparably high level during the same period ([@CIT0002],[@CIT0017]) and have negatively affected access to health care across the Arctic. In conclusion, this investigation demonstrated the feasibility of future studies that rely on the participation and the local knowledge of the indigenous community and of local medical practitioners and on remotely sensed data. Given that researchers and local residents are observing similar changes in other parts of the circumpolar north, the approach demonstrated here is highly promising if applied to other Arctic contexts (for example, in connection with the coastal erosion and thermokarst processes and their implications for subsistence-based livelihoods and assess to health care). Disparities in access to health care have been shown to negatively affect health outcomes elsewhere ([@CIT0017]--[@CIT0020]), and we suggest that new health care delivery models, responsive to the new reality of rapid Arctic environmental change, are necessary to improve the health of indigenous circumpolar peoples. One research direction with a potential to improve access to health care and to reduce the risk of injuries is to provide near-real-time new water detection maps directly to the subsistence-based circumpolar communities via an Internet portal. This approach may prove effective in visualizing environmental change and in planning future health services provision in the rapidly changing Arctic environment. We would like to thank the Nenets community on Kanin and the local health practitioners that serve it. Without their generous help, this study would not be possible. Conflict of interest and funding {#S0008} ================================ Part of this research was funded by a grant/cooperative agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NA10OAR4310210. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its sub-agencies. This study was approved by the institutional review board of the State University of New York Downstate.

CFP: International Philosophy Colloquium on Disagreement We invite proposals (maximum length: one page) for presentations, along with a short CV (maximum length: two pages), by March 31, 2013. Please send these documents via e-mail to:evian@philosophie.fu-berlin.de Is there disagreement? That is, do we really disagree? From the standpoint of everyday life, the answer seems to be clear. Disagreements among us are legion: about scientific, political, and social questions, about questions of right conduct and religion, about questions concerning subjective preferences and aesthetic taste. From the standpoint of rationality, however, it is not so clear how these disagreements should be assessed. Shouldn’t the forceless force of the better argument carry the day in almost all cases of disagreement? Isn’t it possible in principle to determine which view is the better one among rival views? Aren’t disagreements better seen, therefore, as intermediate stages on the way toward a more comprehensive agreement – at least among all those who conduct themselves rationally? If not, can a disagreement itself be rational, even when two interlocutors share the same epistemic presuppositions and the same relevant information? Is “reasonable disagreement” an enduring feature of our practices and reaches deeper than we generally assume? What is the theoretical and practical relevance of persistent disagreement? Does the latter lead to the acceptance of relativism, skepticism, or pluralism? A detailed exposition of the topic and all relevant information concerning the character and history of the colloquium as well as matters of accommodation and costs can be found on our website: