TARIFFICATION UNDER THE URUGUAY ROUND OF GATT: THE CASE OF SWISS ASPARAGUS TRADE

International Relations/Trade,

EUROPEAN PACKAGING AND RECYCLING REGULATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD MARKETING AND TRADE

International Relations/Trade,

Differing U.S. and European Perspectives on GMOs: Political, Economic and Cultural Issues

This paper provides an overview of the historical and cultural factors that have contributed to divergent U.S. and European views on GMOs, and to resulting different national regulatory approaches for these products, specifically labelling policy. Within the context of the international trading system, these national policy choices will have impacts that will spill over national borders. Dialogue may be difficult to achieve, given widely divergent views concerning GMOs; however, without dialogue potential global social benefits of policy harmonization will be forfeited.biotechnology, culture, harmonization, labelling, trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Succinct Representations for Abstract Interpretation

Abstract interpretation techniques can be made more precise by distinguishing paths inside loops, at the expense of possibly exponential complexity. SMT-solving techniques and sparse representations of paths and sets of paths avoid this pitfall. We improve previously proposed techniques for guided static analysis and the generation of disjunctive invariants by combining them with techniques for succinct representations of paths and symbolic representations for transitions based on static single assignment. Because of the non-monotonicity of the results of abstract interpretation with widening operators, it is difficult to conclude that some abstraction is more precise than another based on theoretical local precision results. We thus conducted extensive comparisons between our new techniques and previous ones, on a variety of open-source packages.Comment: Static analysis symposium (SAS), Deauville : France (2012

AID Overlapping and Polη Hotspots Are Key Features of Evolutionary Variation Within the Human Antibody Heavy Chain (IGHV) Genes

© Copyright © 2020 Tang, Bagnara, Chiorazzi, Scharff and MacCarthy. Somatic hypermutation (SHM) of the immunoglobulin variable (IgV) loci is a key process in antibody affinity maturation. The enzyme activation-induced deaminase (AID), initiates SHM by creating C → U mismatches on single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). AID has preferential hotspot motif targets in the context of WRC/GYW (W = A/T, R = A/G, Y = C/T) and particularly at WGCW overlapping hotspots where hotspots appear opposite each other on both strands. Subsequent recruitment of the low-fidelity DNA repair enzyme, Polymerase eta (Polη), during mismatch repair, creates additional mutations at WA/TW sites. Although there are more than 50 functional immunoglobulin heavy chain variable (IGHV) segments in humans, the fundamental differences between these genes and their ability to respond to all possible foreign antigens is still poorly understood. To better understand this, we generated profiles of WGCW hotspots in each of the human IGHV genes and found the expected high frequency in complementarity determining regions (CDRs) that encode the antigen binding sites but also an unexpectedly high frequency of WGCW in certain framework (FW) sub-regions. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) of these overlapping AID hotspot profiles revealed that one major difference between IGHV families is the presence or absence of WGCW in a sub-region of FW3 sometimes referred to as “CDR4.” Further differences between members of each family (e.g., IGHV1) are primarily determined by their WGCW densities in CDR1. We previously suggested that the co-localization of AID overlapping and Polη hotspots was associated with high mutability of certain IGHV sub-regions, such as the CDRs. To evaluate the importance of this feature, we extended the WGCW profiles, combining them with local densities of Polη (WA) hotspots, thus describing the co-localization of both types of hotspots across all IGHV genes. We also verified that co-localization is associated with higher mutability. PCA of the co-localization profiles showed CDR1 and CDR2 as being the main contributors to variance among IGHV genes, consistent with the importance of these sub-regions in antigen binding. Our results suggest that AID overlapping (WGCW) hotspots alone or in conjunction with Polη (WA/TW) hotspots are key features of evolutionary variation between IGHV genes

Ureteroscopic lithotripsy for ureteral stones in children using holmium: yag laser energy: results of a multicentric survey

BACKGROUND: Holmium:YAG (Ho:YAG) laser lithotripsy has broadened the indications for ureteroscopic stone managements in adults, but few evidence are currently available in the pediatric population. OBJECTIVE: This article aimed to assess the outcome of Ho:YAG laser lithotripsy during retrograde ureteroscopic management of ureteral stones in different locations in children. STUDY DESIGN: The medical records of 149 patients (71 boys and 78 girls; median age 9.2 years) treated with Ho:YAG laser ureteroscopic lithotripsy in five international pediatric urology units over the last 5 years were retrospectively reviewed. Exclusion criteria included patients with renal calculi and/or with a history of ipsilateral stricture, renal failure, active urinary tract infection, or coagulation disorder. RESULTS: Stones were treated with dusting technique in all cases. The median stone size was 10.3 mm (range 5-17). Stones were located in the distal ureter in 77 cases (51.7%), in the middle ureter in 23 cases (15.4%), and in the proximal ureter in 49 cases (32.9%). The median operative time was 29.8 min (range 20-95). Intra-operative complications included five bleedings (3.3%) and seven stone retropulsions (4.7%). Overall stone-free rate was 97.3%. Overall postoperative complications rate was 4.0% and included two cases of stent migration (1.3%) (Clavien II) and four residual stone fragments (2.7%) that were successfully treated using the same technique (Clavien IIIb). On multivariate analysis, re-operation rate was significantly dependent on the proximal stone location and presence of residual fragments >2 mm (P = 0.001). DISCUSSION: This study is one of the largest pediatric series among those published until now. The study series reported a shorter operative time, a higher success rate, and a lower postoperative complications rate compared with previous series. A limitation of this study is that stone-free rates may be somewhat inaccurate using ultrasonography and plain X-ray compared with computed tomography (CT); the study's 97.3% success rate may be overestimated because no CT scan was done postoperatively to check the stone-free rate. Other limitations of this article include its retrospective nature, the multi-institutional participation, and the heterogeneous patient collective. CONCLUSION: The Ho:YAG laser ureteroscopic lithotripsy seems to be an excellent first-line treatment for children with ureteral stones, independently from primary location and size. However, patients with proximal ureteral stones and residual fragments >2 mm reported a higher risk to require a secondary procedure to become stone-free. Combination of techniques as well as appropriate endourologic tools are key points for the success of the procedure regardless of stones' size and location

LTL Parameter Synthesis of Parametric Timed Automata

The parameter synthesis problem for parametric timed automata is undecidable in general even for very simple reachability properties. In this paper we introduce restrictions on parameter valuations under which the parameter synthesis problem is decidable for LTL properties. The investigated bounded integer parameter synthesis problem could be solved using an explicit enumeration of all possible parameter valuations. We propose an alternative symbolic zone-based method for this problem which results in a faster computation. Our technique extends the ideas of the automata-based approach to LTL model checking of timed automata. To justify the usefulness of our approach, we provide experimental evaluation and compare our method with explicit enumeration technique.Comment: 23 pages, extended versio

Enforcing Termination of Interprocedural Analysis

Interprocedural analysis by means of partial tabulation of summary functions may not terminate when the same procedure is analyzed for infinitely many abstract calling contexts or when the abstract domain has infinite strictly ascending chains. As a remedy, we present a novel local solver for general abstract equation systems, be they monotonic or not, and prove that this solver fails to terminate only when infinitely many variables are encountered. We clarify in which sense the computed results are sound. Moreover, we show that interprocedural analysis performed by this novel local solver, is guaranteed to terminate for all non-recursive programs --- irrespective of whether the complete lattice is infinite or has infinite strictly ascending or descending chains

Resolving Stellar Populations outside the Local Group: MAD observations of UKS2323-326

We present a study aimed at deriving constraints on star formation at intermediate ages from the evolved stellar populations in the dwarf irregular galaxy UKS2323-326. These observations were also intended to demonstrate the scientific capabilities of the multi-conjugated adaptive optics demonstrator (MAD) implemented at the ESO Very Large Telescope as a test-bench of adaptive optics (AO) techniques. We perform accurate, deep photometry of the field using J and Ks band AO images of the central region of the galaxy. The near-infrared (IR) colour-magnitude diagrams clearly show the sequences of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, red supergiants, and red giant branch (RGB) stars down to ~1 mag below the RGB tip. Optical-near-IR diagrams, obtained by combining our data with Hubble Space Telescope observations, provide the best separation of stars in the various evolutionary stages. The counts of AGB stars brighter than the RGB tip allow us to estimate the star formation at intermediate ages. Assuming a Salpeter initial mass function, we find that the star formation episode at intermediate ages produced ~6x10^5 M_sun of stars in the observed region.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A Letter