The Maguindanao Massacre, critical elections and armed conflict in the Philippines

The Maguindanao Massacre has sent shock waves through the Philippines and beyond. A convoy of cars was caught in an armed ambush on Monday 23 November, leaving at least 57 persons dead, with mutilated bodies and crushed vehicles found buried in large pits. The convoy was destined for the Commission of Elections office in Shariff Aguak town, Magindanao Province in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The purpose was to file local vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy to run for the governorship of Maguindanao province in the May 2010 Philippine elections. Among the victims of the massacre were at least 30 journalists, more than 20 women, including the wife and two sisters of Mangudadatu

Optimal Motion of an Articulated Body in a Perfect Fluid

An articulated body can propel and steer itself in a perfect fluid by changing its shape only. Our strategy for motion planning for the submerged body is based on finding the optimal shape changes that produce a desired net locomotion; that is, motion planning is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem

The motion of solid bodies in potential flow with circulation: a geometric outlook

The motion of a circular body in 2D potential flow is studied using symplectic reduction. The equations of motion are obtained starting front a kinetic-energy type system on a space of embeddings and reducing by the particle relabelling symmetry group and the special Euclidian group. In the process, we give a geometric interpretation for the Kutta-Joukowski lift force in terms of the curvature of a connection on the original phase space

The Evaluation of When English Rings a Bell (Revised Edition): Teachers' Perspectives

This study was done to find out the teachers` opinions regarding the coursebook, When English Rings A Bell (revised edition), in terms of (1) the coursebook`s language content, (2) the presentation of English skills in the coursebook, and (3) the coursebook`s topic, subject content, and social values. The data of this study was the teachers` written and/or oral answers of the questions used as the evaluation guidelines as proposed by Cunningsworth (1995). The teachers stated that (a) the topics, (b) subjects content, and (c) social and cultural values presented in the coursebook were appropriate to the Indonesian people`s way of life by not differentiating in gender. In addition, although the book provided practices for all English skills, the book should include additional material to support them, for instance, recorded material on a cassette for listening practices. The book did not also include all language contents as proposed by Cuningsworth (1995)

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Impact of a community pharmacist-led medication review on medicines use in patients on polypharmacy - a prospective randomised controlled trial

In 2010 the 'Polymedication Check' (PMC), a pharmacist-led medication review, was newly introduced to be delivered independently from the prescriber and reimbursed by the Swiss health insurances. This study aimed at evaluating the impact of this new cognitive service focusing on medicines use and patients' adherence in everyday life.; This randomised controlled trial was conducted in 54 Swiss community pharmacies. Eligible patients used ≥4 prescribed medicines over >3 months. The intervention group received a PMC at study start (T-0) and after 28 weeks (T-28) while the control group received only a PMC at T-28. Primary outcome measure was change in patients' objective adherence, calculated as Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) and Daily Polypharmacy Possession Ratio (DPPR), using refill data from the pharmacies and patient information of dosing. Subjective adherence was assessed as secondary outcome by self-report questionnaires (at T-0 and T-28) and telephone interviews (at T-2 and T-16), where participants estimated their overall adherence on a scale from 0-100 %.; A total of 450 patients were randomly allocated to intervention (N = 218, 48.4 %) and control group (N = 232, 51.6 %). Dropout rate was fairly low and comparable for both groups (N Int = 37 (17.0 %), NCont = 41 (17.7 %), p = 0.845). Main addressed drug-related problem (DRP) during PMC at T-0 was insufficient adherence to at least one medicine (N = 69, 26.7 %). At T-28, 1020 chronic therapies fulfilled inclusion criteria for MPR calculation, representing 293 of 372 patients (78.8 %). Mean MPR and adherence to polypharmacy (DPPR) for both groups were equally high (MPRInt = 88.3, SD = 19.03; MPRCont = 87.5, SD = 20.75 (p = 0.811) and DPPRInt = 88.0, SD = 13.31; DPPRCont = 87.5, SD = 20.75 (p = 0.906), respectively). Mean absolute change of subjective adherence between T-0 and T-2 was +1.03 % in the intervention and -0.41 % in the control group (p = 0.058). The number of patients reporting a change of their adherence of more than ±5 points on a scale 0-100 % between T-0 and T-2 was significantly higher in the intervention group (NImprovement = 30; NWorsening = 14) than in the control group (NImprovement = 20; NWorsening = 24; p = 0.028).; Through the PMC pharmacist were able to identify a significant number of DRPs. Participants showed high baseline objective adherence of 87.5 %, providing little potential for improvement. Hence, no significant increase of objective adherence was observed. However, regarding changes in subjective adherence of more than ±5 % the PMC showed a positive effect.; Clinical trial registry database, NCT01739816 ; first entry on November 27, 2012

High-energy gamma-rays from stellar associations

It is proposed that TeV gamma-rays and neutrinos can be produced by cosmic rays (CRs) through hadronic interactions in the innermost parts of the winds of massive O and B stars. Convection prevents low-energy particles from penetrating into the wind, leading to an absence of MeV-GeV counterparts. It is argued that groups of stars located close to the CR acceleration sites in OB stellar associations may be detectable by ground-based Cherenkov telescopes.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Object Distribution Networks for World-wide Document Circulation

This paper presents an Object Distribution System (ODS), a distributed system inspired by the ultra-large scale distribution models used in everyday life (e.g. food or newspapers distribution chains). Beyond traditional mechanisms of approaching information to readers (e.g. caching and mirroring), this system enables the publication, classification and subscription to volumes of objects (e.g. documents, events). Authors submit their contents to publication agents. Classification authorities provide classification schemes to classify objects. Readers subscribe to topics or authors, and retrieve contents from their local delivery agent (like a kiosk or library, with local copies of objects). Object distribution is an independent process where objects circulate asynchronously among distribution agents. ODS is designed to perform specially well in an increasingly populated, widespread and complex Internet jungle, using weak consistency replication by object distribution, asynchronous replication, and local access to objects by clients. ODS is based on two independent virtual networks, one dedicated to the distribution (replication) of objects and the other to calculate optimised distribution chains to be applied by the first network

γδTCR regulates production of interleukin-27 by neutrophils and attenuates inflammatory arthritis.

γδ T cells have been implicated in inflammatory diseases as an important link between the innate and adaptive immune responses, however, their role in inflammatory arthritis remain unclear. To define the contribution of γδ T cells in the pathogenesis of inflammatory arthritis, we performed gene transfer of IL-23 in B10.RIII mice to establish joint inflammation in the presence or absence of γδ T cells. We demonstrated that γδ T cell blockade has a protective effect on arthritis incidence and severity by preventing neutrophil accumulation in the blood, spleen and bone marrow as well as by reducing neutrophil infiltration into the joints. Furthermore, our data demonstrate that absence of γδ T cells was associated with an increase of IL-27 levels produced by neutrophils and dendritic cells, and systemic IL-27 expression also prevents IL-23-induced inflammatory arthritis and limits neutrophil expansion. Collectively our findings reveal an immunomodulatory effect of γδ T cells on neutrophils associated with IL-27 synthesis and secretion and indicate a novel link between IL-27 and the modulation of γδ T cells and neutrophils that can be targeted in the treatment of inflammatory arthritis