Packing odd TT-joins with at most two terminals

Take a graph $G$, an edge subset $\Sigma\subseteq E(G)$, and a set of terminals $T\subseteq V(G)$ where $|T|$ is even. The triple $(G,\Sigma,T)$ is called a signed graft. A $T$-join is odd if it contains an odd number of edges from $\Sigma$. Let $\nu$ be the maximum number of edge-disjoint odd $T$-joins. A signature is a set of the form $\Sigma\triangle \delta(U)$ where $U\subseteq V(G)$ and $|U\cap T)$ is even. Let $\tau$ be the minimum cardinality a $T$-cut or a signature can achieve. Then $\nu\leq \tau$ and we say that $(G,\Sigma,T)$ packs if equality holds here. We prove that $(G,\Sigma,T)$ packs if the signed graft is Eulerian and it excludes two special non-packing minors. Our result confirms the Cycling Conjecture for the class of clutters of odd $T$-joins with at most two terminals. Corollaries of this result include, the characterizations of weakly and evenly bipartite graphs, packing two-commodity paths, packing $T$-joins with at most four terminals, and a new result on covering edges with cuts.Comment: extended abstract appeared in IPCO 2014 (under the different title "the cycling property for the clutter of odd st-walks"

Displaying blocking pairs in signed graphs

A signed graph is a pair (G, S) where G is a graph and S is a subset of the edges of G. A circuit of G is even (resp. odd) if it contains an even (resp. odd) number of edges of S. A blocking pair of (G, S) is a pair of vertices s, t such that every odd circuit intersects at least one of s or t. In this paper, we characterize when the blocking pairs of a signed graph can be represented by 2-cuts in an auxiliary graph. We discuss the relevance of this result to the problem of recognizing even cycle matroids and to the problem of characterizing signed graphs with no odd-K5 minor

Creative Problem Solving: A High School Curriculum Satisfying the Needs of 21ST Century Learner

Designing Creative Problem Solving (CPS) – A High School Curriculum Designed to Satisfy the Needs of 21st Century Learners is my answer to the driving question: “How do teachers prepare students for an uncertain future?” Several processes influenced the curriculum design: 1) I reflected on the lessons I learned during my time in CCT. I looked back on the importance of having supportive instructors to accompany you on your journey. I realized practical and useful assignments motivate students to produce their best work. I gained a greater appreciation for the power of productive teams. 2) My growth as a stained glass artist. What I learned in this new endeavor is similar to the new experiences CPS students will have. Like me, they will realize mistakes are not disappointing failures, but valuable lessons. They will grasp the notion that excellence is a work in progress. They will understand that meaningful work is the result of practice, bold risk taking, and strong self - confidence. 3) My teaching and coaching experiences, informed by best practice research, lead me to include in CPS coursework building productive groups, becoming effective communicators, reigniting imaginations, and developing creative problem solving skills. 4) My call as an educator is to teach students the skills they need to be successful in all of their pursuits. Research reveals that in order for students to succeed they need the kind of skills that CPS will provide. I wish I had learned these lessons much earlier in my teaching career, but it is exciting to have the opportunity to share what I have learned with my students now

Novel tretinoin 0.05% lotion for the once-daily treatment of moderate-to-severe acne vulgaris in a preadolescent population.

BackgroundAcne vulgaris (acne) is a common skin condition in children and adolescents. Efficacy of tretinoin is well documented in studies that included pediatric patients (12-18 years of age). With acne routinely presenting in younger patients, data are needed in this important group. Lotion formulations are commonly used across dermatology and are well liked by patients.ObjectiveTo evaluate the safety and efficacy of a novel once-daily tretinoin 0.05% lotion in preadolescent subjects (≤ 13 years) with moderate-to-severe acne.MethodsPost hoc analysis of two multicenter, randomized, double-blind, vehicle-controlled phase 3 studies in moderate-to-severe acne. Preadolescent subjects (N = 154) randomized (1:1) to receive tretinoin 0.05% lotion or vehicle, once daily for 12 weeks. Efficacy assessments included changes in baseline inflammatory/noninflammatory lesions and treatment success (at least 2-grade reduction in Evaluator's Global Severity Score [EGSS] and clear/almost clear). Safety, adverse events (AEs), and cutaneous tolerability evaluated throughout.ResultsAt Week 12, mean percent reduction in inflammatory and noninflammatory lesion counts were 49.5% and 44.0% compared with 31.4% and 18.8% with vehicle (both P = 0.001). Treatment success was achieved by 23.7% of subjects by Week 12, compared with 7.2% (P = 0.009). The majority of AEs were mild and transient: most frequently were application site pain (5.6%) and application site dryness (2.8%). Local cutaneous safety and tolerability assessments were generally mild-to-moderate and improved by Week 12.ConclusionsTretinoin 0.05% lotion was significantly more effective than vehicle in achieving treatment success and reducing inflammatory and noninflammatory lesions in preadolescent acne. It was well tolerated, with all treatment-related AEs deemed mild or moderate

Self-Referential Play Gone Wild: A Case for the Roman Bourgeois as Metafiction.

The Roman bourgeois is a text which has resisted traditional modes of criticism, and thus it has confounded critics who simply did not know what to make of this hybrid work. It has been generally considered to be a novel which lacks coherence and literary merit, and spells the end of the cycle of seventeenth-century comic novels. This study proposes that the Roman bourgeois be considered as a metafictional text, where textual anomalies could be considered as positive attributes since they draw attention to the fictional framework and the fiction-making process of the novel. The novel operates according to the guiding principle that language is an imperfect conduit for representing reality. Subversion, which runs rampant in the text, is one of the most important strategies which emphasize the problematics of representation. This is effectuated, for example, through intertextual references, as well as the multiple identities of the narrator. The following topics are analyzed in light of this problematic: The novel\u27s prefaces, which problematize the notions of beginnings and authorship; the narrator, who presents himself as the central force of both organization and disorganization; the narratee, who functions as a device of the narrator; the bourgeoisie, whose identity and function mirror its nature as fictional construct; and the female characters, who act as authors of their own life stories. The arbitrariness of social and legal codes in the novel function as a mise en abyme of the arbitrariness of literary and linguistic codes. Through its overt manipulation and commentary on literary conventions in the Roman bourgeois, the mechanics of creating fiction are laid bare, not masked by the illusion that they represent anything other than fiction itself

Les auditeurs financiers comme pharmakoi modernes : du paradoxe de la légitimité de l'audit

International audienceLes auditeurs financiers sont aujourd'hui perçus de manière paradoxale. Ils nous apparaissent comme simultanément délétères et salvateurs, peu fiables et pourtant dignes de confiance : à la fois légitimes et illégitimes. Le présent article vise à mieux comprendre ce paradoxe-là, peu étudié, et plus précisément la manière dont il se construit et se déconstruit. Pour ce faire, nous mobilisons la théorie de l'anthropologue français René Girard. Comme celui-ci le souligne, d'autres acteurs, les pharmakoi, ont été jadis, comme les auditeurs financiers, tant honnis que vénérés. Ces individus étaient destinés à être sacrifiés à Athènes, durant l'époque classique, chaque fois qu'une calamité s'abattait ou menaçait de s'abattre sur la cité. Girard montre que toute victime de sacrifices rituels en vient à être à la fois détestée et adulée, et l'un des intérêts de la pensée girardienne est d'éclairer le processus de construction et de déconstruction d'un tel paradoxe. Après avoir établi que les auditeurs, comme les pharmakoi, ne sont autres que des victimes sacrificielles, nous analysons le processus d'élaboration mythique qui noue et dénoue le paradoxe de la légitimité de l'audit. Notre étude s'appuie notamment sur le traitement de 31 entretiens semi-structurés réalisés auprès de divers professionnels (membres de comités d'audit, banquiers, analystes financiers, régulateurs et autres) suite à la disparition d'Andersen

Isomorphism for even cycle matroids - I

A seminal result by Whitney describes when two graphs have the same cycles. We consider the analogous problem for even cycle matroids. A representation of an even cycle matroid is a pair formed by a graph together with a special set of edges of the graph. Such a pair is called a signed graph. We consider the problem of determining the relation between two signed graphs representing the same even cycle matroid. We refer to this problem as the Isomorphism Problem for even cycle matroids. We present two classes of signed graphs and we solve the Isomorphism Problem for these two classes. We conjecture that, up to simple operations, any two signed graphs representing the same even cycle matroid are either in one of these classes, or related by a modification of an operation for graphic matroids, or belonging to a small set of examples

Single-Dose Pharmacokinetics of Intravenous Sulbactam in Pediatric Patients

The pharmacokinetics of intravenously administered sulbactam were studied in 17 pediatric patients two to 14 years of age. Single doses of 12.5 or 25 mg/kg were infused over 3 min, and in previously healthy children, mean peak plasma concentrations 5 min after dosing were 71 and 163 µg/ml, respectively. Noncompartmental and compartmental calculations resulted in similar pharmacokinetic parameters. Linear pharmacokinetics were found in the concentration range studied. The mean terminal-phase half-life was 1.75hr, the mean total plasma clearance was 180 ml/min per 1.73 m2, and the mean apparent volume of distribution was 340 ml/kg. Approximately 70%-80% of an intravenous dose was excreted unchanged in the urine. In children with cystic fibrosis, both total plasma clearance and apparent volume of distribution weresignificantly increased. The data support the intravenous administration of 12.5-25 mg of sulbactam/kg every 6 to 8 hr for assessing the adequacy of this drug as an adjunct to β-lactam therapy for various bacterial infections in childre

Les auditeurs financiers comme pharmakoi modernes : du paradoxe de la légitimité de l'audit

Les auditeurs financiers sont aujourd'hui perçus de manière paradoxale. Ils nous apparaissent comme simultanément délétères et salvateurs, peu fiables et pourtant dignes de confiance : à la fois légitimes et illégitimes. Le présent article vise à mieux comprendre ce paradoxe-là, peu étudié, et plus précisément la manière dont il se construit et se déconstruit. Pour ce faire, nous mobilisons la théorie de l'anthropologue français René Girard. Comme celui-ci le souligne, d'autres acteurs, les pharmakoi, ont été jadis, comme les auditeurs financiers, tant honnis que vénérés. Ces individus étaient destinés à être sacrifiés à Athènes, durant l'époque classique, chaque fois qu'une calamité s'abattait ou menaçait de s'abattre sur la cité. Girard montre que toute victime de sacrifices rituels en vient à être à la fois détestée et adulée, et l'un des intérêts de la pensée girardienne est d'éclairer le processus de construction et de déconstruction d'un tel paradoxe. Après avoir établi que les auditeurs, comme les pharmakoi, ne sont autres que des victimes sacrificielles, nous analysons le processus d'élaboration mythique qui noue et dénoue le paradoxe de la légitimité de l'audit. Notre étude s'appuie notamment sur le traitement de 31 entretiens semi-structurés réalisés auprès de divers professionnels (membres de comités d'audit, banquiers, analystes financiers, régulateurs et autres) suite à la disparition d'Andersen.Audit; paradoxe de la légitimité; violence; rite sacrificiel; élaboration mythique; sacré; Enron.

Front Line Green

Case study of a green workforce development training program developed by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and Purdue University's Technical Assistance Program (TAP). The program educated participants in sustainable manufacturing practices that reduce energy and compliance costs while improving the environment and provided graduates with a portable, industry-recognized credential that made them more valuable to employers.Ope