Non-native contrasts in Tongan loans

We present three case studies of marginal contrasts in Tongan loans from English, working with data from three speakers. Although Tongan lacks contrasts in stress or in CC vs. CVC sequences, secondary stress in loans is contrastive, and is sensitive to whether a vowel has a correspondent in the English source word; vowel deletion is also sensitive to whether a vowel is epenthetic as compared to the English source; and final vowel length is sensitive to whether the penultimate vowel is epenthetic, and if not, whether it corresponds to a stressed or unstressed vowel in the English source. We provide an analysis in the multilevel model of Boersma (1998) and Boersma & Hamann (2009), and show that the loan patterns can be captured using only constraints that plausibly are needed for native-word phonology, including constraints that reflect perceptual strategies

Epithelioid Cell Histiocytoma – An Unusual Variant of Dermatofibroma at an Uncommon Site

Epithelioid cell histiocytoma (ECH) is a rare variant of cutaneous fibrous histiocytoma involving primarily trunk and the extremities. It can delude the pathologist in considering other benign non neoplastic and neoplastic lesions. Awareness of this new entity can avert unnecessary treatment. We report a case of epithelioid cell histiocytoma in a 40 yr old male who presented with a painless nodular swelling over the dorsum of nose. The case is presented here for its rarity and an uncommon site of involvement

Small-for-size liver graft injury-impact on tumor behavior

The success of liver transplantation has led to an ever-increasing demand for liver grafts. Since the first successful living donor liver transplantation, this surgical innovation has been well established in children and has significantly relieved the crisis of donor organ shortage for children. However, the extension of living donor liver transplantation to adult recipients is limited by the graft volume. The major concern of adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation is the adequate graft that can be harvested from a living donor. Small-for-size graft injury is frequently observed. To develop novel effective treatments attenuating small-for-size liver graft injury during living donor liver transplantation, it is important to explore the precise mechanism of acute phase small-for-size graft damage. Recently, a number of clinical studies and animal experiments have been conducted to investigate the possible key issues on acute phase small-for-size liver graft injury, such as mechanical injury from shear stress, subsequent inflammatory responses, and imbalance of vasoregulatory factors. This review focuses on the mechanism of small-for-size liver graft injury based on the number of clinical and experimental studies. The latest research findings of the significance of acute phase liver graft injury on late phase tumor recurrence and metastasis are also addressed. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

A theory of organized crime, corruption and economic growth

We develop a framework for studying the interactions between organized crime and corruption, together with the individual and combined effects of these phenomena on economic growth. Criminal organizations co-exist with law-abiding productive agents and potentially corrupt law enforcers. The crime syndicate obstructs the economic activities of agents through extortion, and may pay bribes to law enforcers in return for their compliance in this. We show how organized crime has a negative effect on growth, and how this effect may be either enhanced or mitigated in the presence of corruption. The outcome depends critically on a trade-off generated when corruption exists, that between a lower supply of crimes and the probability these crimes are more likely to be successful

An integrated visual framework for the human-Web interface

© 2002 IEEE. The design of Web sites has been largely ad hoc, with little concern about the effectiveness of navigation and maintenance. This paper presents a general framework with a human-Web interface that supports Web design through visual programming and reverse Web engineering through visualization. The paper describes the framework in the context of a Web tool, known as HWIT which has been developed for a pilot study

Optimization of genetic transformation protocol mediated by biolistic method in some elite genotypes of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

We report here an efficient genotype-independent genetic transformation system in wheat. Highly regenerable embryogenic calli obtained from mature seeds were employed as the target tissue for the genetic transformation of three bread wheat varieties viz C306, HDR77 and PBW343 representing diverse genetic background. The plasmid pDM803 containing GUS and BAR genes driven by rice Act1 and maize Ubiqutin promoter, respectively was transferred into a month-old calli employing particle delivery system. The bombarded calli were transferred to medium supplemented with phosphinothricin at 4 mg L-1 for the selection of the transformed calli. The transgenic calli were confirmed for the expression of GUS by histochemical analysis of β-glucuronidase. Transformation efficiency of the genotypes was calculated based on the number of calli bombarded and the number of plants that were resistant to Basta. Among the three genotypes studied, C306 had a higher efficiency of 0.56% followed by HDR77 with 0.5% and PBW343 with 0.22%. The transformation system developed in this study may facilitate studies on functional genomics and crop improvement via transgenic development.Keywords: Wheat, biolistic, transgenics, bar, phosphinothricin, transformation efficiencyAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(6), pp. 531-53

Windé Koroji Ouest (Mali, Second and Third Millennia BCE): The Environmental and Subsistence Evidence

Windé Koroji Ouest is an early agro-pastoral site situated at the eastern periphery of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, north of the Gandamia and Bandiagara escarpments. This chapter is the first publication of all subsistence and environmental information available concerning this site which was excavated by the senior author in 1992/1993. The presence of domestic millet ca. 2100-1900 BCE is confirmed, as well as sheep during this same period, with cattle attested subsequently (post 1600 BCE). The role of the environment and potential environmental change in the economy of this site is reviewed. It is argued that Windé Koroji Ouest existed within wider, seasonally mobile settlement networks exhibiting a range of flexible subsistence adaptations

Which Surrogate Works for Empirical Performance Modelling? A Case Study with Differential Evolution

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via the DOI in this record.It is not uncommon that meta-heuristic algorithms contain some intrinsic parameters, the optimal configuration of which is crucial for achieving their peak performance. However, evaluating the effectiveness of a configuration is expensive, as it involves many costly runs of the target algorithm. Perhaps surprisingly, it is possible to build a cheap-to-evaluate surrogate that models the algorithm's empirical performance as a function of its parameters. Such surrogates constitute an important building block for understanding algorithm performance, algorithm portfolio/selection, and the automatic algorithm configuration. In principle, many off-the-shelf machine learning techniques can be used to build surrogates. In this paper, we take the differential evolution (DE) as the baseline algorithm for proof-of-concept study. Regression models are trained to model the DE's empirical performance given a parameter configuration. In particular, we evaluate and compare four popular regression algorithms both in terms of how well they predict the empirical performance with respect to a particular parameter configuration, and also how well they approximate the parameter versus the empirical performance landscapes.Royal Societ