The progestogen content of combined oral contraceptives and venous thromboembolic risk

Peer reviewe

Colloidal particle motion as a diagnostic of DNA conformational transitions

Tethered particle motion is an experimental technique to monitor conformational changes in single molecules of DNA in real time, by observing the position fluctuations of a micrometer-size particle attached to the DNA. This article reviews some recent work on theoretical problems inherent in the interpretation of TPM experiments, both in equilibrium and dynamical aspects.Comment: 19pp. Accepted for publication in Curr Op Colloid Interf Scienc

In Response: A Discussion of Bulimia as a Masturbatory Equivalent

My research and that of my colleagues in the psychodynamic cause, structure and treatment of patients with bulimic anorexia nervosa correlates with and confirms the hypotheses presented by Levin ( 1) that bulimic symptoms may represent a masturbatory equivalent. In our recently published book, Fear of Being Fat: The Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia (2) we confirmed Sperling\u27s findings (3) that unresolved preoedipal fixations to the mother contribute to difficulties in psychosexual development and that anorexic girls and boys displace sexual and masturbatory conflicts from the genitals to the mouth

The influence of low-temperature surface induction on evacuation, pump-out hole sealing and thermal performance of composite edge-sealed vacuum insulated glazing

Hermeticity of vacuum edge-sealing materials are one of the paramount requirements, specifically, to the evolution of energy-efficient smart windows and solar thermal evacuated flat plate collectors. This study reports the design, construction and performance of high-vacuum glazing fabrication system and vacuum insulated glazing (VIG). Experimental and theoretical investigations for the development of vacuum edgeseal made of Sn-Pb-Zn-Sb-AlTiSiCu composite in the proportion ratio of 56:39:3:1:1 by % (CS-186) are presented. Experimental investigations of the seven constructed VIG samples, each of size 300mm·300mm·4 mm, showed that increasing the hot-plate surface temperatures improved the cavity vacuum pressure whilst expediting the pump-out hole sealing process but also increases temperature induced stresses. Successful pump-out hole sealing process of VIG attained at the hot-plate set point temperature of 50˚C and the approximate cavity pressure of 0.042 Pa was achieved. An experimentally and theoretically validated finite volume model (FVM) was utilised. The centre-of-pane and total thermal transmittance values are calculated to be 0.91 Wm-2K-1 and 1.05 Wm-2K-1, respectively for the VIG. FVM results predicted that by reducing the width of vacuum edge seal and emissivity of coatings the thermal performance of the VIG is improved

CAN U.S. AGRICULTURE PRODUCE THE BASIC FOODSTUFFS CONSISTENT WITH THE DIETARY GUIDELINES?

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

TOWARDS MORE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE COCOA TRADE

Cocoa is a classic Third World cash crop. It is produced mostly by small, poor farmers in Africa, while its products - chocolate and sun tan oil - are consumed by rich consumers in North America and Europe. A few West African economies are highly dependent on foreign exchange earned from cocoa sales. It has therefore been targeted by Oxfam's Fair Trade initiative, and IITA's Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) is launching an effort of become more aligned with consumer's social preferences. The most obvious dimension to addressing consumer demand for cocoa products is to insure provision of high quality products, which has become problematic since structural adjustment programs have dismantled the African parastatals governing cocoa production and exports. Cocoa production would also likely meet requirements for organic certification in many instances, but legitimately obtaining that certification would be costly. Cocoa also offers several dimensions through which consumers might, by their market choices, insure more socially responsible outcomes. Both the STCP and Fair Trade initiatives focus on the potential for poverty alleviation and on achieving sustainable development for poor African farmers. Those farmers are stewards of the rain forest, and their production decisions can determine whether cocoa remains a rain forest friendly crop, so global environmental impacts can also be influenced by cocoa markets. The most recent, most widely publicized, and most intractable issue to hit the cocoa market is the allegation that child labor may be used on those poor African cocoa farms. The first objective of this paper will be to describe this situation, and the problems of cocoa markets, focusing on what has been happening in Africa. Particular attention will be paid to the problems of implementing structural adjustment reforms, and the increasing role played by multi-national processors as they backward integrate into the African marketing systems. Then the Fair Trade and STCP initiatives will be described. Finally, a conceptual examination of marketing systems between the African cocoa farm and the chocolate manufacturer, emphasizing institutional arrangements, is used to assess the likely success of these initiatives in achieving their social goals.Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade,

Comparing Instanton Contributions with Exact Results in N=2 Supersymmetric Scale Invariant Theories

We discuss the general issues and ambiguities involved in matching the exact results for the low energy effective action of scale invariant N=2 supersymmetric QCD to those obtained by instanton methods. We resolve the reported disagreements and verify agreement between an infinite series of coefficients in the low energy effective actions calculated in the two approaches. In particular, we show that the exact low-energy effective couplings for SU(N) for all N with 2N fundamental hypermultiplets agree at a special vacuum on the Coulomb branch where a large unbroken discrete global symmetry makes the matching of parameters relatively straightforward.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure; report-no. correcte