Antitrust - Merger - Divestiture Action

The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the failing company doctrine cannot successfully be invoked as a defense to an anti-merger action unless defendant establishes both that the acquiring company is the only available purchaser and that there is dim or non-existent hope for reorganization of the failing company through bankruptcy procedures. Citizen Publishing Company v. United States, 89 S. Ct. 927 (1969)

Bursts in a fiber bundle model with continuous damage

We study the constitutive behaviour, the damage process, and the properties of bursts in the continuous damage fiber bundle model introduced recently. Depending on its two parameters, the model provides various types of constitutive behaviours including also macroscopic plasticity. Analytic results are obtained to characterize the damage process along the plastic plateau under strain controlled loading, furthermore, for stress controlled experiments we develop a simulation technique and explore numerically the distribution of bursts of fiber breaks assuming infinite range of interaction. Simulations revealed that under certain conditions power law distribution of bursts arises with an exponent significantly different from the mean field exponent 5/2. A phase diagram of the model characterizing the possible burst distributions is constructed.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, APS style, submitted for publicatio

Intoxicated eyewitnesses:the effect of a fully balanced placebo design on event memory and metacognitive control

Few studies have examined the impact of alcohol on metacognition for witnessed events. We used a 2x2 balanced placebo design, where mock-witnesses expected and drank alcohol, did not expect but drank alcohol, did not expect nor drank alcohol, or expected but did not drink alcohol. Participants watched a mock-crime in a bar-lab, followed by free recall and a cued-recall test with or without the option to reply ‘don’t know’ (DK). Intoxicated mock-witnesses’ free recall was less complete but not less accurate. During cued-recall, alcohol led to lower accuracy, and reverse placebo participants gave more erroneous and fewer correct responses. Permitting and clarifying DK responses was associated with fewer errors and more correct responses for sober individuals; and intoxicated witnesses were less likely to opt out of erroneous responding to unanswerable questions. Our findings highlight the practical and theoretical importance of examining pharmacological effects of alcohol and expectancies in real-life settings

Acute alcohol administration dampens central extended amygdala reactivity.

Alcohol use is common, imposes a staggering burden on public health, and often resists treatment. The central extended amygdala (EAc)-including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and the central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce)-plays a key role in prominent neuroscientific models of alcohol drinking, but the relevance of these regions to acute alcohol consumption in humans remains poorly understood. Using a single-blind, randomized-groups design, multiband fMRI data were acquired from 49 social drinkers while they performed a well-established emotional faces paradigm after consuming either alcohol or placebo. Relative to placebo, alcohol significantly dampened reactivity to emotional faces in the BST. To rigorously assess potential regional differences in activation, data were extracted from unbiased, anatomically predefined regions of interest. Analyses revealed similar levels of dampening in the BST and Ce. In short, alcohol transiently reduces reactivity to emotional faces and it does so similarly across the two major divisions of the human EAc. These observations reinforce the translational relevance of addiction models derived from preclinical work in rodents and provide new insights into the neural systems most relevant to the consumption of alcohol and to the initial development of alcohol abuse in humans

Modelling Heat Transfer of Carbon Nanotubes

Modelling heat transfer of carbon nanotubes is important for the thermal management of nanotube-based composites and nanoelectronic device. By using a finite element method for three-dimensional anisotropic heat transfer, we have simulated the heat conduction and temperature variations of a single nanotube, a nanotube array and a part of nanotube-based composite surface with heat generation. The thermal conductivity used is obtained from the upscaled value from the molecular simulations or experiments. Simulations show that nanotube arrays have unique cooling characteristics due to its anisotropic thermal conductivity.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

CpG Island Methylation in Colorectal Cancer: Past, Present and Future

The concept of a CpG island methylator phenotype, or CIMP, quickly became the focus of several colorectal cancer studies describing its clinical and pathological features after its introduction in 1999 by Toyota and colleagues. Further characterization of CIMP in tumors lead to widespread acceptance of the concept, as expressed by Shen and Issa in their 2005 editorial, “CIMP, at last.” Since that time, extensive research efforts have brought great insights into the epidemiology and prognosis of CIMP+ tumors and other epigenetic mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis. With the advances in technology and subsequent cataloging of the human methylome in cancer and normal tissue, new directions in research to understand CIMP and its role in complex biological systems yield hope for future epigenetically based diagnostics and treatments

Effects of predation risk and temperature on foraging behaviour of Littorina littorea

Predator-prey interactions are a fundamental feature of ecological communities. The majority of studies have focussed on the consequences of predators reducing the abundance of their prey through direct consumption (density-mediated interaction, DMIs). However, predators can also interact with prey by inducing costly behavioural and/or physiological defence strategies such as reduced foraging, anti-predator behaviour and investment in defensive structures. Evidence suggests that the cost of these phenotypic responses, termed trait-mediated interactions (TMIs), may be greater than that of DMIs. The strength of TMIs may depend on the environmental context in which prey must decide between food and safety. Because temperature can alter metabolic and foraging rates, particularly in ectotherms, this additional physiological stress may determine how prey balance this trade-off. Observations were made of the effect of predator cues and temperature on the foraging behaviour of the intertidal snail, Littorina littorea Both temperature and predation cue had independent effects on the amount of Ulva lactuca consumed, although there was no interaction between these factors. The addition of predation cue water caused L. littorea to consume 77% less Ulva compared to control treatments whereas the increased temperature resulted in 2.5 times more Ulva being consumed. The results suggest that non-consumptive effects can play an important role in shaping intertidal communities and that the effects of warming may result in intertidal consumers trading energy gain for safety when under predation risk. Understanding the direct and indirect effects of temperature and predation risk on species interactions will provide greater insights into prey dynamics and cascading trophic interactions

Pursuit for weed control in peas.

All trials were located in Merredin. Trial 90ME86 This trial was one of the best demonstrations of pursuits effectiveness against mustard in particular. Other weeds were rough poppy and ryegrass and a small amount of cereal and doublegee. 250 ml applied immediate before seeding (IBS) was by far the best treatment with 100% control of mustard and poppy and good ryegrass control. This is in contract to 375 ml most emergent which had good control of mustard (77%) and suppression of ryegrass. There was no yield advantage from the post emergent treatment but there was a 55% yield increase from the IBS treatment. Trial 90ME87 This trial had three treatments 250 ml/ha IAS and two rates of post emergent spraying. There was good control of capeweed, radish, turnip and ryegrass and suppression of doublegee and cereals. The suppression of doublegee however was not long lasting and six weeks after spraying, the doublegee was showing signs of recovery. Trial 90ME88 At the time of setting up this trial it was unknown that the area selected had in the previous year been a site for testing Logran\u27s effectiveness on wild oats, so there were two densities of wild oats across the trial. This is shown by the plant counts where the Nil has only 9..3 wild oats/m2 while some of the other treatments have from 40-50 wild oats/m2. However, by counting plant densities outside the trial , it could be seen there was a significant reduction in the number of wild oats growing - 40-50 versus 114 plants/m2. By harvest time it was obvious that pursuit is very strong wild oats with all plots where pursuit was sprayed after seeding showing almost total wild oat control. The plot sprayed post emergent had a low level of wild oats present but still achieved good control. Trial 90ME89 Volunteer wheat and ryegrass were the only weeds to germinate on this site. There was suppression of both weeds by IBS was by far the better treatment. This was obvious only in plant counts early on (60% reduction in ryegrass) but not in appearances. By harvest however, the effect of the grasses was very obvious. Trial 90ME90 Peas were sown on the 19/5 and completely windblown on 2/6. It was not until the 14/6 that the peas re-emerged. It was assumed that the wind would have removed most of the pursuit but there was still an obvious effect. No counts were done bu the main weed present was mustard of which there was good control in both the IBS and IAS treatments. Trial 90ME91 Mustard and wild oats were the main weeds on this site and control was total for both with IBS and IAS treatments. The post emergent treatment was slightly weaker on the wild oats than the other treatments but there where the IBS and IAS treatments gave total control, the PEM still had some plants remaining which were stunted and suppressed but would still set viable seed