Interdependence in ASEAN: An Assessment of the ASEAN Preferential Trading Agreements (PTA)

This article examines whether the ASEAN Preferential Trading Arrangements have increased the level of interdependence among ASEAN countries in the area of trade. Specifically, whether such interdependence has brought about institutional and economic changes such as tariff reduction and nontariff barriers among ASEAN countries.tariff, trade sector, ASEAN, ASEAN tariffs

Interdependence in ASEAN: An Assessment of the ASEAN Preferential Trading Agreements (PTA)

This article examines whether the ASEAN Preferential Trading Arrangements have increased the level of interdependence among ASEAN countries in the area of trade. Specifically, whether such interdependence has brought about institutional and economic changes such as tariff reduction and nontariff barriers among ASEAN countries.tariff, trade sector, ASEAN, ASEAN tariffs

The effect of an internet option and single-sided printing format to increase the response rate to a population-based study : a randomized controlled trial

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Institute of Applied Health Sciences (IAHS) at the University of Aberdeen for funding the PhD studentship of EF. Furthermore, we would like to thank everyone who was involved in the study, including Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie (Director of Public Health, NHS Grampian), John Lemon (University of Aberdeen), Dr. Fiona Garton (University of Aberdeen) and the Aberdeen Service User Group. Lastly, we would like to acknowledge all data entry clerks (Maxx Livingstone, Rory Macfarlane, Georgia Mannion-Krase and Hazel Reilly) and participants of the study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Neural Relax

We present an algorithm for data preprocessing of an associative memory inspired to an electrostatic problem that turns out to have intimate relations with information maximization

The Students' Perception on the Use of Picture to Improve Descriptive Paragraph Writing at Christian University of Indonesia

The objectives of this study were to examine the students' perception on the use of picture in writing descriptive paragraph and to investigate whether the students were interested in the use of picture in writing descriptive paragraph. This study was a survey using the qualitative and survey design. It involved 34 students of English Teaching Study Program, Christian University of Indonesia. To achieve the objectives, qualitative and quantitative data concerning the students' perceptions and interest were collected through a questionnaire and interview. The survey was administered to the eight semester students of 2012/2013 academic year. To support this research the data obtained through the open ended questionnaire, interview was conducted toward four students. The quantitative data were analyzed by using Microsoft Excel 2007, while the qualitative data were analyzed descriptively. The result of this study indicated that almost all of the students agreed to use the picture in developing their descriptive paragraph writing. The use of picture in writing also helped them understand the descriptive paragraphs even though they knew there was another media, i.g. realia, which could help them write a descriptive paragraph. Thus it is sugested that the English teachers should use this technique to improve students' descriptive paragraph writing. Keywords: perception, picture, writing, descriptive paragrap

Excitons in carbon nanotubes: an ab initio symmetry-based approach

The optical absorption spectrum of the carbon (4,2) nanotube is computed using an ab-initio many-body approach which takes into account excitonic effects. We develop a new method involving a local basis set which is symmetric with respect to the screw symmetry of the tube. Such a method has the advantages of scaling faster than plane-wave methods and allowing for a precise determination of the symmetry character of the single particle states, two-particle excitations, and selection rules. The binding energy of the lowest, optically active states is approximately 0.8 eV. The corresponding exciton wavefunctions are delocalized along the circumference of the tube and localized in the direction of the tube axis.Comment: 4 pages, 1 LaTex file + 4 eps figure

Pharmacological LRRK2 kinase inhibition induces LRRK2 protein destabilization and proteasomal degradation

Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) kinase activity is increased in several pathogenic mutations, including the most common mutation, G2019S, and is known to play a role in Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathobiology. This has stimulated the development of potent, selective LRRK2 kinase inhibitors as one of the most prevailing disease-modifying therapeutic PD strategies. Although several lines of evidence support beneficial effects of LRRK2 kinase inhibitors, many questions need to be answered before clinical applications can be envisaged. Using six different LRRK2 kinase inhibitors, we show that LRRK2 kinase inhibition induces LRRK2 dephosphorylation and can reduce LRRK2 protein levels of overexpressed wild type and G2019S, but not A2016T or K1906M, LRRK2 as well as endogenous LRRK2 in mouse brain, lung and kidney. The inhibitor-induced reduction in LRRK2 levels could be reversed by proteasomal inhibition, but not by lysosomal inhibition, while mRNA levels remained unaffected. In addition, using LRRK2 S910A and S935A phosphorylation mutants, we show that dephosphorylation of these sites is not required for LRRK2 degradation. Increasing our insight in the molecular and cellular consequences of LRRK2 kinase inhibition will be crucial in the further development of LRRK2-based PD therapies

Measuring Column Densities in Quasar Outflows: VLT Observations of QSO 2359-1241

We present high resolution spectroscopic VLT observations of the outflow seen in QSO 2359-1241. These data contain absorption troughs from five resonance Fe II lines with a resolution of ~7 km/s and signal-to-noise ratio per resolution element of order 100. We use this unprecedented high quality data set to investigate the physical distribution of the material in front of the source, and by that determine the column densities of the absorbed troughs. We find that the apparent optical depth model gives a very poor fit to the data and greatly underestimates the column density measurements. Power-law distributions and partial covering models give much better fits with some advantage to power-law models, while both models yield similar column density estimates. The better fit of the power-law model solves a long standing problem plaguing the partial covering model when applied to large distance scale outflow: How to obtain a velocity dependent covering factor for an outflow situated at distances thousands of time greater than the size of the AGN emission source. This problem does not affect power-law models. Therefore, based on the better fit and plausibility of the physical model, we conclude that in QSO 2359-1241, the outflow covers the full extent of the emission source but in a non-homogeneous way.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, to appear on ApJ Jul 10. The full (online) version of figure 2 can be obtained here: http://www.phys.vt.edu/~arav/f2_online_version.p