Academic literature on the topic 'Art. 240 cod. pen'

I flussi migratori impongono al nostro Paese di riflettere sulla compatibilità di alcune pratiche tradizionali che si palesano inconciliabili con i diritti fondamentali della persona tutelati dalla Costituzione italiana e con i principi sanciti a livello internazionale. Tra queste una posizione di primo piano assumono le mutilazioni genitali femminili (Mgf). Il presente contributo, dopo un inquadramento delle ragioni che stanno alla base delle Mgf, si sofferma sulla risposta dell'ordinamento italiano sul piano penale (art. 583 bis cod. pen.) e sulla decadenza automatica dalla responsabilità genitoriale quale sanzione accessoria, per poi interrogarsi, quanto agli strumenti civilistici, sulla delicata questione della valutazione della capacità genitoriale di coloro che abbiano fatto sottoporre una figlia minore a Mgf. Infine, riflette sulla centralità dei programmi di prevenzione, sensibilizzazione e formazione quali principali direttrici da seguire per l'eradicazione del fenomeno escissorio.

1. Introduction Photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical (PEC) CO2 reductions using semiconductor materials under solar light have attracted significant attention. The development of CO2-reduction systems operating under visible-light irradiation is essential for the practical use of solar energy because visible light takes up almost half of the solar radiation spectrum. Most metal sulfides, such as CdS, have suitable conduction band levels for CO2 reduction and narrow bandgaps, enabling visible-light absorption. However, most metal sulfides are unstable in aqueous solution under photoirradiation due to the occurrence of self-oxidative deactivation (photocorrosion) by photogenerated holes (e.g., CdS + 2h+ → Cd2+ + S). CO2 reduction in an aqueous solution competes with H2 evolution because the CO2 reduction potential is more negative compared to the water reduction potential. Therefore, the catalysts that can selectively reduce CO2 have been utilized. Enzymes are biocatalysts that only act on specific substrates. For example, formate dehydrogenase (FDH) can reduce CO2 to formate with 100% selectivity by accepting electrons from coenzyme NADH. We have recently reported PEC reduction of CO2 to formate using a sacrificial reagent-free system consisting of a TiO2 photoanode and FDH.1 However, this system cannot utilize visible light owing to the wide bandgap of TiO2. In this study, we attempted to fabricate stable CdS photoanode and construct a hybrid system consisting of the CdS photoanode, NADH, and FDH for the reduction of CO2 to formate under visible-light irradiation. 2. Experimental The CdS photoanode was fabricated by the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method according to a previous report.2 The CdS electrode was calcined in N2 flow at 200, 300, and 400 °C for 30 min. The electrochemical cell used for photocurrent measurements comprised a prepared electrode, a counter electrode (Pt wire), an Ag/AgCl reference electrode, and a borate buffer solution (pH 8) containing K4[Fe(CN)6]•3H2O. The electrodes were irradiated using a 300 W Xe lamp fitted with an L-42 cut-off filter. CO2 reduction was carried out using two-electrode system (counter electrode: carbon paper) in phosphate buffer solution (pH 7) under CO2 bubbling. Rh complex [Cp*Rh(bpy)(H2O)]2+,3 NAD+, and FDH was added in the counter side. 3. Results and discussion The stabilities of the photocurrents of the CdS electrodes were evaluated at a fixed potential (–0.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl) under continuous visible light irradiation. As shown in Fig. 1a, for CdS electrodes with and without calcination at 200 and 300 °C, the photocurrent densities gradually decreased with the start of light irradiation. After the reaction, large cubic particles with a particle size of approximately 100–300 nm, reflecting the crystal structure of K2Cd[Fe(CN)6], were observed on the electrodes. XRD analysis also confirmed the formation of K2Cd[Fe(CN)6]. As previously reported, K2Cd[Fe(CN)6] forms spontaneously on the CdS surface during photoirradiation by reaction of dissolved Cd2+ cations via photocorrosion and [Fe(CN)6]4− anions in the solution.4 Therefore, this gradual decrease in photocurrent density was mainly due to the photocorrosion of CdS. In contrast, calcination at 400 °C positively influenced the CdS electrode, gradually increasing the photocurrent density. The number of electrons passing through the outer circuit for over 1 h (19.7 C, corresponding to 205 μmol) exceeded the number of moles of CdS (approximately 22 μmol) in the electrode. Although large K2Cd[Fe(CN)6] particles were observed on the CdS electrode after the reaction, the amount was significantly lower than that observed on the other electrodes. Instead, fine particles of K2Cd[Fe(CN)6] (particle size ~10 nm) were densely formed on the CdS surface. Therefore, fine K2Cd[Fe(CN)6] particles generated on the surface effectively scavenged photogenerated holes in CdS and enabled the oxidation of [Fe(CN)6]4− to [Fe(CN)6]3−.4 Reduction of NAD+ to NADH using [Cp*Rh(bpy)(H2O)]2+ as an electron mediator was examined in two-electrode system consisting of the CdS photoanode (calcined at 400 °C) and a carbon paper counter electrode with no applied bias (0 V). Relatively stable photocurrent (0.2 mA cm–2) was observed for 60 min. UV-vis spectroscopy and liquid chromatography analyses revealed that the amount of 1,4-NADH, which functions as a coenzyme, was increased with progression of reaction by reduction of NAD+ over the carbon electrode accepting electrons from CdS photoanode. The PEC reduction of CO2 to formate was attempted by introducing FDH in the system. As shown in Fig. 1b, the amount of produced formate was increased with the increasing irradiation time and reached 1285 nmol, which exceeded that of FDH (64 nmol). Ishibashi, M. Higashi, S. Ikeda, Y. Amao, ChemCatChem, 2019, 11, 6227. Ikeda, T. et al, ChemSusChem, 2011, 4, 262. Ruppert, et al, Tetrahedron Lett., 1987, 28, 6583. Shirakawa, M. Higashi, O. Tomita, R. Abe, Sustain. Energy Fuels, 2017, 1, 1065. Figure 1

Le Sezioni unite della Corte di cassazione si sono recentemente pronunciate in ordine alla questione relativa alla individuazione dei limiti dell’efficacia retroattiva della disposizione ex art. 578-bis c.p.p. Il quesito oggetto di rimessione concerne l’applicabilità, o meno, di detta norma del codice di rito anche con riferimento alla confisca per equivalente disposta in relazione a un fatto di reato commesso anteriormente alla entrata in vigore dell’art. 1, comma 4, lett. f), legge 9 gennaio 2019, n. 3, che ha inserito nell'art. 578-bis c.p.p. le parole «o la confisca prevista dall’art. 322-ter cod. pen.». Alla base del contrasto che ha reso necessario l’interpello delle Sezioni unite vi sono le diverse interpretazioni offerte dalle pronunce delle Sezioni semplici in ordine al rapporto tra la natura “processuale” della disposizione di cui all'art. 578-bis c.p.p., come tale soggetta al principio tempus regit actum, e il carattere afflittivo della confisca per equivalente. La recente pronuncia fornisce lo spunto per condurre un’analisi dell’istituto su un piano generale, alla luce delle molteplici disposizioni che ne definiscono la disciplina normativa e delle numerose pronunce sul tema da parte della giurisprudenza di legittimità.   Parole chiave: Estinzione del reato per prescrizione, Confisca per equivalente, Principio di irretroattività   The relationship between the nature of the confiscation by equivalent and the applicability regime of Article 578-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure: screening of the united Sections. The United Sections of the Court of Cassation have recently ruled on the question regarding the identification of the limits of the retroactive effective of the law provision under Article 578-bis of the Criminal Procedure Code. The question referred to the Court concerns the applicability, or not, of that law provision also with reference to the confiscation by equivalent ordered in relation to an act of crime committed prior to the entry into force of Article 1, paragraph 4, letter f), Law No. 3 of January 9, 2019, which inserted in Article 578-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure the words “or the confiscation provided for in Article 322-ter of the Criminal Code” Underlying the contrast which made the intervention of the Joint Sections necessary are the different interpretations provided by some of the Simple Sections’ roulings regarding the relationship between the “procedural” nature of the law provision in Article 578-bis c.p.p., as such subject to the principle tempus regit actum, and the afflictive nature of confiscation for equivalent. The recent pronouncement provides the cue to conduct an analysis of the legal institution on a general level, in light of the multiple law provisions defining its legal framework and the numerous pronouncements on the subject by the jurisprudence of legitimacy.   Keywords: Extinction of the crime due to lapse of the statute of limitations, Confiscation by equivalent, Principle of non-retroactivity

e4709040The article discusses the process of schooling of young people who committed infractions and serve incarceration sentences at the Foundation of Social Education Service in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The connections between socioeducation and special education are also sought in this study. The case construction, as a methodology derived from psychoanalysis, articulates the singular of the case to the universal of legal regulation and the limits and possibilities of institutional service. In order to weave the argument, we rely on, in addition to interviews, technical and medical reports, pedagogical feedback and the individual service plan. Marino's experience is similar to that of so many other poor young Brazilians, mostly black or mixed race, being in an extreme situation, characterizes the absence of basic rights: their special educational needs were identified and specialized educational service was recorded in the school context. However, guiding for specialized educational service is not implemented. Although we have specific legislation, the intersectoral dialogue is not privileged and does not assist the restorative and educational processes provided by the comprehensive youth protection system. Few people recognize the double vulnerability that affects a young person in conflict with the law in a situation of impairment.ResumoO artigo trata do processo de escolarização de jovens que cometeram ato infracional e cumprem medida privativa de liberdade na Fundação de Atendimento Socioeducativo do Rio Grande do Sul (FASE-RS). Busca-se, também, os encontros entre a socioeducação e a educação especial. A construção do caso, como metodologia oriunda da psicanálise, articula o singular do caso ao universal da regulação jurídica, além dos limites e possibilidades do atendimento institucional. Apoia-se, para além das entrevistas, em relatórios técnicos e médicos, em pareceres pedagógicos e no plano individual de atendimento para tecer o argumento. A trajetória de Marino assemelha-se a de tantos outros jovens brasileiros pobres, em sua maioria pretos ou pardos, posicionados em uma situação extrema e caracterizada pela ausência de direitos básicos; suas necessidades educacionais especiais são identificadas e o atendimento educacional especializado ganhou registro no contexto escolar; entretanto, o encaminhamento não se efetiva. Embora haja legislações específicas, o diálogo intersetorial não é privilegiado e pouco auxilia nos processos restaurativo e educativo previstos pelo sistema de proteção integral ao jovem. Dessa forma, poucos reconhecem a dupla vulnerabilidade que acomete um jovem em conflito com a lei em situação de deficiência.Palavras-chave: Adolescente em conflito com a lei, Educação especial, Escolarização, Deficiência.Keywords: Adolescent in conflict with the law, Special education, Schooling, Impairment.ReferencesADORNO, Theodor W. O ensaio como forma. In: Adorno, Theodor W. Notas de literatura I. São Paulo: Duas Cidades; Editora 34, 2003. p. 15-45.AZEREDO, Sheila Regina Matos de. A conquista da autonomia do dependente químico com o Estatuto da Pessoa Com Deficiência: a perda de uma chance? 2017. 128f. Dissertação de Mestrado (Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito Constitucional). Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 2017.BISINOTO, Cynthia. Repercussões das concepções no espaço educativo e na ação docente. In: BISINOTO, Cynthia (Org.). Docência na socioeducação. Brasília: Universidade de Brasília: Campus Planaltina, 2014. p. 97-114.BRASIL. Lei nº 8.069, de 13 de julho de 1990. Dispõe sobre o Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente – ECA. Diário Oficial da República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília, 16 jul. 1990. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l8069.htm. Acesso em: 01 ago. 2020.BRASIL. Lei nº 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional. 1996. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9394.htm. Acesso em: 01 ago. 2020.BRASIL. Lei nº 12.594, de 18 de janeiro de 2012. Institui o Sistema Nacional de Atendimento Socioeducativo (Sinase), regulamenta a execução das medidas socioeducativas destinadas a adolescente que pratique ato infracional. 2012. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2011-2014/2012/Lei/L12594.htm#:~:text=Institui%20o%20Sistema%20Nacional%20de,1986%2C%207.998%2C%20de%2011%20de. Acesso em: 05 ago. 2020.BRASIL. Lei nº 13.146, de 6 de julho de 2015. Institui a Lei Brasileira de Inclusão da Pessoa com Deficiência (Estatuto da Pessoa com Deficiência). 2015. Disponível em: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2015/lei/l13146.htm. Acesso em: 05 ago. 2020.BRASIL. Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos (MMFDH). LEVANTAMENTO ANUAL SINASE 2017. Brasília: Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos, 2019. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/mdh/pt-br/sdh/noticias/2018/janeiro/divulgado-levantamento-anual-do-sistema-nacional-de-atendimento-socioeducativo. Acesso em: 05 ago. 2020.BRASIL. PEC 115/2015. Altera a redação do art. 228 da Constituição Federal (imputabilidade penal do maior de dezesseis anos). Disponível em: https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/fichadetramitacao?idProposicao=14493. Acesso em: 24 jul. 2020.BRASIL. Política Nacional de Educação Especial na Perspectiva da Educação Inclusiva. Ministério da Educação e Cultura/Secretaria de Educação Continuada, Alfabetização, Diversidade e Inclusão. Brasília, 2008. Disponível em: http://portal.mec.gov.br/arquivos/pdf/politicaeducespecial.pdf. Acesso em: 02 jul.2020.BRASIL. Secretaria Especial dos Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República. Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente. Plano Nacional de Promoção, Proteção e Defesa do Direito de Crianças e Adolescentes à Convivência Familiar e Comunitária. Brasília, DF: CONANDA, 2006. Disponível em: https://www.mds.gov.br/webarquivos/publicacao/assistencia_social/Cadernos/Plano_Defesa_CriancasAdolescentes%20.pdf. Acesso em: 07 ago. 2020.BRASIL. Secretaria de Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República. Fundação de Atendimento Socioeducativo do Rio Grande do Sul/PEMSEIS: Programa de Execução de Medidas Socioeducativas de Internação e Semiliberdade do Rio Grande do Sul. Governo do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Secretaria da Justiça e dos Direitos Humanos. Porto Alegre: SDH; FASE, 2014. Disponível em: http://www.fase.rs.gov.br/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/PEMSEIS_v111.pdf. Acesso em:BRASIL. Sistema Nacional da Juventude: uma gestão conectada e interativa. Brasília: Ibict, 2019. Disponível em: https://sinajuve.ibict.br/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Guia_Digital.pdf. Acesso em: 07 ago. 2020.CARVALHO, Wesley Ferreira de. Terra-mar: litorais entre a socioeducação e a educação especial. Dissertação (Mestrado). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Faculdade de Educação. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação. Porto Alegre, BR-RS, 2017.CARMO, Michelly Eustáquia do; GUIZARDI, Francini Lube. O conceito de vulnerabilidade e seus sentidos para as políticas públicas de saúde e assistência social. Cad. Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 34, n. 3, 2018.CHARLOT, Bernard. Da relação com o saber: elementos para uma teoria. Porto Alegre: ARTMED, 2000.COSTA, Ana Paula Motta. Desafios contemporâneos da justiça juvenil na contemporaneidade brasileira. In: COSTA, Ana Paula Motta; EILBERG, Daniela Dora (Orgs.). Justiça juvenil na contemporaneidade. Porto Alegre: DM, 2015. p. 29-37.CRAIDY, Carmem Maria Abordagem sobre a educação no painel: políticas públicas em torno da intervenção socioeducativa. In: COSTA, Ana Paula Motta; EILBERG, Daniela Dora (Orgs.). Justiça juvenil na contemporaneidade. Porto Alegre: DM, 2015. p. 102-107.DIAS, Aline Fávaro; ONOFRE, Elenice Maria Cammarosano. A relação do jovem em conflito com a lei e a escola. Impulso Piracicaba, v. 20, n. 49, jan./jun. 2010. p. 31-42.DINIZ, Debora. Meninas fora da lei: a medida socioeducativa de internação no Distrito Federal. Brasília: LetrasLivres, 2017.EEEM. Projeto Político-Pedagógico, 2015, s/p.FERREIRA, Maria L. B. F.; SILVEIRA, Raquel A. A escola como possibilidade de inclusão e de responsabilização do adolescente: um ponto de desafio no trabalho socioeducativo. In: MACIEL, Elaine; VIDIGAL, Mariana (Org.). Espaço sob medida. Governo do Estado de Minas Gerais. Secretaria de Estado de Defesa Social. Subsecretaria de Atendimento às Medidas Socioeducativas. Belo Horizonte: Logus, 2010. p. 143-148.FERREIRA, Mônica Dias Peregrino. Juventude e escola. In: DAYRELL, Juarez; MOREIRA, Maria Ignez Costa; STENGEL, Márcia (Orgs.). Juventudes contemporâneas: um mosaico de possibilidades. Belo Horizonte: PUC Minas, 2010. p. 81-98.FLICKINGER, Hans-Georg. Autonomia e reconhecimento: dois conceitos-chave na formac?a?o. Educac?a?o, Porto Alegre, v. 34, jan./abr. 2011. p. 7-12.GUERRA, Andréa Maris Campos. Educar para a cidadania: nas fronteiras da socioeducac?a?o. Curri?culo sem Fronteiras, v. 17, n. 2, maio/ago. 2017. p. 260-274.GUERRA, Andréa Maris Campos et al. Risco e Sinthome: A Psicanálise no Sistema Socioeducativo. Psic.: Teor. e Pesq., Brasília, v. 30, n. 2, jun. 2014. p. 171-177.GURSKI, Rose; PEREIRA, Marcelo R. et al. Quando a psicanálise escuta a socioeducação. Belo Horizonte: Fino Traço, 2019.INSTITUTO DATAFOLHA, Violência PO813983 18 e 19/12/2018. Disponível em: http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2019/01/14/15c9badb875e00d88c8408b49296bf94-v.pdf. 2018. Acesso em: 24 jul. 2020.JESUS, Vania Cristina Pauluk de. Condições escolares e laborais de adolescentes autores de atos infracionais: um desafio à socioeducação. Revista Eletro?nica de Educac?a?o. Sa?o Carlos, SP: UFSCar, v. 7, n. 3, maio 2013. p. 129-142.LACAN, Jacques. Lituraterra. In: Outros Escritos. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2003 (1971). p. 15-25. MADRUGA, Sidney. Pessoas com Deficiência e Direitos Humanos: ótica da diferença e ações afirmativas. 2. ed. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2016ORGANIZAÇÃO MUNDIAL DA SAÚDE. CIF: Classificação Internacional de Funcionalidade, Incapacidade e Saúde [Centro Colaborador da Organização Mundial da Saúde para a Família de Classificações Internacionais, org.; coordenação da tradução Cassia Maria Buchalla]. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo – EDUSP, 2003.PADOVANI, Andréa Sandoval; RISTUM, Marilena. A escola como caminho socioeducativo para adolescentes privados de liberdade. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 39, n. 4, p. 969-984, 2013.SKRTIC, Thomas M. A injustiça institucionalizada: construção e uso da deficiência na escola. In: BUENO, José Geraldo Silveira; MUNAKATA, Kazumi; CHIOZZINI, Daniel Ferraz (Orgs.). A escola como objeto de estudo: escola, desigualdades, diversidades. Araraquara/SP: Junqueira e Marin Editores, 2014. p. 173 a 210.ZANELLA, Maria Nilvane. Adolescente em conflito com a lei e a escola: uma relac?a?o possi?vel? Revista Bras. Adolesce?ncia e Conflitualidade, n. 3, p.4-22, 2019.

Abstract Background Hepatitis B virus RNA (HBV-RNA) is a novel serum biomarker that correlates with transcription of intrahepatic covalently closed circular (cccDNA), which is an important target for pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and novel therapies for functional cure. We studied HBV-RNA kinetics following PEG-IFN treatment and its potential role as a predictor to response in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. Methods HBV-RNA levels were measured in 133 HBeAg-negative CHB patients treated in an international randomized controlled trial (PARC study). Patients received PEG-IFN α-2a for 48 weeks. HBV-RNA was measured from baseline through week 144. Response was defined as HBV-DNA <2000 IU/mL and ALT normalization at week 72. Kinetics of HBV-RNA were compared with HBV-DNA, HBsAg, and HBcrAg. Results Mean HBV-RNA at baseline was 4.4 (standard deviation [SD] 1.2) log10 c/mL. At week 12, HBV-RNA declined by −1.6 (1.1) log10 c/mL. HBV-RNA showed a greater decline in responders compared to nonresponders early at week 12 (−2.0 [1.2] vs −1.5 [1.1] log10 c/mL, P = .04). HBV-RNA level above 1700 c/mL (3.2 log10 c/mL) had a negative predictive value of 91% at week 12 and 93% at week 24 (P = .01) for response. Overall, HBV-RNA showed a stronger correlation with HBV-DNA and HBcrAg (.82 and .80, P < .001) and a weak correlation with HBsAg (.25). At week 12, HBV-RNA was significantly lower among patients with lower HBsAg (<100 IU/mL) or HBsAg loss at week 144. Conclusions During PEG-IFN treatment for HBeAg-negative CHB, HBV-RNA showed a fast and significant decline that correlates with treatment response and HBsAg loss at long-term follow-up. Clinical Trials Registration NCT00114361

Abstract Background In Canada, the legalization of cannabis has enabled cannabidiol (CBD) to become a popular commercial product, increasingly used for medical or therapeutic purposes. There are currently over one thousand CBD products available globally, ranging from oil extracts to CBD-infused beverages. Despite increased usage and availability, the evidence supporting the medical efficacy of CBD is limited. Anecdotal evidence suggests CBD sellers represent their products for medical use through direct medical claims or advice, which in Canada, is not allowed under the Cannabis Act without Health Canada approval. However, it is not clear the extent of sellers making health claims or other strategies used to promote medical usage of CBD. The objective of this study is to determine how CBD sellers advertise their products online to consumers. Methods The product descriptions of 2165 CBD products from 70 websites selling CBD products for human consumption in Canada were collected from January 14th, 2020 to February 2nd, 2020 using an automated website scraper tool. A framing analysis was used to determine how CBD sellers frame their products to prospective customers. The specific medical conditions CBD is represented to treat and product forms were tabulated. Results CBD products are framed to prospective customer through three distinct frames: a specific cure or treatment (n = 1153), a natural health product (n = 872), and a product used in certain ways to achieve particular results (n = 1388). Product descriptions contained medical or therapeutic claims for 171 medical conditions and ailments, with 53.3% of products containing at least one claim. The most prevalent claims found in product descriptions were the ability to treat or manage pain (n = 824), anxiety (n = 609), and inflammation (n = 545). Claims were found for treating or managing serious and-life-threatening illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (n = 210), arthritis (n = 179), cancer (n = 169), Crohn’s disease (n = 78), Parkinson’s disease (n = 59), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (n = 54). CBD most often came in oil/tincture/concentrate form (n = 755), followed by edibles (n = 428), and vaporizer pen/cartridge/liquid products (n = 290). Conclusion The findings suggest CBD is represented as a medical option for numerous conditions and ailments. We recommend Health Canada to conduct a systematic audit of companies selling CBD for regulatory adherence.

Consumer or home use (previously ‘amateur’) moving image formats are distinguished from professional (still known as ‘professional’) ones by relative affordability, ubiquity and simplicity of use. Since Pathé Frères released its Pathé Baby camera, projector and 9.5mm film gauge in 1922, a distinct line of viewing and making equipment has been successfully marketed at nonprofessional use, especially in the home. ‘Amateur film’ is a simple term for a complex, variegated and longstanding set of activities. Conceptually it is bounded only by the negative definition of nonprofessional (usually intended as sub-professional), and the positive definition of being for the love of the activity and motivated by personal passion alone. This defines a field broad enough that two major historians of US amateur film, Patricia R. Zimmermann and Alan D. Kattelle, write about different subjects. Zimmermann focuses chiefly on domestic use and ‘how-to’ literature, while Kattelle unearths the collective practices and institutional structure of the Amateur Ciné Clubs and the Amateur Ciné League (Zimmerman, Reel Families, Professional; Kattelle, Home Movies, Amateur Ciné). Marion Norris Gleason, a test subject in Eastman Kodak’s development of 16mm and advocate of amateur film, defined it as having three parts, the home movie, “the photoplay produced by organised groups”, and the experimental film (Swanson 132). This view was current at least until the 1960s, when domestic documentation, Amateur Ciné clubs and experimental filmmakers shared the same film gauges and space in the same amateur film magazines, but paths have diverged somewhat since then. Domestic documentation remains committed to the moving image technology du jour, the Amateur Ciné movement is much reduced, and experimental film has developed a separate identity, its own institutional structure, and won some legitimacy in the art world. The trajectory of Super 8, a late-coming gauge to amateur film, has been defined precisely by this disintegration. Obsolescence was manufactured far more slowly during the long reign of amateur film gauges, allowing 9.5mm (1922-66), 16mm (1923-), 8mm (1932-), and Super 8 (1965-) to engage in protracted format wars significantly longer than the life spans of their analogue and digital video successors. The range of options available to nonprofessional makers – the quality but relative expense of 16mm, the near 16mm frame size of 9.5mm, the superior stability of 8mm compared to 9.5mm and Super 8, the size of Super 8’s picture relative to 8mm’s – are not surprising in the context of general competition for a diverse popular market on the usual basis of price, quality, and novelty. However, since analogue video’s ascent the amateur film gauges have all comprehensibly lost the battle for the home use market. This was by far the largest section of amateur film and the manufacturers’ overt target segment, so the amateur film gauges’ contemporary survival and significance is as something else. Though all the gauges from 8mm to 16mm remain available today to the curious and enthusiastic, Super 8’s afterlife is distinguished by the peculiar combination of having been a tremendously popular substandard to the substandard (ie, to 16mm, the standardised film gauge directly below 35mm in both price and quality), and now being prized for its technological excellence. When the large scale consumption that had supported Super 8’s manufacture dropped away, it revealed the set of much smaller, apparently non-transferable uses that would determine whether and as what Super 8 survived. Consequently, though Super 8 has been superseded many times over as a home movie format, it is not obsolete today as an art medium, a professional format used in the commercial industry, or as an alternative to digital video and 16mm for low budget independent production. In other words, everything it was never intended to be. I lately witnessed an occasion of the kind of high-fetishism for film-versus-video and analogue-versus-digital that the experimental moving image world is justifiably famed for. Discussion around the screening of Peter Tscherkassky’s films at the Xperimenta ‘09 festival raised the specifics and availability of the technology he relies on, both because of the peculiarity of his production method – found-footage collaging onto black and white 35mm stock via handheld light pen – and the issue of projection. Has digital technology supplied an alternative workflow? Would 35mm stock to work on (and prints to pillage) continue to be available? Is the availability of 35mm projectors in major venues holding up? Although this insider view of 35mm’s waning market share was more a performance of technological cultural politics than an analysis of it, it raised a series of issues central to any such analysis. Each film format is a gestalt item, consisting of four parts (that an individual might own): film stock, camera, projector and editor. Along with the availability of processing services, these items comprise a gauge’s viability (not withstanding the existence of camera-less and unedited workflows, and numerous folk developing methods). All these are needed to conjure the geist of the machine at full strength. More importantly, the discussion highlights what happens when such a technology collides with idiosyncratic and unintended use, which happens only because it is manufactured on a much wider scale than eccentric use alone can support. Although nostalgia often plays a role in the advocacy of obsolete technology, its role here should be carefully qualified and not overstated. If it plays a role in the three main economies that support contemporary Super 8, it need not be the same role. Further, even though it is now chiefly the same specialist shops and technicians that supply and service 9.5mm, 8mm, Super 8, and 16mm, they are not sold on the same scale nor to the same purpose. There has been no reported Renaissances of 9.5mm or 8mm, though, as long term home movie formats, they must loom large in the memories of many, and their particular look evokes pastness as surely as any two-colour process. There are some specifics to the trajectory of Super 8 as a non-amateur format that cannot simply be subsumed to general nostalgia or dead technology fetishism. Super 8 as an Art Medium Super 8 has a longer history as an art medium than as a pro-tool or low budget substandard. One key aspect in the invention and supply of amateur film was that it not be an adequate substitute for the professional technology used to populate the media sphere proper. Thus the price of access to motion picture making through amateur gauges has been a marginalisation of the outcome for format reasons alone (Zimmermann, Professional 24; Reekie 110) Eastman Kodak established their 16mm as the acceptable substandard for many non-theatrical uses of film in the 1920s, Pathé’s earlier 28mm having already had some success in this area (Mebold and Tepperman 137, 148-9). But 16mm was still relatively expensive for the home market, and when Kiyooka Eiichi filmed his drive across the US in 1927, his 16mm camera alone cost more than his car (Ruoff 240, 243). Against this, 9.5mm, 8mm and eventually Super 8 were the increasingly affordable substandards to the substandard, marginalised twice over in the commercial world, but far more popular in the consumer market. The 1960s underground film, and the modern artists’ film that was partly recuperated from it, was overwhelmingly based on 16mm, as the collections of its chief distributors, the New York Film-Makers’ Co-op, Canyon Cinema and the Lux clearly show. In the context of experimental film’s longstanding commitment to 16mm, an artist filmmaker’s choice to work with Super 8 had important resonances. Experimental work on 8mm and Super 8 is not hard to come by, even from the 1960s, but consider the cultural stakes of Jonas Mekas’s description of 8mm films as “beautiful folk art, like song and lyric poetry, that was created by the people” (Mekas 83). The evocation of ‘folk art’ signals a yawning gap between 8mm, whose richness has been produced collectively by a large and anonymous group, and the work produced by individual artists such as those (like Mekas himself) who founded the New American Cinema Group. The resonance for artists of the 1960s and 1970s who worked with 8mm and Super 8 was from their status as the premier vulgar film gauge, compounding-through-repetition their choice to work with film at all. By the time Super 8 was declared ‘dead’ in 1980, numerous works by canonical artists had been made in the format (Stan Brakhage, Derek Jarman, Carolee Schneemann, Anthony McCall), and various practices had evolved around the specific possibilities of this emulsion and that camera. The camcorder not only displaced Super 8 as the simplest to use, most ubiquitous and cheapest moving image format, at the same time it changed the hierarchy of moving image formats because Super 8 was now incontestably better than something. Further, beyond the ubiquity, simplicity and size, camcorder video and Super 8 film had little in common. Camcorder replay took advantage of the ubiquity of television, but to this day video projection remains a relatively expensive business and for some time after 1980 the projectors were rare and of undistinguished quality. Until the more recent emergence of large format television (also relatively expensive), projection was necessary to screen to anything beyond very small audience. So, considering the gestalt aspect of these technologies and their functions, camcorders could replace Super 8 only for the capture of home movies and small-scale domestic replay. Super 8 maintained its position as the cheapest way into filmmaking for at least 20 years after its ‘death’, but lost its position as the premier ‘folk’ moving image format. It remained a key format for experimental film through the 1990s, but with constant competition from evolving analogue and digital video, and improved and more affordable video projection, its market share diminished. Kodak has continued to assert the viability of its film stocks and gauges, but across 2005-06 it deleted its Kodachrome Super 8, 16mm and slide range (Kodak, Kodachrome). This became a newsworthy Super 8 story (see Morgan; NYT; Hodgkinson; Radio 4) because Super 8 was the first deletion announced, this was very close to 8 May 2005, which was Global Super 8 Day, Kodachrome 40 (K40) was Super 8’s most famous and still used stock, and because 2005 was Super 8’s 40th birthday. Kodachome was then the most long-lived colour process still available, but there were only two labs left in the world which could supply processing- Kodak’s Lausanne Kodachrome lab in Switzerland, using the authentic company method, and Dwayne’s Photo in the US, using a tolerable but substandard process (Hodgkinson). Kodak launched a replacement stock simultaneously, and indeed the variety of Super 8 stocks is increasing year to year, partly because of new Kodak releases and partly because other companies split Kodak’s 16mm and 35mm stock for use as Super 8 (Allen; Muldowney; Pro8mm; Dager). Nonetheless, the cancelling of K40 convulsed the artists’ film community, and a spirited defence of its unique and excellent properties was lead by artist and activist Pip Chodorov. Chodorov met with a Kodak executive at the Cannes Film Festival, appealed to the French Government and started an online petition. His campaign circular read: EXPLAIN THE ADVANTAGES OF K40We have to show why we care specifically about Kodachrome and why Ektachrome is not a replacement. Kodachrome […] whose fine grain and warm colors […] are often used as a benchmark of quality for other stocks. The unique qualities of the Kodachrome image should be pointed out, and especially the differences between Kodachrome and Ektachrome […]. What great films were shot in Kodachrome, and why? […] What are the advantages to the K-14 process and the Lausanne laboratory? Is K40 a more stable stock, is it more preservable, do the colors fade resistant? Point out differences in the sensitometry curves, the grain structure... There was a rash of protest screenings, including a special all-day programme at Le Festival des Cinemas Différents de Paris, about which Raphaël Bassan wrote This initiative was justified, Kodak having announced in 2005 that it was going to stop the manufacturing of the ultra-sensitive film Kodachrome 40, which allowed such recognized artists as Gérard Courant, Joseph Morder, Stéphane Marti and a whole new generation of filmmakers to express themselves through this supple and inexpensive format with such a particular texture. (Bassan) The distance Super 8 has travelled culturally since analogue video can be seen in the distance between these statements of excellence and the attributes of Super 8 and 8mm that appealed to earlier artists: The great thing about Super 8 is that you can switch is onto automatic and get beyond all those technicalities” (Jarman)An 8mm camera is the ballpoint of the visual world. Soon […] people will use camera-pens as casually as they jot memos today […] and the narrow gauge can make finished works of art. (Durgnat 30) Far from the traits that defined it as an amateur gauge, Super 8 is now lionised in terms more resembling a chemistry historian’s eulogy to the pigments used in Dark Ages illuminated manuscripts. From bic to laspis lazuli. Indie and Pro Super 8 Historian of the US amateur film Patricia R. Zimmermann has charted the long collision between small gauge film, domesticity and the various ‘how-to’ publications designed to bridge the gap. In this she pays particular attention to the ‘how-to’ publications’ drive to assert the commercial feature film as the only model worthy of emulation (Professional 267; Reel xii). This drive continues today in numerous magazines and books addressing the consumer and pro-sumer levels. Alan D. Kattelle has charted a different history of the US amateur film, concentrating on the cine clubs and their national organisation, the Amateur Cine League (ACL), competitive events and distribution, a somewhat less domestic part of the movement which aimed less at family documentation more toward ‘photo-plays’, travelogues and instructionals. Just as interested in achieving professional results with amateur means, the ACL encouraged excellence and some of their filmmakers received commissions to make more widely seen films (Kattelle, Amateur 242). The ACL’s Ten Best competition still exists as The American International Film and Video Festival (Kattelle, Amateur 242), but its remit has changed from being “a showcase for amateur films” to being open “to all non-commercial films regardless of the status of the film makers” (AMPS). This points to both the relative marginalisation of the mid-century notion of the amateur, and that successful professionals and others working in the penumbra of independent production surrounding the industry proper are now important contributors to the festival. Both these groups are the economically important contemporary users of Super 8, but they use it in different ways. Low budget productions use it as cheap alternative to larger gauges or HD digital video and a better capture format than dv, while professional productions use it as a lo-fi format precisely for its degradation and archaic home movie look (Allen; Polisin). Pro8mm is a key innovator, service provider and advocate of Super 8 as an industry standard tool, and is an important and long serving agent in what should be seen as the normalisation of Super 8 – a process of redressing its pariah status as a cheap substandard to the substandard, while progressively erasing the special qualities of Super 8 that underlay this. The company started as Super8 Sound, innovating a sync-sound system in 1971, prior to the release of Kodak’s magnetic stripe sound Super 8 in 1973. Kodak’s Super 8 sound film was discontinued in 1997, and in 2005 Pro8mm produced the Max8 format by altering camera front ends to shoot onto the unused stripe space, producing a better quality image for widescreen. In between they started cutting professional 35mm stocks for Super 8 cameras and are currently investing in ever more high-quality HD film scanners (Allen; Pro8mm). Simultaneous to this, Kodak has brought out a series of stocks for Super 8, and more have been cut down for Super 8 by third parties, that offer a wider range of light responses or ever finer grain structure, thus progressively removing the limitations and visible artefacts associated with the format (Allen; Muldowney; Perkins; Kodak, Motion). These films stocks are designed to be captured to digital video as a normal part of their processing, and then entered into the contemporary digital work flow, leaving little or no indication of the their origins on a format designed to be the 1960s equivalent of the Box Brownie. However, while Super 8 has been used by financially robust companies to produce full-length programmes, its role at the top end of production is more usually as home movie footage and/or to evoke pastness. When service provider and advocate OnSuper8 interviewed professional cinematographer James Chressanthis, he asserted that “if there is a problem with Super 8 it is that it can look too good!” and spent much of the interview explaining how a particular combination of stocks, low shutter speeds and digital conversion could reproduce the traditional degraded look and avoid “looking like a completely transparent professional medium” (Perkins). In his history of the British amateur movement, Duncan Reekie deals with this distinction between the professional and amateur moving image, defining the professional as having a drive towards clarity [that] eventually produced [what] we could term ‘hyper-lucidity’, a form of cinematography which idealises the perception of the human eye: deep focus, increased colour saturation, digital effects and so on. (108) Against this the amateur as distinguished by a visible cinematic surface, where the screen image does not seem natural or fluent but is composed of photographic grain which in 8mm appears to vibrate and weave. Since the amateur often worked with only one reversal print the final film would also often become scratched and dirty. (108-9) As Super 8’s function has moved away from the home movie, so its look has adjusted to the new role. Kodak’s replacement for K40 was finer grained (Kodak, Kodak), designed for a life as good to high quality digital video rather than a film strip, and so for video replay rather than a small gauge projector. In the economy that supports Super 8’s survival, its cameras and film stock have become part of a different gestalt. Continued use is still justified by appeals to geist, but the geist of film in a general and abstract way, not specific to Super 8 and more closely resembling the industry-centric view of film propounded by decades of ‘how-to’ guides. Activity that originally supported Super 8 continues, and currently has embraced the ubiquitous and extremely substandard cameras embedded in mobile phones and still cameras for home movies and social documentation. As Super 8 has moved to a new cultural position it has shed its most recognisable trait, the visible surface of grain and scratches, and it is that which has become obsolete, discontinued and the focus of nostalgia, along with the sound of a film projector (which you can get to go with films transferred to dvd). So it will be left to artist filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky, talking in 1995 about what Super 8 was to him in the 1980s, to evoke what there is to miss about Super 8 today. Unlike any other format, Super-8 was a microscope, making visible the inner life of images by entering beneath the skin of reality. […] Most remarkable of all was the grain. While 'resolution' is the technical term for the sharpness of a film image, Super-8 was really never too concerned with this. Here, quite a different kind of resolution could be witnessed: the crystal-clear and bright light of a Xenon-projection gave us shapes dissolving into the grain; amorphous bodies and forms surreptitiously transformed into new shapes and disappeared again into a sea of colour. Super-8 was the pointillism, impressionism and the abstract expressionism of cinematography. (Howath) Bibliography Allen, Tom. “‘Making It’ in Super 8.” MovieMaker Magazine 8 Feb. 1994. 1 May 2009 ‹http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/making_it_in_super_8_3044/›. AMPS. “About the American Motion Picture Society.” American Motion Picture Society site. 2009. 25 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.ampsvideo.com›. Bassan, Raphaël. “Identity of Cinema: Experimental and Different (review of Festival des Cinémas Différents de Paris, 2005).” Senses of Cinema 44 (July-Sep. 2007). 25 Apr. 2009 ‹http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/07/44/experimental-cinema-bassan.html›. Chodorov, Pip. “To Save Kodochrome.” Frameworks list, 14 May 2005. 28 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw29/0216.html›. Dager, Nick. “Kodak Unveils Latest Film Stock in Vision3 Family.” Digital Cinema Report 5 Jan. 2009. 27 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/Kodak-Vision3-film›. Durgnat, Raymond. “Flyweight Flicks.” GAZWRX: The Films of Jeff Keen booklet. Originally published in Films and Filming (Feb. 1965). London: BFI, 2009. 30-31. Frye, Brian L. “‘Me, I Just Film My Life’: An Interview with Jonas Mekas.” Senses of Cinema 44 (July-Sep. 2007). 15 Apr. 2009 ‹http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/07/44/jonas-mekas-interview.html›. Hodgkinson, Will. “End of the Reel for Super 8.” Guardian 28 Sep. 2006. 20 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/sep/28/1›. Horwath, Alexander. “Singing in the Rain - Supercinematography by Peter Tscherkassky.” Senses of Cinema 28 (Sep.-Oct. 2003). 5 May 2009 ‹http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/tscherkassky.html›. Jarman, Derek. In Institute of Contemporary Arts Video Library Guide. London: ICA, 1987. Kattelle, Alan D. Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897-1979. Hudson, Mass.: self-published, 2000. ———. “The Amateur Cinema League and its films.” Film History 15.2 (2003): 238-51. Kodak. “Kodak Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Super 8 Film Announces New Color Reversal Product to Portfolio.“ Frameworks list, 9 May 2005. 23 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw29/0150.html›. ———. “Kodachrome Update.” 30 Jun. 2006. 24 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw32/0756.html›. ———. “Motion Picture Film, Digital Cinema, Digital Intermediate.” 2009. 2 Apr. 2009 ‹http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/index.htm?CID=go&idhbx=motion›. Mekas, Jonas. “8mm as Folk Art.” Movie Journal: The Rise of the New American Cinema, 1959-1971. Ed. Jonas Mekas. Originally Published in Village Voice 1963. New York: Macmillan, 1972. Morgan, Spencer. “Kodak, Don't Take My Kodachrome.” New York Times 31 May 2005. 4 Apr. 2009 ‹http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E1DF1F39F932A05756C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2›. ———. “Fans Beg: Don't Take Kodachrome Away.” New York Times 1 Jun. 2005. 4 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/technology/31iht-kodak.html›. Muldowney, Lisa. “Kodak Ups the Ante with New Motion Picture Film.” MovieMaker Magazine 30 Nov. 2007. 6 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.moviemaker.com/cinematography/article/kodak_ups_the_ante_with_new_motion_picture_film/›. New York Times. “Super 8 Blues.” 31 May 2005: E1. Perkins, Giles. “A Pro's Approach to Super 8.” OnSuper8 Blogspot 16 July 2007. 13 Apr. 2009 ‹http://onsuper8.blogspot.com/2007/07/pros-approach-to-super-8.html›. Polisin, Douglas. “Pro8mm Asks You to Think Big, Shoot Small.” MovieMaker Magazine 4 Feb. 2009. 1 May 2009 ‹http://www.moviemaker.com/cinematography/article/think_big_shoot_small_rhonda_vigeant_pro8mm_20090127/›. Pro8mm. “Pro8mm Company History.” Super 8 /16mm Cameras, Film, Processing & Scanning (Pro8mm blog) 12 Mar. 2008. 3 May 2009 ‹http://pro8mm-burbank.blogspot.com/2008/03/pro8mm-company-history.html›. Radio 4. No More Yellow Envelopes 24 Dec. 2006. 4 May 2009 ‹http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/m6yx0/›. Reekie, Duncan. Subversion: The Definitive History of the Underground Cinema. London: Wallflower Press, 2007. Sneakernet, Christopher Hutsul. “Kodachrome: Not Digital, But Still Delightful.” Toronto Star 26 Sep. 2005. Swanson, Dwight. “Inventing Amateur Film: Marion Norris Gleason, Eastman Kodak and the Rochester Scene, 1921-1932.” Film History 15.2 (2003): 126-36 Zimmermann, Patricia R. “Professional Results with Amateur Ease: The Formation of Amateur Filmmaking Aesthetics 1923-1940.” Film History 2.3 (1988): 267-81. ———. Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995.

Abstract Objectives Currently, there are no approved treatments for early disease stages of COVID-19 and few strategies to prevent disease progression after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The objective of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma (CP) or camostat mesylate administered within 72 h of diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adult individuals with pre-existing risk factors at higher risk of getting seriously ill with COVID-19. Camostat mesylate acts as an inhibitor of the host cell serine protease TMPRSS2 and prevents the virus from entering the cell. CP represents another antiviral strategy in terms of passive immunization. The working hypothesis to be tested in the RES-Q-HR study is that the early use of CP or camostat mesylate reduces the likelihood of disease progression to (modified) WHO stages 4b-8 in SARS-CoV-2-positive adult patients at high risk of moderate or severe COVID-19 progression. Trial design This study is a 4-arm (parallel group), multicenter, randomized (2:2:1:1 ratio), partly double-blind, controlled trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma (CP) or camostat mesylate with control or placebo in adult patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection and high risk for progression to moderate/severe COVID-19. Superiority of the intervention arms will be tested. Participants The trial is conducted at 10–15 tertiary care centers in Germany. Individuals aged 18 years or above with ability to provide written informed consent with SARS-CoV-2 infection, confirmed by PCR within 3 days or less before enrolment and the presence of at least one SARS-CoV-2 symptom (such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, headache, fatigue, smell/and or taste disorder, diarrhea, abdominal symptoms, exanthema) and symptom duration of not more than 3 days. Further inclusion criteria comprise: Presence of at least one of the following criteria indicating increased risk for severe COVID-19: Age > 75 years Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and/or pulmonary fibrosis BMI > 40 kg/m2 Age > 65 years with at least one other risk factor (BMI > 35 kg/m2, coronary artery disease (CAD), chronic kidney disease (CKD) with GFR < 60 ml/min but ≥ 30 ml/min, diabetes mellitus, active tumor disease) BMI > 35 kg/m2 with at least one other risk factor (CAD, CKD with GFR < 60 ml/min but ≥ 30 ml/min, diabetes mellitus, active tumor disease) Exclusion criteria: Age < 18 years Unable to give informed consent Pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers Previous transfusion reaction or other contraindication to a plasma transfusion Known hypersensitivity to camostat mesylate and/or severe pancreatitis Volume stress due to CP administration would be intolerable Known IgA deficiency Life expectancy < 6 months Duration SARS-CoV-2 typical symptoms > 3 days SARS-CoV-2 PCR detection older than 3 days SARS-CoV-2 associated clinical condition ≥ WHO stage 3 (patients hospitalized for other reasons than COVID-19 may be included if they fulfill all inclusion and none of the exclusion criteria) Previously or currently hospitalized due to SARS-CoV-2 Previous antiviral therapy for SARS-CoV-2 ALT or AST > 5 x ULN at screening Liver cirrhosis > Child A (patients with Child B/C cirrhosis are excluded from the trial) Chronic kidney disease with GFR < 30 ml/min Concurrent or planned anticancer treatment during trial period Accommodation in an institution due to legal orders (§40(4) AMG). Any psycho-social condition hampering compliance with the study protocol. Evidence of current drug or alcohol abuse Use of other investigational treatment within 5 half-lives of enrolment is prohibited Previous use of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 Concomitant proven influenza A infection Patients with organ or bone marrow transplant in the three months prior to screening visit Intervention and comparator Participants will be randomized to the following 4 groups: Convalescent plasma (CP), 2 units at screening/baseline visit (day 0) or day 1; CP is defined by the presence of neutralizing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies with titers ≥ 1:160; individuals with body weight ≥ 150 kg will receive a third unit of plasma on day 3 Camostat mesylate (200 mg per capsule, one capsule taken each in the morning, afternoon and evening on days 1–7) Standard of care (SOC, control for CP) Placebo (identical in appearance to camostat mesylate capsules, one capsule taken each morning, afternoon and evening on days 1–7; for camostat mesylate control group) Participants will be monitored after screening/baseline on day 3, day 5, day 8, and day 14. On day 28 and day 56, telephone visits and on day 90, another outpatient visit are scheduled. Adverse events and serious adverse events will be monitored and reported until the end of the study. An independent data safety monitoring committee will review trial progression and safety. Main outcomes The primary endpoint of the study is the cumulative number of individuals who progress to or beyond category 4b on the modified WHO COVID-19 ordinal scale (defined as hospitalization with COVID-19 pneumonia and additional oxygen demand via nasal cannula or mask) within 28 days after randomization. Randomization Participants will be randomized using the Alea-Tool (aleaclinical.com) in a 2:2:1:1 ratio to the treatment arms (1) CP, (2) camostat mesylate, (3) standard of care (SoC), and (4) placebo matching camostat mesylate. Randomization will be stratified by study center. Blinding (masking) The camostat mesylate treatment arm and the respective placebo will be blinded for participants, caregivers, and those assessing outcomes. The treatment arms convalescent plasma and standard of care will not be blinded and thus are open-labeled, unblinded. Numbers to be randomized (sample size) Overall, n = 994 participants will be randomized to the following groups: n = 331 to convalescent plasma (CP), n = 331 to camostat mesylate, n = 166 to standard of care (SoC), and n = 166 to placebo matching camostat mesylate. Trial status The RES-Q-HR protocol (V04F) was approved on the 18 December 2020 by the local ethics committee and by the regulatory institutions PEI/BfARM on the 2 December 2020. The trial was opened for recruitment on 26 December 2020; the first patient was enrolled on 7 January 2021 and randomized on 8 January 2021. Recruitment shall be completed by June 2021. The current protocol version RES-Q HR V05F is from 4 January 2021, which was approved on the 18 January 2021. Trial registration EudraCT Number 2020-004695-18. Registered on September 29, 2020. ClinicalTrial.gov NCT04681430. Registered on December 23, 2020, prior to the start of the enrollment (which was opened on December 26, 2020). Full protocol The full protocol (V05F) is attached as an additional file, accessible from the Trials website (Additional file 1). In the interest in expediting dissemination of this material, the familiar formatting has been eliminated; this letter serves as a summary of the key elements of the full protocol. The study protocol has been reported in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Clinical Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines (Additional file 2).

L’ablazione dei beni appartenenti all’autore di un reato rappresenta, sin dagli albori della civiltà giuridica, una delle più diffuse risposte penitenziali previste dal diritto penale. Nonostante l’evoluzione millenaria dell’istituto, solo in epoca moderna i legislatori nazionali hanno introdotto la confisca del profitto derivante dal fatto criminoso. L’istituto oggetto di analisi presenta, sul piano interpretativo, numerosi profili di criticità, sui quali si è concentrata la ricerca. In una prima parte, marcatamente ricostruttiva, si ripercorre l’evoluzione storica dell’istituto, muovendo dal diritto romano per giungere a delineare, attraverso il diritto comune, la fisionomia che la misura ha assunto in epoca moderna, nella codificazione preunitaria e nel codice Zanardelli; segue, poi, l’analisi delle varie ipotesi di confisca del profitto oggi vigenti. Nella seconda parte del lavoro si affronta, in modo maggiormente approfondito, il tema della determinazione del quantum di profitto confiscabile, analizzando le posizioni assunte, negli anni, dalla giurisprudenza di merito e di legittimità sino a giungere alla sentenza resa dalle Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione nel 2008, che tanta attenzione ha suscitato in dottrina e che ha finalmente reso attuale un tema per lungo tempo dimenticato. Fornite alcune essenziali coordinate comparatistiche, il lavoro si concentra sull’alternativa netto/lordo, ossia sulla discussa possibilità di dedurre dal profitto confiscabile le spese riconducibili al fatto criminoso; si perviene, infine, alla conclusione che l’opzione per il principio del netto sia nella sostanza necessitata dall’applicazione dei rigidi canoni ermeneutici imposti dal principio di legalità e si auspica l’intervento del legislatore per una definitiva sistemazione della materia.

Le ipotesi speciali di confisca si contraddistinguono nel sistema penale per l’allontanamento dal modello della misura di sicurezza patrimoniale ex art. 240 c.p. e per le peculiarità comuni alla loro disciplina (obbligatorietà, anche in caso di applicazione della pena su richiesta delle parti; estensione della ablazione al valore equivalente). La misura di prevenzione patrimoniale (artt. 2 ter ss. l.n. 575/1965) e la confisca ex art. 12 sexies l.n. 356/1992 in primis, ma soprattutto la disciplina penale societaria e la legislazione relativa alla responsabilità "da reato" degli enti, testimoniano della tendenziale rinuncia del legislatore alla confisca dei beni "pertinenti" al reato a favore della re-introduzione di figure lato sensu di "confisca generale", che registrano nei fatti una significativa compressione dei diritti non solo dell’interessato, ma – nonostante il tenore delle norme – anche del "terzo" individuato, a seconda dei casi, nella "persona estranea al reato", nella "persona offesa", nel "danneggiato", nel "terzo di buona fede"). Lungo tale direttrice, evidente nell’ambito delle strategie di contrasto alla c.d. criminalità economica e condivisa dalla normativa europea e sovranazionale, l’ablazione patrimoniale è divenuta sanzione a pieno titolo: talora "pena principale" (art. 19, D.lgs. n. 231/2001), più spesso "pena accessoria", addirittura anticipata alla fase delle indagini preliminari attraverso lo strumento del sequestro preventivo finalizzato alla confisca (art. 321, comma 2 c.p.p.; art. 53 D.lgs. n. 231/2001). Dalle premesse poste scaturisce l’esigenza di una rinnovata attenzione verso le guarentigie costituzionali, che in ordinamenti come quello della Repubblica Federale Tedesca sono state invocate dal "Giudice delle Leggi" (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in funzione di garanzia dei diritti fondamentali dei singoli.

Hydrogen ion turnover in resting adults exceeds 500 mole/24 hours and maintenance of hydrogen ion balance is an essential requirement for normal cellular, organ and body function. A variety of mechanisms co-operate to ensure that the hydrogen concentration in plasma can be tightly controlled between 35 to 46 nano moles per litre and any deviation being rapidly compensated. Inherited metabolic diseases can to a variable degree impact to disturb this equilibrium. The underlying causes responsible for this outcome are disease dependent and may occur due to generation of overwhelming quantities of hydrogen per se, or at the level of renal reabsorption or generation of bicarbonate or due to tissue hypoxia resulting from either poor pulmonary or cardiac function.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is defined as unexpected death due to a cardiac disease, in a patient with or without known cardiac disease and which occurs within 1 hour from the appearance of the first clinical symptoms. The sudden cessation of cardiac activity leads to haemodynamic collapse, typically due to sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias. The event is described as an aborted SCD (or sudden cardiac arrest) when an intervention (e.g. defibrillation) or spontaneous reversion restores circulation. The lack of uniformity with this definition complicates SCD statistics. By convention, the use of SCD to describe both fatal and non-fatal cardiac arrests persists. SCD continues to be a leading cause of death in Western countries, and accounts for 15%–20% of all natural deaths in adults in the US and Western Europe, and up to 50% of all cardiovascular deaths. In the US, estimates of SCDs from retrospective death certificate analyses range from 300 000 to 350 000 annually, giving an incidence of 0.1%–0.2% per year amongst the population above the age of 35 years. Event rates are said to be similar in Europe, although worldwide incidence is difficult to estimate and varies in accordance to the prevalence of CHD. The incidence of SCD increases with age and underlying cardiac disease. There is also a male preponderance, with men 2–3 times more likely to experience SCD than women, and this reflects the higher incidence of CHD in men.

Concepción Arenal Ponte (Ferrol, España, enero 31 de 1820-Vigo, España, 4 de febrero de 1893). Abogada, poeta, ensayista y periodista cuya obra se inscribe dentro del Realismo literario, es precursora del feminismo español con sus escritos y acciones sociales en defensa de los derechos y la dignidad de las mujeres. No es difícil imaginar las angustias de su tiempo. La literatura nos da la licencia, lo que siguen son los detalles de vida, los lugares, las personas. Primero una biblioteca y el contacto con los libros, luego el plan, las injusticias y carencias de muchas mujeres y el ritual de la limitación ya estaba servido. Doña Concepción “Concha” como talvez la llamaban sus seres queridos, ya se había organizado muchas veces un plan mental. Debía ingresar a las Aulas de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Central de Madrid. Con seguridad se había detenido en las proximidades del alma mater, había visto los rostros adustos de los juristas, sus cerrados trajes de levita y sombrero de copa alta. El siglo XIX seguía la férrea tradición y resistencia a que la mujer tuviera un espacio fuera de sus roles reproductivos. Tuvo que haber examinado con detalle propio de su alma sensible los gestos, los adornos, el brillo de las miradas, las inflexiones de la voz, los zapatos lustrosos, el espíritu de cofradía de los estudiantes en las llegadas y salidas masivas del claustro. Habría sabido el arte de camuflarse en la muchedumbre, en las jornadas más concurridas, el discreto arte de hacerse uno con la mayoría. Concepción también había estudiado su propia puesta en escena. Frente al espejo habría repetido algunos latinazgos, y un poema clásico propio de la retórica de la época. La oratoria en preparación para el examen de admisión mientras soñaba con ser como “uno más” en el aula de clases de derecho civil o la teoría del poder y del Estado. Aunque no tengamos los datos certeros de un biógrafo, con seguridad tuvo largas charlas preparatorias para el gran día, el resto de la puesta en escena. Con seguridad esa cómplice ayuda amiga que es-tuvo a su lado cuando fue descubierta. Siendo consciente de las limitaciones de su tiempo ella pensaba en ser parte del cambio. No es posible concebir su proyecto, como una mera apuesta por romper barreras sin conciencia de futuro. Sin duda aprender leyes era proporcional a su pasión por la justicia, la de los más desvalidos, entre quienes se contaba ella misma y su género. Su candidez o exceso de confianza sorprenden. Las jornadas de práctica teatral habían terminado por forjar en ella un camuflaje seguro, una performance donde la masculinidad se completa en el travestimiento, en un final de siglo donde los estereotipos de la masculinidad eran tan marcados que un poco de brusquedad, unas facciones duras, ante la ausencia de maquillaje o el cabello corto y engominado habían bastado para completar la expectativa de género. En el proceso todo valía la pena frente a un fin elevado: las leyes y con ella la justicia que debía estar al servicio de la causa social. Concepción Arenal no es la primera mujer que se viste de hombre para alcanzar su sueño, sí, la primera en hacerlo en una nación y en el marco de un cultura jurídica ítalo- germánico-canónica, en la que el lugar de la mujer en la sociedad estaba limitado por una visión patriarcal, una línea paterna de mando y organización de la vida en la que las mujeres no tienen derechos civi les, ni políticos, esencialmente porque no eran personas y mucho menos ciudadanas. Sería la primera mujer española en planear y ejecutar su acceso a la educación superior, hacerse abogada a pesar de todos los obstáculos que le sobrevendrían después de ser descubierta. Triunfo a medias? No fue expulsada, su valor se leyó como un signo excepcional. Podría asistir a las aulas cumpliendo el lastimero ritual de ser recibida por un lebrel, conducida de clase en clase por cada maestro y dejada nuevamente en un espacio seguro del contacto masculino. Una semana, un mes, un año, estuvo en las aulas de 1842 a 1845, para que al final no tuviera un título formal. Concepción no se dio por vencida, no se detuvo. La historia de su éxito posterior, es el testimonio de sus libros. Su lucidez y buen juicio se extenderían tanto como sus obras. Estuvo en las cárceles y hospicios, es-cuchó el clamor de los marginados. Ella pensó en superarse, en abierta lucha contra la injusticia y luego habló, interpeló a las mujeres y hombres de su tiempo, pero sobre todo y como se titula esta obra, escribió para “la mujer del porvenir”. Su voz sigue vigente, ahora como antes y su legado constituye un acto de memoria urgen-te para esta y las futuras generaciones. *** La obra de Concepción Arenal inaugura el proyecto BLA Biblioteca de Autoras libres, en el marco de la creación del “Observatorio Mujer, género y violencias” de la Univesidad Libre, mediante Res. 03 de 20 de agosto de 2020 y en cumplimiento de sus actividades de Investigación, formación académica y proyección social, en armonía con los proyectos de investigación “Género, derecho y memoria histórica”, del grupo Derecho, Sociedad y estudios internacionales, y el proyecto mul-ticampus “Identificación los roles y los estereotipos de género en la Universidad y Comunidades de Impacto: Herramientas para Igualdad y Eliminación de todas las formas de Violencia (2021-2022)”. La colección “Biblioteca de Autoras libres” se presenta como un espacio para la difusión del pensamiento y obras de mujeres quienes, a lo largo de la historia y la formación del pensamiento político, jurídico liberal que han sido piezas clave para la construcción de una sociedad más justa, tolerante, incluyente y en paz. Finalmente, es muy importante destacar cómo ejercicio de memoria para el futuro, el trabajo de transcripción y revisión de ediciones previas, realizado por de los integrantes del semillero “Género, derecho y memoria histórica”: Jorge Acevedo, María José Nieto, Lina Moreno, Julieth Guerrero, Laura Ocampo, Valen-tina Rodríguez, Vanessa Lesmes, María Fernanda Neira y Paula Cárdenas. Sin su paciente labor de copistas, al más tradicional estilo antiguo, la colección “Biblioteca de Autoras Libres BAL” no empezaría a dar sus frutos. El proyecto BAL es una realidad gracias a la confianza y apoyo de nuestras directivas Seccionales, Dr Fernando Salinas y Dra Elizabeth García, quienes valorando la filosofía y los principios fundacionales de nuestra alma mater, acompañan este acto de memoria de mujeres que han sido una pieza fundamental en la consolidación de tradición liberal y en la igualdad de género como una necesidad urgente para la construcción de una nueva nación.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the carbon footprint of travelling to academic conferences. The cases I present are the last seven General Conferences of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), which are the biggest European conferences in political science, with up to 2000 participants. My estimations show that the travel-induced carbon footprint of a single conference can amount to more than 2000 tons of greenhouse gases—as much as approximately 270 UK citizens emit in a whole year. The average participant produces between 500 and 1500 kg of CO2-eq per conference round-trip. However, by applying three measures (more centrally located conference venues, the promotion of more land-bound travel and the introduction of online participation for attendees from distant locations), the carbon footprint could be reduced by 78–97 per cent. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a general shift towards online conferences—the ECPR switched to a virtual event as well. Estimating the carbon footprint of this online-only conference in a more detailed manner shows that the travel-induced carbon emissions—if the event had taken place in physical attendance as originally intended—would have been between 250 and 530 times higher than those from the online conference.

Roofing techniques are the key for weather resistance and energy efficiency of buildings. Installing asphalt roofing rolls is one of the most popular roof protection methods. This is usually carried out manually. Workers apply heat to the rolls by means of burners. Operators must follow quite a few steps to roof: place the rolls on the ground, unroll, apply energy, and secure. From 20 to 25 rolls per day can be installed by an operator using this manual procedure (200–250 m2). So, the fact that manual installation means such a reduced work capacity has pushed the development of industrial equipment. Besides, requirement for reduction of CO2 emissions is forcing to develop systems that optimize the fuel consumptions or even to replace fuel burners by other types of electric heating devices. In this chapter, a review of the state of the art and market of equipment for accelerating asphalt roofing process is presented. A detailed description of some systems and patents is given. The main geometric, physical, and performance parameters will be described and compared. Two new systems based on torches and infrared heating show double installation speed that is the usual manual roofing rate.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of mortality among cardiovascular diseases, responsible for 16% of the world’s total deaths. According to a statistical report published in 2020, the global prevalence of CAD was estimated at 1655 per 100,000 people and is predicted to exceed 1845 by 2030. Annually, in the United States, CAD accounts for approximately 610,000 deaths and costs more than 200 billion dollars for healthcare services. Most patients with CAD need to be treated over long periods with a combination of drugs. Therefore, the inappropriate use of drugs, or drug-related problems (DRPs), can lead to many consequences that affect these patients’ health, including decreased quality of life, increased hospitalization rates, prolonged hospital stays, increased overall health care costs, and even increased risk of morbidity and mortality. DRPs are common in CAD patients, with a prevalence of over 60%. DRPs must therefore be noticed and recognized by healthcare professionals. This chapter describes common types and determinants of DRPs in CAD patients and recommends interventions to limit their prevalence.

Tra le strategie che Jardiel utilizza nel processo di creazione del suo teatro comico, sia a livello letterario, come un esercizio di stile, sia a livello scenico-descrittivo, si annovera la presenza della soggettività autoriale nelle didascalie. Secondo Abuín González (1994, 200), ciò rivelerebbe una incapacità «de contenerse», un «narcisimo literario» che spinge l’autore a fare uso delle «acotaciones como vehículo de expresión propia, como una ilustración más de su elevado arte humorístico y verbal». Questa tendenza si manifesta anche in Los ladrones somos gente honrada come ulteriore espressione della comicità e dell’ironia e sembra collegarsi, in particolare, alle caratteristiche di certi personaggi che si distinguono per le loro funzioni comiche.

Risk factors related to work activity and ergonomics can enhance the probability that some persons may develop a MSD (musculoskeletal disorder). Usually the MSD develops due to high task repetition, forceful exertion, and repetitive/sustained awkward postures. MSD is also found in some cases where workers are engaged with working in awkward postures, cold temperatures, contact stress, heavy load, static postures, and vibration, etc. Many studies explain the problems for MSD, but in this chapter an effort is taken to rank the maximum body movement and body parts as per the different types of work flow system such that ergonomics design can be planned. Physical disorders can be avoided by finding and ranking the difficult task and the affected body part due to that kind of work. The prioritization of task will help the organization to think of sustainable designs of working procedure or instruments or machines to provide maximum comfort to humankind. It may also help to frame policies for occupational safety and hazards in workplace.

A fundamental understanding of colloid and interface science for surfactant design in CO2-based systems is emerging on the basis of studies of interfacial tension and surfactant adsorption (da Rocha et al., 1999) along with complementary studies of colloid structure (Chillura-Martino et al., 1996; Meredith and Johnston, 1999; Wignall, 1999) and stability (Meredith and Johnston, 1999; O’Neill, 1997; Yates et al., 1997). The interfacial tension, γ, between a supercritical fluid (SCF) phase and a hydrophilic or lipophilic liquid or solid, along with surfactant adsorption, play a key role in a variety of processes including nucleation, coalescense and growth of dispersed phases, formation of microemulsions and emulsions (Johnston et al., 1999), particle and fiber formation, atomization, foaming (Goel and Beckman, 1995), wetting, adhesion, lubrication, and the morphology of blends and composites (Watkins et al., 1999). The first generation of research involving surfactants in SCFs addressed water/oil (w/o) microemulsions (Fulton and Smith, 1988; Johnston et al., 1989) and polymer latexes (Everett and Stageman, 1978) in ethane and propane (Bartscherer et al., 1995; Fulton, 1999; McFann and Johnston, 1999). This work provided a foundation for studies in CO2, which has modestly weaker van der Waals forces (polarizability per volume) than ethane. Consequently, polymers with low cohesive energy densities and thus low surface tensions are the most soluble in CO2: for example, fluoroacrylates (DeSimone et al., 1992), fluorocarbons, fluoroethers (Singley et al., 1997), siloxanes, and to a lesser extent propylene oxide. Since CO2 is nonpolar (unlike water) and has weak van der Waals forces (unlike lipophilic phases), it may be considered to be a third type of condensed phase. Surfactants with the above types of “CO2-philic” segments and a “CO2-phobic” segment have been used to form microemulsions (Harrison et al., 1994; Johnston et al., 1996), emulsions (da Rocha et al., 1999; Jacobson et al., 1999a; Lee et al., 1999b), and organic polymer latexes (DeSimone et al., 1994) in CO2. Microemulsion droplets are typically 2–10 nm in diameter, making them optically transparent and thermodynamically stable, whereas kinetically stable emulsion droplets and latexes in the range of 200 nm to 10 mm are opaque and thermodynamically unstable.

Production of geothermal energy for electricity at Amiata Volcano uses flash-type power plants with cooling towers that evaporate much of the geothermal fluid to the atmosphere to condense the geothermal vapour extracted. Because the flash occurs also within the geothermal reservoir, it causes a significant depressurization within it that, in turns, results in a drop of the water table inside the volcano between 200 and 300 m. The flow rates of natural springs around the volcano have also substantially decreased or ceased since the start of geothermal energy exploitation. Continuous recording of aquifer conditions shows substantial increases in salinity (>20%) and temperature (>2°C) as the water table falls below about 755–750 m asl. In addition to hydrologic impacts, there are also a large numbers of induced earthquakes, among which the ML 3.9, April 1, 2000 earthquake that generated significant damage in the old villages and rural houses. Relevant impacts on air quality occur when emissions are considered on a per-MW basis. For example, CO2+CH4 emissions at Amiata are comparable to those of gas-fired power plants (1), while the acid-rain potential is about twice that of coal-fired power plants. Also, a significant emission of primary and secondary fine particles is associated with the cooling towers. These particles contain heavy metals and are enriched in sodium, vanadium, zinc, phosphorous, sulphur, tantalium, caesium, thallium, thorium, uranium, and arsenic relative to comparable aerosols collected in Florence and Arezzo (2). Measurements have shown that mercury emitted at Amiata comprises 42% of the mercury emitted from all Italian industries, while an additional comparable amount is emitted from the other geothermal power plants of Tuscany (3). We believe that the use of air coolers in place of the evaporative cooling towers, as suggested in 2010 by the local government of Tuscany (4), could have and can now drastically reduced the environmental impact on freshwater and air. On the opposite side of the coin, air-coolers would increase the amount of reinjection, increasing the risk of induced seismicity. We conclude that the use of deep borehole heat exchangers could perhaps be the only viable solution to the current geothermal energy environmental impacts.

From a remote outpost of global warming, a summons crackles over a two-way radio several times a week: . . . Kathmandu, Tsho Rolpa! Babar Mahal, Tsho Rolpa! Kathmandu, Tsho Rolpa! Babar Mahal, Tsho Rolpa! . . . In a little brick building on the lip of a frigid gray lake fifteen thousand feet above sea level, Ram Bahadur Khadka tries to rouse someone at Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology in the Babar Mahal district of Kathmandu far below. When he finally succeeds and a voice crackles back to him, he reads off a series of measurements: lake levels, amounts of precipitation. A father and a farmer, Ram Bahadur is up here at this frigid outpost because the world is getting warmer. He and two colleagues rotate duty; usually two of them live here at any given time, in unkempt bachelor quarters near the roof of the world. Mount Everest is three valleys to the east, only about twenty miles as the crow flies. The Tibetan plateau is just over the mountains to the north. The men stay for four months at a stretch before walking down several days to reach a road and board a bus to go home and visit their families. For the past six years each has received five thousand rupees per month from the government—about $70—for his labors. The cold, murky lake some fifty yards away from the post used to be solid ice. Called Tsho Rolpa, it’s at the bottom of the Trakarding Glacier on the border between Tibet and Nepal. The Trakarding has been receding since at least 1960, leaving the lake at its foot. It’s retreating about 200 feet each year. Tsho Rolpa was once just a pond atop the glacier. Now it’s half a kilometer wide and three and a half kilometers long; upward of a hundred million cubic meters of icy water are trapped behind a heap of rock the glacier deposited as it flowed down and then retreated. The Netherlands helped Nepal carve out a trench through that heap of rock to allow some of the lake’s water to drain into the Rolwaling River.

The Algerian steppe is of great interest in terms of vegetation, mainly in the Naâma region. This steppe vegetation is generally composed of annual and perennial grasses and other herbaceous plants, as well as, bushes and small trees. It is characterized by an arid Mediterranean climate where the average annual precipitation (100 to 250 mm) is insufficient to ensure the maintenance of the vegetation, in which the potential evaporation always exceeds the precipitations. This aridity has strong hydrological effect and edaphic implications from which it is inseparable. Water losses are great than gains due to the evaporation and transpiration from plants (evapotranspiration). The wind moves soils for one location to another, and causes a strong evapotranspiration of the plants, which is explained by a strong chronic water deficit of climatic origin of these compared to the potential evapotranspiration, opposed to a humid climate. Evapotranspiration is certainly closely linked to climate factors (solar radiation, temperature, wind, etc.), but it also depends on the natural environment of the studied region. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) data estimated from Thornthwaite’s method for the three stations (Mécheria, Naâma and Ainsefra). The average annual value of potential evapotranspiration is of the order of 807 mm in Mécheria, of 795 mm in Naâma de and in Ainsefra of 847 mm. It is more than 3 times greater than the value of the rainfall received. This propels it globally in the aridity of the region and from which the water balance of plants is in deficit. The potential evapotranspiration of vegetation in arid areas is very important due to high temperature and sunshine. During the cold season, precipitation covers the needs of the potential evapotranspiration and allows the formation of the useful reserve from which the emergence of vegetation. From the month of April there is an exhaustion of the useful reserve which results of progressive deficit of vegetation. Faced with this phenomenon of evatranspiration, the steppe vegetation of the region then invests in “survival” by reducing the phenomena of evapotranspiration, photosynthetic leaf surfaces, in times of drought. These ecophysiological relationships can largely explain the adaptation of steppe species (low woody and herbaceous plants) to the arid Mediterranean climate. Mechanisms and diverse modalities were allowing them to effectively resist for this phenomenon. The adaptation of the steppe vegetation by the presence of a root system with vertical or horizontal growth or both and seems to depend on the environmental conditions, and by the reduction of the surface of transpiration, and by the fall or the rolling up of the leaves, and by a seasonal reduction of transpiration surface of the plant to reduce water losses during the dry season (more than 6 months) of the year.. Some xerophytes produce “rain roots” below the soil surface, following light precipitation or during dew formation. Other persistent sclerophyllous species by which decreases transpiration by the hardness of the leaves often coated with a thick layer of wax or cutin.

Abstract This work presents the finite element (FE) formulation and implementation of a higher order shear deformable shell element for dynamic explicit analysis of composite and sandwich shells. The formulation is developed using a displacement based third order shear deformation shell theory. Using the differential equilibrium equations and the interlayer requirements, a treatment is developed for the transverse shear, resulting in a continuous, piecewise quartic distribution of the transverse shear stresses through the shell thickness. The FE implementation is cast into a 4-noded quadrilateral shell element with 9 degrees of freedom (DOF) per node. Only C0 continuity of the displacement functions is required in the shell plane, which makes the present formulation applicable to the most common 4-noded bilinear isoparametric shell elements. Expressions are developed for the critical time step of the explicit time integration for orthotropic homogeneous and layered shells based on the developed third order formulation. To assess the performance of the present shell element it is implemented in the general nonlinear explicit dynamic FE code DYNA3D. Several problems are solved and results are compared to other theoretical and numerical results. The developed sandwich shell element is much more computationally efficient for modeling sandwich shells than solid elements.

The oil and gas industry is currently drilling into and producing from wells in high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) environments. This has created a greater demand to develop more advanced tools and new technology to safely overcome the challenges in these operations. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) requires equipment operating in HPHT environments to pass a design verification analysis. The design verification shall be evaluated using finite element analysis (FEA) per ASME Boiler Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC), Section VIII, Division 3 [1] and API 17TR8 [2]. The objective of this study is to generate a pressure-bending-tension (PBT) capacity chart per the elastic-plastic analysis methodology (global collapse criteria) outlined in KD-230 [1] for a subsea tree connector. The PBT capacity chart covers a wide range of normal operating conditions. Results indicate that the structural capacities from the elastic-plastic analysis methodology are higher than those determined by the standard elastic analysis methodology.

Designing an airport pavement is a complex engineering task. Thus, one of the first steps is to create scenarios for the operation of the airport. In this sense, the use of data analysis techniques can extract insights for this phase. Among the various parameters that characterize a runway, the most relevant is the structural capacity of the pavement and the length. For aviation, the standard for indicating the resistance of pavement is its Pavement Classification Number (PCN). Therefore, an application was developed in Python programming language [1], having as inputs the PCN and the runway length. Outputs are the aircraft supported by the pavement and the routes served (coverage). The development of this study follows the steps: a collection of real raw data about airports and aircrafts, data processing and cleaning, model development, model testing and application, result analysis, visualization, and final report. To test the model, the Viseu Aerodrome, located in the Center of Portugal region, was used. Several combinations have been created for PCN and runway length. Of all scenarios, three of them stood out, namely: maintain current characteristics (PCN 6 and length of 1160 m); an intermediate (PCN 23 and length of 1800 m); and a more robust scenario (PCN 83 and length of 2500 m). Finally, in the first scenario, it was possible to serve mainland Portugal, Spain, and a small portion of southern France. However, the operation was limited to small aircraft of up to 20 passengers. In the intermediate scenario, it was possible to serve much of the Schengen space with aircraft of up to 70 passengers. For the robust scenario, all Schengen space was served, with aircraft of up to 200 passengers. Therefore, based on two simple parameters, such as PCN and runway length, it was possible to visualize the coverage of an airport

Designing an airport pavement is a complex engineering task. Thus, one of the first steps is to create scenarios for the operation of the airport. In this sense, the use of data analysis techniques can extract insights for this phase. Among the various parameters that characterize a runway, the most relevant is the structural capacity of the pavement and the length. For aviation, the standard for indicating the resistance of pavement is its Pavement Classification Number (PCN). Therefore, an application was developed in Python programming language, having as inputs the PCN and the runway length. Outputs are the aircraft supported by the pavement and the routes served (coverage). The development of this study follows the steps: a collection of real raw data about airports and aircrafts, data processing and cleaning, model development, model testing and application, result analysis, visualization, and final report. To test the model, the Viseu Aerodrome, located in the Center of Portugal region, was used. Several combinations have been created for PCN and runway length. Of all scenarios, three of them stood out, namely: maintain current characteristics (PCN 6 and length of 1160 m); an intermediate (PCN 23 and length of 1800 m); and a more robust scenario (PCN 83 and length of 2500 m). Finally, in the first scenario, it was possible to serve mainland Portugal, Spain, and a small portion of southern France. However, the operation was limited to small aircraft of up to 20 passengers. In the intermediate scenario, it was possible to serve much of the Schengen space with aircraft of up to 70 passengers. For the robust scenario, all Schengen space was served, with aircraft of up to 200 passengers. Therefore, based on two simple parameters, such as PCN and runway length, it was possible to visualize the coverage of an airport.

The signal processing task for radar systems with large instantaneous bandwidth and wide range coverage stresses the throughput rate of conventional digital processors. In this paper, a hybrid analog signal processor for wideband pulse-Doppler radar1 is described. It offers the potential of a compact, high-throughput processor. In the processor, three types of analog signal processing devices are incorporated. They are: (1) a surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) convolver2 to perform programmable pulse compression for radar signals with 200-MHz instantaneous bandwidth in order to provide target range information with 0.75-m resolution, (2) optoelectronic sample-and-hold (S/H) circuits3 to perform the range gating function and the buffering of the sampled data into the Doppler processor, and (3) charge-coupled-device (CCD) matrix-matrix-product (MMP) chips4 to perform Doppler Fourier analysis in order to provide target velocity information.

The maximum equipment power density (e.g. in power/rack or power/area) that may be deployed in a typical raised-floor data center is limited by perforated tile airflow. In the design of a data center cooling system, a simple estimate of mean airflow per perforated tile is typically made based on the number of CRAC’s and number of perforated tiles (and possibly a leakage airflow estimate). However, in practice, many perforated tiles may deliver substantially more or less than the mean, resulting in, at best, inefficiencies and, at worst, equipment failure due to inadequate cooling. Consequently, the data center designer needs to estimate the magnitude of variations in perforated tile airflow prior to construction or renovation. In this paper, over 240 CFD models are analyzed to determine the impact of data-center design parameters on perforated tile airflow uniformity. The CFD models are based on actual data center floor plans and the CFD model is verified by comparison to experimental test data. Perforated tile type and the presence of plenum obstructions have the greatest potential influence on airflow uniformity. Floor plan, plenum depth, and airflow leakage rate have modest effect on uniformity and total airflow rate (or average plenum pressure) has virtually no effect. Good uniformity may be realized by using more restrictive (e.g. 25%-open) perforated tiles, minimizing obstructions and leakage airflow, using deeper plenums, and using rectangular floor plans with standard hot aisle/cold aisle arrangements.

The 1.5 m telescope at the Starfire Optical Range, USAF Phillips Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM, USA is equipped with laser beacon adaptive optics and a high speed full aperture tilt correction system. The laser beacon is formed by a copper vapor laser propagated out the full 1.5 m aperture and focused at 14 km range. The laser operates at 5,000 pulses per second, 50 ns per pulse, with approximately 60-70 watts average power into the atmosphere. Light backscattered from the laser beacon between the ranges of 12 and 16 km is sensed by an unintensified, Pockels-cell-gated, silicon-based CCD Shack-Hartmann wave front sensor. The optics are configured such that it is also possible to use natural stars as beacons for the higher-order adaptive optics. Wave front corrections are applied to a 241 actuator continuous facesheet deformable mirror operated at approximately 100 Hz closed loop bandwidth.

Traditional design techniques result in excess material being required for ellipsoidal heads. The 2001 ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII Division 1, UG-32D and Section VIII Division 2, AD-204 limit the minimum design thickness of the heads. ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Case 2261 provides alternate equations that enable thinner head design thickness. VIII-2 Appendix 3 and 4 methods potentially could be used to further optimize the head thickness. All the equations in the code use one thickness for the entire head. On large diameter thin heads the center or spherical area is often thicker than the knuckle area due to the method of manufacture. Including this extra material in the design calculations results in an increase of the MAWP of large diameter thin heads. VIII-2, AD-200 of the code permits localized thinning in a circumferential band in a cylindrical shell. Applying these same rules to elliptical heads would permit thinning in the knuckle region as well. Engineers have powerful finite element analysis tools that can be used to accurately determine levels of plastic strain and plastic deformed shapes. It is proposed that VIII-2 Appendix 4 and 5 methods be permitted for the design of elliptical heads. Doing so would permit significant decreases in thickness requirements. Different methods of Plastic Finite Element Analysis (PFEA) are investigated. An analysis of a PVRC sponsored burst test is done to develop and verify the PFEA methods. Two designs based on measurements of actual vessels are analyzed to determine the maximum allowable working pressures (MAWP) for thick and thin heads with and without local thin regions. MAWP is determined by limit analysis, per VIII-2 4-136.3 and by two other proposed methods. Using Burst FEA, the calculated burst pressure is multiplied by a safety factor to obtain MAWP. Large deflection large strain elastic perfectly plastic limit analyses (LDLS EPP LL) method includes the beneficial effect of deformations when determining the maximum limit pressure. Elliptical heads become more spherical during deformation. The spherical shape has higher pressure restraining capabilities. An alternate design equation for elliptical heads based on the LDLS EPP LL calculations is also proposed.

Investigations of a high-power transverse-flow transverse-discharge closed-cycle cw CO2 laser, designed as a laboratory facility primarily for materials processing research, are reported. A self-sustained dc electric discharge between a multipin cathode (tungsten) and a planar anode (polished copper) has been used forexcitation of the working medium, a mixture of CO2, N2, and He. The discharge volume is 5 dm3. A controllable-speed centrifugal compressor circulated the gas at a pressure of ~ 80 kPa, with the mass flow rate reaching 0.5 kg s-1. The specific power per unit mass flow amounts to 200 kW/kg s-1. The discharge characteristics have been measured in various flow conditions to evaluate the effect of flow conditioning devices on the discharge stability. Various multipass unstable optical resonator configurations have been adopted based on previous numerical analyses. Measurements of small-signal gain distribution along the discharge channel (with a maximum of 1 m–1) allowed optimization of the resonator position relative to the discharge. The dependence of the output power on the electric power dissipated in the discharge was measured. For a two-pass resonator (M = 1.8 kanigen mirrors) with one amplifying pass, the maximum output beam power was 4.4 kW at an electro-optical efficiency of 10%. The beam divergence was ~2 times larger than the diffraction-limited value. This allowed satisfactory tests of laser welding and cutting. (Poster paper)

One of the pulverized coal fired thermal power plants in India intended to find the root cause of frequent boiler tube failures in three 210 MW units. Operation & Maintenance history and feedback from plant O&M team revealed that economizer tube failure was a frequent cause of forced outage. The plant under study used CFS (continuous fin surface) economizer with staggered tube arrangement in the 210 MW units. CFS staggered tube economizers originally appealed to many plant designers because the tortuous path created for the flue gas, enhanced heat absorption and the fins could capture heat and transfer it to the tubing. This made the CFS economizer less costly and easy for installation in a relatively small space. There is increasing use of lower quality high ash coals over the past few decades. Due to this fact an advantage of the CFS economizer design became a disadvantage. The narrow spacing in the tubes proved more susceptible to plugging and fly ash erosion. Literature study and the root cause analysis suggested that CFS staggered arrangement of economizer could be one of the prominent reason of failure of economizer tube bundle due to fly ash erosion. Flue gas flow simulation also highlighted that there is increase in velocity of flue gases across the economizer. A bare tube in-line configuration in place of existing CFS economizer was an alternative. To recommend an alternate economizer as solution, the merits of an in-line bare tube economizer were studied. Bare tubes arranged in-line are most conservative in hostile environments with high ash content, are least likely to plug, and have the lowest gas-side resistance per unit of heat transfer. A bare tube in-line economizer that can replace the existing finned tube economizer in the available space while meeting the existing design & performance parameters is recommended. An attempt was made to model & analyze the new economizer using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in order to get firsthand experience and validate the results obtained using manual calculations. With limited computational resources and not so fine meshing, the performed CFD model analysis showed the expected trend but did not completely match the results.

The Annual Report on Migration and Asylum 2016 provides an overview of trends, policy developments and significant debates in the area of asylum and migration during 2016 in Ireland. Some important developments in 2016 included: The International Protection Act 2015 was commenced throughout 2016. The single application procedure under the Act came into operation from 31 December 2016. The International Protection Office (IPO) replaced the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) from 31 December 2016. The first instance appeals body, the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT), replacing the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT), was established on 31 December 2016. An online appointments system for all registrations at the Registration Office in Dublin was introduced. An electronic Employment Permits Online System (EPOS) was introduced. The Irish Short Stay Visa Waiver Programme was extended for a further five years to October 2021. The Second National Action Plan to Prevent and Combat Human Trafficking was published. 2016 was the first full year of implementation of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP). A total of 240 persons were relocated to Ireland from Greece under the relocation strand of the programme and 356 persons were resettled to Ireland. Following an Oireachtas motion, the Government agreed to allocate up to 200 places to unaccompanied minors who had been living in the former migrant camp in Calais and who expressed a wish to come to Ireland. This figure is included in the overall total under the IRPP. Ireland and Jordan were appointed as co-facilitators in February 2016 to conduct preparatory negotiations for the UN high level Summit for Refugees and Migrants. The New York Declaration, of September 2016, sets out plans to start negotiations for a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration and a global compact for refugees to be adopted in 2018. Key figures for 2016: There were approximately 115,000 non-EEA nationals with permission to remain in Ireland in 2016 compared to 114,000 at the end of 2015. Net inward migration for non-EU nationals is estimated to be 15,700. The number of newly arriving immigrants increased year-on-year to 84,600 at April 2017 from 82,300 at end April 2016. Non-EU nationals represented 34.8 per cent of this total at end April 2017. A total of 104,572 visas, both long stay and short stay, were issued in 2016. Approximately 4,127 persons were refused entry to Ireland at the external borders. Of these, 396 were subsequently admitted to pursue a protection application. 428 persons were returned from Ireland as part of forced return measures, with 187 availing of voluntary return, of which 143 were assisted by the International Organization for Migration Assisted Voluntary Return Programme. There were 532 permissions of leave to remain granted under section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999 during 2016. A total of 2,244 applications for refugee status were received in 2016, a drop of 32 per cent from 2015 (3,276). 641 subsidiary protection cases were processed and 431 new applications for subsidiary protection were submitted. 358 applications for family reunification in respect of recognised refugees were received. A total of 95 alleged trafficking victims were identified, compared with 78 in 2015.

Campylobacter spp. are the most common bacterial cause of foodborne illness in the UK, with chicken considered to be the most important vehicle for this organism. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) agreed with industry to reduce Campylobacter spp. contamination in raw chicken and issued a target to reduce the prevalence of the most contaminated chickens (those with more than 1000 cfu per g chicken neck skin) to below 10 % at the end of the slaughter process, initially by 2016. To help monitor progress, a series of UK-wide surveys were undertaken to determine the levels of Campylobacter spp. on whole UK-produced, fresh chicken at retail sale in the UK. The data obtained for the first four years was reported in FSA projects FS241044 (2014/15) and FS102121 (2015 to 2018). The FSA has indicated that the retail proxy target for the percentage of highly contaminated raw whole retail chickens should be less than 7% and while continued monitoring has demonstrated a sustained decline for chickens from major retailer stores, chicken on sale in other stores have yet to meet this target. This report presents results from testing chickens from non-major retailer stores (only) in a fifth survey year from 2018 to 2019. In line with previous practise, samples were collected from stores distributed throughout the UK (in proportion to the population size of each country). Testing was performed by two laboratories - a Public Health England (PHE) laboratory or the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Belfast. Enumeration of Campylobacter spp. was performed using the ISO 10272-2 standard enumeration method applied with a detection limit of 10 colony forming units (cfu) per gram (g) of neck skin. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to selected antimicrobials in accordance with those advised in the EU harmonised monitoring protocol was predicted from genome sequence data in Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolates The percentage (10.8%) of fresh, whole chicken at retail sale in stores of smaller chains (for example, Iceland, McColl’s, Budgens, Nisa, Costcutter, One Stop), independents and butchers (collectively referred to as non-major retailer stores in this report) in the UK that are highly contaminated (at more than 1000 cfu per g) with Campylobacter spp. has decreased since the previous survey year but is still higher than that found in samples from major retailers. 8 whole fresh raw chickens from non-major retailer stores were collected from August 2018 to July 2019 (n = 1009). Campylobacter spp. were detected in 55.8% of the chicken skin samples obtained from non-major retailer shops, and 10.8% of the samples had counts above 1000 cfu per g chicken skin. Comparison among production plant approval codes showed significant differences of the percentages of chicken samples with more than 1000 cfu per g, ranging from 0% to 28.1%. The percentage of samples with more than 1000 cfu of Campylobacter spp. per g was significantly higher in the period May, June and July than in the period November to April. The percentage of highly contaminated samples was significantly higher for samples taken from larger compared to smaller chickens. There was no statistical difference in the percentage of highly contaminated samples between those obtained from chicken reared with access to range (for example, free-range and organic birds) and those reared under standard regime (for example, no access to range) but the small sample size for organic and to a lesser extent free-range chickens, may have limited the ability to detect important differences should they exist. Campylobacter species was determined for isolates from 93.4% of the positive samples. C. jejuni was isolated from the majority (72.6%) of samples while C. coli was identified in 22.1% of samples. A combination of both species was found in 5.3% of samples. C. coli was more frequently isolated from samples obtained from chicken reared with access to range in comparison to those reared as standard birds. C. jejuni was less prevalent during the summer months of June, July and August compared to the remaining months of the year. Resistance to ciprofloxacin (fluoroquinolone), erythromycin (macrolide), tetracycline, (tetracyclines), gentamicin and streptomycin (aminoglycosides) was predicted from WGS data by the detection of known antimicrobial resistance determinants. Resistance to ciprofloxacin was detected in 185 (51.7%) isolates of C. jejuni and 49 (42.1%) isolates of C. coli; while 220 (61.1%) isolates of C. jejuni and 73 (62.9%) isolates of C. coli isolates were resistant to tetracycline. Three C. coli (2.6%) but none of the C. jejuni isolates harboured 23S mutations predicting reduced susceptibility to erythromycin. Multidrug resistance (MDR), defined as harbouring genetic determinants for resistance to at least three unrelated antimicrobial classes, was found in 10 (8.6%) C. coli isolates but not in any C. jejuni isolates. Co-resistance to ciprofloxacin and erythromycin was predicted in 1.7% of C. coli isolates. 9 Overall, the percentages of isolates with genetic AMR determinants found in this study were similar to those reported in the previous survey year (August 2016 to July 2017) where testing was based on phenotypic break-point testing. Multi-drug resistance was similar to that found in the previous survey years. It is recommended that trends in AMR in Campylobacter spp. isolates from retail chickens continue to be monitored to realise any increasing resistance of concern, particulary to erythromycin (macrolide). Considering that the percentage of fresh, whole chicken from non-major retailer stores in the UK that are highly contaminated (at more than 1000 cfu per g) with Campylobacter spp. continues to be above that in samples from major retailers more action including consideration of interventions such as improved biosecurity and slaughterhouse measures is needed to achieve better control of Campylobacter spp. for this section of the industry. The FSA has indicated that the retail proxy target for the percentage of highly contaminated retail chickens should be less than 7% and while continued monitoring has demonstrated a sustained decline for chickens from major retailer stores, chicken on sale in other stores have yet to meet this target.

Key Message Ontario long-term care (LTC) home residents have experienced disproportionately high morbidity and mortality, both from COVID-19 and from the conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. There are several measures that could be effective in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths in Ontario’s LTC homes, if implemented. First, temporary staffing could be minimized by improving staff working conditions. Second, homes could be further decrowded by a continued disallowance of three- and four-resident rooms and additional temporary housing for the most crowded homes. Third, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in staff could be minimized by approaches that reduce the risk of transmission in communities with a high burden of COVID-19. Summary Background The Province of Ontario has 626 licensed LTC homes and 77,257 long-stay beds; 58% of homes are privately owned, 24% are non-profit/charitable, 16% are municipal. LTC homes were strongly affected during Ontario’s first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions What do we know about the first and second waves of COVID-19 in Ontario LTC homes? Which risk factors are associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario LTC homes and the extent and death rates associated with outbreaks? What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the general health and wellbeing of LTC residents? How has the existing Ontario evidence on COVID-19 in LTC settings been used to support public health interventions and policy changes in these settings? What are the further measures that could be effective in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths in Ontario’s LTC homes? Findings As of January 14, 2021, a total of 3,211 Ontario LTC home residents have died of COVID-19, totaling 60.7% of all 5,289 COVID-19 deaths in Ontario to date. There have now been more cumulative LTC home outbreaks during the second wave as compared with the first wave. The infection and death rates among LTC residents have been lower during the second wave, as compared with the first wave, and a greater number of LTC outbreaks have involved only staff infections. The growth rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections among LTC residents was slower during the first two months of the second wave in September and October 2020, as compared with the first wave. However, the growth rate after the two-month mark is comparatively faster during the second wave. The majority of second wave infections and deaths in LTC homes have occurred between December 1, 2020, and January 14, 2021 (most recent date of data extraction prior to publication). This highlights the recent intensification of the COVID-19 pandemic in LTC homes that has mirrored the recent increase in community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 across Ontario. Evidence from Ontario demonstrates that the risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks and subsequent deaths in LTC are distinct from the risk factors for outbreaks and deaths in the community (Figure 1). The most important risk factors for whether a LTC home will experience an outbreak is the daily incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the communities surrounding the home and the occurrence of staff infections. The most important risk factors for the magnitude of an outbreak and the number of resulting resident deaths are older design, chain ownership, and crowding. Figure 1. Anatomy of Outbreaks and Spread of COVID-19 in LTC Homes and Among Residents Figure from Peter Hamilton, personal communication. Many Ontario LTC home residents have experienced severe and potentially irreversible physical, cognitive, psychological, and functional declines as a result of precautionary public health interventions imposed on homes, such as limiting access to general visitors and essential caregivers, resident absences, and group activities. There has also been an increase in the prescribing of psychoactive drugs to Ontario LTC residents. The accumulating evidence on COVID-19 in Ontario’s LTC homes has been leveraged in several ways to support public health interventions and policy during the pandemic. Ontario evidence showed that SARS-CoV-2 infections among LTC staff was associated with subsequent COVID-19 deaths among LTC residents, which motivated a public order to restrict LTC staff from working in more than one LTC home in the first wave. Emerging Ontario evidence on risk factors for LTC home outbreaks and deaths has been incorporated into provincial pandemic surveillance tools. Public health directives now attempt to limit crowding in LTC homes by restricting occupancy to two residents per room. The LTC visitor policy was also revised to designate a maximum of two essential caregivers who can visit residents without time limits, including when a home is experiencing an outbreak. Several further measures could be effective in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths in Ontario’s LTC homes. First, temporary staffing could be minimized by improving staff working conditions. Second, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in staff could be minimized by measures that reduce the risk of transmission in communities with a high burden of COVID-19. Third, LTC homes could be further decrowded by a continued disallowance of three- and four-resident rooms and additional temporary housing for the most crowded homes. Other important issues include improved prevention and detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection in LTC staff, enhanced infection prevention and control (IPAC) capacity within the LTC homes, a more balanced and nuanced approach to public health measures and IPAC strategies in LTC homes, strategies to promote vaccine acceptance amongst residents and staff, and further improving data collection on LTC homes, residents, staff, visitors and essential caregivers for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interpretation Comparisons of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in the LTC setting reveal improvement in some but not all epidemiological indicators. Despite this, the second wave is now intensifying within LTC homes and without action we will likely experience a substantial additional loss of life before the widespread administration and time-dependent maximal effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The predictors of outbreaks, the spread of infection, and deaths in Ontario’s LTC homes are well documented and have remained unchanged between the first and the second wave. Some of the evidence on COVID-19 in Ontario’s LTC homes has been effectively leveraged to support public health interventions and policies. Several further measures, if implemented, have the potential to prevent additional LTC home COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths.

In September 2006 an outbreak of 'Bluetongue like' disease struck the cattle herds in Israel. Over 100 dairy and beef cattle herds were affected. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) (an Orbivirusclosely related to bluetongue virus (BTV)), was isolated from samples collected from several herds during the outbreaks. Following are the aims of the study and summary of the results: which up until now were published in 6 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Three more articles are still under preparation: 1. To identify the origin of the virus: The virus identified was fully sequenced and compared with the sequences available in the GenBank. It appeared that while gene segment L2 was clustered with EHDV-7 isolated in Australia, most of the other segments were clustered with EHDV-6 isolates from South-Africa and Bahrain. This may suggest that the strain which affected Israel on 2006 may have been related to similar outbreaks which occurred in north-Africa at the same year and could also be a result of reassortment with an Australian strain (Wilson et al. article in preparation). Analysis of the serological results from Israel demonstrated that cows and calves were similarly positive as opposed to BTV for which seropositivity in cows was significantly higher than in calves. This finding also supports the hypothesis that the 2006 EHD outbreak in Israel was an incursive event and the virus was not present in Israel before this outbreak (Kedmi et al. Veterinary Journal, 2011) 2. To identify the vectors of this virus: In the US, Culicoides sonorensis was found as an efficient vector of EHDV as the virus was transmitted by midges fed on infected white tailed deer (WTD; Odocoileusvirginianus) to susceptible WTD (Ruder et al. Parasites and Vectors, 2012). We also examined the effect of temperature on replication of EHDV-7 in C. sonorensis and demonstrated that the time to detection of potentially competent midges decreased with increasing temperature (Ruder et al. in preparation). Although multiple attempts were made, we failed to evaluate wild-caught Culicoidesinsignisas a potential vector for EHDV-7; however, our finding that C. sonorensis is a competent vector is far more significant because this species is widespread in the U.S. As for Israeli Culicoides spp. the main species caught near farms affected during the outbreaks were C. imicolaand C. oxystoma. The vector competence studies performed in Israel were in a smaller scale than in the US due to lack of a laboratory colony of these species and due to lack of facilities to infect animals with vector borne diseases. However, we found both species to be susceptible for infection by EHDV. For C. oxystoma, 1/3 of the Culicoidesinfected were positive 11 days post feeding. 3. To identify the host and environmental factors influencing the level of exposure to EHDV, its spread and its associated morbidity: Analysis of the cattle morbidity in Israel showed that the disease resulted in an average loss of over 200 kg milk per cow in herds affected during September 2006 and 1.42% excess mortality in heavily infected herds (Kedmi et al. Journal of Dairy Science, 2010). Outbreak investigation showed that winds played a significant role in virus spread during the 2006 outbreak (Kedmi et al. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2010). Further studies showed that both sheep (Kedmi et al. Veterinary Microbiology, 2011) and wild ruminants did not play a significant role in virus spread in Israel (Kedmi et al. article in preparation). Clinical studies in WTD showed that this species is highly susceptibile to EHDV-7 infection and disease (Ruder et al. Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2012). Experimental infection of Holstein cattle (cows and calves) yielded subclinical viremia (Ruder et al. in preparation). The findings of this study, which resulted in 6 articles, published in peer reviewed journals and 4 more articles which are in preparation, contributed to the dairy industry in Israel by defining the main factors associated with disease spread and assessment of disease impact. In the US, we demonstrated that sufficient conditions exist for potential virus establishment if EHDV-7 were introduced. The significant knowledge gained through this study will enable better decision making regarding prevention and control measures for EHDV and similar viruses, such as BTV.

The plant virus family Polyviridae is the largest and most destructive of all plant viruses. Despite the continuous effort to develop resistant plant varieties, there is a desperate need for novel approaches conferring wide-range potyvirus resistance. Based on experiments with the tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV)-derived gene expression vector, we suggested approach for screening of the candidate resistance genes. This approach relies on insertion of the genes into a virus vector and evaluation of the phenotypes of the resulting recombinant viruses. The genes which suppress infection by the recombinant virus are selected as candidates for engineering transgenic resistance. Our analysis of the TEV variants expressing proteins of the beet yellows closterovirus (BYV) revealed that one of those, the leader proteinase (L-Pro), strongly and specifically interfered with the hybrid TEV infection. Since closterovirus L-Pro is evolutionary related to potyviral helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro), we suggested that the L-Pro interfered with HC-Pro function via a trans-dominant inhibitory effect. Based on these findings, we proposed to test two major hypotheses. First, we suggested that L-Pro-mediated suppression of potyvirus infection is a general phenomenon effective against a range of potyviruses. The second hypothesis stated that the suppression effect can be reproduced in transgenic plants expressing L-Pro, and can be utilized for generation of resistance to potyviruses. In accord with these hypotheses, we developed two original objectives of our proposal: A) to determine the range of the closterovirus-derived suppression of potyviral infection, and B) to try and utilize the L-Pro-mediated suppression for the development of transgenic resistance to potyviruses. In the first phase of the project, we have developed all major tools and technologies required for successful completion of the proposed research. These included TEV and ZYMV vectors engineered to express several closteroviral L-Pro variants, and generation of the large collection of transgenic plants. To our satisfaction, characterization of the infection phenotypes exhibited by chimeric TEV and ZYMV variants confirmed our first hypothesis. For instance, similar to TEV-L- Pro(BYV) chimera, ZYMV-L-Pro(LIYV) chimera was debilitated in its systemic spread. In contrast, ZYMV-GUS chimera (positive control) was competent in establishing vigorous systemic infection. These and other results with chimeric viruses indicated that several closteroviral proteinases inhibit long-distance movement of the potyviruses upon co-expression in infected plants. In order to complete the second objective, we have generated ~90 tobacco lines transformed with closteroviral L-Pro variants, as well as ~100 lines transformed with BYV Hsp70-homolog (Hsp70h; a negative control). The presence and expression of the trans gene in each line was initially confirmed using RT-PCR and RNA preparations isolated from plants. However, since detection of the trans gene-specific RNA can not guarantee production of the corresponding protein, we have also generated L-Pro- and Hsp70h-specific antisera using corresponding synthetic peptides. These antisera allowed us to confirm that the transgenic plant lines produced detectable, although highly variable levels of the closterovirus antigens. In a final phase of the project, we tested susceptibility of the transgenic lines to TEV infection. To this end, we determined that the minimal dilution of the TEV inoculum that is still capable of infecting 100% of nontransgenic plants was 1:20, and used 10 plants per line (in total, ~2,000 plants). Unfortunately, none of the lines exhibited statistically significant reduction in susceptibility. Although discouraging, this outcome prompted us to expand our experimental plan and conduct additional experiments. Our aim was to test if closteroviral proteinases are capable of functioning in trans. We have developed agroinfection protocol for BYV, and tested if co- expression of the L-Pro is capable of rescuing corresponding null-mutant. The clear-cut, negative results of these experiments demonstrated that L-Pro acts only in cis, thus explaining the lack of resistance in our transgenic plants. We have also characterized a collection of the L-Pro alanine- scanning mutants and found direct genetic evidence of the requirement for L-Pro in virus systemic spread. To conclude, our research supported by BARD confirmed one but not another of our original hypotheses. Moreover, it provided an important insight into functional specialization of the viral proteinases and generated set of tools and data with which we will be able to address the molecular mechanisms by which these proteins provide a variety of critical functions during virus life cycle.