It is postulated that in some elderly people there is a diminution of transport of most vitamins, minerals and essential trace elements at the blood/brain barrier and, possible, in the gut; this leads to deficiencies in brain cells. It is postulated that these deficiencies in brain cells are the primary causes of the formation of lipofuscin and neurofibrillary tangles, finally leading to cell d...

We asked whether wolf re-colonization would facilitate increased growth and reproduction of three browse-sensitive plant species. We hypothesized plant size and the proportion of reproductive individuals would be lowest in areas with no wolves, intermediate where wolves had been present for 4–6 years, and highest where wolves had been present for 12–13 years. Two plant species exhibited signifi...

Difficult life conditions give rise to scapegoating and ideologies that identify enemies and lead a group to turn against another. Conflict between groups and self-interest are additional instigators of group violence. Discrimination and limited violence change individuals and groups and can lead to an evolution that ends in mass killing or genocide. Certain cultural characteristics make this p...

With our background in clinical ophthalmic research, mainly of the anterior eye, Bausch and Lomb have asked us to produce an independent report of some of the interesting findings coming out of the research journals each month. As a busy practitioner, this should allow you to keep more up-to-date with cutting edge clinical research and allow you to locate the articles when you want to know more...

The ideal medication for Parkinson disease (PD) would reduce disability and halt or slow disease progression without intolerable adverse effects. Although such an agent is not yet available, current treatments offer significant symptom control for most patients. The decision about when to start therapy is highly individual; however, delaying treatment because of fear of adverse effects may not ...

Catching requires the ability to predict the position and intercept a moving object at relatively high speeds. Because catching is a contact task, it requires an understanding of the interaction between the forces applied and position of the object being captured. The application of force to a mass results in a change in acceleration. The rate of change of acceleration is called jerk. Jerk caus...

The failure of the Somali state from 1993 to 2012 represents one of the world’s most profound and prolonged cases of state collapse. Initially, education and other government services came to a standstill. With the halt of fighting in some areas, local communities with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other agencies began to provide education and other critical ser...

In this paper we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of Jiminy: a framework for explicitly rewarding users who participate in reputation management systems by submitting ratings. To defend against participants who submit random or malicious ratings in order to accumulate rewards, Jiminy facilitates a probabilistic mechanism to detect dishonesty and halt rewards accordingly. Jimin...

Infectious diseases and computer malwares spread among humans and computers through the network of contacts among them. These networks are characterized by wide connectivity fluctuations, connectivity correlations and the small world property. I show that these network properties lead to a novel spreading law which exhibits an initial power law growth, with an exponent determined by the average...