Transfer of passive immunity and serum proteinogram in the first six months of life of Criollo Lageano and black and white holstein calves

The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the transfer of passive immunity and the proteinogram in Criollo Lageano (CL) and Black and White Holstein (BWH) calves. Two groups were utilized with 13 Criollo Lageano and 10 BWH calves. Blood samples were collected for the measurement of total serum protein, electrophoresis of serum proteins, activity of the gamma glutamyl transferase, and concentration of IgG by the method of the zinc sulfate turbidity in periods between 24 and 36 hours of life, 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 days. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA and Tukey test at 5% significance level, and correlations between variables were calculated. Variations of serum proteins followed a pattern of physiological behavior over the first six months of life and production of immunoglobulins was active earlier in BWH calves and slower in the Criollo Lageano, without causing any impact on their health. Gamma globulin in the first days of life (24-36h) was correlated with IgG (r=0.87 for CL and r=0.89 for BWH), PTS (r=0.91 for CL and r=0.92 for BWH), Glob (r=0.99 for CL and r=0.98 for BWH) and GGT (r=0.14 for CL and r=0.83 for BWH). It was concluded that there was no failure in the transfer of passive immunity in Criollo Lageano calves but this failure occurred in the BWH calves. IgG values estimated by the zinc sulfate turbidity and serum proteins were considered good indicators of the transfer of passive immunity in calves between 24 and 36 hours of life.

Om mörker, maskuliniteter, humor och lek inom black metal : lectio

Lectio praecursoria, Åbo Akademi 25.1 2013.

“Valley co-creation” – exploring the emergence of a cultural product in an entrepreneur-driven value network: Case study: Black Weekend festival

The interconnected domains are attracting interest from industries and academia, although this phenomenon, called ‘convergence’ is not new. Organizational research has indeed focused on uncovering co-creation for manufacturing and the industrial organization, with limited implications to entrepreneurship. Although convergence has been characterized as a process connecting seemingly disparate disciplines, it is argued that these studies tend to leave the creative industries unnoticed. With the art market boom and new forms of collaboration riding past the institution-focused arts marketing literature, this thesis takes a leap to uncover the processes of entrepreneurship in the emergence of a cultural product. As a symbolic work of synergism itself, the thesis combines organizational theory with literature in natural sciences and arts. Assuming nonlinearity, a framework is created for analysing aesthetic experience in an empirical event where network actors are connected to multiple contexts. As the focal case in study, the empirical analysis performed for a music festival organized in a skiing resort in the French Alps in March. The researcher attends the festival and models its cocreation process by enquiring from an artist, festival organisers, and a festival visitor. The findings contribute to fields of entrepreneurship, aesthetics and marketing mainly. It is found that the network actors engage in intimate and creative interaction where activity patterns are interrupted and cultural elements combined. This process is considered to both create and destruct value, through identity building, legitimisation, learning, and access to larger audiences, and it is considered particularly useful for domains where resources are too restrained for conventional marketing practices. This thesis uncovered the role of artists and informants and posits that particularly through experience design, this type of skilled individual be regarded more often as a research informant. Future research is encouraged to engage in convergence by experimenting with different fields and research designs, and it is suggested that future studies could arrive at different descriptive results.

Chaos in a Two-Degree of Freedom Duffing Oscillator

High dimensional dynamical systems has intricate behavior either on temporal or on spatial evolution properties. Nevertheless, most of the work on chaotic dynamics has been concentrated on temporal behavior of low-dimensional systems. This contribution is concerned with the chaotic response of a two-degree of freedom Duffing oscillator. Since the equations of motion are associated with a five-dimensional system, the analysis is performed by considering two Duffing oscillators, both with single-degree of freedom, coupled by a spring-dashpot system. With this assumption, it is possible to analyze the transmissibility of motion between the two oscillators.

Allelopathic effect of black mustard tissues and root exudates on some crops and weeds

Laboratory and greenhouse experiments were conducted to evaluate the phytotoxic effect of black mustard extracts and root exudates on two crops: Trifolium alexandrinum and Triticum aestivum, and two weeds: Phalaris paradoxa and Sisymbrium irio. The seeds were treated with aqueous and ethanolic extracts and chloroform for eight days, or subjected to root exudates of just harvested mustard in a greenhouse for five weeks. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to quantify phytotoxins from plant tissues. Seed germination of P. paradoxa was reduced with the lowest concentration of the different extracts. However, the aqueous extract at 4% completely curtailed the germination of all the target species. In general, plant extracts had a concentration-dependent reduction of seedling growth of the target species. However, the ethanolic extract, at the lowest concentration, has stimulated the shoot length of both T. alexandrinum and T. aestivum, and the root length of the former. Mustard root exudates inhibited emergence and growth of the target species throughout the experiment. Ferulic and syringic acids were the dominant allelochemicals found when HPLC was used.

Design and validation of stateful composite RESTful web services

A web service is a software system that provides a machine-processable interface to the other machines over the network using different Internet protocols. They are being increasingly used in the industry in order to automate different tasks and offer services to a wider audience. The REST architectural style aims at producing scalable and extensible web services using technologies that play well with the existing tools and infrastructure of the web. It provides a uniform set of operation that can be used to invoke a CRUD interface (create, retrieve, update and delete) of a web service. The stateless behavior of the service interface requires that every request to a resource is independent of the previous ones facilitating scalability. Automated systems, e.g., hotel reservation systems, provide advanced scenarios for stateful services that require a certain sequence of requests that must be followed in order to fulfill the service goals. Designing and developing such services for advanced scenarios with REST constraints require rigorous approaches that are capable of creating web services that can be trusted for their behavior. Systems that can be trusted for their behavior can be termed as dependable systems. This thesis presents an integrated design, analysis and validation approach that facilitates the service developer to create dependable and stateful REST web services. The main contribution of this thesis is that we provide a novel model-driven methodology to design behavioral REST web service interfaces and their compositions. The behavioral interfaces provide information on what methods can be invoked on a service and the pre- and post-conditions of these methods. The methodology uses Unified Modeling Language (UML), as the modeling language, which has a wide user base and has mature tools that are continuously evolving. We have used UML class diagram and UML state machine diagram with additional design constraints to provide resource and behavioral models, respectively, for designing REST web service interfaces. These service design models serve as a specification document and the information presented in them have manifold applications. The service design models also contain information about the time and domain requirements of the service that can help in requirement traceability which is an important part of our approach. Requirement traceability helps in capturing faults in the design models and other elements of software development environment by tracing back and forth the unfulfilled requirements of the service. The information about service actors is also included in the design models which is required for authenticating the service requests by authorized actors since not all types of users have access to all the resources. In addition, following our design approach, the service developer can ensure that the designed web service interfaces will be REST compliant. The second contribution of this thesis is consistency analysis of the behavioral REST interfaces. To overcome the inconsistency problem and design errors in our service models, we have used semantic technologies. The REST interfaces are represented in web ontology language, OWL2, that can be part of the semantic web. These interfaces are used with OWL 2 reasoners to check unsatisfiable concepts which result in implementations that fail. This work is fully automated thanks to the implemented translation tool and the existing OWL 2 reasoners. The third contribution of this thesis is the verification and validation of REST web services. We have used model checking techniques with UPPAAL model checker for this purpose. The timed automata of UML based service design models are generated with our transformation tool that are verified for their basic characteristics like deadlock freedom, liveness, reachability and safety. The implementation of a web service is tested using a black-box testing approach. Test cases are generated from the UPPAAL timed automata and using the online testing tool, UPPAAL TRON, the service implementation is validated at runtime against its specifications. Requirement traceability is also addressed in our validation approach with which we can see what service goals are met and trace back the unfulfilled service goals to detect the faults in the design models. A final contribution of the thesis is an implementation of behavioral REST interfaces and service monitors from the service design models. The partial code generation tool creates code skeletons of REST web services with method pre and post-conditions. The preconditions of methods constrain the user to invoke the stateful REST service under the right conditions and the post condition constraint the service developer to implement the right functionality. The details of the methods can be manually inserted by the developer as required. We do not target complete automation because we focus only on the interface aspects of the web service. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated with a pedagogical example of a hotel room booking service and a relatively complex worked example of holiday booking service taken from the industrial context. The former example presents a simple explanation of the approach and the later worked example shows how stateful and timed web services offering complex scenarios and involving other web services can be constructed using our approach.

The supermassive binary black hole system OJ287

Abstract This doctoral thesis concerns the active galactic nucleus (AGN) most often referred to with the catalogue number OJ287. The publications in the thesis present new discoveries of the system in the context of a supermassive binary black hole model. In addition, the introduction discusses general characteristics of the OJ287 system and the physical fundamentals behind these characteristics. The place of OJ287 in the hierarchy of known types of AGN is also discussed. The introduction presents a large selection of fundamental physics required to have a basic understanding of active galactic nuclei, binary black holes, relativistic jets and accretion disks. Particularly the general relativistic nature of the orbits of close binaries of supermassive black holes is explored with some detail. Analytic estimates of some of the general relativistic effects in such a binary are presented, as well as numerical methods to calculate the effects more precisely. It is also shown how these results can be applied to the OJ287 system. The binary orbit model forms the basis for models of the recurring optical outbursts in the OJ287 system. In the introduction, two physical outburst models are presented in some detail and compared. The radiation hydrodynamics of the outbursts are discussed and optical light curve predictions are derived. The precursor outbursts studied in Paper III are also presented, and tied into the model of OJ287. To complete the discussion of the observable features of OJ287, the nature of the relativistic jets in the system, and in active galactic nuclei in general, is discussed. Basic physics of relativistic jets are presented, with additional detail added in the form of helical jet models. The results of Papers II, IV and V concerning the jet of OJ287 are presented, and their relation to other facets of the binary black hole model is discussed. As a whole, the introduction serves as a guide, though terse, for the physics and numerical methods required to successfully understand and simulate a close binary of supermassive black holes. For this purpose, the introduction necessarily combines a large number of both fundamental and specific results from broad disciplines like general relativity and radiation hydrodynamics. With the material included in the introduction, the publications of the thesis, which present new results with a much narrower focus, can be readily understood. Of the publications, Paper I presents newly discovered optical data points for OJ287, detected on archival astronomical plates from the Harvard College Observatory. These data points show the 1900 outburst of OJ287 for the first time. In addition, new data points covering the 1913 outburst allowed the determination of the start of the outburst with more precision than was possible before. These outbursts were then successfully numerically modelled with an N-body simulation of the OJ287 binary and accretion disc. In Paper II, mechanisms for the spin-up of the secondary black hole in OJ287 via interaction with the primary accretion disc and the magnetic fields in the system are discussed. Timescales for spin-up and alignment via both processes are estimated. It is found that the secondary black hole likely has a high spin. Paper III reports a new outburst of OJ287 in March 2013. The outburst was found to be rather similar to the ones reported in 1993 and 2004. All these outbursts happened just before the main outburst season, and are called precursor outbursts. In this paper, a mechanism was proposed for the precursor outbursts, where the secondary black hole collides with a gas cloud in the primary accretion disc corona. From this, estimates of brightness and timescales for the precursor were derived, as well as a prediction of the timing of the next precursor outburst. In Paper IV, observations from the 2004–2006 OJ287 observing program are used to investigate the existence of short periodicities in OJ287. The existence of a _50 day quasiperiodic component is confirmed. In addition, statistically significant 250 day and 3.5 day periods are found. Primary black hole accretion of a spiral density wave in the accretion disc is proposed as the source of the 50 day period, with numerical simulations supporting these results. Lorentz contracted jet re-emission is then proposed as the reason for the 3.5 day timescale. Paper V fits optical observations and mm and cm radio observations of OJ287 with a helical jet model. The jet is found to have a spine–sheath structure, with the sheath having a much lower Lorentz gamma factor than the spine. The sheath opening angle and Lorentz factor, as well as the helical wavelength of the jet are reported for the first time. Tiivistelmä Tässä väitöskirjatutkimuksessa on keskitytty tutkimaan aktiivista galaksiydintä OJ287. Väitöskirjan osana olevat tieteelliset julkaisut esittelevät OJ287-systeemistä saatuja uusia tuloksia kaksoismusta-aukkomallin kontekstissa. Väitöskirjan johdannossa käsitellään OJ287:n yleisiä ominaisuuksia ja niitä fysikaalisia perusilmiöitä, jotka näiden ominaisuuksien taustalla vaikuttavat. Johdanto selvittää myös OJ287-järjestelmän sijoittumisen aktiivisten galaksiytimien hierarkiassa. Johdannossa käydään läpi joitakin perusfysiikan tuloksia, jotka ovat tarpeen aktiivisten galaksiydinten, mustien aukkojen binäärien, relativististen suihkujen ja kertymäkiekkojen ymmärtämiseksi. Kahden toisiaan kiertävän mustan aukon keskinäisen radan suhteellisuusteoreettiset perusteet käydään läpi yksityiskohtaisemmin. Johdannossa esitetään joitakin analyyttisiä tuloksia tällaisessa binäärissä havaittavista suhteellisuusteoreettisista ilmiöistä. Myös numeerisia menetelmiä näiden ilmiöiden tarkempaan laskemiseen esitellään. Tuloksia sovelletaan OJ287-systeemiin, ja verrataan havaintoihin. OJ287:n mustien aukkojen ratamalli muodostaa pohjan systeemin toistuvien optisten purkausten malleille. Johdannossa esitellään yksityiskohtaisemmin kaksi fysikaalista purkausmallia, ja vertaillaan niitä. Purkausten säteilyhydrodynamiikka käydään läpi, ja myös ennusteet purkausten valokäyrille johdetaan. Johdannossa esitellään myös Julkaisussa III johdettu prekursoripurkausten malli, ja osoitetaan sen sopivan yhteen OJ287:n binäärimallin kanssa. Johdanto esittelee myös relativististen suihkujen fysiikkaa sekä OJ287- systeemiin liittyen että aktiivisten galaksiydinten kontekstissa yleisesti. Relativististen suihkujen perusfysiikka esitellään, kuten myös malleja kierteisistä suihkuista. Julkaisujen II, IV ja V OJ287-systeemin suihkuja koskevat tulokset esitellään binäärimallin kontekstissa. Kokonaisuutena johdanto palvelee suppeana oppaana, joka esittelee tarvittavan fysiikan ja tarpeelliset numeeriset menetelmät mustien aukkojen binäärijärjestelmän ymmärtämiseen ja simulointiin. Tätä tarkoitusta varten johdanto yhdistää sekä perustuloksia että joitakin syvällisempiä tuloksia laajoilta fysiikan osa-alueilta kuten suhteellisuusteoriasta ja säteilyhydrodynamiikasta. Johdannon sisältämän materiaalin avulla väitöskirjan julkaisut, ja niiden esittämät tulokset, ovat hyvin ymmärrettävissä. Väitöskirjan julkaisuista ensimmäinen esittelee uusia OJ287-systeemistä saatuja havaintopisteitä, jotka on paikallistettu Harvardin yliopiston observatorion arkiston valokuvauslevyiltä. OJ287:n vuonna 1900 tapahtunut purkaus nähdään ensimmäistä kertaa näissä havaintopisteissä. Uudet havaintopisteet mahdollistivat myös vuoden 1913 purkauksen alun ajoittamisen tarkemmin kuin aiemmin oli mahdollista. Havaitut purkaukset mallinnettiin onnistuneesti simuloimalla OJ287-järjestelmän mustien aukkojen paria ja kertymäkiekkoa. Julkaisussa II käsitellään mekanismeja OJ287:n sekundäärisen mustan aukon spinin kasvamiseen vuorovaikutuksessa primäärin kertymäkiekon ja systeemin magneettikenttien kanssa. Julkaisussa arvioidaan maksimispinin saavuttamisen ja spinin suunnan vakiintumisen aikaskaalat kummallakin mekanismilla. Tutkimuksessa havaitaan sekundäärin spinin olevan todennäköisesti suuri. Julkaisu III esittelee OJ287-systeemissä maaliskuussa 2013 tapahtuneen purkauksen. Purkauksen havaittiin muistuttavan vuosina 1993 ja 2004 tapahtuneita purkauksia, joita kutsutaan yhteisnimityksellä prekursoripurkaus (precursor outburst). Julkaisussa esitellään purkauksen synnylle mekanismi, jossa OJ287-systeemin sekundäärinen musta aukko osuu primäärisen mustan aukon kertymäkiekon koronassa olevaan kaasupilveen. Mekanismin avulla johdetaan arviot prekursoripurkausten kirkkaudelle ja aikaskaalalle. Julkaisussa johdetaan myös ennuste seuraavan prekursoripurkauksen ajankohdalle. Julkaisussa IV käytetään vuosina 2004–2006 kerättyjä havaintoja OJ287- systeemistä lyhyiden jaksollisuuksien etsintään. Julkaisussa varmennetaan systeemissä esiintyvä n. 50 päivän kvasiperiodisuus. Lisäksi tilastollisesti merkittävät 250 päivän ja 3,5 päivän jaksollisuudet havaitaan. Julkaisussa esitetään malli, jossa primäärisen mustan aukon kertymäkiekossa oleva spiraalitiheysaalto aiheuttaa 50 päivän jaksollisuuden. Mallista tehty numeerinen simulaatio tukee tulosta. Systeemin relativistisen suihkun emittoima aikadilatoitunut säteily esitetään aiheuttajaksi 3,5 päivän jaksollisuusaikaskaalalle. Julkaisussa V sovitetaan kierresuihkumalli OJ287-systeemistä tehtyihin optisiin havaintoihin ja millimetri- sekä senttimetriaallonpituuden radiohavaintoihin. Suihkun rakenteen havaitaan olevan kaksijakoinen ja koostuvan ytimestä ja kuoresta. Suihkun kuorella on merkittävästi pienempi Lorentzin gamma-tekijä kuin suihkun ytimellä. Kuoren avautumiskulma ja Lorentztekijä sekä suihkun kierteen aallonpituus raportoidaan julkaisussa ensimmäistä kertaa.

Dual light barrier method for six degrees of freedom tool center point calibration of an industrial robot

Tool center point calibration is a known problem in industrial robotics. The major focus of academic research is to enhance the accuracy and repeatability of next generation robots. However, operators of currently available robots are working within the limits of the robot´s repeatability and require calibration methods suitable for these basic applications. This study was conducted in association with Stresstech Oy, which provides solutions for manufacturing quality control. Their sensor, based on the Barkhausen noise effect, requires accurate positioning. The accuracy requirement admits a tool center point calibration problem if measurements are executed with an industrial robot. Multiple possibilities are available in the market for automatic tool center point calibration. Manufacturers provide customized calibrators to most robot types and tools. With the handmade sensors and multiple robot types that Stresstech uses, this would require great deal of labor. This thesis introduces a calibration method that is suitable for all robots which have two digital input ports free. It functions with the traditional method of using a light barrier to detect the tool in the robot coordinate system. However, this method utilizes two parallel light barriers to simultaneously measure and detect the center axis of the tool. Rotations about two axes are defined with the center axis. The last rotation about the Z-axis is calculated for tools that have different width of X- and Y-axes. The results indicate that this method is suitable for calibrating the geometric tool center point of a Barkhausen noise sensor. In the repeatability tests, a standard deviation inside robot repeatability was acquired. The Barkhausen noise signal was also evaluated after recalibration and the results indicate correct calibration. However, future studies should be conducted using a more accurate manipulator, since the method employs the robot itself as a measuring device.

Música, religião e cor: uma leitura da produção de black music gospel

O artigo busca apresentar novos elementos para discutir a transformação do meio evangélico brasileiro. Para tanto, recorre à produção musical, especificamente à black music gospel / "música negra". Esta é baseada em musicalidades contemporâneas como, por exemplo, o hip-hop e o reggae , e efetivada por grupos independentes. Eles são formados por fiéis e não têm vínculos com empresas especializadas. Seus responsáveis apresentam bens e serviços que dialogam com as noções religiosas, principalmente com aquelas relacionadas ao contingente de fiéis afro-descendentes. Suas práticas e concepções caracterizam determinado estilo de participação e de pertencimento. Para a abordagem proposta, aplicam-se algumas noções como "negritude", "Atlântico negro" e "diáspora".

Behavior of black liquor nitrogen in combustion : formation of cyanate

The Kraft pulping process is the dominant chemical pulping process in the world. Roughly 195 million metric tons of black liquor are produced annually as a by-product from the Kraft pulping process. Black liquor consists of spent cooking chemicals and dissolved organics from the wood and can contain up to 0.15 wt% nitrogen on dry solids basis. The cooking chemicals from black liquor are recovered in a chemical recovery cycle. Water is evaporated in the first stage of the chemical recovery cycle, so the black liquor has a dry solids content of 65-85% prior to combustion. During combustion of black liquor, a portion of the black liquor nitrogen is volatilized, finally forming N2 or NO. The rest of the nitrogen remains in the char as char nitrogen. During char conversion, fixed carbon is burned off leaving the pulping chemicals as smelt, and the char nitrogen forms mostly smelt nitrogen (cyanate, OCN-). Smelt exits the recovery boiler and is dissolved in water. The cyanate from smelt decomposes in the presence of water, forming NH3, which causes nitrogen emissions from the rest of the chemical recovery cycle. This thesis had two focuses: firstly, to determine how the nitrogen chemistry in the recovery boiler is affected by modification of black liquor; and secondly, to find out what causes cyanate formation during thermal conversion, and which parameters affect cyanate formation and decomposition during thermal conversion of black liquor. The fate of added biosludge nitrogen in chemical recovery was determined in Paper I. The added biosludge increased the nitrogen content of black liquor. At the pulp mill, the added biosludge did not increase the NO formation in the recovery boiler, but instead increased the amount of cyanate in green liquor. The increased cyanate caused more NH3 formation, which increased the NCG boiler’s NO emissions. Laboratory-scale experiments showed an increase in both NO and cyanate formation after biosludge addition. Black liquor can be modified, for example by addition of a solid biomass to increase the energy density of black liquor, or by separation of lignin from black liquor by precipitation. The precipitated lignin can be utilized in the production of green chemicals or as a fuel. In Papers II and III, laboratory-scale experiments were conducted to determine the impact of black liquor modification on NO and cyanate formation. Removal of lignin from black liquor reduced the nitrogen content of the black liquor. In most cases NO and cyanate formation decreased with increasing lignin removal; the exception was NO formation from lignin lean soda liquors. The addition of biomass to black liquor resulted in a higher nitrogen content fuel mixture, due to the higher nitrogen content of biomass compared to black liquor. More NO and cyanate were formed from the fuel mixtures than from pure black liquor. The increased amount of formed cyanate led to the hypothesis that black liquor is catalytically active and converts a portion of the nitrogen in the mixed fuel to cyanate. The mechanism behind cyanate formation during thermal conversion of black liquor was not clear before this thesis. Paper IV studies the cyanate formation of alkali metal loaded fuels during gasification in a CO2 atmosphere. The salts K2CO3, Na2CO3, and K2SO4 all promoted char nitrogen to cyanate conversion during gasification, while KCl and CaCO3 did not. It is now assumed that cyanate is formed when alkali metal carbonate or an active intermediate of alkali metal carbonate (e.g. -CO2K) reacts with the char nitrogen forming cyanate. By testing different fuels (bark, peat, and coal), each of which had a different form of organic nitrogen, it was concluded that the form of organic nitrogen in char also has an impact on cyanate formation. Cyanate can be formed during pyrolysis of black liquor, but at temperatures 900°C or above, the formed cyanate will decompose. Cyanate formation in gasifying conditions with different levels of CO2 in the atmosphere was also studied. Most of the char nitrogen was converted to cyanate during gasification at 800-900°C in 13-50% CO2 in N2, and only 5% of the initial fuel nitrogen was converted to NO during char conversion. The formed smelt cyanate was stable at 800°C 13% CO2, while it decomposed at 900°C 13% CO2. The cyanate decomposition was faster at higher temperatures and in oxygen-containing atmospheres than in an inert atmosphere. The presence of CO2 in oxygencontaining atmospheres slowed down the decomposition of cyanate. This work will provide new information on how modification of black liquor affects the nitrogen chemistry during thermal conversion of black liquor and what causes cyanate formation during thermal conversion of black liquor. The formation and decomposition of cyanate was studied in order to provide new data, which would be useful in modeling of nitrogen chemistry in the recovery boiler.

The collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief in international law : the application of findings to the case of Turkey

Pertinent domestic and international developments involving issues related to tensions affecting religious or belief communities have been increasingly occupying the international law agenda. Those who generate and, thus, shape international law jurisprudence are in the process of seeking some of the answers to these questions. Thus the need for reconceptualization of the right to freedom of religion or belief continues as demands to the right to freedom of religion or belief challenge the boundaries of religious freedom in national and international law. This thesis aims to contribute to the process of “re-conceptualization” by exploring the notion of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief with a view to advance the protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief. The case of Turkey provides a useful test case where both the domestic legislation can be assessed against international standards, while at the same time lessons can be drawn for the improvement of the standard of international review of the protection of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief. The right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in international human rights documents, is unique in its formulation in that it provides protection for the enjoyment of the rights “in community with others”.1 It cannot be realized in isolation; it crosses categories of human rights with aspects that are individual, aspects that can be effectively realized only in an organized community of individuals and aspects that belong to the field of economic, social and cultural rights such as those related to religious or moral education. This study centers on two primary questions; first, what is the scope and nature of protection afforded to the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief in international law, and, secondly, how does the protection of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief in Turkey compare and contrast to international standards? Section I explores and examines the notion of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief, and the scope of its protection in international law with particular reference to the right to acquire legal personality and autonomy religious/belief communities. In Section II, the case study on Turkey constitutes the applied part of the thesis; here, the protection of the collective dimension is assessed with a view to evaluate the compliance of Turkish legislation and practice with international norms as well as seeking to identify how the standard of international review of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief can be improved.

Vascular complications of black patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Southern Brazil

Ethnicity has been shown to be associated with micro- and macrovascular complications of diabetes in European and North American populations. We analyzed the contribution of ethnicity to the prevalence of micro- and macrovascular complications in Brazilian subjects with type 2 diabetes attending the national public health system. Data from 1810 subjects with type 2 diabetes (1512 whites and 298 blacks) were analyzed cross-sectionally. The rates of ischemic heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, stroke, distal sensory neuropathy, and diabetic retinopathy were assessed according to self-reported ethnicity using multiple logistic regression models. Compared to whites, black subjects [odds ratio = 1.72 (95%CI = 1.14-2.6)] were more likely to have ischemic heart disease when data were adjusted for age, sex, fasting plasma glucose, HDL cholesterol, hypertension, smoking habit, and serum creatinine. Blacks were also more likely to have end-stage renal disease [3.2 (1.7-6.0)] and proliferative diabetic retinopathy [1.9 (1.1-3.2)] compared to whites when data were adjusted for age, sex, fasting plasma glucose, HDL cholesterol, hypertension, and smoking habit. The rates of peripheral vascular disease, stroke and distal sensory neuropathy did not differ between groups. The higher rates of ischemic heart disease, end-stage renal disease and proliferative diabetic retinopathy in black rather than in white Brazilians were not explained by differences in conventional risk factors. Identifying which aspects of ethnicity confer a higher risk for these complications in black patients is crucial in order to understand why such differences exist and to develop more effective strategies to reduce the onset and progression of these complications.

Comparison of bone quantity by ultrasound measurements of phalanges between white and black children living in Paraná, Brazil, with Europeans

The objective of this study was to determine bone quantity by ultrasound measurements of the proximal finger phalanges (AD-SoS = amplitude-dependent speed of sound) of healthy Brazilian schoolchildren living in Paraná, Brazil and to compare these values with European populations. The sample was composed of 1356 Brazilian schoolchildren of both genders (660 males, 696 females), aged 6 to 11 years, divided into white (840) and black (516) groups and compared to age- and gender-matched Europeans. AD-SoS of the schoolchildren increased significantly with age for both genders. Significantly higher AD-SoS values were observed for the white children (1916 ± 58) compared to their black counterparts (1898 ± 72) and for the female gender (1920 ± 61) compared to the male gender (1898 ± 66). Overall, the AD-SoS outcomes for females were similar to those of European studies. However, the AD-SoS of the Brazilian schoolchildren of both genders and skin colors was lower than that reported for children in Poland. AD-SoS outcomes for Brazilian schoolboys were similar to those obtained in Italian studies and were lower than those of the Spanish children. In conclusion, Brazilian schoolchildren of both genders and skin colors showed lower bone quantities than Polish children and Spanish males, and levels similar to Italian children and Spanish females.