The evolution of man: a popular exposition of the principal points of human ontogney phylogeny / From the German of Ernst Haeckel.

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Limit cycles for cubic systems with a symmetry of order 4 and without in nite critical points

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Petits points et conjecture de Bogomolov

This paper is devoted to the statement known as the Bogomolov conjecture on small points. We present the outline of Zhang’s proof of the generalized version of the conjecture. An explicit bound for the height of a non-torsion variety of an abelian variety is obtained in the frame of Arakelov theory. Some further developments are mentioned.

Hopf bifurcation for degenerate singular points of multiplicity 2n-1 in dimension 3

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CM points and weight 3=2 modular forms

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Teaching clinical anatomy of the female pelvic floor to undergraduate students: A critical review of nevralgic points

Pelvic floor anatomy is complex and its three-dimensional organization is often difficult to understand for both undergrad- uate and postgraduate students. Here, we focused on several critical points that need to be considered when teaching the perineum. We have to deal with a mixed population of students and with a variety of interest. Yet, a perfect knowledge of the pelvic floor is the basis for any gynecologist and for any surgical intervention. Our objectives are several-fold; i) to estab- lish the objectives and the best way of teaching, ii) to identify and localize areas in the female pelvic floor that are suscepti- ble to generate problems in understanding the three-dimensional organization, iii) to create novel approaches by respecting the anatomical surroundings, and iv) prospectively, to identify elements that may create problems during surgery i.e. to have a closer look at nerve trajectories and on compression sites that may cause neuralgia or postoperative pain. A feedback from students concludes that they have difficulties to assimilate this much information, especially the different imaging tech- niques. Eventually, this will lead to a severe selection of what has to be taught and included in lectures or practicals. Another consequence is that more time to study prosected pelves needs to be given.

The Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona in 1992: Good points and bad points. Lessons for the Future

This text was presented at the Symposium “Olympic Arts and Culture Festivals: Recent Experiences and Future Design”, held in Chicago on the 23-24 June 2008. It provides with an analysis of good and bad points of the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona’92 in order to discover, from that past experience, any lessons for future Cultural Olympiads and Olympic Movement cultural policy in general, as well as to rethink, in a critical way, Catalan cultural policies.

Ear acupuncture and fMRI: a pilot study for assessing the specificity of auricular points.

In recent years research explored different acupuncture stimulation techniques but interest has focused primarily on somatic acupuncture and on a limited number of acupoints. As regards ear Acupuncture (EA) there is still some criticism about the clinical specificity of auricular points/areas representing organs or structures of the body. The aim of this study was to verify through (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) fMRI the hypothesis of EA point specificity using two auricular points having different topographical locations and clinical significance. Six healthy volunteers underwent two experimental fMRI sessions: the first was dedicated to the stimulation of Thumb Auricular Acupoint (TAA) and the second to the stimulation of Brain Stem Auricular Acupoint (BSAA). The stimulation of the needle placed in the TAA of the left ear produced an increase in activation bilaterally in the parietal operculum, region of the secondary somatosensory area SII. Stimulation of the needle placed in the BSAA of the left ear showed a pattern that largely overlapped regions belonging to the pain matrix, as shown to be involved in previous somatic acupuncture studies but with local differences in the left amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and cerebellum. The differences in activation patterns between TAA and BSAA stimulation support the specificity of the two acupoints. Moreover, the peculiarity of the regions involved in BSAA stimulation compared to those involved in the pain matrix, is in accordance with the therapeutic indications of this acupoint that include head pain, dizziness and vertigo. Our results provide preliminary evidence on the specificity of two auricular acupoints; further research is warranted by means of fMRI both in healthy volunteers and in patients carrying neurological/psychiatric syndromes.

Domestic Violence and Football in Glasgow: Are Reference Points Relevant?

Much research suggests that sporting events can trigger domestic violence with recent evidence suggesting that pre-match expectations (which can be interpreted as reference points) play an especially important role in this relationship. In particular, unexpectedly disappointing results have been associated with large increases in domestic violence. This paper contributes to this literature using a new data set containing every domestic violence incident in Glasgow over a period of more than eight years. We find that Old Firm matches, where Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers play, are associated with large increases in domestic violence (regardless of the timing or the outcome of the match). Non-Old Firm matches tend to have little impact on domestic violence. Furthermore, we fi nd little evidence for the importance of reference points. Matches with disappointing outcomes, relative to pre-match expectations, are found to be associated with unusual increases in domestic violence only in a very limited set of matches.

Domestic Violence and Football in Glasgow: Are Reference Points Relevant?

Much research suggests that sporting events can trigger domestic violence with recent evidence suggesting that pre-match expectations (which can be interpreted as reference points) play an especially important role in this relationship. In particular, unexpectedly disappointing results have been associated with large increases in domestic violence. This paper contributes to this literature using a new data set containing every domestic violence incident in Glasgow over a period of more than eight years. We find that Old Firm matches, where Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers play, are associated with large increases in domestic violence (regardless of the timing or the outcome of the match). Non-Old Firm matches tend to have little impact on domestic violence. Furthermore, we find little evidence for the importance of reference points. Matches with disappointing outcomes, relative to pre-match expectations, are found to be associated with unusual increases in domestic violence only in a very limited set of matches.

Evaluating the influence of spatial uncertainty in locality points for species distributional modeling

1. Species distribution modelling is used increasingly in both applied and theoretical research to predict how species are distributed and to understand attributes of species' environmental requirements. In species distribution modelling, various statistical methods are used that combine species occurrence data with environmental spatial data layers to predict the suitability of any site for that species. While the number of data sharing initiatives involving species' occurrences in the scientific community has increased dramatically over the past few years, various data quality and methodological concerns related to using these data for species distribution modelling have not been addressed adequately. 2. We evaluated how uncertainty in georeferences and associated locational error in occurrences influence species distribution modelling using two treatments: (1) a control treatment where models were calibrated with original, accurate data and (2) an error treatment where data were first degraded spatially to simulate locational error. To incorporate error into the coordinates, we moved each coordinate with a random number drawn from the normal distribution with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 5 km. We evaluated the influence of error on the performance of 10 commonly used distributional modelling techniques applied to 40 species in four distinct geographical regions. 3. Locational error in occurrences reduced model performance in three of these regions; relatively accurate predictions of species distributions were possible for most species, even with degraded occurrences. Two species distribution modelling techniques, boosted regression trees and maximum entropy, were the best performing models in the face of locational errors. The results obtained with boosted regression trees were only slightly degraded by errors in location, and the results obtained with the maximum entropy approach were not affected by such errors. 4. Synthesis and applications. To use the vast array of occurrence data that exists currently for research and management relating to the geographical ranges of species, modellers need to know the influence of locational error on model quality and whether some modelling techniques are particularly robust to error. We show that certain modelling techniques are particularly robust to a moderate level of locational error and that useful predictions of species distributions can be made even when occurrence data include some error.

Ribet bimodules and the specialization of Heegner points

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