The invention relates to a fluorescent high-molecular polymer and a preparation method of the fluorescent high-molecular polymer, in particular relates to a water-soluble cationic polyelectrolyte with an end group provided with fluorophore pyrene, a preparation method of the water-soluble cationic polyelectrolyte, and an application of water-soluble cationic polyelectrolyte in the detection of base sequences of nucleic acid molecules. A novel multi-stranded fluorescent probe is formed by electrostatic adsorption and hydrophobic interaction between the water-soluble cationic polyelectrolyte with the end group provided with fluorophore pyrene and single-stranded oligomerization nucleic acid molecules (DNAs with a hairpin structure and a linear chain structure). When nucleic acid molecules with base sequence structures complementary with those of the fluorescent probe exist, hybridization is performed through Watson-Crick base pairing principle, as the fluorescent pyrene at the end group is inserted into a DNA double-helix structure, the quenching ability of the base to the pyrene fluorescence is enhanced, so that the fluorescence intensity of the pyrene is remarkably reduced compared with that of the pyrene acted on non-target nucleic acid molecules, therefore, the specific identification of the base sequence structures of the nucleic acid molecules can be realized through difference of fluorescence properties of polyelectrolyte with fluorophore pyrene.


Research investigating the suitability of cardiac implantable electric device (CIED) replacement is gaining momentum. Chung et al1 developed the REPLACE Death After Replacement Evaluation (DARE) score to identify patients with limited expected longevity after CIED replacement. We congratulate the authors for their important contribution for informing CIED replacement decision making. Consideration of harms of CIED replacement is equally as important as benefits for these types of medical decisions.

However, we disagree with the authors' conclusions stating that reassessment of CIED replacement would seem appropriate in patients with high scores. We argue that generator replacement should be reassessed in all implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) replacement patients regardless of their expected longevity. We agree with …


Hofer, Brunelli, Shair, and Masmela (2001) examined several behavioral and physiological measures in low, high, and unselected lines obtained from a divergent selection for ultrasound production (USP) in young rats. Although the response to selection was clear-cut, few correlated responses appeared. This surprising result could be explained by two reasons. USP has polygenic correlates in this population, and most of the chromosomal regions that are linked with these measures only contribute to a small part of the genetic variance. Therefore, correlated responses to selection might exist, but the common genetic variance between the trait under selection and the indirectly selected trait is too small to be detected by a selective breeding strategy.


masks rested upon the top of the actors' heads so that their faces were visible to the audience. The metal mask resembled a cage, and inset within this cage were metal eyes and metal bands that formed the bridle. In the blinding scene, the horses' eyes lit up when stabbed. The lights acted as small searchlights within the chaos of the final scene when the horses violently react; their eyes, unseeing, sought out Strang's body as he ran about the stage.


Gliomatosis cerebri is a rare diffuse glioma with a growth pattern consisting of exceptionally extensive infiltration of the CNS with involvement of at least three lobes. It may appear de novo (primary gliomatosis) or result from the spreading of a focal glioma (secondary gliomatosis). Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody anti-VEGF active against recurrent high grade gliomas after standard therapy. We report the case of a 41-year-old man with a secondary gliomatosis treated with bevacizumab and temozolomide who responded and the response lasted 17 months. Moreover, we focus on the side effects (hypertension, deep vein thrombosis) induced by bevacizumab and their effective treatments.


Diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD) in newborns is complicated by the dynamic nature of the transition to extrauterine circulation. Pulse


In china, reconstructing and maintaining work always comes into conflict with the operation work of railway. To find out the main reasons, this article firstly analyzed the situation and the management pattern of reconstruction and maintaining work for the existed lines. Then, it deeply studies the problems from the view of criterions of existed line classificatoin, ideas of reconstruction lines, facility maintaining work and so on, and brings forward the way to resolve the conflict.


Over the last three decades, Malaysia has been the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world. In Malaysia palm oil is the most important agricultural and contributes substantially to the economy . Nevertheless, the growth of the industry has some costs. Deforestation, depletion of flora and fauna, air and water pollution and conflicts on native customary lands (NCLs) are amongst environmental and social impacts of the industry . Environmental regulatory pressure on the industry since early 1980s has changed the industry's environmental practices to be more environmentally responsible in its activities. Many environmental aspects of the industry have been internalised by palm oil companies. Despite some improvement in handling environmental issues, the industry has been criticised especially from Environmental Non Government Organisations (ENGOs) who have argued that the industry is not proactive enough to address environmental and social issues exacerbated by the industry . Hence, against this background, the main aim of this study is to investigate ENGOs perception of environmental strategies in Malaysian palm oil companies and how and to what extent they impose pressure on the industry to more environmentally and socially responsible. Data of this paper were based from face to face interviews with 4 important individuals from dif ferent ENGOs in the country . From the qualitative analysis of the tape-recorded interviews facilitated by NV ivo software, it seemed clear that although various means had been used by ENGOs, by and large they have limited power to exert influence on the industry . Nonetheless, study also showed an increasing advocacy and activism amongst them, especially from ENGOs who worked at the grass root level. This could not be taken lightly by palm oil companies if they want to project their images as corporate responsible companies on green and social issues. Some recommendations to increase corporate environmentalism in the industry were also included at the end of this paper .


The structure of the dimer formed from acetonylacetone and hydrazine has been re-examined. On the basis of chemical and spectroscopic data, a covalent tricyclic structure is proposed.


The population density of Japanese sika deer (Cervus nippon yakushimae Kuroda and Okada) in an evergreen broad-leaved forest in Yakushima, southern Japan, was surveyed over 4 years from 1998 to 2001. Two approximately 50 ha study sites, Hanyama and Kawahara, were established with a total of 4 km of census trails at each site. The estimated densities of sika deer at the two sites were 43–70 deer km−2 at Hanyama and 63–78 deer km−2 at Kawahara, although these values might be underestimates. The adult sex ratio (number of adult males : number of adult females) ranged from 0.6 to 1.0 at Hanyama, and from 0.4 to 0.9 at Kawahara. Mean group size was 1.9 deer (male group, 1.5 deer; female group, 1.6 deer; mixed group, 3.6 deer). The population density of sika deer was relatively high compared to other sites in Japan, with the exception of very small (<10 km2) islands. Possible explanations for this naturally high density of sika deer in an evergreen broad-leaved forest in Yakushima are discussed.


Stimulus fading procedures have repeatedly been demonstrated as effective in shaping a wide variety of new behaviors. Borrowing from this body of research, the behavioral treatment of feeding disorders presents a new area of application for stimulus fading. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the efficacy of stimulus fading in the treatment of adipsia. Two children who ate solids, but refused all liquids, were participants in the study. Results showed that a five step fading procedure starting with a spoon and thickened liquids, and ending with a cut-out-cup, was successful in establishing cup drinking skills for both children. Results of the study suggest that stimulus fading can facilitate feeding skill acquisition. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A switch mode power supply, which operates using a zero-crossing control circuit for determining a polarity of an inductor, and from the polarity of the inductor current controlling an operating state of a switching section of the switching mode power supply in a "continuous flow" mode and a discontinuous mode, the inductor current is approximately zero amps to is the end of each Entmagnetisierungsbetriebsphase.


Background Gout is the most common cause of an inflammatory arthritis in men elder than 30 years, varies up to 1,7% of the total morbidity. One of the most common complication of chronic gout is gouty nephropathy with the morphological signs of kidney damage, even in the early stages.1 It's well known, that urine albumin and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) are the generally accepted markers of nephropathy. But, recent data has shown, that the informative and obtainable new biomarkers of the kidney function are still needed. Thus, evaluation of the pathogenic role in the renal failure of cystatin C could be a "clue". The dozen trials have shown that an increasing of ranges cystatin C in serum could be tested at the stage of subclinical reduction of GFR with normal level of creatinine.2; 3 Objectives To determine the serum ranges of cystatin C and creatinine as the markers of nephropathy in patients with gout. Methods The main group was the 80 males with primary gout (average age – 53,4±8,2 years), with the disease duration from 3 up to 25 years. The second group – 20 healthy men (49,5±4,5). We determined the concentration of serum uric acid, serum cystatin C, creatinine, calculate the GFR using CKD-epi formula. For urine albumin evaluation we used the albumin/creatinine ratio in the morning urine portion. Results e determined that the main group identified by more significant violations of renal function. In the main group was found the statistically significant increase of the serum creatinine (97±18 μmol/l) and decrease of GFR (7364; 94) ml/min2. The serum cystatin C concentration in the main group was (1,71,4; 1,9) mg/l which was the significantly larger than in the comparison group (0,8 [0,7; 0,92] mg/l, p<0,001). The albumin/creatinine ratio was statistically higher in the main group (2614; 56) mg/g than in comparison (0,8 [0,7; 0,92]) mg/l, p<0001. Also the patients with gout are characterised by the larger concentration of uric acid in the serum (530±74) μmol/l than healthy men (347±75) μmol/l and negative correlation between uric acid level and GFR (r=-0,4, p<0,05) which explain the increase of uric acid concentration in the serum. We determined the correlation between level of urine alabumin and creatinine concentration (r=+0,5, p<0,05) in the main group, but concentration between albuminuria and cystatin C was stronger (r=+0,6, p<0,05). We detected that cystatin C level had a greater accuracy for the diagnosis of albuminuria than creatinine according to the ROC-analysis. These facts show that serum concentration of cystatin C more closely connected with the renal function than creatinine. Conclusions 1. The increase of serum cystatin C level can be identified before the clinical manifestation of renal dysfunction while the serum creatinine remain relatively normal. 2. Serum ranges of cystatin C more closely correlate with elevation of urine albumin than creatinine. References [1] Michael H. et al. Gout and Its Comorbidities/H. Michael Pillinger, S. David Goldfarb, et al. //Bulletin of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. – Vol. 68(3). – P [2] Servais A., et al. Is serum cystatin-C a reliable marker for metabolic syndrome? A. Servais, P. Giral, M. Bernard, et al. //Am. J. Med. – 2008. – Vol. 121 (5). – P. 426–32. [3] Turk V., Stoka V., Turk D. Cystatins: biochemical and structural properties, and medical relevance/V.Turk, V. Stoka, D. Turk//Front Biosci. 2008. – Vol.13. – P. 5406–5420. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Specialty plus Entity plus Profession is a new type of industry-university-research cooperation in higher vocational college.This paper introduces the construction of a characteristic specialty relying on professional entity,some experience and achievements about the talents cultivation mode,construction of practice teaching system,practical training base and cultivation mechanism for teachers.These can be used as a reference for the other higher vocational colleges.


A new foliar dematiaceous hyphomycete, Pseudocercospora subulata, is described and illustrated. P. subulata differs from the known members of Pseudocercospora mainly in the typical subulate conidia. The differences between the new species and its closely related species are discussed. The fungus is associated with leaf spots of Eucalyptus nitens.


Sunan Kalijaga played an important role in the development of Islam, especially in Java.  The name Lokajaya is attached to Sunan Kalijaga when preaching choosing to use culture and art.  Wayang art is one of the things used in preaching so Sunan Kalijaga is known as a puppeteer of wayang purwa. Epistemology in Islam uses empiricism and rationalism  as the foundation of true epistemology, but in Islamic epistemology it also uses God's word and intuition as a source of knowledge.  Oneof the Muslim thinkers Muhammad 'Abid Al-Jabiri divided   thepistimology in Islam into three methods, namely the bayani, burhani, and irfani methods.  This research is  using research with qualitative descriptive methods, the purpose of this method is to provide a general explanation of Sunan Kalijaga's cultural da'wah.   This article uses  a Library Research approach  or literature research which is a study that examines various reference materials and findings related to previous research and serves to build a theoretical foundation for the problem being investigated (Sarwono: 2006).  Data collection techniques use documentation procedures. Data analysis is carried out by comparing different pieces of documentation literature with different data from research findings related to the topic of research publication.
Keywords: Da'wah, Sunan Kalijaga, Epistimology


1′-Methylspiro[3H-indole-3,n'-piperidines] 2 can be obtained from the 1-methyl-n-piperidinecarbaldehydes 1 by the Fischer reaction of their phenylhydrazones. The Fischer reaction provides different kinds of products -3H-indole, indole and oxindole- which depend on the N atom position in the piperidine ring.


Broadband communication using satellites requires the use of Ka-band. Services of this type are now emerging all over the world, some with capacities in excess of 100 Gbps. However, as the radio bandwidth resources become exhausted, high-speed optical communication is required as well. The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Japan researches and develops the next generation of space communication technology. A hybrid satellite communication system using RF and light-wave communications is being studied. There are three kinds of RF antennae and one optical antenna systems for the hybrid high-throughput satellite communication system, which will be embarked in space. Here, the research and development activities of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology are introduced.


summary The objective was to assess both our local plan and the assumptions made in the national guidelines on how laboratories should prepare for an acute shortage of red cells. The Chief Medical Officer's National Blood Transfusion Committee for England and North Wales has issued guidance on how hospitals should prepare contingency plans to deal with a shortage of red cells for transfusion. This study has therefore assessed the practicalities of these proposals together with assessing how well local policies would deal with this situation. A tabletop exercise was carried out in which all requests over a 21‐day period were assessed. The restrictions as suggested by the national blood transfusion committee were applied and the impact on the blood stocks during an acute blood shortage was assessed. The results show that application of the national guidelines on the restriction of the use of red cells during an acute blood shortage resulted in all transfusion requests for red cells being met. We also appear to have shown that the assumptions made by the national transfusion team are realistic. Carrying out a tabletop exercise is a useful method to assess local procedures for dealing with an acute reduction in the supply of red cells.


This paper examines the impact of cost-efficiency on bank profitability in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic using quarterly data from a panel of banks operating in five (5) Sub-Saharan African countries. The findings show that cost-efficient banks are more profitable amid the pandemic. Additionally, we found that revenue diversification is associated with strong financial performance. Our findings contribute to literature by proposing the adoption of aggressive cost control and revenue diversification strategies by the management of banks to ensure sustainable and resilient financial performance in times of crises when interest incomes are sticky.


Solid techniques based on distributional learning have been developed targeting rich subclasses of CFGs and their extensions including linear context-free tree grammars. Along this line we propose a learning algorithm for some subclasses of IO contextfree tree grammars.


Abstract This article describes the findings of a qualitative phenomenographic study that explored students' engagement from the perspective of the students. It describes how the participants perceived their engagement when they learned social studies using GIS Story Maps. Qualitative data collection involved classroom observations, student-written reflections, and oral interviews with fourteen eighth-grade student-participants. The data analysis revealed that students perceive Story Maps as engaging in four qualitatively different ways: generating inquiry, visualizing information, mapping interactively, and cycling. Students also see a geographic and cultural connection between Story Maps and their lives, and additional connections beyond the classroom.


With the development of the national economy and the rapid raise of electricity demand, centralized use of air conditioning loads in cities has become one of important reasons for peak-valley difference increase of grid load in summer, which has led to the imbalance between supply and demand of the energy of China. It is have a certain load potential of central air-conditioning load, therefore, it is of great significance to improve the safe of power grid to adopt a reasonable regulation patterns for the peak clipping of central air-conditioning loads. This paper focuses on researching demand response control strategy with groups of central air-conditionings involved, which is aimed at minimizing the building group peak demand. Firstly, the modeling of central air-conditionings equipped in building groups is described. Then, the flexible control methods of air-conditionings are analyzed and the optimization scheme of air-conditionings for power grid regulation is given. Next, a combinatorial regulation model of groups of central air-conditionings for peak load reduction is set up. Finally, case studies are given to carry out performance assessment of the demand response control strategy.


Summing up with classical shortlasting inspirations, periodic longlasting inspirations (approximately 10 s) may be recorded with the normal inspirations through plethysmographic method in the intact newborn rat under deep diethyl ether anaesthesia. When they are present in vivo, the fast brainstem-spinal cord isolation allows to record in vitro periodic longlasting motor bursts (10-25 s) on C2-C8 ventral roots adding to shortlasting respiratory bursts (1-3 s) on C1-T13 ventral roots. Both kinds of rhythmic activities display a synchronous bilateral pattern. The longlasting bursts are maintained after a C2 spinal transection, especially if they have been induced by phenylephrine hydrochloride superfusion (0.4-0.5 mM).


The present invention, the oil phase containing a photosensitive compound capable of generating gas by exposure to light, for example, to water-dispersible microcapsules containing a perfume. The gas can cause expansion or destruction of the microcapsules to release the oil phase, thus increasing the long lasting odor perception. Further, the present invention relates to the use of the microcapsules, to a perfumed article comprising microcapsules of the present invention to provide release of fragrance molecules using, or extended in perfumery and perfuming composition.


ABSTRACT The emergence of abnormal events (e.g. personnel abnormalities, equipment failures, etc.) on the assembly floor of complex products can seriously affect normal assembly progress. In response to the problems of poor timeliness and lack of predictability in the control of abnormal events on the assembly floor, a method for predicting abnormal events on the assembly floor of complex products based on digital twin technology is proposed. A model for predicting abnormal assembly events is constructed with the physical assembly workshop, virtual assembly workshop, assembly workshop twin data platform and abnormal events prediction service system working together, and its prediction operation mechanism is designed based on the classification of abnormal events and the workflow of the mechanism under different states is analysed. The Grey-Markov method is used to predict abnormal assembly events and provide real-time information for the planning and scheduling system. In order to verify the effectiveness of this scheme, combined with the electrical multiple units bogie assembly workshop, the prediction of the number of equipment failures at the bottleneck station is achieved. The prediction accuracy is much better than that of the GM(1,1) model and can be applied to actual production.


Until recently, the company had given first right of use to supplement retailer GNC, but the ingredient is now open to the rest of the market.


List of Tables Acknowledgements Note on Sources and Methods Overview The Presidency of Fruto Chamorro and the National War: Antecedents of the Conservative Republic The Constitution of 1858: A Troubled Birth The Works of the Conservatives The Reds and the Inglesieros The Fall of the Conservative Republic: An Accidental Death Conclusions End Notes Index


There are many image processing applications where the area of an object has to be estimated as accurately as possible. A well-known example is the area estimation of agricultural elds, which is of great importance for the management of the agricultural subsidy system of the European Union. The area of an object can be estimated using both classiication, which allocates a pixel to a single class, and decomposition, which divides a pixel between several classes. Since decomposition is better at handling mixed pixels|pixels comprising multiple classes|which are often found at object boundaries, area estimation by decomposition is expected to be more accurate. To test this hypothesis, a data-driven decomposition method was developed and applied to a series of artiicial satellite images of increasing complexity. Data-driven decomposition was able to estimate the percentage of each component of a pixel with an average error of 5%. Narrow structures were processed correctly, and isolated pixels were detected using a simple threshold. A quantitative comparison with the results of three other methods found in the literature showed that the area estimates of data-driven decomposition were signiicantly more accurate. This study suggests that data-driven decomposition is an accurate area estimation method which is worth further research using real satellite images.


Transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFβ1) is a multifunctional cytokine implicated in gonad and secondary sex organ development, spermatogenesis and ovarian function, immunoregulation of pregnancy, embryo implantation and placental
development. The TGFβ1 null mutant mouse offers the unique opportunity to study the role of TGFβ1 in vivo. TGFβ1 null mutant males are 100% infertile. When housed with normal females they do not deposit sperm or induce pseudopregnancy. Serum testosterone levels in adult TGFβ1 null mutant mice is decreased by 75%, caused by factors upstream of testis function as testosterone production can be induced by exogenous gonadotrophins. ln the majority of TGFB1 null mice, spermatogenesis proceeds normally and in vitro fertilisation experiments have shown the sperm are viable. Behavioural studies revealed that TGFβ1 null mutant males display mounting behaviour and while some intromit, ejaculation never occurs. Nitric oxide synthase enzymes were not induced in the penis of TGFβ1 null males in response to gonadotrophin, and this may be the cause of impaired sexual performance. Neither replacement of testosterone during perinatal development and/or adulthood, nor
treatment with sildenafil citrate restored sexual function. Female TGFβ1 null mice also have severe fertility deficiencies. These mice suffer three distinct reproductive lesions (1) failure of 50% of the females to mate with normal stud males, (2) in females that do mate, failure of preimplantation embryo development leading to 80% infertility and (3) failure to nurture pups in the small proportion of females that produce live litters. Ovarian function is severely impaired in TGFB1 null mutant females and is likely to be the principle cause of reproductive failure. The number of ovulations is reduced by 40% and each corpora lutea produces less progesterone leading to a 75% decrease in serum progesterone during early pregnancy. Embryos from TGFB1 null mutant females on day 3.5 post coitum were developmentally arrested in the morula stage. Embryos from superovulated null mutant mice fertilised with normal sperm and cultured in vitro also failed to develop to blastocysts.
Together, these studies suggest that preimplantation embryo developmental failure is the result of a lesion in oocyte development in the ovary prior to ovulation. These studies demonstrate that TGFβ1 is indeed a critical factor in many aspects of murine reproductive function.


The problem of anomaly detection when several information technologies (processes) are functioning simultaneously is considered. It is assumed that the normal or typical functioning of the process can be described by some formal model. In this paper a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is considered as such formal model. It is considered that all necessary information about the processes possible executions can be received from an event log, which is considered given. In this paper the event log traces containing the data from one and several processes were examined. The complexity estimates for solving anomaly detection problem with the use of the constructed earlier formal models are determined. It has been shown that the solution of the anomaly detection problem has linear complexity with respect to the length of the trace, for which it is required to give an answer whether such trace contains an anomaly. Also, it has been proven that the solution of the anomaly detection problem has quadratic complexity with respect to the maximum possible number of actions and dependencies in one simulated process. Moreover, it has been demonstrated how the system of different representatives may help to effectively identify the trajectories of many different processes.


Along with the enterprise economic powers strengthen continuously, for satisfying the applied demand of business, the enterprise has already built up gradually with each other the network infrastructure of the mutual communication of Internet. Security issues in open platform will explosive increase accompany with open requirements growing. Research and design security mechanism on router will be good for Internet security, as well as the developer to provide a powerful help. Router is a critical element in any security deployment. Routers are definite targets for network attackers. If an attacker can compromise and access a router, it can be a potential aid to them. Technique of router security is the technical importance of the network security to constitute the part, a scheme of router security operation of the enterprise network has been described.


After 5 years of R&D with multiple companies we developed custom large dynamic range SiPMs with large PDE and fast recovery time. Here we report on the final SiPM parameters of the 2014 preproduction run from Hamamatsu (HPK) who has produced a series of 175 arrays with a total of 1400 SiPMs. An overview of all results of our measurements of photon detection efficiency, spectral response, cell recovery are reported in this paper. Results from a study on the radiation hardness of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are also presented. The SiPMs were exposed to 62 MeV protons at fluences up to 1x1012 protons/cm2. The SiPM's main parameters were measured before and after irradiation. The effects of the proton radiation on breakdown voltage, gain, photon detection efficiency, dark current and noise for these devices are shown and discussed.


Typical simulator system is composed of computer system, platform system, visual system and circuit control system, etc. of which the problem of fault detection of circuit control system is the key and the most difficult. This paper will make use of the advantage of ant colony algorithm in solving graph coloring to transform problem of incidence matrices division of digital circuits to graph coloring. At the same time, with genetic algorithm, this paper accelerates algorithm converging rate; with pheromone threshold value, this paper also optimizes convergence result mutation to some degree. After contrasting with experiments of other algorithms, feasibility and high efficiency of modified ant colony algorithm which is put forward in this paper has been proved.


Working organs constructions of machines for stump eradication have been analyzed. Their advantages and defects are revealed. Working organ of machine МУП–4 having conoid form and making stump cutting with his simultaneous split along the grain is most effective equipment for stump eradication have been established.


Increased expression of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) may ameliorate the clinical course of hemoglobinopathies like sickle cell disease (SCD) and β‐thalassemia. Hydroxyurea (HU) can stimulate HbF production in these diseases but the response is highly variable indicating the utility of developing an in vitro test to predict the patient's response to HU. We assessed whether the HbF response of patients with SCD and thalassemia intermedia (TI) to HU correlates with HBG (both γ‐globin genes) expression in their cultured erythroid progenitors following exposure to HU.


Whereas past CHI-related work has paid attention to various elements of the esports industry, there exists a scarcity of such research on the increasing convergence between esports and gambling. This study, therefore, aimed to shed light on the emerging phenomenon of esports betting in two ways. First, we theorized about its characteristics according to the 5W1H framework. Second, using semi-structured laddering interviews and Means-End Chain Theory, we assessed the esports betting motivations of young, male and recreational gamblers who interact with monetary and skin betting websites. Our results show that gamblers follow various motivational pathways when using an esports betting platform and construct their motives in relation to platform-specific properties and personal values. As such, we demonstrate that a holistic understanding of esports betting is of utmost importance if we want to explain and investigate its appeal to a worldwide audience.


"Three Activities Going to the Countryside",the social practice program for college students,is effective in summoning people from walks of life to be fully involved in the construction of new socialist countrysides.It is also the innate requirement of the construction of new socialist countrysides.University students are expected to play roles in the following aspects and grow in the process: A) doing research into the rural life;B) publicizing the Party's policy;C) working for the production and development;D) supervising its democratic management;E) intervening in any possible disputes;F) disseminating modern rural civilization.


An important problem in plasma physics is the lack of an accurate and complete description of Coulomb collisions in associated fluid models. To shed light on the problem, this Letter introduces an integral identity involving the multivariate Hermite tensor polynomials and presents a method for computing exact expressions for the fluid moments of the nonlinear Landau collision operator. The proposed methodology provides a systematic and rigorous means of extending the validity of fluid models that have an underlying inverse-square force particle dynamics to arbitrary collisionality and flow.


FIA-related papers and FIA monographs appeared since 1984 have been compiled in this F7A bibliography section. About 2,050 papers and eight monographs were listed in the previous section(refs. 226-228,342,501,598,771, 953, 1100, 1248, 1445, 1594, 1786, 1924, and 2055). All papers in this section are numbered in series and shown with the titles in English. The readers are requested to send me the reprints of their FIA-related papers that have not yet been listed in this section,


This study is an attempt to investigate three problems: First, what loss in auditory acuity, independent of special pathologic conditions, accompanies increasing age? Second, how does such auditory loss affect what one hears in a musical tone? Third, how does such a loss affect one's perception of speech? I. AUDITORY ACUITY AND AGE Previous studies 1 and ordinary observation have indicated that a person progressively loses his hearing as he grows older. This phenomenon is known as "presbycusis." The first problem in these investigations is concerned with the extent and the nature of presbycusis in persons above 50. The auditory sensitivity of 168 ears was measured by means of a Western Electric 2-A audiometer, which produces eight frequencies in octave intervals ranging from 64 to 8192 cycles. Both ears were tested for 80 subjects and only one for 8. Sixty-four subjects received an otologic examination to insure that there were no


Cost‐effective biomass derived carbon is considered a highly attractive energy material while high‐performance biochar based nanocomposites with well‐defined structures are very desirable candidates for this application. Herein, a novel and feasible fabrication method with renewable plane tree fluff as the carbon source is proposed to synthesize hierarchical porous titanium dioxide (TiO2)/carbon nanocomposites covering full length scales. A hybrid inorganic/organic framework with sub 10 nm feature sizes is used as the metal source for building up a high‐quality interface between phases, while bitemplates with ice and nanoscaled silica are introduced for porosity tuning. The as‐prepared TiO2/C nanocomposite presents superior photocatalytic activity for organic pollutant degradation and excellent photo‐electrochemical performance. More importantly, when loaded with a noble‐metal‐free carbide (Mo2C) prepared from a novel hydrothermal assisted fabrication route, it shows an outstanding hydrogen generation rate of 5.4 (UV) and 0.09 (visible light) mmol g−1 h−1 for water splitting, which are much better than the same sample loaded with Pt and benchmark P25. The present work proposes a dynamic and reliable tactic to synthesize a broad set of hierarchical porous metal oxide based nanocomposites, which is of far‐reaching significance for the development of sustainable technology for environmental, energy, and catalysis applications.


Conclusions Food Sovereignty: Is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.. Emerging diseases: An emerging disease is one that has appeared in a population for the first time, or that may have existed previously but is rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range.


Results are presented of a cross-national study on burnout among 200 Polish and 183 Dutch female nurses. The reliablity and the factorial validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is satisfactory in both countries. However, evidence for the content validity of the MBI is likewise equivocal in both samples. Polish nurses are significantly more burned out than their Dutch colleagues, even after controlling for differences in work situations in both countries. Subjective work stressors (i.e., uncertainty and a perceived imbalance between investments and outcomes in relationships with patients) contribute most strongly to bumout in Polish as well as in Dutch nurses. Personality characteristics and aspects of the work situation play a less prominent role. Although the work situation of Polish and Dutch nurses differs considerably, psychological variables-notably, experienced job stress-are likewise crucial in understanding burnout among nurses of both countries.


Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with plant growth regulators composed of different concentrations were used in vitro rapid and mass multiplication of nodal explants obtained from shoots of black mulberry (Morus nigra L.) seedlings grown in a fully controlled greenhouse. Eighteen different concentration of 6-benzylaminopurin, thidiazuron (TDZ), kinetin (KN) GA3 and naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) as plant growth regulators were used. In contrast to expectation, combinations of (TDZ 1.0 mg L–1 + GA3 0.25 mg L–1) and (TDZ 2.0 mg L–1 + GA3 0.25 mg L–1) were found to give positive results in shoot proliferation and plant formation at the end of the study. In the rooting study (NAA 0.5 mg L–1 + KN 0.1 mg L–1) and (NAA 0.5 mg L–1 + KN 0.2 mg L–1) treatment showed positive results.


The invention, belonging to the chemical field of polymer synthesis, relates to multi-armed star-like polyethyleneglycol(POE) containing a single functional group and a preparation method thereof. In the presence of catalyst, active hydroxyl of one end of POE is protected by ethyl vinyl ether, a small molecular compound with a protected hydroxyl and active hydroxyls on two ends respectively is prepared, the ring opening polymerization of ethylene oxide is triggered by the small molecular compound and an oxide anion produced by reacting with metallic potassium, and the multi-armed star-like POE containing the single functional group with multiple functions is prepared. The variant end functional PEO prepared by the invention can be purified repeatedly by dissolution and precipitation, with the advantages of narrow molecular weight distribution, clear structure and high yield, and can be characterized in detail by means of MALDI-TOF MS, SEC and 1H HMR. The method is simple and can be used universally, with good industry prospect.


Ammonia nitrogen removal from synthetic aqueous solutions by natural and different modified clinoptilolites was investigated.The results show that the dynamic curves of ammonia nitrogen adsorption by natural and modified clinoptilolites fit the character of "fast adsorption and slow equilibration",and their adsorption rates become higher with the initial concentrations of ammonia nitrogen increasing.Ammonia nitrogen adsorption by the natural and modified clinoptilolites fit the single molecule adsorption process,and Langmuir equation could well describe the isotherm adsorption.The adsorption reaction is endothermic process;therefore the adsorption capacity of clinoptilolite could increase when the temperature increased appropriately.The highest ammonia nitrogen adsorption efficiency was achieved by salt modified clinoptilolite because of the increase of surface area and cavity size,and salt modified method could also benefit the reuse of clinoptilolite.


The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that is ravaging the world is caused by infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV- 2). The dominant features of COVID- 19 are fever, respiratory and gastro intestinal; however, it is also known to cause neurological complications. Even early in the pandemic thrombotic complications associated with COVID- 19 were recognised including COVID- 19 associated acute ischemic strokes (AIS).


Three silicon micro-cantilevers coated with a Cr-doped vanadium dioxide (VO2:Cr) thin film were photothermally actuated with a pulsed red laser in order to study its dynamic performance in air and in water. Micro-cantilever vibration amplitudes with a magnitude similar to that of DC operation were obtained in air up to 600 Hz. In water, a decrease in amplitude started at ~100 Hz, but it did not go below -3 dB until a few hundreds of Hz. Deflection transients of all micro-cantilevers were also measured in both media. This revealed that, in water, the deflection response to the laser pulses is greatly hampered by the amount of time required for the micro-cantilevers to heat. However, in air, there was no apparent difference in the transients between heating and cooling. These results suggest the use of VO2:Cr coated micro-cantilevers as optically driven actuators with large deflections in liquid media suitable for biological based applications.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the informational role played by ownership concentration.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors use bivariate vector autoregressive models to document the informational role of ownership concentration.

Findings
The findings suggest that the returns of firms with concentrated ownership structure lead the returns of firms with dispersed ownership structure in Morocco during the period between 2004 and 2014. The authors argue that this lead-lag relationship arises because a better information environment in firms with concentrated ownership structure enables quick incorporation of relevant information. The results are robust under different information regimes.

Originality/value
The authors believe that this paper is one of the first evidence on the informational role of ownership concentration in Morocco.


Influenced by the strong demand for fragmented entertainment from network users, the short video industry has entered an unprecedented period of rapid development, but any emerging industry goes through a life cycle. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of core competitiveness and brand personality on user loyalty in short video industry by using questionnaire survey for Chinese short video users and statistical analysis based on survey data, so as to provide suggestions for short video websites to improve user loyalty and prolong life cycle. Core competitiveness and brand personality are considered as independent variables, user perceived value characteristics as the moderator variable, and user loyalty as the dependent variable to construct the research model. The SPSS and AMOS statistical analysis tools are applied to reliability analysis, validity analysis, and structural equation model analysis of the survey data. The Results show that the core competitiveness of the short video industry has no positive effect on user perceived value; and the brand personality has a significant positive impact on the user perceived value; the core competitiveness of the short video industry has a significant positive impact on the user loyalty; the brand personality has a significant positive impact on the user loyalty; and the user perceived value has a significant positive impact on the user loyalty. Based on the above results, we suggest the short video website improve its core competitiveness through creating original videos, and adopting diversified content production modes, using network transmission and mass media to promote short video products, so as to strengthen the brand communication, shape the brand image and enhance the user perceived value, etc.


At its best, philosophy addresses the biggest questions and answers them by reduction to simple models. By these standards, Brian Skyrms's Evolution of the Social Contract is outstanding. It raises large questions about ethics and social order and proposes answering some of them with simple evolutionary models. The pace is brisk. 'Hegel and Marx [who] ... lacking any real evolutionary dynamics ... resorted to the fantasy of the dialectical logic of history' are disposed of in the Preface (ix). Lest this dismissal seem narrow, Skyrms's enterprise is wide-ranging and strongly interdisciplinary. His models are the product of recent work in economics, decision theory, and evolutionary biology. He argues that these models are important to philosophers because they solve a series of traditional philosophical problems about the origins of equality, commitment, cooperation, property, and meaning (to list the topics of the five chapters). Skyrms offers 'a naturalistic approach to the social contract' (xi). His general strategy of looking for evolutionary explanations to replace rational social agreement seems plausible yet challenging: plausible, because we find various kinds of social order among animals in nature where agreement and a fortiori rational agreement is impossible,


Surgical technology advances slowly and only when there is overwhelming need for change. Change is resisted by surgeons and is made hard by FDA rules that inhibit innovation. There is a pressing need to improve surgeon's visualization of the operative field during laparoscopic surgery to minimize the risk for significant injury that can occur when surgeons are operating around delicate, hidden structures. We propose to use a Digital Light Processor-based hyperspectral imaging system to assist an operating surgeon's ability to see through tissues and identify otherwise hidden structures such as bile ducts during laparoscopic cholecystectomy.


Three interface state density (Dit) characterization methods to evaluate the oxide-semiconductor interface on metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors fabricated on GaN are compared and discussed. Capacitance-voltage, conductance-voltage, and constant capacitance deep level transient and optical spectroscopy measurements are used to evaluate Dit at the Al2O3/GaN interface. The effect of annealing ambient on the Pd/Al2O3/GaN capacitors is also examined. Forming gas annealing reduces Dit; nitrogen annealing increases Dit for the annealing conditions tested. The Dit variation correlates with changes in hydrogen concentration at the Al2O3/GaN interface detected by secondary ion mass spectrometry suggesting that hydrogen plays an important role passivating Al2O3/GaN interfaces.


This article was developed from a Monography and a Final Graduation Project presented as the conclusion of the Architecture and Urbanism Course from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). It has the objective of studying the Área Calma of Curitiba, in a way of investigating the reality and questioning its current definition and dynamic, connected to the reduction of the speed limit in the central region of the city. Considering the Urban Design theoretical sphere, it is sought to recognize in which way this knowledge field can contribute to the viabilization and the better structuring of the area. The methodology involves the reality search, including the current configuration, the people's perception through a questionnaire, the establishment of scales and the recognition of problems. As results, this last action enabled the creation of recommendations, spatial and of applicating urban planning instruments, that would solve the issues, related to mobility, vitality and quality of the urban space.


Simple Summary Polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially DHA and EPA, play crucial roles in fish growth performance, brain and eye development, reproduction and non-specific immune responses. However, considering the environmental unsustainability and the increasing price of fisheries' by-products, alternative aquafeed ingredients are needed as a source of unsaturated fatty acids for farming marine fish. Here, we isolated and characterized three genes participating in the biosynthesis of n-3 LC-PUFA in hybrid groupers. We found that these genes were expressed in the liver of hybrid groupers in response to dietary fatty acid levels. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the n-3 LC-PUFA biosynthesis process in this marine fish species. Abstract Elongases of very long-chain fatty acids (Elovls) and fatty acid desaturases (Fads) are crucial enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs). In this paper, we report the molecular cloning and characterization of three genes from the marine teleost Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀ × Epinephelus lanceolatus ♂, and analyzed tissue distribution and their expression in response to dietary n-3 LC-PUFA levels after a 42-day feeding experiment. The elovl5, elovl8 and fads2 genes encoded 294, 263 and 445 amino acids, respectively, which exhibited all the characteristics of the Elovl and Fads family. Tissue distribution analysis revealed that elovl5, elovl8 and fads2 were widely transcribed in various tissues, with the highest level in the brain, as described in other carnivorous marine teleosts. The transcript levels of elovl5, elovl8 and fads2 in the liver were significantly affected by dietary n-3 LC-PUFA, and higher LC-PUFA levels repressed their expression. These results demonstrated, for the first time, the presence and nutritional modulation of elovl5, elovl8 and fads2 cDNA in the juvenile hybrid grouper. Further studies are needed to determine the functional characterization of these genes and explore the mechanism of these genes when regulated by dietary fatty lipid profiles in this species.


HIV transmission in Cambodia is assumed to be primarily through heterosexual intercourse though reports indicate that levels of HIV prevalence in men who sell sex to be three times that of men who are considered high risk and under sentinel surveillance. Virtually no information exists on the context and dynamics of male-to-male sexual behaviour in Cambodia. In response the International HIV/AIDS Alliance & the Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA) conducted a study in September 2002 to more fully understand the concerns sexual health issues and risks faced by men who have sex with men (MSM) in Cambodia. Denial and ignorance about the extent of same-sex behaviour in Cambodian society means that this population remains relatively hidden and their concerns and sexual health problems are consequently neglected. Male-to-male sex frequently involves unprotected anal intercourse. Many respondents engage in sex with both men and women. The blurred distinctions between appearance identity and sexual practice mixed with the low provision of information education and support services and the relatively high HIV prevalence in the country can contribute to a high risk of transmitting HIV. (excerpt)


Let $(A_m)_{m \in {\mathop Z}}$ be a sequence of bounded linear maps acting on an arbitrary Banach space X and admitting an exponential trichotomy and let $f_m:X \to X$ be a Lispchitz map for every $m\in {\mathop Z} $. We prove that whenever the Lipschitz constants of $f_m$, $m \in {\mathop Z} $, are uniformly small, the nonautonomous dynamics given by $x_{m+1}=A_mx_m+f_m(x_m)$, $m\in {\mathop Z} $, has various types of shadowing. Moreover, if X is finite dimensional and each $A_m$ is invertible we prove that a converse result is also true. Furthermore, we get similar results for one-sided and continuous time dynamics. As applications of our results, we study the Hyers–Ulam stability for certain difference equations and we obtain a very general version of the Grobman–Hartman's theorem for nonautonomous dynamics.


Efforts to improve employee performance can be done in various ways, one of them is by preparing employees who are professional, competent and high-performing. Employee performance in the office of the Ministry of Religion of Lampung Province is influenced by various factors, namely the contribution of leadership, organizational communication and work motivation. This research was carried out using a quantitative approach and descriptive survey method. The population is employees in offices of the Ministry of Religion of Lampung Province, totaling 2,219 employees. The sample in this study was 10%, namely 200 employees. The research data was collected through questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques and path analysis. Based on the data obtained and researched and tested it can be concluded as follows: 1) Leadership influences organizational communication. 2) Leadership influences work motivation. This shows that leadership and work motivation are in line with perceptions of employee performance. 3) Organizational communication has little effect on work motivation. This shows that organizational communication is less effective and efficient so that it is not in line with perceptions of employee performance. 4) Leadership influences employee performance. This shows that there is consistency between leadership and the performance of employees from the leadership. 5) Organizational communication has little effect on employee performance. This means that the lack of communication from a leader to employees can reduce the productivity of performance and performance of employees. 6) work motivation affects employee performance.


Internal climate variability (ICV) is one of the major sources of uncertainty in climate projections, yet it is seldom quantified for projections of crop production. Our study focuses on quantifying the uncertainty due to ICV in projections of crop productions in Canada. We utilize climate scenarios from two large ensembles (LEs, CanESM2-LE and CanRCM4-LE with 25 members each) as inputs to the crop models in the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer. We simulate crop yields for canola, maize and spring wheat under the future climates of four global warming levels. The coefficient of variation (CV) of the projected crop production across the LE members is used to quantify the uncertainty related to ICV and this is compared with the CVs generated using the 20 GCMs in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Crop production in Canada could increase with global warming, e.g. spring wheat production could increase by up to 21% at the warming level of 3.0 °C. The projections often produce larger uncertainty associated with the GCMs than from ICV at all warming levels above 2.0 °C. The results from an asymptotic test for the equality of CVs show a significant difference in CVs of projections of canola production between CanESM2-LE/CanRCM4-LE and CMIP5 for the warming level of 3.0 °C. However, the test results do not indicate a significant difference among the ensembles at all four warming levels for maize and spring wheat. The uncertainty due to ICV is often comparable to that associated with GCMs at the warming level of 1.5 °C, e.g. a CV of 6.0 and 6.4% for CanESM2-LE and CanRCM4-LE and 6.6% for CMIP5 in the projections of spring wheat production. We conclude there is a need to account for uncertainty related to ICV in projections of Canadian crop production, especially at lower warming levels.


Objective To study the antibacterial substances produced by Musca domestica and heattreatment and electrophoresis isolation of the substances. Methods After the 3rd instar larval of Musca domestica being induced for 48 hours by pricking,the hemolymph was collected and bathed at 100 ℃ for 0,0.5,1,3,5 min. Antibacterial substances of Musca domestica was isolated by electrophoresis with acide polyacrylamide gel using 5,10,20,30 μl doses. Results 20 μl was the optimum dose both for bathed and non-bathed hemolymph. Water bath at 100 ℃ for 1 min was the optimum bath time for hemolymph. Comparing induced hemolymph with non-induced hemolymph,the protein of the induced hemolymph was increased in the number and content. After 100 ℃ bathed for 1 min,it showed that the bonds of hemolymph increased both in quantities and contents. Conclusion Optimum treatment is 100 ℃ bath for 1 min and 20 μl of adding dose. Pricking inducing can produce new proteins in hemolymph, which are the new induced antibacterial substances.


Oceano is a prototype of a highly available, scaleable, and manageable infrastructure for an e-business computing utility. It enables multiple customers to be hosted on a collection of sequentially shared resources. The hosting environment is divided into secure domains, each supporting one customer. These domains are dynamic: the resources assigned to them may be augmented when the load increases and reduced when load dips. This dynamic resource allocation enables flexible service level agreements (SLAs) with customers in an environment where peak loads are an order of magnitude greater than the normal steady state.


Pliny's Natural Histories provides evidence that glass paste intaglios were used as signet rings by those without the economic means to acquire precious gem intaglios; this is supported by the abundant survival of such objects. The iconography of these glass pastes provides historical evidence for the self-identification of non-elite Romans and this iconography shows many points of intersection with the republican coin series.  In some instances, molds seem to have even been made from coin impressions. This paper uses the comparative evidence of the coinage to illuminate glass paste types known from multiple specimens, especially types intended to convey loyalty to a particular commander or to the Roman state itself.  It suggests veterans as one likely group to have purchased and used such glass pastes.


The frequency diversity exhibited by cyclostationary signals is exploited in this paper. A novel rank-1 frequency-domain representation of a digital waveform is proposed to address the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) detection of a cyclo-stationary signal with unknown white noise. With the aim of avoiding the well-known sensitivity of cyclostationary-based detectors to frequency-selective fading channels, a parametric channel model based on the coherence bandwidth is adopted and incorporated in the GLR test. The proposed detector outperforms the classical spectral correlation magnitude detectors by exploiting the rank-1 structure of small spectral co-variance matrices.


eclpci calculates exact and approximate confidence limits for a Poisson count (#obs). It provides a Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR=#obs/#exp) and its confidence limits if the expected number of events (#exp) is specified. It is an immediate command.


This study determined the role of nitric oxide (NO) on type I collagen expression in hepatic stellate cells. Inducible NO synthase (iNOS) mRNA and iNOS protein were detected in LX-2 cells, a human stellate cell line. INF, which suppresses collagen expression, increased iNOS mRNA and iNOS protein, while acetaldehyde and TGF , which enhance collagen expression, decreased iNOS mRNA, but had no effect on iNOS protein. The NO donor DETANONOate diminished the stimulatory effect of TGB on 1(I) collagen mRNA and abrogated the enhancing effect of TGF on type I collagen protein. In conclusion, iNOS was detected in stellate cells under basal culture conditions. While in chronic models of hepatic fibrosis there is decreased hepatic fibrosis in iNOS -/mice, this study shows that the immediate action of nitric oxide is to inhibit the enhancement by TGF of collagen expression by stellate cells.


Illusions of Interdisciplinarity The current enthusiasm voiced by academics of all stripes for multidisciplinarity, crosscutting cultural studies and transcategorical investigations has obscured a disturbing fact. Higher education in this country is experiencing not only a liberating intellectual interdisciplinarity, but a compressive fiscal interdisciplinarity as well. Although a long standing advocate for the need to incorporate diverse types of humanistic, scientific and technological knowledge into art history; I am troubled by the analyzed rise and proliferation of potentially reductive area "studies." Who, surveying the shipwreck of departments ranging from geography and sociology to studio occurring in major universities around the United States, has not noticed that the surviving flotsam augments the landmass of the already most powerful and largest units in these institutions? For example, the English department is now routinely the site for literary, colonial, media, film, and, most recently, "visual culture" programs. In the laudable desire to encourage scholarship and promote exchange, have we imagists been putting ourselves out of business?1 To put the question another way, can people who are self-selected for, and who are committed to, textual issues be willing and able to support the intense, repeated confrontation with physical objects, and to value the skilled making necessary for a truly visual approach? After apocalypse, that is, after the drastic retrenchments visible daily on the outside strike with equal force inside the walls, what and who will remain? Without a compelling raison d'etre, is it logical to expect territorial generosity from colleagues similarly threatened by dwindling resources? Could, would, or even should universities permit the simultaneous existence of art history departments, studio art, design schools, and a visual studies program? It is not reassuring that, to date, the politics of identity and difference has tended to be monological, not dialogical.2 I am not disputing the accuracy of the proposition holding that fields defined in the nineteenth century require redefinition and reconfiguration at the end of the twentieth.3 Rather, I am asking whether the undiscussed and unmonitored collapse of an eclectic plurality of specializations will not lead to the tyranny of the homogenizing few within the beleaguered liberal arts curriculum. Think of how the breakdown of single corporations in the business 1 "Interview: Barbara Maria Stafford," Sculpture 13 (May-June 1994): 12-15. 2 Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and the "Politics of Recognition"(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 33. 3 Quite to the contrary. See, for example, my essays, "The Eighteenth Century at the End of Modernity: Towards the ReEnlightenment," Studies in EighteenthCentury Culture 25 (1994); and "Making Images Real: Towards a Pragmatic Aesthetics and an Applied


The article examines two buildings with a cross-shaped plan, located in Pliska. After the destroying of one of the buildings, the Great Basilica was built on its remains. The report includes all the opinions of researchers about the purpose of the cross-shaped building - a tomb from the early Byzantine period, a protobulgarian pagan temple, a mausoleum of the Bulgarian Khans, a church, a baptistery, a martyrium. Its construction history, superstructure, construction periods, facilities that are functionally related to it, its fate after the adoption of Christianity are examined. A church was built on the foundations of the second crossshaped building. Therefore, her researcher is of the opinion that it was a protobulgarian temple. Most archaeologists believe that only the buildings with a plan of inscribed quadrilaterals were protobulgarian pagan temples and in their works do not mention this building at all and do not comment on the possibility that it was a pagan temple. R. Рашев reminded us of this forgotten monument. Other archaeologists also believe that the two cross-shaped buildings were probably pagan temples and formed a new group of cross-shaped temples in addition to the group of temples with a plan consisting of inscribed quadrilaterals. Keywords: Protobulgarian Cross-Shaped Temples, Cross-Shaped Building, Pliska, Great Basilica, Church № 3


The emergence of cloud computing has created a demand for more datacenters, which in turn, has led to the substantial consumption of electricity by computing systems and cooling units. Although recently built warehouse-scale datacenters can nearly completely eliminate cooling overhead, small to medium datacenters, which still spend nearly half of their power on cooling, still labor under heavy cooling overhead. Often overlooked by the cloud computing community, these types of datacenters are not in the minority: They are responsible for more than 70% of the entire electrical power used by datacenters. Thus, to tackle the cooling inefficiencies of these datacenters, we propose ambient temperature-aware capping (ATAC), which maximizes power efficiency while minimizing overheating. ATAC senses the ambient temperature of each server and triggers a new performance capping mechanism to achieve 38% savings in cooling power and 7% savings in total power with less than 1% degradation in performance.


In high power electron beam bombarding furnace (EBBF),when 6-phase 12-puslse full wave rectifier and open-loop control strategy are adopted for accelerating power supply,the melting power can be stabilized by oppositely regulating the beam current to adapt the variation of accelerating voltage. Considering the complexity of electron beam emitting process,an intelligent controller,namely nine-point controller,is applied to stabilize the electron beam power (EBP) of EBBF. When the power supply has ± 10% fluctuation and EBBF works in 30%~120% nominal power,the EBP steady error 4%; when power supply has 20% sudden fall and EBBF works in nominal power,EBP fall 10%. The application results show that the suggested control system not only can well satisfy the working requirements both in steady and dynamic,but also has a high working efficiency and less harmonic pollution. In addition,the control system can guarantee high control precision and has good stability and robustness.


The development of cluster and parallel computers has increased the popularity of implementing the Monte Carlo (MC) computational method in medical and scientific applications. However, having access to these high-performance systems is not easy and a reasonable size system is not yet able to solve many popular Monte Carlo problems near real-time. The Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been proved to be useful in speeding up the Monte Carlo algorithm since they are able to execute the problem with a high degree of parallelism. As the FPGA and ASIC are being applied for speeding up Monte Carlo simulations as well as for reducing energy consumption, the generation of pseudorandom number (PRN) by hardware becomes one of major developments. The speed in generating the random numbers and the quality of these numbers are main factors in enhancing the performance and accuracy of the method. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a multistage pipelining-style Mersenne Twister (MT), one of the most widely used pseudorandom number generation method. By implementing the operations in 4 stages, our design is able to achieve throughput of 178 million, 228 million, and 338 million random numbers per second on 0.25 μm, 0.14 μm, and 90 nm processes, respectively. In theory, the implementation can be scaled up to 208 stages and so the throughput can be up to 18 billion random numbers per second.


In many cases, the characterization of the frequency-dependent electric field profile inside a narrowband resonator is challenging, either due to limited optical access or to the perturbative effects of invasive probes. An isolated groove inside a terahertz parallel-plate waveguide provides an opportunity to overcome these challenges, as it forms a narrowband resonator and also offers direct access to the resonant cavity via the open sides of the waveguide. We characterize the spatially varying spectral response of such a resonator using a noninvasive probe. We observe a frequency-dependent field enhancement, which varies depending on the location of the probe within the cavity. This spectral dependence cannot be observed using conventional far-field measurements.


In this paper, concurrent design of controllers for a vehicle equipped with a parallel hybrid powertrain is studied. Our work focuses on designing the two control algorithms, the energy management and the vehicle stability, concurrently which are traditionally considered separately. Dynamic Programming (DP) technique is used in order to obtain the optimal response trace for the controllers. In energy management strategy torque split ratio between engine and electric motor is used as a control signal. Additionally, in vehicle dynamics control strategy the torque split factor between front and rear axles is used as a control signal. Minimizing the fuel consumption and wheel slip is used as cost functions in energy management and vehicle dynamics control strategies respectively. Two dynamic problems are solved separately first and compared to the concurrent solution of the problems. Results show promising benefits can be obtained from the concurrent DP solution and rule extraction for designing better hybrid vehicle controllers.


As one trend of College English transformation,students′ self-study in English based on school network is under practice.It is expected that such problems of English study on school network as students′ non-self guidance in study,difficulty in supervision will be improved with the aid of a school network study system,which is characterized by exploring the functions of the system,emphasizing effective network tasks and tutor and utilizing supervising measures.


A visual technique for determining starch content in roots of forest trees, based onz iodine-staining of starch granules, was compared with a chemical method. Although the chemical method was more precise, roots could be sorted with the visual method into groups that are probably biologically important. The visual technique is simple and can be adapted for use in the field.


Although there is an increasing awareness of the severity of health consequences of family violence, there is little standardisation of terminology within the national and international literature. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners recognises physical, emotional, economic, social, sexual, psychological, verbal and spiritual abuse as forms of family violence. Family violence includes any violence or abuse that occurs within a family, including between partners, parents, children, siblings, uncles or aunts, cousins, grandparents and in-laws. Complexities arise because of the pervasive nature of violence when trying to differentiate the types of violence and individual victims. For example, studies show that 50% of children who experienced physical abuse and 40% of children who experienced sexual abuse have a mother who experienced intimate partner violence.


This paper proposes a new current-mode 5th-order differential type class-AB log-domain elliptic lowpass filter for video frequency applications. The design is based on the state-space synthesis met...


Background: Xanthogranulomatous inflammation of the female reproductive organs is a rare chronic inflammation. In most reported cases, the lesion was limited to the endometrium and fallopian tubes. Here, we report two cases of xanthogranulomatous inflammation of the myometrium with a history of endometrial biopsy. Case Reports: In two cases, myometrial xanthogranulomatous inflammation destroyed the myometrium. This inflammation developed into surrounding pelvic organs, resulting in uterine perforation. Conclusion: When inflammatory lesions are found after intrauterine manipulation, the possibility of developing xanthogranulomatous inflammation should be considered. If antibiotics are ineffective, prompt surgical treatment is necessary.


Sharing differences is one of the important classroom instructional concepts at present.It emphasizes that as a kind of rational reality,the individual differences are the important instructional resources and sharing differences is an effective way for students to enrich their experience and widen their perspective.Showing differences,sincere dialoguing and reestablishing "the concept of mistakes" are the three instructional strategies of sharing differences in classroom.


The relevance of the study is due to an increase in the number of emotional and affective disorders of young parents during the period of adaptation to parenthood. If we consider the expectation of a child and the period of adaptation to the role of a parent as a crisis situation when a woman is faced with the uncertainty of the future, with a change in her status, it seems important to consider the role of life orientations in socio-psychological adaptation to parenthood. The object of the study is the socio-psychological adaptation to parenthood of women. The subject of the study is the role of life-meaning orientations in the process of women's adaptation to the role of a parent. The aim is to determine the role of life-meaning orientations in the process of socio-psychological adaptation of women to parenthood. As a result of the study, it was revealed that there is a relationship between the emotional state and the degree of meaningfulness of life, resilience in women during the period of adaptation to the role of a parent. In the future, based on the results of the study, a correctional program will be compiled for the prevention of emotional and affective disorders in young parents. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the correctional program will be aimed at working with the value-semantic sphere: working with the characteristics of the semantic sphere, it will be possible to correct the emotional state of women (the program will be designed for two months; there will be an opportunity to meet face-to-face or online).


In this article experience of researches on social and pedagogical support of the minors which have appeared in a difficult life situation in the USA is generalized. The position of the author defining essence, the contents, components and the main characteristics of the American model of social and pedagogical support of the minors which have appeared in a difficult life situation is proved.


In this survey paper we re-examine the theoretical formulation of structural mechanics, introducing no restrictions with respect to the size of displacements, rotations or deformations, which is commonly referred to as geometrically exact. A special attention is given to clarifying the computational aspects of finite rotations as the key ingredient of any such formulation. We briefly discuss several novel applications of the geometrically exact formulation to dynamics, control and optimization. To cite this article: A. Ibrahimbegovic, C. R. Mecanique ••• (••••).


Financial regulators are increasingly taking aim at the culture of Wall Street by demanding risk mitigation. Proprietary trading with its accompanying lucrative and yet risky operations was one of the key drivers of the 2008 financial crisis. Several banks traded for their own gains at extremely high risks so much so that banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley wrote off billions of dollars they lost in commercial real estate funds. These forfeitures were the propelling factors behind the adoption of the Dodd-Frank rules of which the Volcker Rule has become the center. Extending on Geske's approach, we show that the pattern of default probabilities is a function of the liability structure of the financial institution. The assumptions made by our framework on capital structure change when liabilities come due. We demonstrate that in the context of the Volcker rule, the variations of the default risks are crucial in measuring and managing default risks in banks. Our model thus attests that the periodic default probability is highest in the initial period. In practice, it means that the largest threat to the survival of a financial firm is in the short term. This utterly justifies the Volcker rule. As the default probability rises, the near term default becomes the driving force. Henceforth, the Volcker rule becomes very relevant in that it prevents the banks from defaulting when the short-term default risk is unusually high. Ultimately, the model shows that in times of financial crisis when the short-term default risk is very high, a large level of capital infusion is required to increase survival probability.


The paper examines the economic impact of the Indonesian phased log export ban from 1981 to 1986, by means of a counterfactual analysis which permits the calculation of hypothetical export revenues under the assumption that the log export ban was not implemented. A graphic and numeric presentation of the analysis is provided. The present value of the range of estimated cumulative losses is USS (1980) 1.9 billion to $3.1 billion.


The effects of forced vibration upon the human body were determined in the form of circumferential strain of chest, abdomen, pelvis and thigh. Sixteen human subjects, in the sitting erect, sitting relaxed and semi-supine positions, were exposed to vertical sinusoidal frequencies above two c/s at vector accelerations below 1 g. The maximum body strain occurred at 6.7 c/s in the semi-supine position and between 4 c/s and 6 c/s in the sitting positions. In the semi-supine position the mean strain of chest and abdomen at resonance was found to be 0.040 and 0.053 in./in./g, respectively, when standardized to a table acceleration of 1 g. In the sitting positions this strain was only half as large. The strain of the pelvis, on the other hand, was 0.013 in./in./g in the semi-supine posture, and 0.032 in./in./g in the sitting positions. All subjects showed maximum body strain near 7 c/s in the semi-supine posture. Since tolerance to vibration decreases with increasing body strain, the human body on a space couch must be protected against vibrations transverse to the couch axis in the range around 7 c/s.


Streptomycetes, the filamentous prokaryotic microbes, possessing exceptionally large size genome, carrying around 8-Mb DNA sequence, are of immense commercial importance. They exhibit extensive primary as well as secondary metabolic activity which accounts for their indispensible role in commercial and environmental scenario. They are exhaustively investigated for the production of bioactive compounds and enzymes. We have explored the capacity of Streptomycetes to produce glucose isomerase. Glucose isomerase converts glucose into fructose and xylose to xylulose. This reaction has immense commercial potential as it is used for the production of High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is used as a sweetening agent in pharmaceutical and food industry. Varieties of different strains of Actinomycetes were isolated from compost pit and categorised on the basis of cultural and morphological characters according to Bergey's Manual. Production of glucose isomerase was qualitatively screened by plate assay method. The high yielding extracellular glucose isomerase producer Streptomyces sp. SB-P1was studied by submerged fermentation process and the fermentation period was optimised.


The ATLAS detector operated very successfully at the LHC Run 1 data taking period collecting a large number of events used for different physics analyses, such as the ones leading to the discovery of the Higgs boson as well as for the search for beyond the Standard Model physics. In the main search channels related to the finding of the Higgs, the ATLAS calorimeter system played a major role by measuring the energy of photons, electrons, jets, taus and neutrinos, via missing transverse energy measurement. The ATLAS trigger system selects from the huge amount of events produced every second, those few that are recorded for physics analyses (less than one out of 40 thousand can be kept). The selection process is performed in three levels with increasing complexity and resolution. The first level is hardware based, seeding the two other software levels called together the HighLevel Trigger (HLT). The paper will describe details of the calorimeter based HLT algorithms with special emphasis on the algorithms used for missing transverse energy reconstruction and jet detection performance which was improved in 2012 with respect to the 2011 data taking despite the higher luminosity levels.


Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used in various industries such as agriculture and logistics, to name but a few, where their applications are beyond basic mapping, surveillance, and photography. In near future, UAVs are expected to be used in package delivery service and larger electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles will be employed for urban air mobility applications (air taxi). Thus, several electric propulsion systems will enter the low-altitude airspace with frequent take offs and landings. To achieve state-of-the-art safety standards under such high traffic density, UAVs will require in-time fault detection and performance monitoring of critical powertrain components. This work focuses on propeller blade performance and damage detection in electric UAVs. Propellers are the fastest moving component in an UAV; even a minor defect in the propeller blades could cause performance deterioration, with consequent challenges in flying through the planned trajectory or adhere to the safety requirements of the operation. Monitoring and updating aerodynamic efficiency of each rotor would therefore enable the detection of off-nominal propeller conditions thus magnifying the state-awareness of powertrain monitoring systems based on the acquired electrical signals. An extended Kalman filter-based parameter estimation algorithm is being implemented that incorporates time history responses from UAV powertrain in conjunction with a full powertrain system model to identify changes in the propeller aerodynamic efficiency. Propeller fault detection is achieved by incorporating the aerodynamic parameters of the propeller into the powertrain model. The proposed technique is successfully validated with numerical simulations.


Scheduling plan of the ship locks,coupled with bin packing problem,is a scheduling problem,which is a NP hard combinatorial optimization problem.The co-scheduling of the Three Gorges Dam and the Gezhouba dam takes comprehensive account of the double-line five-grade ship locks of the Three Gorges Dam(the ship lift hasn't been launched into operation now) and the three ship locks of the Gezhouba Dam,implements co-scheduling in light of the short distance between the two dams,so as to make the Golden Channel as expedite as possibly.According to the navigation constraints,the claims for security and scheduling principles of priority weights and preferential pass in the order of arrival,a mathematic model of co-scheduling is introduced in this paper,followed by the Progressive Optimality Algorithm for solution.The rationality of the model and the efficiency of the algorithm have been validated in the engineering application.


The epoxy based randomly-oriented glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites are used to construct structures intended to support multi-directional loading. Due to random orientation of the fibers, cutting of high quality hole is a difficult task in such composites. In the present study, a composite with 60% glass and 40% epoxy (by volume fraction) was fabricated by hand lay-up. To begin with, the performance of two machining processes, namely twist-drilling and end-milling, was compared to cut hole in the composite. It was found that the milling performed better than the drilling process. Later, a design of experiments following the response surface methodology was conducted to determine the effect of milling parameters (i.e., feed rate and speed) on the surface quality and cut-hole strength of composite. The results showed that the parameter-response relationship was not straight rather the parametric effects were interactive and complex. Further, the relative value of speed and feed rate was observed to have controlling influence on the process performance. To predict the process performance for a given set of conditions, empirical models were proposed. Finally, the optimal parameters minimizing the surface roughness and maximizing the tensile strength, employing desirability function approach, was carried out so as to provide guidelines to the users.


Students are again provided with tools to help achieve these capacities, specifically in chapters on inspiration, conflict management, and developing relationships. The authors conclude with suggestions for putting the concepts covered in the book into practice. They admit that becoming an emotionally intelligent leader is a never-ending process and that each time a leader thinks he or she has perfected the process, the context can change and people must adapt and continue learning. One of the strengths of this work is the simple, everyday examples the authors use to explain concepts. Any student will be able to see himself or herself in the situations and see the benefit of working on EIL. A second strength is the "Student Voice" sections. Each chapter has direct quotes from students around the country commenting on each of the capacities. Finally, the authors end each chapter with reflection questions. These questions help lend the book to group discussion or one-on-one conversations between students and their peers or university professionals. While reading this book is very easy and most students will be able to quickly get through it, it could feel remedial to upper-level students. Students in their first leadership roles or who are struggling with specific concepts will find this book useful as a jumping-off point to work on their leadership skills. With Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, Shankman and Allen have crafted a student-centered guidebook about EIL for beginning leaders.


We establish existence theorems for the image of the normalized character map of the $p$-adic Heisenberg algebra $S$ taking values in the algebra of Serre $p$-adic modular forms $M_p$. In particular, we describe the construction of an analytic family of states in $S$ whose character values are the well-known $\Lambda$-adic family of $p$-adic Eisenstein series of level one built from classical Eisenstein series. This extends previous work treating a specialization at weight $2$, and illustrates that the image of the character map contains nonzero $p$-adic modular forms of every $p$-adic weight. In a different direction, we prove that for $p=2$ the image of the rescaled character map contains every overconvergent $2$-adic modular form of weight zero and tame level one; in particular, it contains the polynomial algebra $\mathbf{Q}_2[j^{-1}]$. For general primes $p$, we study the square-bracket formalism for $S$ and develop the idea that although states in $S$ do not generally have a conformal weight, they can acquire a $p$-adic weight in the sense of Serre.


Within the framework of the quantum theory of polarized line formation, in the limit of complete frequency redistribution and of the collisionless regime, we derive explicit formulae describing the statistical equilibrium and the radiative emission of a multiterm atom with hyperfine structure, in the presence of an external magnetic field. The formulae we obtained for the radiative rates of the statistical equilibrium equations and for the radiative coefficients of the transfer equation for polarized radiation can be applied to investigate the formation of spectral lines for which both fine-structure and hyperfine-structure effects are important (e.g., the D1 and D2 lines of Na I in the solar atmosphere).


This paper describes a robust PWM class D amplifier with high linearity and good immunity to process variations. By using the proposed adaptive triangular wave generator (ATG), 0.0042% THD+N and 99.2dB dynamic range is achieved in this design. The standard deviation of THD+N ratio over 22 samples can be smaller by 4 times compared to the results without the adaptive triangular wave generator. This chip integrates power MOS stages and 2 channel design. The supply voltage is from 3V to 5.5V and the die area is 2.45mm × 2.9mm.


The most important precondition of holding of democratic elections is political freedom in the country. No one and nothing, the emphasis of political power, terror or fraud, cannot affect the outcome of elections or define them from top. Important elements of the libertarian policy of the state are decentralization and local government. Citizens, groups and neighboring communities should be allowed to own initiatives and responsible – also in terms of making decisions who and how will perform the highest state functions. Sophisticated concepts of democracy, including the so‑called "community personalism", may be of interest for societies regardless of spiritual culture and tradition. But true human freedom lies in the fact, that human decisions are passed in the personal center, the personal "I" who also pursues these decisions. Freedom is not a lack of determination, independence but a kind of determination – by himself, so a kind of self‑depending, self‑determinism. Therefore freedom has two dimensions, expressed in capacity to take "own" decisions and the power to realize what was decided. Democracy cannot replace freedom of the individual, relieve it in its decisions in the responsibility for the action it takes, also on its behalf.


Light scattering in dilute solutions of polyethylenimine in water, ethanol, and water-phenol and ethanol-phenol binary solvents was studied. It was demonstrated that the collapse of polyethylenimine in water under the action of phenol is preceded by suppression of the polyelectrolyte effect. It was shown that the addition of phenol to a polyethylenimine solution in ethanol decreases the second virial coefficient but does not lead to phase separation.


A review is presented of the p-process in Type II supernovae, one of its goals being to enlighten the changes in views on this nucleosynthesis mechanism since the work of Jean and Jim on the subject in 1975. Specific discussions are also devoted to cases of particular interest, like the light Mo and Ru stable isotopes, the rare nuclide 138La or the radionuclide 146Sm. Some comments of diverse natures are also made on the r-process. These considerations do not aim at really providing an exhaustive review of the many nuclear physics and astrophysics intricacies of this process. In contrast, they are hoped to complement or to put in perspective other views that are often expressed in relation with this nucleosynthesis mechanism


The geothermal resources is abound in Linqing City of Shandong province.This article is based on the probing data and prospecting late years project research results,synthetically analysed geology background,hydrogeology characteristic,the earth physical and chemical characteristic,geothermal resources distribution characteristic,suggest that Lin Qing geothermal field is a kind of tier charge low temperature geothermal field.The hot reservoir is mainly composed of the lower part of Guantao group and the upper part of Shahejie group in Paleogene.The geothermal gradient in this area is controlled mainly by structure.The structure heat conduct is a key factor of the formationof the geoheat in this area.The geothermal water's mineralization degree is small and it's runoff supplication are mainly the pressurized-water.There are still some problems,such as : few geoheat wells and little exploition amount,the mined bed singleness,exploiting depth similar,wells too dense.To solve these problems we suggest improving exploitation skills,pushing forward the geothermal recharge actively.


Papaya seed (PS) was modified using chemically esterification of carboxyl group to improve performance in adsorption capacity for removal cationic and anionic dye from aquoues solution. The operation parameters investigated included initial concentrations, (50-500 mg/L) and various adsorbent (NPS and EPS). The experimental data were analyzed by using Langmuir and Freundlich models of adsorption. The adsorption isotherm data for MB were best fitted to the Langmuir isotherm and the maximum monolayer adsorption capacity was found to be 250.00 mg/g and 200.00 mg/g at 30 ° C for EPS and NPS respectively, while for CR for both adsorbents (NPS and EPS) the best fit experimental data were Freundlich isotherm. The adsorption kinetics can be predicted by the pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order.The experiment data were obeys pseudo-second order with higher coefficient of correlation R 2 ≥ 0.99. The result revealed that NPS can be act as good adsorbent for removal anionic dye (CR) and EPS can be remarkable as excellent adsorbent modified of PS for cationic dye removal. Keywords-adsorption; methelyne blue; congo red; esterification, isotherm; kinetics


The objective of this study was to improve the solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs by pharmaceutical cocrystal engineering techniques and select the best pharmaceutical forms with high solubility and solubilized formulations for progress from the early discovery stage toward the clinical stage. Several pharmaceutical cocrystals of TAK-020, a Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor, were newly discovered in the screening based on the solid grinding method and the slurry method, considering thermodynamic factors that dominate cocrystal formation. TAK-020/gentisic acid cocrystal (TAK-020/GA CC) was selected based on a physicochemical property of enhanced dissolution rate. TAK-020/GA CC was proven to be a reliable cocrystal formation with a definitive stoichiometric ratio by a variety of analytical techniques—pKa calculation, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, and single X-ray structure analysis from the view of regulation. Furthermore, its absorption was remarkable and beyond those achieved in currently existing solubilized formulation techniques, such as nanocrystal, amorphous solid dispersion, and lipid-based formulation, in dog pharmacokinetic studies. TAK-020/GA CC was the best drug form, which might lead to good pharmacological effects with regard to enhanced absorption and development by physicochemical characterization. Through the trials of solid-state optimization from early drug discovery to pharmaceutical drug development, the cocrystals can be an effective option for achieving solubilization applicable in the pharmaceutical industry.


patients described difficulty in breathing following ingestion of cooked and uncooked nuts (four with peanuts and three with various tree nuts). One patient reported similar symptoms after eating raw carrots. A variety of plant-derived foods were reported to reproducibly cause diarrhoea soon after exposure in 4 of 24 patients, including apple, pear, banana, melon, tomato. Finally, facial angioedema was reported within 30 min of eating raw peach in one patient and raw apple in another. Aside from positive results for PR-10 proteins, none of these patients were sensitised to nsLTP or type 1 allergens. These symptoms were selflimiting in all cases and were not a universal indication for prescription of epinephrine autoinjector devices. To summarise, PFS was closely associated with sensitisation to the PR-10 protein cluster in this small UK cohort. Not all patients have spring rhinitis, highlighting the importance of investigation for panallergen sensitisation regardless of rhinitis history in patients with appropriate symptoms. Profilin sensitisation was a clinically relevant co-factor in some patients, but sensitisation to nsLTP was of uncertain clinical significance. Recent publications have highlighted a possible role for nsLTP outside of the Mediterranean in the context of peach allergy (4) and hazelnut allergy (5) and larger studies of UK patients will be required to explore this further.


Relaxin 2 (RLX) was traditionally considered a reproductive hormone. However, recent studies indicate that it also has potent short-term vasodilatory and long-term arterial remodeling and anti-fibrotic effects. Based on these findings, a recombinant form of relaxin, Serelaxin, was successfully used in treatment of the acute heart failure. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that RLX can attenuate the Angiotensin II (Ang II) mediated vascular inflammation. Ang II, the principal hormone of the renin-angiotensin system, can induce secretion of the Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 (MCP-1) and Interleukin 6 (IL-6). Release of these proinflammatory mediators is an initial step in vascular inflammation, an important early component in the development of cardiovascular disease. Utilizing ELISA, we observed that RLX pretreatment inhibited Ang II-induced secretion of MCP-1 and IL-6 by 70 (p<0.05) and 87% (p<0.05), respectively, in human aortic smooth muscle cells. The same effect was achieved in isolated mouse aortas. We next studied the effect of RLX on Ang II-induced activation of the NFκB pathway and ROS signaling. RLX pretreatment inhibited Ang II-mediated induction of NADPH oxidase 5 expression and production of H2O2 as measured by the sensor HyPer. RLX also prevented P65 phosophorylation and nuclear translocation in response to Ang II. We conclude that RLX inhibits secretion of IL-6 and MCP-1 likely through interference with ROS-mediated NFκB activation. Via this mechanism, RLX may thus represent a therapeutic treatment of pro-inflammatory cardiovascular conditions such as acute heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, and aortic aneurysms.