Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric (LC/MS) analysis of the leave's methanol extract of Fortunella margarita (Lour.) Swingle led to the identification without isolation of four main compounds. Extensive chromatographic purification revealed the isolation of acacetin 7-neohesperidoside, acacetin 7-rutinoside and 4-(β-D-glucopyranosyloxy) benzoic acid. Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) and Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic resonance (13C-NMR) along with HR-ESI/MS were used to elucidate the chemical structure of the isolated compounds. Liver protection against DMN and/or CCl4-induced toxicity was evaluated for the ME of F. margarita, and the obtained results showed that the ME decreased the elevated liver enzymes to the normal level, indicating the protection of structural integrity of hepatocytic cell membrane or regeneration of damaged liver cells.


In order to improve the efficiency of ultra-precision processing, the semi-fixed abrasive plate (SFAP) is developed to reduce or eliminate the surface and subsurface defects and improve the process efficiency. The interaction of the semi-fixed abrasive plate-workpiece is the key factor for the processing. The complex plate-workpiece interaction is taken into consideration in the generation of the semi-fixed abrasive surface in this paper. A numerical model which allows describing the elastic-plastic contact load of the isotropic fractal surface and the real contact area of plate-workpiece is developed for the semi-fixed abrasive plate. The results shows that the real contact area is only a part of the workpiece and it changed with the contact load alteration, it is useful to determine the processing parameter of SFAP lapping.


The analysis of ecosystem services (ES) is becoming a key-factor to implement policies on sustainable technologies. Accordingly, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods are more and more oriented toward the development of harmonized characterization models to address impacts on ES. However, such efforts are relatively recent and have not reached full consensus yet. We investigate here on the transdisciplinary pillars related to the modeling of LCIA on ES by conducting a critical review and comparison of the state-of-the-art in both LCIA and ES domains. We observe that current LCIA practices to assess impacts on "ES provision" suffer from incompleteness in modeling the cause-effect chains; the multifunctionality of ecosystems is omitted; and the "flow" nature of ES is not considered. Furthermore, ES modeling in LCIA is limited by its static calculation framework, and the valuation of ES also experiences some limitations. The conceptualization of land use (changes) as the main impact driver on ES, and the corresponding approaches to retrieve characterization factors, eventually embody several methodological shortcomings, such as the lack of time-dependency and interrelationships between elements in the cause-effect chains. We conclude that future LCIA modeling of ES could benefit from the harmonization with existing integrated multiscale dynamic integrated approaches.


Welcome to the 5th International Workshop on Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE'21), where scientists and representatives of industry meet to exchange ideas, experiences, and other contributions regarding the state of the art of Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE). The discipline of CrowdRE seeks to address the challenges of traditional requirements engineering (RE) in scaling up to settings with thousands to millions of users of (software) products or (software-driven) services, who form a large and heterogeneous group that can be denoted as a 'crowd' [1, 3]. The user feedback generated by the crowd, such as texts or usage data, can be a valuable source of requirements, problems, wishes, and needs. Responding quickly, effectively, and iteratively to this feedback can greatly increase a product's success. CrowdRE comprises any approach that provides RE with suitable means for this crowd paradigm, especially by involving the crowd and by collecting, harmonizing, analyzing, and interpreting their user feedback.


Beginning with excessive acts of both violence and compassion, as depicted in Martin Scorsese's Bring out the Dead (1999, USA), I attempt to sketch the play between transcendence and immanence in film. In particular, I am interested in Paul Schrader's philosophical discussion of "transcendental style", as well as his film work, and in the work of Scorsese, Yasujiro Ozu, and Gilles Deleuze concerning the film relations between transcendence and immanence. In the process I hope to foreground the role of touch in film and begin to question an aesthetic syntax in film and in philosophy. In a way the moment of bashing and compassion in Bringing Out the Dead that I shall begin with crystallises a history of ambiguity and anxiety surrounding issues of touch, immanence and transcendence. I shall try and tease out only a few moments in this history.


Previous studies have demonstrated that language switching in bilinguals can be affected by a number of variables, including the processing context. Here, we used a modified language-switching task combined with a Stroop paradigm, which manipulated the context of the task, to examine the impact of processing context on switch costs. The results of both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 showed that the switch costs and the level of asymmetry in the switch costs are larger in the conflicting context than in the non-conflicting context, suggesting that the processing context affects the switch costs. In addition, the results of Experiment 2 revealed that individual variances in cognitive control capacity also play a role in the overall magnitude of the switch costs. Critically, processing context effects can be modulated by individual variance in cognitive control capacities. The results of this study are discussed within the framework of classic models of bilingual language control (e.g., the inhibitory control model).


Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection occurs worldwide and is an important cause of acute and chronic viral hepatitis in the US. In this review, I describe the virus, risk factors for infection, clinical features of infection, results of laboratory tests during infection, and standard and emerging treatment for chronic infection. Although 95% of adult patients recover completely from HBV infection, 90% of children < or = 4 years of age develop chronic infection. Active vaccination is highly efficacious.


Abstract. It has been suggested, and is widely believed, that the anomalous surface warming observed over the Northern Hemisphere continents in the winter following the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo was, in fact, caused by that eruption, via a stratospheric pathway that involves a strengthening of the polar vortex. However, most studies that have examined multiple, state-of-the-art, coupled climate models report that, in the ensemble mean, the models do not show winter warming after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. This lack of surface warming in the multi-model mean, concomitant with a lack of strengthening of the polar vortex, is often interpreted as a failure of the models to reproduce the observations. In this paper we show that this interpretation is erroneous, as averaging many simulations from different models, or from the same model, is not expected to yield surface anomalies similar to the observed ones, even if the models were highly accurate, owing to the presence of strong internal variability. We here analyze three large ensembles of state-of-the-art, coupled climate model simulations and show that, in all three, many individual ensemble members are able to produce Mt. Pinatubo surface warming in winter that is comparable to those observed. This establishes that current-generation climate models are perfectly capable of reproducing the observed surface post-eruption warming. We also confirm the bulk of previous studies, and show that the surface anomaly is not statistically different from zero when averaged across ensembles of simulations, which we interpret as the simple fact that the volcanic impact on continental winter temperatures is tiny compared to internal variability. We also examine the stratospheric pathway and, again confirming previous work, show that any strengthening of the polar vortex caused by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption is likely to be very small (of the order of a few m/s at best). Such minuscule anomalies of the stratospheric circulation are completely overwhelmed by the tropospheric variability at mid-latitudes, which is known to be very large: this explains the lack of surface winter warming in the ensemble means. In summary, our analysis and interpretation offers compelling new evidence that the observed warming of the Northern Hemisphere continents in the winter 1991–1992 was very likely unrelated to the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption.


Abstract. The impressive success of Structure-from-Motion Photogrammetry (SfM) has spread out the application of image-based 3D reconstruction to a larger community. In the field of Archeological Heritage documentation, this has opened the possibility of training local people to accomplish photogrammetric data acquisition in those remote regions where the organization of 3D surveying missions from outside may be difficult, costly or even impossible. On one side, SfM along with low-cost cameras makes this solution viable. On the other, the achievement of high-quality photogrammetric outputs requires a correct image acquisition stage, being this the only stage that necessarily has to be accomplished locally. This paper starts from the analysis of the well-know "3×3 Rules" proposed in 1994 when photogrammetry with amateur camera was the state-of-the art approach and revises those guidelines to adapt to SfM. Three aspects of data acquisition are considered: geometry (control information, photogrammetric network), imaging (camera/lens selection and setup, illumination), and organization. These guidelines are compared to a real case study focused on Ziggurat Chogha Zanbil (Iran), where four blocks from ground stations and drone were collected with the purpose of 3D modelling.


The accuracy of the side information (SI) is critical in the performance of distributed video coding algorithms. The SI is typically built at a decoder based on the reconstructed data and on channel coding parity bits transmitted by the encoder. The optimal encoding rate is generally difficult to compute precisely due to the dynamics of video content with varying correlation. Effective methods for the refinement of imprecise SI are therefore important for improved decoding quality. In this paper, we propose to exploit the intrinsic property of channel coding algorithms in Wyner-Ziv video coding. The SI is refined via both the information-plane and the parity-plane bits, which rapidly increases the accuracy of refined SI. We use extrinsic information transfer chart analysis in order to estimate the variations of the mutual information in the iterative decoding. In particular, we characterize mutual information variations for punctured regular and irregular rate-compatible low-density parity-check codes. Tracking the mutual information changes permits to decrease the coding rate of the information and parity bitstreams, while preserving the decoding quality. Simulation results confirm that our method improves on the decoding quality of recent distributed video coding algorithms, especially for high-motion sequences or at high-coding rate regimes.


Inflammation is the coordinated immune response to harmful stimuli that appear during infections or after tissue damage. Cells of the innate immune system are the central players in mediating inflammatory tissue responses. These cells are equipped with an array of signaling receptors that detect foreign molecular substances or altered endogenous molecules that appear under situations of stress. This review provides an overview of recent progress in elucidating the molecular mechanisms that lead to inflammatory reactions. We discuss the current knowledge of the mechanisms leading to the activation of cytoplasmic, multimolecular protein complexes, termed "inflammasomes," which regulate the activity of caspase-1 and the maturation and release of IL-1beta.


Efficient water use is becoming increasingly important for horticultural operations to satisfy regulations regarding runoff along with adapting to the decreasing availability of water to agriculture. Generally, best management practices (BMPs) are used to conserve water. However, BMPs do not account for water requirements of plants. Soil moisture sensors can be used along with an automated irrigation system to irrigate when substrate volumetric water content (u) drops below a set threshold, allowing for precise irrigation control and improved water conservation compared with traditional irrigation practices. The objective of this research was to quantify growth of Hibiscus acetosella 'Panama Red' (PP#20,121) in response to various u thresholds. Experiments were performed in a greenhouse in Athens, GA, and on outdoor nursery pads in Watkinsville and Tifton, GA. Soil moisture sensors were used to maintain u above specific thresholds (0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35, 0.40, and 0.45 m 3 ·m L3 ). Shoot dry weight increased from 7.3 to 58.8 g, 8.0 to 50.6 g, and from 3.9 to 35.9 g with increasing u thresholds from 0.10 to 0.45 m 3 ·m L3 in the greenhouse, Watkinsville, and Tifton studies, respectively. Plant height also increased with increasing u threshold in all studies. Total irrigation volume increased with increasing u threshold from 1.9 to 41.6 L/plant, 0.06 to 23.0 L/plant, and 0.24 to 33.6 L/plant for the greenhouse, Watkinsville, and Tifton studies, respectively. Daily light integral (DLI) was found to be the most important factor influencing daily water use (DWU) in the greenhouse study; DWU was also found to be low on days with low DLI in nursery studies. In all studies, increased irrigation volume led to increased growth; however, water use efficiency (grams of shoot dry weight produced per liters of water used) decreased for u thresholds above 0.35 m 3 ·m L3 . Results from the greenhouse and nursery studies indicate that sensor-controlled irrigation is feasible and that u thresholds can be adjusted to control plant growth.


Toys have a playing purpose as well as a multi-functional dimension, as they relate to visual communication since their representations lead to unexpected practices by the child, which stimulates designers to be constantly exploring new ways of presenting their narratives to a double-audience of both parents and children. This article investigates how the discourse of toy campaigns has changed over the last decade, by focusing on the verbal and visual features of contemporary toy campaigns. It draws on the social semiotic approach of Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) for the images' analyses and on cultural studies (BROUGERE, 2014) to provide a broader view on the issues of diversity, representation and inclusion. The analyses suggest that as diversity and the gradual breaking of gender boundaries have gained more visibility in children's media, we have been witnessing the disruption of existing narratives traditionally conceived in toy lines and campaigns.


Impinging jets are widely used in ventilation systems to improve the mixing and diffusion of airflows. When a rectangular jet hits a slotted plate, an acoustic disturbance can be generated and self-sustained tones produced. Few studies have looked at the Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) produced by the aerodynamic field in such configurations and in the presence of self-sustaining tones. The aim of this work is to investigate the energy transfer between the aerodynamic and acoustic fields generated in a rectangular jet impinging on a slotted plate. The present paper methodology is based on experimental data measurements using 3D tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique and microphones. It was found that the spectrum of the TKE for Re=5294 (configuration of self-sustained tones) is    which is smaller than that of the acoustic signal . A negative peak of correlation  is obtained between the acoustic signal and TKE for   These results may lead to conclude that the acoustic cycle should be covered by the TKE period and the two signals of both fields are in opposition of phase in order to obtain an optimal configuration for energy transfer.


It has been noted that chemical-induced initial insult is sometimes no longer detected in examinations after additional consecutive treatments, suggesting that the target organs acquire resistance to the chemical toxicity. In this study, whether acquired resistance to the skeletal muscle toxicity is observed during repeated treatment of a toxic dose of Compound A that has a 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitory activity was examined. F344 male rats (7-weeks old) were given a mixed diet with 0.12% Compound A (corresponding to approximately 100 mg/kg/day) for up to 56 days. Blood samples were obtained from the tail vein periodically during the dosing period, and utilized for the measurement of creatine kinase (CK) as a marker of skeletal muscle injury. In the necropsies on Days 4, 8, 11, 28, 42 and 56, the skeletal muscles from the rectus femoris were removed for histopathology or gene expression analysis. A satellite group was provided to measure the plasma concentrations of Compound A and M1, the active metabolite of Compound A. CK levels increased from Day 9 and reached approximately 30 times those of the controls on Day 12. Histopathology of the skeletal muscle on Day 11 revealed severe necrosis of the muscle fibers. However, in spite of continuous treatments to the damaged rats, the CK levels decreased after that and returned to normal levels on Day 18. No skeletal muscle injury was observed on Days 42 and 56. There were no marked differences in the exposure levels of Compound A and M1 between Days 8 (prior to CK elevation) and 28 (post CK elevation). As for the most significant changes in the gene expression analysis for the skeletal muscle on Days 42 and 56, the probe for IkappaBa, which is known as an inhibitor for nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB), increased 2-fold compared to the control. Furthermore, an increased probe for CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) delta, a transcriptional factor, and a decreased probe for cAMP-response element-binding protein (CBP)/p300, a transcriptional coactivator, were also noted significantly on Day 56. These changes in the gene expression analysis suggested suppressed NF-kappaB-mediated transactivation, which was responsible for the protective effects on the muscle injury. Based on the present findings, the resistance to skeletal muscle injury observed in this study may be attributable to the suppressed NF-kappaB-mediated transactivation, but not to the decreased exposure to toxicants.


Reconstructing high-quality 3D objects from sparse, partial observations from a single view is of crucial importance for various applications in computer vision, robotics, and graphics. While recent neural implicit modeling methods show promising results on synthetic or dense data, they perform poorly on sparse and noisy real-world data. We discover that the limitations of a popular neural implicit model are due to lack of robust shape priors and lack of proper regularization. In this work, we demonstrate high-quality in-the-wild shape reconstruction using: (i) a deep encoder as a robust-initializer of the shape latent-code; (ii) regularized test-time optimization of the latent-code; (iii) a deep discriminator as a learned high-dimensional shape prior; (iv) a novel curriculum learning strategy that allows the model to learn shape priors on synthetic data and smoothly transfer them to sparse real world data. Our approach better captures the global structure, performs well on occluded and sparse observations, and registers well with the ground-truth shape. We demonstrate superior performance over state-of-the-art 3D object reconstruction methods on two real-world datasets.


An efficient plant regeneration protocol has been developed from nodal explants of Ocimum kilimandscharicum Guerke, a medicinally important herbaceous plant species belonging to the family Lamiaceae. Axillary shoot bud proliferation was initiated from nodal explants cultured on MS medium supplemented with various concentrations of 6-benzyladenine (BA) (0.5–3.0 mg/l), kinetin (KN) (0.5–3.0 mg/l) and 2-isoPentenyladenine (2-iP) (0.5–3.0 mg/l). The maximum number of shoots (6.09±0.05), with average length 3.83±0.11 cm, was achieved with medium containing 1.0 mg/l BA. Shoot culture was established by repeated subculturing of the original nodal explants on shoot multiplication medium after each harvest of newly formed shoots. In this way, 20–30 shoots were obtained from a single nodal explant after 5 months. Rooting of shoots was achieved on half-strength MS medium supplemented with 1.5 mg/1 Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) and 2% sucrose. Well-developed plantlets transferred to plastic pots containing soil and vermiculite (1:1) showed 81.13% survival. The genetic fidelity of in-vitro-raised field-grown plants to the donor plant was ascertained from random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. This protocol can be used for commercial propagation and for future genetic improvement studies.


The ATLAS liquid Argon electromagnetic calorimeter provides multiply-sampled digitised signals with a frequency of 40 MHz. The signal amplitude is reconstructed from the samples using a digital filtering technique; the computation of the digital filter weights requires the precise knowledge of the shape of the signal emerging from the front-end electronics. Each read-out channel can be calibrated by means of electronic pulsers that mimic the ionisation signal produced by an electromagnetic shower. However, the calibration signal differs from the ionisation one, because the injected current pulses are different in shape (exponential/triangular, respectively) and injection point (at the detector end/inside the detector). In order to perform a correct cell equalisation, the ionisation signal shape must have the correct normalisation with respect to the calibration pulse used to compute the actual electronic gain of each channel, thus taking into account the mentioned differences. This document describes a set of algorithms developed to predict the ionisation signal solely from the information contained in the corresponding calibration pulse. The advantage of this approach is that the proper gain of each channel and the corrections for the electrical properties of each cell can be directly inferred and then embedded in the digital filtering reconstruction, without any direct knowledge of the response of the cell to the shower-induced ionisation current. The performance of the algorithms has been tested on the electron test-beam data taken from an ATLAS liquid Argon electromagnetic calorimeter production module, demonstrating the ability to predict ionisation pulse shapes in agreement with the observed ones to better than 1% (0.2% at the peak). The digital filtering weights have been applied to reconstruct the energy of 245 GeV electrons with an energy resolution of 0.8% and a response uniformity better than 0.4%, which fulfill the ATLAS performance requirements.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the doer effect of service failure (SF), good prior experience (GPE) and recovery on overall customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions for multi-agents in tourism service supply chain (TSSC). It specifically focuses on internal and external failure and recovery.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employs a 2×2×3 between-subjects experimental design with 12 diverse scenarios. It aims to examine the main effects of GPE and the interaction effects of SF and recovery on overall customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

Findings

The main findings show that consumers do not show favorable behavioral outcomes when they have GPE with an affiliated party. Results of the experiments demonstrate that for hotels, there is no interaction effect between failure and recovery regarding overall customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions; however, for travel agencies, an interaction effect has been found. This indicates that an internal failure (by travel agency) should be recovered internally to increase the behavioral outcomes for travel agency. However, if there is an external failure (by hotel) then the essential thing is providing a recovery.

Originality/value

Although the service literature covers failure and recovery in diverse contexts, these concepts are rarely studied from a multi-agent perspective in the service supply chain literature. In such a chain, a failure by a different party may remain unresolved, and this may create a positive effect on another party, if they provide recovery for the failure. This means that the doer of the failure and/or recovery (the party responsible from the failure and/or recovery) may have an impact on behavioral outcomes. However, previous literature has neglected to focus on the important issue of which entity/party performs the failure and/or recovery, and the effect on behavioral outcomes. By focusing on a principal-agent relationship in a TSSC, the study aims to address this research gap.


Over the coming decade, much more genetic data will enter into the study of economic development. This paper provides an example and emphasizes the uses and misuses of such information. It has assembled for the first time national frequencies of the ACP1 genetic polymorphism and the Interleukin-6 (IL6-174G) and Interleukin-10 (IL10-1082G) cytokines. These three respond over the centuries to ultraviolet radiation and infectious diseases. The study also looks at a national measure of heterozygotic diversity. In particular, it finds that ACP1 frequencies are significantly related to national outcomes ranging from GDP per capita to type and quality of governance, to measures of national "competitiveness,†to health, to fertility, to measures of satisfaction with life. These associations do not seem explainable by reverse causation nor by the influence of some of the usual variables in studies of long-run development. Nonetheless, these results do not mean that a few genes have a direct causal effect on world development. The ACP1*B variable is surely picking up the influences of many genetic and cultural adaptations over evolutionary time in response to ultraviolet exposure and pathogen burdens. This study's findings thus support other research indicating the importance of disease environments in shaping both genetic and sociocultural adaptations that have influence on development outcomes today. The paper concludes with a discussion of what such strong associations mean and do not mean, in hopes of guiding future studies of genes and other deep roots of economic development.


BACKGROUND/AIM OF STUDY
The results of primary total knee arthroplasties have improved over the years but some still fail, requiring revision. Revision total knee arthroplasty is technically more difficult and has not enjoyed the same success rates as the index operation. The aim of this retrospective study was to review the results of revision total knee arthroplasties carried out at our centre. This is the first study in Singapore on revision total knee arthroplasty.

METHODS
A retrospective study where 17 patients (18 knees) had been followed up since their revision operations were clinically assessed. Based on the Knee Society Clinical Scoring System, they were assigned separate knee and function scores (each having a maximum possible 100).

RESULTS
The mean knee score was 76 (range 35-93), which rates as good. Of the 18 knees, 67% had excellent or good knee scores. By comparison, the mean function score was 56 (range 0-90) which rates as poor and 33% had excellent or good function scores.

CONCLUSION
Revision total knee arthroplasty achieves good and excellent results in spite of technical difficulties often associated with the revision operation. The difference in mean knee and function scores emphasises that many other factors such as physical strength and stamina affect function. Nevertheless, 15 patients were able to walk out of their house and around their neighbourhood for varying distances. This satisfied their expectations and the poor mean function score may reflect different expectations of patients overseas from whence this scoring system originated.


Analyzing deep neural networks (DNNs) via information plane (IP) theory has gained tremendous attention recently to gain insight into, among others, DNNs' generalization ability. However, it is by no means obvious how to estimate the mutual information (MI) between each hidden layer and the input/desired output to construct the IP. For instance, hidden layers with many neurons require MI estimators with robustness toward the high dimensionality associated with such layers. MI estimators should also be able to handle convolutional layers while at the same time being computationally tractable to scale to large networks. Existing IP methods have not been able to study truly deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). We propose an IP analysis using the new matrix-based Rényi's entropy coupled with tensor kernels, leveraging the power of kernel methods to represent properties of the probability distribution independently of the dimensionality of the data. Our results shed new light on previous studies concerning small-scale DNNs using a completely new approach. We provide a comprehensive IP analysis of large-scale CNNs, investigating the different training phases and providing new insights into the training dynamics of large-scale neural networks.


Ordovician carbonate caves have been considered as important reservoirs for a long time and their exploration has rapidly increased in recent years in China (Yang et al, 2010). Accurately locating the target is very critical to improve drilling success for carbonate caves. As carbonate reservoir exploration has moved deeper and deeper (6000-8000 m), wells often either hit the side of the cave or totally miss it. Here we look at the application of a new technology that is particularly suited to cave drilling. It initially builds an accurate baseline earth model; and then, during the process of drilling, it updates the subsurface image in real time by using information acquired while drilling in combination with surface seismic data. In this paper we show how this new technology can be used to help accurately reach deep carbonate caves.


Abstract To determine gender differences, positional differences, and patterns of change in the performance of the basketball line-drill test, 93 male (mean age 16.8 years, s = 1.1) and 95 female (mean age 16.5 years, s = 1.0) basketball players undertook 516 line-drill tests over a 5-year period. Log-transformed performance times were analysed using a mixed model that included quadratic within-participant fixed effects for time in the season and time in the programme. Changes and differences were standardized for interpretation of magnitudes. Mean performance times were 28.0 s (s = 1.3) for males and 30.4 s (s = 1.3) for females. The mean pattern of change in performance within a season differed substantially between the sexes and playing positions: male guards and female centres showed moderate to very large improvements mid-season of 1.1% and 3.5% respectively (90% confidence limits ±2.1% and ±3.0%), while female guards and male forwards showed large to very large decrements of −1.6% (±2.6%) and −2.4% (±2.0%). Over 3 years, males improved performance across all three playing positions by 1.4% (±1.3%) and females by 2.9% (±1.4%). Males improved performance by 0.2% (±0.5%) per year, whereas the performance of females deteriorated by 0.6% (±0.4%) per year. The differing patterns of performance change presumably reflect variations in training and competition loads, with short-term fluctuations in performance being managed to promote longer-term improvements.


INTRODUCTION :
Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis (TCP) is the most common type in India and
China, accounting for 60 – 70% of all Chronic Pancreatitis. This is in contrast with developed countries where Alcohol related Pancreatitis accounts for most of the cases of Chronic Pancreatitis. Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis is generally a disease of youth and early adulthood. It is found in areas with in 30 degrees of latitude on both sides of the equator. Pancreatitis is the most common mode of presentation in 70 – 100% of patients. Later in the course, patients may present with diabetes mellitus, maldigestion and weight loss.
Pathologically Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis is characterized by large intra
ductal calculi, marked dilatation of main duct and glandular atrophy. Its
etiology is not known. High level of consumption of cassava which contains
toxic glycosides is attractive hypothesis but not proved yet. Two recent
studies have reported that a significant percentage of patients with Tropical
Calcific Pancreatitis have spink mutation . Endoscopic Retrograde
Cholangio Pancreatography (ERCP), the secretin stimulation test and
Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) have all been suggested as a gold standard for the diagnosis of Chronic Pancreatitis. The management of Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis involves managing pain, diabetes and steatorrhoea.
MATERIALS AND METHODS : A total of 123 consecutive patients (103M: 20F) in the age group of 13-54 years (mean age 29.8 years), diagnosed as Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis(TCP) in a tertiary referral centre for gastroenterological and hepatobiliopancreatic disorders. Patients referred and diagnosed as TCP by clinical, radiological, biochemical, Ultrasonographic, CAT Scan Evaluation (in selected cases) underwent diagnostic ERCP between Jan 2000 to Dec 2003 in purview of therapeutic ERCP.
CONCLUSIONS : 1. Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis is a very fertile area for applying different
Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatographic interventions.
2. Diagnostic Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography provides a road
map for planning for different endotherapeutic procedures.
3. In Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis the calculi are always intra ductal and mostly
multiple, dense and large and hence pose great technical difficulties for
therapeutic Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography.
4. Pancreatic stenting is an effective endotherapeutic procedure for the
symptomatic relief of pain, improves ductal drainage and quality of life in
Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis patients.
5. A new practically useful classification of diagnostic and therapeutic Endoscopic
Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography in Tropical Calcific Pancreatitis have
been proposed for easy approach and planning therapy (subash classification).
6. Diagnostic Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography before
therapeutic Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography provides a
learning curve for future therapeutic endoscopists.


Reliability and fault free environment is always a key important factor in any computer aided system. The one key factor is software fault. Faults can be reside and arise anywhere anytime though it is very well tested. In life critical systems/applications, fault must be tolerated at any cost.. Drug discovery and development are very time and resources consuming processes. It is very challenging era for today's market. Computational techniques to the combined chemical and biological space with the purpose of simplify drug discovery, design, development and optimization. In this research, Software fault tolerance is adopted with drug designing for high reliability. Computational tools and techniques are very popular in pharmaceutical industry to increase the efficiency of drug discovery and development process. Software fault tolerance has many techniques to achieve high reliability in any system. These techniques generally base on diversy fundamentals. Such diversy works on data, specification, design, component, environment and resource. The diversity approach works better for high reliability when we ensure that diversity is applicable to all possible components. There are many alternatives, out which at least one alternate option would be execute and take responsibility of fault handling. Firstly, it introduces software fault tolerance techniques and drug designing procedures. This research focuses on a high reliability in computer aided drug designing by fault forecasting SFT Model. The proposed SFT model includes feasible study, requirement gathering-specification logging, specification and design fault matching and developing along with code diversity fundamentals. On occurrence of faults it will follow specific diversy to provide high availability and reliability. Design defects of any CADD software will cause a system failure as unsolvable condition. To provide alternation to such system, only code diversy is not enough. In the direction of high available and fault free CADD software the appropriate system design is necessary with multiple diversy approach. Reliability and fault forecasting SFT model will be monitoring the alternative for design-code-development at any faulty state. Applying SFT techniques in CADD software, execution throughput will higher by tolerating various faults with diversy fundamental. The proposed fault forecasting model will increase reliability in computer aided drug designing and also predicts the faults associated with concern inputs and procedures. This proposed SFT model will be useful to forecast faults for future CADD systems. Keywords: Fault, drug discovery, design, diversy, specification, SFT (software fault tolerance), drug discovery, drug development, molecular modeling, computational modeling Cite this Article Jigna B. Prajapati, Bhupendra G. Prajapati. Embedding High Reliability in Computer Aided Drug Designing by Fault Forecasting Software Fault Tolerance Model. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Drug Design & Discovery . 2017; 4(2): 24–29p.


To date, the lack of adequate electronic display devices has been the primary factor limiting the use of digital radiographic images. Flat panel display technology using field emissive cathodes in microvacuum cells has emerged as a potential solution. However, the performance characteristics of low-voltage cathodoluminescence in the range below 1 kV is not well understood. In this paper, we discuss issues concerning the prediction of phosphor efficiency, and describe the processes of light generation and transport which influence the performance of phosphor screens.


Microemulsions, being thermodynamically stable systems, with low viscosity and elegant in appearance have attracted interest not only for the delivery of single drug substances with low water solubility but for the stabilization of drugs in combination due to their preferential solubility in either the water or oil phases. Microemulsion design involves the solubilisation of an optimum amount of the dispersed phase in the continuous phase, utilizing the minimum amount of surfactant/mixture of surfactants/cosurfactants. It is the choice of the surfactant/surfactant mixture and/or cosurfactants, which poses the greatest challenge in the design of a thermodynamically stable microemulsion formulation. This paper will present a strategy for choosing surfactants to achieve a stable, dilutable microemulsion formulation for oral administration. Ternary and pseudo-ternary phase diagrams were constructed by titrating a series of mixtures [lipid (miglyol 812): cosurfactant and/or surfactant (cremophor RH, imwitor 308/742, sorbitol, brij 97, crillet 3)] with water at room temperature, the phases formed visually assessed after each addition and classified as isotropic (ME), liquid crystalline (LC) or coarse emulsions (EM). Results indicate that the surfactant combination of imwitor 308 and crillet 3 proved most successful in incorporating 25 to 30% miglyol 812 into a microemulsion formulation utilizing an intermediate quantity of surfactant and maintaining homogeneity on dilution.


In a 300 mm integrated circuit (IC) foundry fab, the intrabay automation is more important than a 200 mm one. In general, the intrabay automation systems include the automated controls of the process tools, overhead hoist transports (OHTs), stockers, and rail shortcuts. These control systems are operated concurrently. They must cooperate seamlessly to increase the system performance and to avoid deadlocks. In the paper, the behaviors of the intrabay automation systems are modeled using the distributed agent oriented Petri net (DAOPN). The fab intrabay DAOPN models are categorized into the new-order generation, OHT vehicle dispatching, zone control, path decision, and tool processing agent models. Finally, the DAOPN is defined, and the modeling procedures of the intrabay behaviors are all illustrated. Consequently, an experimental intrabay OHT loop is discussed and evaluated using the proposed DAOPN models and the DAOPN simulator.


This dissertation studies the role of intonation in language acquisition. After a general introduction about the phonetic and phonological aspects of intonation and its different forms and functions within language, two different models of language acquisition and the role of intonation within these two models will be presented.
Following this, I will present and discuss empirical data on the question, whether young German learning children use intonation in order to acquire language. Two comprehension studies will be presented. Here, I concentrate on the question whether children understand the referential function of intonation and whether they can use this knowledge in order to learn new words. Additionally, I will present empirical evidence that focuses on the question whether children use intonation in resolving participant roles in complex syntactic constructions as well as in resolving syntactic ambiguities development.
Finally, I will present two production studies that investigate the prosodic realization of target referents that have different informational statuses within a discourse from both young children and parents, talking to their children.
Overall, the data from these studies suggest that language learning children do use the intonational form of an utterance from early on in order to understand another´s intention. Young language learning children do understand that a certain intonational form conveys a function. Additionally, the studies presented in this thesis suggest that children also use intonation in order to convey their own communicative intentions. Thus, intonation is an important instrument for young children's language acquisition as they use the information that is provided by intonation, not only to learn words and to combine them to syntactic constructions, but also for the understanding of paralinguistic properties of language.
The findings of the studies presented in this thesis are discussed with regard to different theories of language acquisition. Additionally, I will give insight into the understanding of the development of young children´s use of intonation.


Most e-government applications have to find a solution for simple, reliable, secure and authentic signing of official documents. Citizens need a simple way to verify the authenticity and integrity of an official document. Currently XML documents allow representing such documents. However, the XML format does not guarantee a definite visual presentation of the document (presentation problem). In this paper we describe a solution approach -so-called authentic PDF - using PDF technology that fulfills the following key requirements: 1) A visual presentation that resembles the traditional style of an official document; 2) A visual representation of the signature value that does not change the document authenticity; 3) The option for the holder of an official document to restore the electronic version of the authentic official document from the visual representation of the document (e.g. printout); 4) The filtering of dynamic content. We implemented and evaluated different approaches in a feasibility study using a typical e-government document set. The results of the study indicate that PDF is suitable to meet specific legal requirements on a signature solution in combination with a smartcard; the method has proven to be reliable and support a sufficient level of security.


The purpose of this study was to verify the effect of a Chinese herbal medicine Jiang-Zhi Zhong-Yao-Pian to reduce serum lipoid. Efficacy was observed in 30 cases of hyperlipemia; 20 cases administered with evening primose oil capsules were taken as controls. Each group took drugs for two or three months. The results were as follows: After treatment as compared with before treatment, the serum levels of TC, TG and TXB2 dropped from 264.28 +/- 70.52 mg%, 393.52 +/- 250.42 mg% and 110.75 +/- 43.52 pg/ml to 225.60 +/- 50.93 mg%, 264.97 +/- 252.81 mg% and 88.82 +/- 46.50 pg/ml respectively (P less than 0.001, less than 0.01, less than 0.05). However, in the group taking evening primrose oil capsules, TC, TG and TXB2 in comparing with the pre-treatment levels were changed from 251.33 +/- 58.24 mg%, 316.35 +/- 104.93 mg% and 131.53 +/- 49.77 pg/ml to 244.30 +/- 43.28 mg%, 272.10 +/- 92.52 mg% and 115.33 +/- 47.49 pg/ml respectively (P greater than 0.05, less than 0.05, greater than 0.05). This medicine had no side-effect. The results showed that the herbal formula might be useful to reduce serum TC, TG and TXB2.


Planning safe, high-speed trajectories in unknown environments remains a major roadblock on the way toward achieving fast autonomous flight. Current state-of-the-art planning approaches use sampling-based methods or trajectory optimization to obtain fast trajectories, whose safety is evaluated by taking into account the current state estimate of the environment. In unknown environments, however, this leads to numerous stops caused by the need for re-planning the trajectory due to unexpected obstacles. In this paper, we propose to use an active perception paradigm for planning. We predict the future uncertainty of the map and optimize trajectories to minimize re-planning risk. This leads to faster and safer trajectories. We evaluate the proposed planning approach in a series of simulation experiments, which show that we are able to achieve safer trajectories with a smaller number of re-planning stops and faster speeds.


Young Cherry Wilkinson, the daughter of a farmer, has read one too many Gothic novels. And when she discovers a mysterious fragment of parchment and an antiquated portrait in her father's desk, she becomes convinced that she is a heroine and an heiress, and that the farmer is not her father, but instead an assassin with designs upon her life.

Renaming herself Cherubina, she deserts her home and sets off on a mad romp across England, determined to recover her lost domains and unravel her true parentage. But after a series of madcap and hilarious adventures, she comes to find that modern-day English law and society do not always permit a young lady to behave like a character out of a romantic tale. And when a handsome but dissolute young actor learns of Cherry's father's wealth and her mania for Gothic novels and styles himself Lord Montmorenci in an attempt to deceive her into a marriage, Cherubina will need all of her heroine's wit to defeat the nefarious plot!

A brilliant comic novel that went through numerous editions in its time and earned widespread critical acclaim, The Heroine (1813) has recently been badly neglected and has been out of print for almost a century. This edition features a substantial new introduction by internationally known Gothic scholars Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, the unabridged text of the first edition, and detailed endnotes.


Abstract Equivalence scales, used to compare incomes across household types, strongly influence which households have low reported income, affecting public policy priorities. Yet they draw on abstract, often dated evidence and arbitrary judgements, and on comparisons across the income distribution rather than focusing on minimum requirements. Budget standards provide more tangible comparisons of the minimum required by different household types. The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) method, now established in several countries, applies a common methodological framework for compiling budgets, based on public deliberations. This article draws for the first time on results across countries. In all of the four countries examined, it identifies an under-estimation by the OECD scale of the relative cost of children compared to adults, and, in three of the four, an under-estimation of the cost of singles compared to couples. This more systematically corroborates previous, dispersed evidence, and helps explain which specific expenditure categories influence these results. These results have high policy relevance, showing greater proportions of low income households to contain children than standard income distribution data. While no single equivalence scale can be universally accurate, making use of evidence based directly on benchmarks such as MIS can help inform public priorities in tackling low income.


Preface. Part I: What Are the Issues in the Economics of Gender?:. 1. Introduction. What is the Economics of Gender?. Why Study the Economics of Gender?. How Are Men and Women Different?. Focus: Gender, Gender, Everywhere. Why Are Men and Women Different?. Focus: Why Are Women Underrepresented in Science?. Critiques of the Economic Approach. Communication between Academic Disciplines. Focus: Gender and Metaphor in the Language of Economics. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. Appendix: The Repercussions of Scarcity. Opportunity Cost. The Marginal vs. Total Distinction. Markets. Focus: The Intrinsic Value Paradox: Are Diamonds and Water Like Lawyers and Child Care Workers?. Noncompetitive Markets-Monopoly and Monopsony. Policy Application: Effects of a Minimum Wage. Endnotes. Discussion Questions. 2. Gender Differences in the U.S. Economy. How Much Do Men and Women Work?. Focus: Will Men Be Tomorrow's "Second Sex"?. Where Do Women and Men Work?. How Much Money Do Men and Women Make?. How Well-Off Are Women and Men?. Focus: Gender Differences in Charitable Contributions. How Do Men and Women Allocate Their Time?. Policy Application: Unemployment Policy. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Part II: Why Do Women and Men Work?:. 3. The Household as Economic Unit. Household and Marriage Formation. Forces Determining the Division of Labor. Who To Marry and How To Share. Focus: Is Bachelorhood a Pitiable State?. How Is Power Distributed in Households?. Focus: The Economics of Domestic Violence. Focus: Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements. Household and Marriage Dissolution. Policy Application: No-Fault Divorce. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. Appendix: Consumption and Production Relationships. Gains from Trade. Budget Constraints and Indifference Curves. Substitutes and Complements. Endnote. Discussion Questions. 4. Labor Force Participation: Analysis of Trends. Trends in Labor Force Participation. What Has Caused These Trends?. Explanations of the Rise in Women's Labor Force Participation. Focus: What Is Higher-Quality Housework?. Explanations of the Fall in Men's Labor Force Participation. Trends in Hours Worked. Conclusions about Economic Factors Affecting Labor Force Participation. Extensions of the Simple Economic Model. Predicting Changes in the Labor Market. Focus: Changes in Volunteerism Rates. Policy Application: Subsidized Child Care. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. Appendix: Labor Supply. The Decision to Work. Policy Application: An Earnings Tax. Endnotes. Discussion Questions. 5. Labor Force Participation: Consequences for Family Structure. Demographic Trends. The Question of Causality. Focus: Early Marriage as an Element of Utopia. New Household and Family Patterns. Changes in Well-Being of Households and Families. Focus: The Price Of Success? Higher Education and Family Life. Focus: Teenage Mothers and the Cycle of Poverty. Policy Application: Regulation Of Fertility-Access to Contraception and Abortion. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Part II Policy Application: Welfare Reform. What Is Welfare?. Who Is Poor?. Effects of Welfare Programs. Approaches to Welfare Reform. Focus: Making Noncustodial Parents Pay. Focus: The Free the Children Antipoverty Program. Recent Welfare Reform in the U.S. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Part III: The Earnings Puzzle: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men?:. 6. Gender Segregation in the Workplace. The Situation in Various Occupations. Focus: Directors and Officers at Fortune 500 Companies. Interpretation of Large Changes in the Proportion of Women in Some Occupations. Segregation Index Values. Cross-Cultural Segregation Data. Theories of Why Segregation Occurs and Persists. Focus: Blind Selection Processes. The Relationship between Segregation and Earnings. Focus: University Coaches' Salaries. Effects of Workforce Policies on Segregation. Policy Application: Affirmative Action. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. 7. Causes of Earnings Differences: Human Capital. What Is Human Capital?. How Human Capital Investments Affect Earnings. Focus: The "Mommy Track" Controversy. The Significance of Human Capital Theory for Occupational Choice. Focus: Is There Gender Bias in Educational Testing?. Evidence of Effects of Human Capital Differences on Gender Earnings Differences. Focus: Is the Classroom Climate Chilly for Women?. Policy Implications of Human Capital Theory for the Gender Earnings Gap. Policy Application: Nontraditional Job Training Programs. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Appendix: Regression Analysis. Endnotes. 8. Causes of Earnings Differences: Compensating Differentials. What Is a Compensating Differential?. How Do Compensating Differentials Affect Earnings?. Focus: Death on the Job. Sorting of Workers across Firms and Industries. Gender Differences in Preferences for Job Characteristics. Focus: Gender Differences in "Selling Out". Policy Implications of Compensating Differentials for the Gender Earnings Gap. Policy Application: Workplace Regulations. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. 9. Causes of Earnings Differences: Discrimination. How Economists Define Discrimination. Overview of Evidence of Workplace Discrimination. Focus: The Difficulties of Filing Discrimination Charges. Focus: The Sears Case. How Do Discrimination Theories Explain Gender Workplace Differences?. Models Involving Tastes for Discrimination. Models of Discrimination That Do Not Involve Prejudice. Focus: Women Don't Ask? Improving Negotiation Skills. Can Discrimination Exist in Equilibrium?. Feedback Effects from Labor Market Discrimination. Devices for Combating Discrimination. Policy Application: Anti-Discrimination Legislation. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. Part III Policy Application: Comparable Worth. What Is Comparable Worth?. The Pros and Cons of Comparable Worth. Focus: Comparable Worth for Professors. How Would Comparable Worth Be Implemented Nationally?. Estimation of Potential Comparable Worth Benefits and Costs. Evaluation of Actual Comparable Worth Policies. The Need For Policies To Correct Discrimination. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. Part IV: Cross-Societal Comparisons: Are Gender Differences the Same Everywhere?:. 10. Industrialized Capitalist Societies. Overview of Levels and Trends in These Countries. Focus: Institutionalized Pay Discrimination in New Zealand. Examples from Particular Countries. Focus: Swedish Hiring Quotas and Norwegian Boardroom Quotas. Focus: Comparing Tax System Effects for Sweden and Germany. Social Policies across Advanced Industrialized Countries. Policy Application: Child Allowances. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. 11. Socialist and Cooperative Societies. Why These Societies Might Be Expected To Display More Gender Equality. Evaluation of Actual Practices. Focus: Causes of the Progress of Women in the Soviet Union. Examples from Particular Countries. Focus: How Many "Missing Girls" Are There in China?. Focus: Vietnam as a Paradigm for Transition?. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. 12. Nonindustrialized Traditional Societies. Overview of Levels and Trends in These Countries. Methods for Evaluating the Extent and Value of Work. Focus: Time Use in Togo. Level of Gender Inequality by Type of Society. Focus: Flexible Gender Roles in American Indian Societies. Focus: Sex Ratios across Societies. Examples from Particular Countries. Policy Application: Rural-Urban Migration Disincentives. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. 13. Effects of the Development Process on Gender Differences. What Is Development?. Focus: Two Brazilian Factories. Development Effects on Family Structure. Development Policy Topics. Focus: The Marriage Market in Singapore. Focus: Bank Loans in Bombay. Policy Application: Foreign Aid Practices. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Part V: Historical Comparisons: How Do Gender Differences Vary over Time?:. 14. Gender Differences in U.S. Economic History. Overview by Era. Focus: Mill Towns in New England. Long-Run Trends in Labor Markets. Focus: Bank Tellers and the Tipping Phenomenon. Policies Affecting Men and Women Differently. Focus: The Cigar Industry. Policy Application: Marriage Bars. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. 15. Race, Ethnicity, and Class Considerations in Interpreting Gender Differences. Gender Differences across Groups. Different Conceptual Frameworks for Analyzing Group Differences. Focus: Does U.S. Immigration Law Hurt Women?. Displaced Populations-American Indians. Repercussions of Slavery: The African-American Experience. Focus: Black Progress in Corporate America. Immigrant Experiences. Group Membership Considerations in Formulation of Policy. Focus: Does Title IX Discriminate against Black Men?. Policy Application: Quotas in Educational Programs and Hiring. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading. Discussion Questions. 16. Policy Proposals. Summary of Policy Approaches to Gender Issues. General Precepts for Policy Formulation. Focus: Why Don't Women Get Tenure?. Focus: Part-Time Lawyers. Policy Application: Family-Friendly Benefits. Summary. Endnotes. Further Reading and Statistical Sources. Discussion Questions. Author Index. Subject Index


The technology industry has a big problem with diversity, one that seems to be getting worse: In 1991 women held 37% of computing jobs; today they hold only 26%. But if tech firms want to get serious about hiring, retaining, and promoting more women, they'll need something more effective than sensitivity or mentoring programs that "fix" individual behavior, and longer lasting than cultural change programs. The author suggests an approach that borrows from tech's own playbook on experimentation: Collect detailed data on bias in your organization, identify company-specific ways to measure its effect, create hypotheses about how to move those metrics, and then throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Working women face four kinds of bias: prove-it-again (continually being asked to prove their competence), tightrope (backlash for being too assertive or too nice), maternal wall (erroneous assumptions about mothers), and tug-of-war (pressure to distance themselves from other women). All four affect hiring, work assignments, evaluations, and promotion and compensation. Companies need to understand how, and then thwart these biases with "interrupters," small changes to business systems that stop patterns of bias. They can be as simple as adding "salary negotiable" to want ads--which closed the pay gap between men and women by 45% in one study. Doing anything once will not change organizational culture. Bias needs to be disrupted constantly, and the iterative interrupter approach may well be the way to do that.


UNLABELLED
Interest in fatigue-research has grown since the finding that fatigue/tiredness is the most frequently reported symptom of cancer and its treatment. But even though several authors have tried to conceptualise fatigue, its mechanisms are still poorly understood. The aim of this study was twofold: 1) to explore fatigue in cancer patients, inductively, and 2) to compare experiences of fatigue/tiredness of healthy individuals with that of cancer patients to identify cancer-specific fatigue/tiredness and related concepts.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A qualitative research strategy was adopted using a grounded theory approach. The prospective study took place in the Oncology Department of the Kantonsspital St. Gallen (Switzerland) with samples of 20 cancer patients and 20 healthy individuals. Unstructured, tape recorded interviews were conducted to collect data. The transcripts of the interviews were analysed using content analysis and constant comparison.

RESULTS
Different themes emerged between the two groups although both fitted a classification system, which categorised fatigue into physical, affective and cognitive expressions of fatigue/tiredness. Physical signs were more frequent than affective and cognitive signs in both groups. In the cancer patients, fatigue involved decreased physical performance, extreme, unusual tiredness, weakness and unusual need for rest, which was distinctly different for healthy persons. Affective and cognitive distress was also more prominent in cancer patients. Interestingly, the concept of malaise was not identified by either sample and not understood as an expression of fatigue by this German speaking population. Linguistic differences in the description of fatigue/tiredness between healthy and ill individuals revealed different perceptions of the phenomenon. A step-like theory, explaining the production of fatigue/tiredness was tentatively put forward involving nociception, perception and expression of tiredness.

CONCLUSIONS
The emerging concepts break tiredness/fatigue into expression of physical, affective and cognitive tiredness/fatigue. The experience is different between healthy individuals and cancer patients. Generalisability of data needs precaution but the results of the study identifies and clarifies ideas that might form an important basis for further, controlled studies.


In the present paper, we study the coupled Einstein Constraint Equations (ECE) on complete manifolds through the conformal method, focusing on non-compact manifolds with flexible asymptotics. In particular, we do not impose any specific model for infinity. First, we prove an existence criteria on compact manifolds with boundary which applies to more general systems and can be seen as a natural extension of known existence theory for the coupled ECE. Building on this, we prove an L existence based on existence of appropriate barrier functions for a family of physically well-motivated coupled systems on complete manifolds. We prove existence results for these systems by building barrier functions in the bounded geometry case. We conclude by translating our result to the H formulation, making contact with classic works. To this end, we prove several intermediary L regularity results for the coupled systems in dimensions n ≤ 12 which fills certain gaps in current initial data analysis.


With the speedy increase of display resolution and the demand for interactive frame rate, rendering acceleration is becoming more critical for a wide range of virtual reality applications. Foveated rendering addresses this challenge by rendering with a non-uniform resolution for the display. Motivated by the non-linear optical lens equation, we present rectangular mapping-based foveated rendering (RMFR), a simple yet effective implementation of foveated rendering framework. RMFR supports varying level of foveation according to the eccentricity and the scene complexity. Compared with traditional foveated rendering methods, rectangular mapping-based foveated rendering provides a superior level of perceived visual quality while consuming minimal rendering cost.


type="main" xml:lang="en"> A farm survey conducted in a prosperous Chinese county (Wuxi) in the Lower Yangzi region in the 1930s shows that a 'vent' existed for surplus farm workers to obtain off-farm migrant employment and that the slack in farming created by this migration process attracted those from the lower-wage districts, resulting in the creation of a hierarchy of labour markets differentiated by education and skills. Our analysis also reveals that there were crucial links between education, migration, and income, and it refutes the claim that migration was caused by land deficiency and favoured those who lived near the urban core.


KEK is one of the world's major particle physics research organizations located in Japan.
Our mission in research is to unveil mysteries of the Universe, shedding a light to expand the knowledge of human beings.

However, sharing these knowledge is also as important as accomplishing our missions.
For that purpose, we have educational programs such as science camps, masterclasses, hands-on experiences for students from elementary school to undergraduates.
We also organise science cafe, public lectures, open campus, photo exhibition, and concert for general public.

In this proceeding, three out of many education & outreach programs at KEK are described.
We would like to introduce these programs and discuss how to make physics, especially high energy physics, more popular in Japan.


It is well established that increased numbers of plasma cells occur in the localized tissues of chronic inflammatory diseases such as adult periodontitis, and enzymatic isolation has shown that most B lineage cells produce IgG-subclass with some IgA-subclass responses. It would be of importance to determine if excess production of cytokines in the localized lesion account for these responses and in the present study we have assessed gingival mononuclear cell (GMC) supernatants for cytokines that activate B cells including IL-6R expression and for levels of IL-6 present. Inasmuch as limited numbers (approximately 1 to 3 x 10(6) cells) of GMC were obtained from surgically removed tissues (approximately 400 mg), we have focused on the analysis of IL-6 production by GMC in this study. Further, initial evidence of additional cytokines that are produced by GMC and induce expression of IL-6R on resting B cells has been obtained. The GMC and PBMC from individual patients were cultured in the presence (or absence) of Con A. Higher levels of IL-6 were produced spontaneously by GMC when compared with Con A-stimulated PBMC. When PBMC cultures were supplemented with GMC supernatants obtained from the same patient, high numbers of spot-forming cells (SFC), mainly of IgG followed by IgA isotype, were seen. The induction of SFC by GMC supernatants was inhibited by incubation with a goat anti-human IL-6 antibody. When the effect of GMC supernatants on subclasses of PBMC SFC was determined, the response was IgG1 greater than IgG2 greater than IgG3 = IgG4 and IgA1 greater than IgA2, a pattern remarkably similar to the distribution of plasma cells in the GMC itself. To assess for cytokines in GMC supernatants that mediated B cell activation, supernatants containing anti-IL-6 were cultured with PBMC or purified B cells for 72 h. This treatment induced small proliferative B cell responses and elevated expression of IL-6R on B cells, but did not induce SFC responses. Further, incubation of B cells with GMC supernatants induced resting B cells (G0/G1) to enter the cell cycle (S and G2/M). Addition of human rIL-6 to these cultures on day 3 restored IgG- and IgA-subclass SFC responses by day 7. Cytokine-induced IL-6R expression also occurred in vivo because freshly isolated GMC expressed high levels of this receptor.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for video compression that explores spatial as well as temporal redundancies over sequences of many frames in a unified framework. Our approach supports "compressed domain vision" capabilities. To this end, we developed a sparse Steered Mixture-of-Experts (SMoE) regression network for coding video in the pixel domain. This approach drastically departs from the established DPCM/Transform coding philosophy. Each kernel in the Mixture-of-Experts network steers along the direction of highest correlation, both in spatial and temporal domain, with local and global support. Our coding and modeling philosophy is embedded in a Bayesian framework and shows strong resemblance to Mixture-of-Experts neural networks. Initial experiments show that at very low bit rates the SMoE approach can provide competitive performance to H.264.


[/sup 123/I]5-I-A-85380 ([/sup 123/I]5-IA) is a ligand specific for the /spl alpha/4/spl beta/2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subtype. It was reported that distribution volume (DV) is an appropriate measurement for /spl alpha/4/spl beta/2 nAChR density in baboon [/sup 123/I]5-IA dynamic SPECT studies. To evaluate the kinetics obtained from human [/sup 123/I]5-IA dynamic SPECT, three different methods were applied to region of interest (ROI) kinetics analysis as follows: A: a 2-compartment 3-parameters model, B: 3-compartment 5-parameter model, and C: same model as in B but fitting with a constraint of ratio of K/sub 1//k/sub 2/e estimated by fitting occipital kinetics to model in A. The DV was estimated as DV= K/sub 1//k/sub 2/ for A, and DV=(K/sub 1//k/sub 2/)(1+k/sub 3//k/sub 4/) for B and C. Nonlinear least squares fitting using Marquardt algorithm was performed for A-C. Akaike information criterion (AIC) and R/sup 2/ were used for evaluation of fitting results. A linear parametric imaging algorithm derived from model in method A was used for generating images of K/sub 1/ and DV. Four normal human [/sup 123/I]5-IA dynamic studies were evaluated by A-C. In each study, after a bolus of [/sup 123/I]5-IA (5/spl sim/10 mCi, specific activity>10 Ci/umol) was injected intravenously, a dynamic scanning with 20 acquisitions over 6 hour was started immediately on a Trionix TriadXLT scanner. 30-40 arterial plasma samples were taken during the study and HPLC was performed to determine the metabolite-corrected arterial plasma radioactivity as input function. The ROI regions (cerebellum, frontal cortex, occipital cortex, pones, and thalamus) were drawn on co-registered MRI images. Results show that A fits to all ROI kinetics very well (R/sup 2/>0.99), and paired T-test for AIC showed there is no statistical significantly improvement of model fitting from B, C methods. The K/sub 1/ and DV images are of good image quality. Conclusion: A is best for ROI kinetic analysis and parametric imaging for DV and K/sub 1/.


In nickel-based superalloys, substitutional solute species have a strong impact on in service mechanical properties as well as on oxidation and corrosion resistances. In alloy 718, recent studies carried out by tensile tests highlighted the fact that refractory solute species are able to interact strongly with mobile dislocations during plastic deformation, generating dynamic strain ageing, and, in wide ranges of tests temperatures and strain rates, Portevin-Le Chatelier effect. The precise nature of the substitutional element responsible for such a dynamic interaction is still subject to debate. We addressed this question by means of mechanical spectroscopy studies of alloy 718 and various related alloys corresponding to monitored changes in the chemical composition. Only a single internal friction relaxation peak has been observed for all the studied alloys. By analyzing the damping behavior of these alloys at different imposed solicitation frequencies by sweeping a large temperatures range, the activation energies of the relaxation process and the type of mechanism involved have been determined. The process is a "Zener relaxation" in the alloys, i.e. a substitutional atoms dipole reorientation under applied stress. The results tend to prove that Niobium is not involved in the relaxation process whereas Molybdenum content seems to play an important role in the relaxation intensity.


Abstract Despite impressive progress in experimental studies of ion channels, determinants of their state-dependent geometry are not completely understood. Previous studies of P-loop channels suggested that the gating mechanism involves coupled movement of the S4-S5 cuff and S6 bundle and emphasized importance of specific intersegment contacts in stabilizing different states. However, it is unclear whether or not such contacts are sufficient to computationally reproduce gating rearrangements. Here we analyzed X-ray and cryo-EM structures of several channels in different functional states and selected structures with the wide cuff (open-state Kv1.2) and narrow cuff (closed-state MlotiK1) for detailed analysis. We revealed three categories of inter-residue contacts within the pore domain: (i) state-dependent and state-independent contacts between helices S4-S5 and S5, which provide integrity and state-dependent dimensions of the S4-S5 cuff; (ii) state-independent contacts between helices S4-S5 and S6 that enable their coupled movement during gating and (iii) state-dependent contacts between S6s that stabilize the open and/or closed activation gate. We imposed these contacts to transform the channels from the open to closed state and vice versa using Monte Carlo energy minimizations. In all cases, the target structures were reached with a good precision. Thus, a limited set of inter-residue contacts can be used to predict computationally state-dependent geometry of the pore domain in P-loop channels. Effects of various engineered and naturally occurring mutations (channelopathies) on the channel gating can be rationalized in view of the contacts. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma


The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has prompted extensive online discussions, creating an 'infodemic' on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Twitter. However, the information shared on these platforms is prone to be unreliable and/or misleading. In this paper, we present the first analysis of COVID-19 discourse on public WhatsApp groups from Pakistan. Building on a large scale annotation of thousands of messages containing text and images, we identify the main categories of discussion. We focus on COVID-19 messages and understand the different types of images/text messages being propagated. By exploring user behavior related to COVID messages, we inspect how misinformation is spread. Finally, by quantifying the flow of information across WhatsApp and Twitter, we show how information spreads across platforms and how WhatsApp acts as a source for much of the information shared on Twitter.


The construction of explanatory theory about the determinants of regional integration is contingent upon our prior ability to measure integration in a typology or set of dimensions as a description and classification of that dependent variable. Previous attempts to conceptually differentiate the types of regional integration are reviewed and found to be contradictory. In order to generate empirically informed estimates about which typifications of integrative behavior are the most powerful and reasonable for theory construction, Joseph Nye's framework was selected for analysis. Construct validation was performed by operationalizing Nye's variables and confronting his scheme with data drawn from the Southeast Asian regional subsystem in order to ascertain the scheme's region-specific applicability. Factor analysis provided partial support for Nye's construct. The evidence derived here suggests that regional integration is a multidimensional phenomenon and that efforts to construct a single, multipurpose index of integration are not warranted. The major dimensions of regional integration emergent were (a) societal interdependence, (b) attitudinal integration, and (c) intergovernmental cooperation. The findings suggest that it is most meaningful to formulate theories in terms of the sources of each distinct type of integration; moreover, it appears that the dimensionality of integration may vary across regions and/or types of national actors.


The article represents the question of the relationship between family dynamics and the emergence, development and treatment of eating disorders in adolescents, through the eyes of the psychodynamic and positive approaches in psychotherapy. The main conclusion is that without taking into account the dynamics of family relations, the function of the symptom cannot be understood.


Forthcoming low-energy consumption oxide electronics rely on the deterministic control of ferroelectric and multiferroic domain states at the nanoscale. In this review, we address the recent progress in the field of investigation of ferroic order in thin films and heterostructures, with a focus on non-invasive optical second harmonic generation (SHG). For more than 50 years, SHG has served as an established technique for probing ferroic order in bulk materials. Here, we will survey the specific new aspects introduced to SHG investigation of ferroelectrics and multiferroics by working with thin film structures. We show how SHG can probe complex ferroic domain patterns non-invasively and even if the lateral domain size is below the optical resolution limit or buried beneath an otherwise impenetrable cap layer. We emphasize the potential of SHG to distinguish contributions from individual (multi-) ferroic films or interfaces buried in a device or multilayer architecture. Special attention is given to monitoring switching events in buried ferroic domain- and domain-wall distributions by SHG, thus opening new avenues towards the determination of the domain dynamics. Another aspect studied by SHG is the role of strain. We will finally show that by integrating SHG into the ongoing thin film deposition process, we can monitor the emergence of ferroic order and properties in situ, while they emerge during growth. Our review closes with an outlook, emphasizing the present underrepresentation of ferroic switching dynamics in the study of ferroic oxide heterostructures.


Context. STEPAR is an automatic code written in Python 3.X designed to compute the stellar atmospheric parameters Teff, log g, [Fe/H], and ξ of FGK-type stars by means of the equivalent width (EW) method. This code has already been extensively tested in different spectroscopic studies of FGK-type stars with several spectrographs and against thousands of Gaia-ESO Survey UVES U580 spectra of late-type, low-mass stars as one of its 13 pipelines.
Aims. We describe the code that we tested against a library of well characterised Gaia benchmark stars. We also release the code to the community and provide the link for download.
Methods. We carried out the required EW determination of Fe I and Fe II spectral lines using the automatic tool TAME. STEPAR implements a grid of MARCS model atmospheres and the MOOG radiative transfer code to compute stellar atmospheric parameters by means of a Downhill Simplex minimisation algorithm.
Results. We show the results of the benchmark star test and also discuss the limitations of the EW method, and hence the code. In addition, we find a small internal scatter for the benchmark stars of 9 ± 32 K in Teff, 0.00 ± 0.07 dex in log g, and 0.00 ± 0.03 dex in [Fe/H]. Finally, we advise against using STEPAR on double-lined spectroscopic binaries or spectra with R <  30 000, S/N <  20, or v sin i >  15 km s−1, and on stars later than K4 or earlier than F6.


Classification is an important data analysis tool that uses a model built from historical data to predict class labels for new observations. More and more applications are featuring data streams, rather than finite stored data sets, which are a challenge for traditional classification algorithms. Concept drifts and skewed distributions, two common properties of data stream applications, make the task of learning in streams difficult. The authors aim to develop a new approach to classify skewed data streams that uses an ensemble of models to match the distribution over under-samples of negatives and repeated samples of positives.


Objective: Originating from the pituitary gland, TSH secretion is regulated predominantly by thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH) neurons located in the hypothalamus. Norepinephrine and dopamine have important effects in modulation of TSH secretion. An inhibitor of catecholamine synthesis, α-methyl-para-tyrosine (AMPT) has been used in several studies of the regulation of human TSH secretion. The short-term effects (<8 hours) of low doses of AMPT include stimulation of pituitary TSH secretion by selective lowering of brain dopamine levels. After prolonged administration of AMPT (>24 hours), theoretically both dopamine and norepinephrine levels are lowered significantly in the brain, although this has not been reported previously. Methods: Nine subjects (five women and four men) received a total of five 1-g doses of AMPT or five 50-mg doses of promethazine (active placebo) over 28 hours in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design in which the active and control tests were separated by 4-6 weeks. Blood samples were obtained over 24 hours (18 time points) on day 2 of each condition. Results: Changes in prolactin secretion and 6-hydroxymelatonin sulfate excretion indirectly showed the effects of AMPT on dopamine and norepinephrine. The typical circadian rhythm of TSH secretion was blunted by AMPT throughout the night; at ten time points, the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P <.01). The long-term effects of repeated doses of AMPT were inhibition of TSH secretion and significant attenuation of the circadian rhythm of TSH. Additionally, AMPT induced low norepinephrine levels, which counteracted the stimulatory effect of low dopamine levels on TSH. Conclusions: Through its inhibitory effect on TRH, norepinephrine appeared to be involved in the regulation of TSH.


Summary Liver tissue was obtained from 5 cases of clinical Johne's disease by biopsy and analysed for total nitrogen, protein nitrogen, "collagen", lipid, nucleic acids, acid-soluble ribonucleotides and ATP. Comparisons were made with liver tissue from healthy cows. The only significant changes in chemical composition were a small rise in liver lipid content and a marked increase in tissue hydroxyproline, indicating increased connective tissue and suggesting early fibrosis. The in-vitro rate of protein synthesis was assayed in 2 clinical cases and 3 controls by means of the rate of incorporation of [U-14C] leucine into the proteins of liver slices. A higher than normal rate of synthesis was observed in the liver tissue from the cows with clinical Johne's disease but, at the same time, tissue concentrations of three enzymes (glucose-6-phosphatase, hexose monophosphate dehydrogenase and lactate dehydrogenase) were lowered.


An effective-field theory with correlations is developed for a mixed spin-1 and spin-5/2 Ising ferrimagnetic system on the honeycomb (δ=3) and square (δ=4) lattices in the absence and presence of a longitudinal magnetic field. The ground-state phase diagram of the model is obtained in the longitudinal magnetic field (h) and a single-ion potential or crystal-field interaction (Δ) plane. We also investigate the thermal variations of the sublattice magnetizations, and present the phase diagrams in the (Δ/|J|,kBT/|J|) plane. The susceptibility, internal energy and specific heat of the system are numerically examined, and some interesting phenomena in these quantities are found due to the absence and presence of the applied longitudinal magnetic field. Moreover, the system undergoes second- and first-order phase transition; hence, the system gives a tricritical point. The system also exhibits reentrant behavior.


There was no formal distinction of the definite article and the demonstrative in Old English, but the gender- and number-insensitive independent use of the neuter þVt as a pure demonstrative was already widespread. As the simple demonstrative generally weakened in its demonstrative force with the reduction of its forms to undeclined and unmarked þV, this reduced form took on the article function, and the neuter þVt, with the demonstrative function reintroduced or reinforced by its independent use, came to serve as a pure demonstrative. The compound demonstrative also underwent levelling of inflection and developed indeclinable þVs forms, of which þis eventually won out. These forms constitute the present-day tripartite system of defining words, the, that, and this. Theoretically they alone could have preserved the distinction of the neuter and the non-neuter, but in fact they did not. They ceased to be gender sensitive when the differentiation of the simple demonstrative into the as a definite article and that as a companion demonstrative to this was complete. It is the development of this new system of defining words that dealt a final and fatal blow to the traditional system of gender.


We present intermediate-resolution, wide-wavelength coverage spectra for a complete sample of 14 compact radio sources taken with the aim of investigating the impact of the nuclear activity on the circumnuclear interstellar medium (ISM) in the early stages of radio source evolution. We observe spatially extended line emission (up to ∼20 kpc) in the majority of sources which is consistent with a quiescent halo. In the nuclear apertures we observe broad, highly complex emission-line profiles. Multiple Gaussian modelling of the [O III]λ5007 line reveals between two and four components which can have velocity widths [full width at halfmaximum (FWHM)] and blueshifts relative to the halo of up to ∼2000 km s −1 . We interpret these broad, blueshifted components as material in outflow and discuss the kinematical evidence for jet-driven outflows as previously proposed for PKS 1549−79 and PKS 1345+12. Comparisons with samples in the literature show that compact radio sources harbour more extreme nuclear kinematics than their extended counterparts, a trend seen within our sample with larger velocities in the smaller sources. The observed velocities are also likely to be influenced by source orientation with respect to the observer's line of sight. Nine sources have associated H I absorption. In common with the optical emission-line gas, the H I profiles are often highly complex with the majority of the detected components significantly blueshifted, tracing outflows in the neutral gas. The sample has been tested for stratification in the ISM (FWHM/ionization potential/critical density) as suggested by Holt, Tadhunter & Morganti for PKS 1345+12 but we find no significant trends within the sample using a Spearman rank analysis. This study supports the idea that compact radio sources are young radio-loud active galactic nuclei observed during the early stages of their evolution and currently shedding their natal cocoons through extreme circumnuclear outflows.


In order to strengthen or repair the welded structural members or fatigue damaged areas, various surface treatment methods such as grinding, shot peening and/or hammer peening are commonly employed among other methods available. While the weld toe grinding method is known to give 3~4 times of fatigue strength improvement, this improvement may significantly vary according to weld bead shapes and loading modes. In this context, a series of fatigue tests is carried out for three types of test specimens that are typically found in ship structures. Weld burr grinding is carried out using an electric grinder in order to remove surface defects and improve weld bead profiles. The test results are compared with the same type of test specimen without applying the fatigue improvement technique in order to obtain a quantitative measure of the fatigue strength improvement. Moreover, structural stress method is employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the method in evaluating the fatigue strength improvement of welded structures.


[Extract] A year ago, a newspaper article critiqued the citizen participation plans of two major German cities (FAZ, 19.02.2015). Its critique involved the following major conclusions: Damage of social capital. Opposing positions appear to be irreconcilable. Decisions are leaving deep wounds because of aggressive campaigns and non-objective discussions; Limited legitimacy of decisions because of low participation rates that include only special social groups. Minorities are dominating the majority of the people; Many present-day citizen groups consist of resentful people who only accept their own opinion; Elected representative bodies like the city council are disempowered The article gives a focused summary of recent discussions regarding citizen participation in Germany. The advocates of direct democracy and citizen participation are using the same arguments, but achieving opposite results. Greater involvement of all parts of society could be achieved and problems could be solved in a more objective oriented manner (by deliberative mechanisms). Who is right and who is wrong? The first paragraph of this paper deals with this issue. The second paragraph analyzes, how "gamification" can help overcome the "participation dilemma".


This paper examines the structure of the labour market and unemployment in Sudan. One advantage of our analysis in this paper is that we explain several stylized facts on labour market using new secondary data on population, employment and unemployment based on Sudan Central Bureau of Statistics (2010) the Fifth Sudan Population and Housing Census (2008). An interesting element in our analysis is that we explain several stylized facts on the relation between structure of the labour market and demographic structure, labour force, participation rates, economic activities, low skill level and high unemployment rate defined by gender, mode of living and main geographic areas in Sudan. Different from the findings in the empirical literature in support of the Phillips curve on the negative correlation between inflation and unemployment rates, we find positive and significant correlation between unemployment and inflation rates in Sudan during the period (2000-2008). Moreover, different from the analysis in the Sudanese literature we present a more comprehensive analysis of four stylized facts on the unemployment problem in Sudan, these include distinction of several types of unemployment; interpretation of unemployment problem from two different endogenous and exogenous perspectives due to endogenous and exogenous causes; analysis of high incidence of unemployment among youth population and high mismatch between educational qualifications -supply- and labour market requirements- demand. The major policy implication from our findings indicate that since unemployment problem is related to these endogenous and exogenous causes, therefore, policies intervention for reducing unemployment should deal with these endogenous and exogenous causes. Notably, improvement of job creation and quality of educational policies and consistency between educational qualifications (output) and labour market requirements. Another major policy implication from our result on the significant positive correlation between increase in unemployment and inflation rates (2000-2008), implies that macroeconomic policies aimed at or targeting reducing inflation rates would also contribute to reduce unemployment rates in Sudan.


Mutations have been induced in single amoebae by treatment with the powerful mutagen, iV-methyl-iV-nitrosourethane. Three mutants, which differ visibly from the parent strain to the extent that individual amoebae are recognizable and change of characteristics from normal to mutant or mutant to normal can be followed in single cells, are described. These mutant strains have been cultured in the laboratory, using Tetrahymena feeding, without loss of mutant characteristics for over 2 years, undergoing some 100 or more cell cycles. Hybrids made between mutants and the parent strain, using the nuclear transfer technique, are viable and stable. They showed that in all cases crosses between normal and mutant amoebae retained the characteristics of the mutant only if the mutant nucleus was present. Though amoebae from 2 of the mutant strains may revert to normal form with increase in temperature or change to a wheat culturing technique, these 'apparent normal' amoebae resume the mutant form on a return to the temperature and feeding conditions normally used. The interaction between mutant and control amoebae was observed in heterokaryons over periods of up to 6 weeks by cutting off pieces of the heterokaryon cytoplasm at regular intervals to prevent division while allowing growth. In general the presence of a control nucleus led to the development of normal characteristics whether the heterologous nuclei were contained in control or mutant cytoplasm. No antagonistic action occurred between mutant and control nuclei when sharing the same cytoplasm. Study of the clones formed by the offspring of heterokaryon divisions showed the mutant and control nuclei unaltered by long periods of close contact. These experiments indicate the chromatin as the site of action of the mutagen. A possible mode of action of the mutagen in amoebae, relating to the functional state of the DNA, is suggested.


Session of Monday Morning, December 29, 1924 The thirty-seventh annual meeting of the Geological Society of America was called to order in the Auditorium of Baker Chemical Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, at 9:10 a. m., by Vice-President William A. Parks. Brief introductory remarks were made by the presiding officer, who called attention to the fact that, although the Society was organized at Cornell University in 1888, this meeting marks the first return since that time. REPORT OF THE COUNCIL The report of the Council was presented by Secretary Berkey, as follows: To the Geological Society of America, in thirty-seventh annual meeting assembled: The regular annual meeting of the Council was held at Washington, D. C., in connection with the meeting of the Society, December 27–29, 1923. Special meetings were held in New York City on April 18 and October 11, 1924. The details of administration for the . . .


Abstract The article deals with the problem of electric power production in terms of environmental impact, in particular the energy efficiency of its production to utilize primary sources. The efficiency of its production directly depends on the composition of primary sources and technologies used. Difference in efficiency by converting various forms of energy into electrical power and their ratio in the use directly affect the resulting efficiency, production of emissions and thus the environmental impact. Electric traction, its production, is burdened less efficient than other types of tractions used in transport, but at the final reconciliation of their consumption in vehicles, this difference decreases or delays because the vehicles themselves work with different conversion efficiency of its traction on mechanical work, vehicle driving.


We report an original optical wavelength converter for transparent network and high-speed transmission. Based on an electroabsorption modulator (EAM) in cross-absorption modulation configuration, a red-shifted center wavelength filtering of the converted signal decreases the impact of the limited EAM response time. This original and simple device demonstrates wavelength conversion at 40 Gb/s, leading to a reduction of 4.7 dB on the bit-error rate (BER) penalty compared to the case of a centered filter. An absolute 1.8-dB BER power penalty, low switching energy (500 fJ/data pulse) and small applied DC bias are reported.


BACKGROUND
in women without diabetes, little is known about the consequences of hyperglycaemia during pregnancy for the offspring cardiovascular structure and function.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the association of maternal glycaemia during pregnancy with cardiovascular risk markers in their children in GUSTO, a Singaporean birth cohort study.

METHODS
Around 26 weeks' gestation, a 75g oral glucose tolerance test was performed and fasting (FPG) and 2-hr postprandial plasma glucose (2-hr PPPG) concentrations were measured. Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) was defined using WHO 1999 diagnostic criteria. At age 6 years, we measured the child's carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT), carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), aortic augmentation index (AIx) and blood pressure (BP). Association of maternal glycaemia during pregnancy with cardiovascular risk markers in their children were analysed using multiple linear and logistic regressions.

RESULTS
Analysis were performed on 479 mother-child dyads. Higher maternal FPG was associated with higher cIMT and in male, higher cfPWV in the offspring (adjusted β [CI 95%], cIMT: 0.08 per 10mm increase [0.02; 0.15], cfPWV: 0.36 m/s [0.01; 0.70]). Higher 2-hr PPPG was associated with higher cfPWV and AIx. GDM was associated with higher AIx. No association was found between maternal glycaemia and their offspring blood pressure.

CONCLUSIONS
among mothers without pre-existing diabetes, higher glycaemia during pregnancy was associated with mild structural and functional vascular changes in their children at age 6 years across a continuum. These results support the necessity to monitor maternal glycaemia during pregnancy even in absence of pre-existing diabetes or diagnosed gestational diabetes.


The article describes causality and its impact of the quality of accrual accounting implementation. Using survey method, descriptive and verification, research conducted in 60 government ministries and agencies of the Republic of Indonesia as the unit of analysis involving the Finance Bureau, Finance Division, and Accounting Sub-Section as a unit observation, as well: Chief of Ministry Bureau, Chief of Financial Officer, Chief of Accounting Sub-section and the Staff of the Accounting System as a responder agencies. Data used consisted of secondary and primary data collected through questionnaires and were tested by SEM PLS.
The results showed that: (1) managerial has positive effect to the quality accrual accounting implementation, (2) the quality of accrual accounting implementation has positive effect to the perceived usefulness in decision making, and (3) managerial competence has positive effect to perceived usefulness in decision making quality through the quality of accrual accounting implementation.