Burning and mowing are two of the most common grassland disturbances across millions of hectares worldwide, but uncertainty remains about when and why these disturbances increase plant production. One of the main hypotheses for increased plant production is that disturbances increase soil temperature in the early growing season and thereby increase plant growth. I tested this hypothesis using a multi-decade study of the frequency (annual or quadrennial) and season (spring, summer, or autumn) of reconstructed tallgrass prairie burning and mowing. To determine plant production, I measured aboveground biomass during three periods of the 2015 growing season: (1) prior to mid-May; (2) mid-May to early July; and (3) early July to the end of the growing season in late September. I also measured soil temperatures from May 2014 to January 2016. This unique dataset allows a detailed picture of when burning and mowing are increasing plant production and whether these increases are likely caused by soil temperatures. I found that, compared to other treatments, autumn burning and mowing similarly increased plant production from the beginning of the growing season to mid-May (autumn disturbances increased production from 37 to 77 g/m) and, compared to other treatments, both autumn and spring burning and mowing similarly increased plant production from mid-May to early July (autumn and spring disturbances increased production from 363 to 439 g/m). Mowing had little effect on soil temperature but burning increased average daily maximum soil temperature at 2.5 cm depth by 6.4°C in the month after burning. Overall, these results suggest that burning did not increase early growing season plant production due to increased soil temperature, given that mowing similarly affected plant production but did not similarly affect soil temperature. I explore alternate explanations for changes in plant production, including increased light and nutrient availability, and decreased detritus.


The photocycle of rhenium carbonyl complexes, type facial-[Re(L)(CO)3(diimine)]n [L=halide / n=0, L=4-Ethyl-pyridine (Etpy)- Imidazole (ImH) /n=+1, diimine= bpy , 10- phenanthroline (phen), 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-bpy (dmb)] was studied using a set of ultrafast spectroscopic techniques: Fluorescence up-conversion, transient absorption and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Relaxation of the initially excited singlet charge transfer (CT) b1A' state was investigated using fluorescence up-conversion (FlUC). The excited b1A' state undergoes intersystem crossing (ISC) simultaneously to two triplet states (a3A'' and b3A'') with a time constant τ1 in the 85-160 fs range that depends on the ligand L. An internal conversion process between the involved triplet states was found to occur with a solvent dependant lifetime τ2 of ∼500 fs in CH3CN and ∼1.4 ps in DMF. Femtosecond transient absorption measurements of the bpy-containing complexes revealed two processes. The first one, occurring in the same time range as the internal conversion measured using FlUC, also showed a solvent dependence. We attribute it to vibrational and electronic relaxation as well as solvation leading to population of the a3A'' state. The second strongly solvent-dependant process, is manifested mainly by a continuous rise of the bpy- absorption band at 370 nm. We assign it to reorganization within a supramolecular cluster consisting of the [Re(L)(CO)3(bpy)]n chromophore and several strongly interacting local solvent molecules, probably intercalated between the ligands. In this series of complexes, theory predicts that the ligand (L) is important in tuning the character of the lowest excited state. For an electron-rich L ligand, the time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations characterize the lowest CT state as a metal-ligand-to-ligand-charge-transfer (MLLCT) state which leads to the reduction of the diimine ligand. To confirm this prediction and to extract structural information about the excited state, we used X-ray absorption spectroscopy. We first characterized the ground state by static measurements at the Re L3 and the Br K edges of the Re(Br)(CO)3bpy complex. Picosecond X-ray absorption measurements of the excited complex revealed a charge transfer from both the Re and the Br sites, confirming thus the mixed excited state character. These results constitute the first evidence about charge transfer from a monoatomic ligand containing Re complex. The excited state structure was also extracted by an analysis of the XANES and EXAFS spectra at the Re L3 edge. It involved contraction of the Re-N and Re-Br bond distances, and elongation of the Re-C distance, supporting thus the MLLCT character. The structural analysis confirms the prediction from the TD-DFT calculations.


Obesity has become huge health problem in the entire world. In Sri Lanka, the prevalence of obesity is estimated to be 20.3% in men and 36.5% in women in four provinces. Further, the highest prevalence rate in Western Province, especially in Colombo was estimated to be 32.2%, among adults. Obesity is associated with osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, gall stones, and hiatus hernia. In addition to this obesity is related to numerous other problems, such as menstrual and mental disorders and varicose vein etc. According to the concept of Unani four treatment modalities are there; they are known as Dieto therapy (Ilaj Bil Ghiza), Pharmaco therapy (Ilaj Bil Dawa), Regimental therapy (Ilaj Bit Tadbeer) and Surgery (Ilaj Bil Yad). Biomarkers such as Lipid profile (VLDL, LDL, HDL And Serum triglycerides), Haemoglobin percentage, SGPT and SC (Serum Creatinine) were considered. Blood sample analysis was performed at NATH (National Ayurvedic Teaching Hospital), Borella, National Diabetic Centre, Rajagiriya and Asiri Hospitals Ltd. According to Unani or Greco-Arabic medical concept, improper digestion may play a main role to cause obesity. Improper digestion was corrected by using a 'spice' mixture made by Natural Food Additives (NFA), which possesses the actions of carminative, digestive and strengthens the gastro-intestinal tract. The preparation of 'spice' mixture included Natural Food Additives (NFA). They are Cumin (Cuminum cyminum), Garlic (Allium sativum), Curry Leaves (Murraya koenigii), Ceylon Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) and Black Pepper (Piper nigram). Studies revealed that waist circumferences (WC) is closely linked to CV disease risk factors. Also, WHO Expert Committee on Obesity in Asian and Pacific populations suggested that revised cutoff points for WC: 90 cm for men and 80 cm for women to identify patients with abdominal obesity. South Asians are more prone to insulin resistance and dyslipidaemic state of abdominal obesity. Study concluded that the intervention of 'spice' mixture reduces obesity and the effective mind calm exercises would give more beneficial effect in weight reduction.


Power consumption and speed are the main criteria in designing comparator for analog-to-digital converter (ADC).  This paper presents an optimized low voltage low power dynamic comparator which is robust to process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations with adequate speed.  The comparator circuit was designed using 0.18µm CMOS technology with low voltage supply of 0.8V.  The method used to verify the robustness of the comparator circuit across 45 PVT is presented.  The circuit is simulated with 10% voltage supply variation, five process corners and temperature variation from 0°C to 100°C. The simulation result show that the proposed comparator circuit achieved significant reduction of power consumption and delay during worst case condition compared to dynamic comparator proposed from previous researchers.


Background microRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are small noncoding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and fine-tune gene functions. A global repression in miRNAs expression in different types of human tumors, after exposure to cigarette-smoke, or to the hormone estrogen, was shown to be associated with guanine (G) enrichment in the terminal loops (TLs) of their precursors. Methods we integrated the G content of miRNA mature forms and precursor miRNA terminal loops with their described function in the literature, as indicated by PubMed database. Gene Ontology term analysis described the pathways in which the G enriched miRNA targets are involved. Results we show here an association between the relative G enrichment of precursor miRNAs TLs and their tendency to act as tumor suppressive miRs in human lung and breast cancers. Another association was observed between the high G content of the miRNAs 5-mature forms and their tendency to act as oncomiRs. Conclusions the results support previous findings suggesting that the G sequence content is an important feature determining miRNAs expression and function, and open the way for future cancer investigations in this direction.


The identification of mutations that enhance antibody affinity while maintaining high antibody specificity and stability is a time-consuming and laborious process. Here, we report an efficient methodology for systematically and rapidly enhancing the affinity of antibody variable domains while maximizing specificity and stability using novel synthetic antibody libraries. Our approach first uses computational and experimental alanine scanning mutagenesis to identify sites in the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) that are permissive to mutagenesis while maintaining antigen binding. Next, we mutagenize the most permissive CDR positions using degenerate codons to encode wild-type residues and a small number of the most frequently occurring residues at each CDR position based on natural antibody diversity. This mutagenesis approach results in antibody libraries with variants that have a wide range of numbers of CDR mutations, including antibody domains with single mutations and others with tens of mutations. Finally, we sort the modest size libraries (~10 million variants) displayed on the surface of yeast to identify CDR mutations with the greatest increases in affinity. Importantly, we find that single-domain (VHH) antibodies specific for the α-synuclein protein (whose aggregation is associated with Parkinson's disease) with the greatest gains in affinity (>5-fold) have several (four to six) CDR mutations. This finding highlights the importance of sampling combinations of CDR mutations during the first step of affinity maturation to maximize the efficiency of the process. Interestingly, we find that some natural diversity mutations simultaneously enhance all three key antibody properties (affinity, specificity, and stability) while other mutations enhance some of these properties (e.g., increased specificity) and display trade-offs in others (e.g., reduced affinity and/or stability). Computational modeling reveals that improvements in affinity are generally not due to direct interactions involving CDR mutations but rather due to indirect effects that enhance existing interactions and/or promote new interactions between the antigen and wild-type CDR residues. We expect that natural diversity mutagenesis will be useful for efficient affinity maturation of a wide range of antibody fragments and full-length antibodies.


Abstract—The influence of the geometric parameters of trapezoidal labyrinth channel on the emitter discharge is investigated in this work. The impact of the dentate angle, the dentate spacing, and the dentate height are studied among the geometric parameters of the labyrinth channel. Numerical simulations of the water flow movement are performed according to central cubic composite design using Commercial codes GAMBIT and FLUENT. Inlet pressure of the dripper is set up to be 1 bar. The objective of this paper is to derive a mathematical model of the emitter discharge depending on the dentate angle, the dentate spacing, the dentate height of the labyrinth channel. As a result, the obtained mathematical model is a second-order polynomial reporting 2-way interactions among the geometric parameters. The dentate spacing has the most important and positive influence on the emitter discharge, followed by the simultaneous impact of the dentate spacing and the dentate height. The dentate angle in the observed interval has no significant effect on the emitter discharge. The obtained model can be used as a basis for a future emitter design.


A combination of endoscope and high-pressure saline irrigation system was tested in the occlusion of experimental aneurysms, and angioplasty and fibrinolysis of vascular occlusive lesions in canine femoral arteries. Endoscopy provided detailed information about the aneurysmal orifice and lumen and aided balloon placement and detachment. Endoscopy visualized the dynamic changes accompany ing thrombolysis and the fine intimal injury due to angioplasty invisible on angiography. Vascular en doscopy is valuable for pre-, intra-, and postoperative evaluation of intravascular interventions.


The real advantage of receiving a Southern Agricultural Economics Association Lifetime Achievement award is the ability to make this presentation and have it published without having to deal with editors and referees. This provides a certain license of freedom to abstract outside the box without being constrained by your peers. So in this vein, consider the following myths and predictions concerning biofuels. These myths are generally consistent with the Grunwald's (2009) seven myths about alternative energy.


OBJECTIVES--To study effects of time, sex, ethnic origin, and area of residence on prevalence of asthma in Israeli adolescents. DESIGN--Retrospective survey of asthma from computerised medical draft records of conscripts examined up to the end of 1989. SETTING--Five regional centres in Israel. SUBJECTS--443 186 conscripts (262 836 males and 180 350 females) aged 17-18 who were born over a nine year period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Asthma determined by medical history, physical examination, and lung function tests at rest and after exercise. RESULTS--Asthma was more prevalent in males than females (26.5/1000 v 21.4/1000, relative risk 1.25 (95% confidence interval 1.19 to 1.32)). Subjects were split into three groups according to year of birth, and prevalence of asthma increased over time from 18/1000 to 24/1000 to 36/1000 (risk of asthma 0.56 (0.54 to 0.59) for first birth group relative to last birth group and 0.69 (0.66 to 0.72) for second group relative to last group). Risk of asthma was also affected by ethnic origin (highest for Western origin and lowest for north African origin, relative risk 1.63 (1.56 to 1.71)) and area of residence (highest in the central coastal region--risk of 1.24 (1.19 to 1.30) relative to the north coastal region--and lowest in inland areas--risk of 0.67 (0.64 to 0.70) relative to north coastal region). CONCLUSIONS--Prevalence of asthma in Israel is increasing and is higher in males, in people of Western origin, and in those living in the most industrialised coastal region.


: A 4-year-old Santa Gertrudis cow had epistaxis and loud nasal sounds associated with nasal granulomas. Multiple cutaneous granulomatous nodules were on the ears and single ones on the tail, vulva and thigh. Helminthosporium sp. was isolated from cultured lesions; two isolates from the ear and nasal mucosa were identified as H. speciferum. Tissue sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin contained rounded forms ranging from 5X5 micronM to 12X19 micronM; an indistinct hyaline wall surrounded granules and vacuoles of varying size. Occasional transverse septa were present. Periodic acid-Schiff, Gomori's Methenamine Silver and Gridley's Fungus stain treated sections contained numerous smaller pleomorphic buds and a few branching septate hyphae attached to the rounded forms. Brown pigmentation of the wall was not a consistent finding.


Johann Gottfried Eckard was a self-trained composer and keyboardist studying with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Versuch while he lived in Augsburg. Eckard traveled to Paris with the keyboard instrument builder, Johann Andreas Stein, in 1758 and settled in France for the rest of his life. Eckard only composed eight keyboard sonatas and a set of variations on the Menuet d'Exaudet. He published his works during the transitional period from harpsichord to fortepiano. The eight keyboard sonatas incorporated variations of musical styles which included Italian sonata, galant, and empfindsamer stil. His keyboard sonatas influenced his contemporaries including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Schobert. Eckard was one of the early fortepiano composers in France and tried to promote the new instrument, but wrote in the Foreword of six sonatas (op.1), that they were suitable for the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano. The six sonatas of op.1 were published in 1763, two years after fortepiano was advertised for sale in the local newspaper. In 1768, the fortepiano was used in a public concert for the first time in Paris. In the aspect of performance practice, both harpsichord and fortepiano used juxtapose during the transitional period, even though the music would sound better on the fortepiano especially the slow movements in Eckard's sonatas. The early stage of French fortepiano building was influenced by German keyboard instrument builders. In addition to building harpsichords, French builders, Taskin and Goermann, also started building fortepianos. Eckard was highly respected as both a composer and a performer from music critics in his time.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to model group advertising decisions, which are the collective decisions of every single advertiser within the set of advertisers who are competing in the same auction or vertical industry, and examine resulting market outcomes, via a proposed simulation framework named Experimental Platform for Search Engine Advertising (EXP-SEA) supporting experimental studies of collective behaviors in the context of search engine advertising.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors implement the EXP-SEA to validate the proposed simulation framework, also conduct three experimental studies on the aggregate impact of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), the competition level and strategic bidding behaviors. EXP-SEA supports heterogeneous participants, various auction mechanisms and also ranking and pricing algorithms.

Findings
Findings from the three experiments show that both the market profit and advertising indexes such as number of impressions and number of clicks are larger when the eWOM effect is present, meaning social media certainly has some effect on search engine advertising outcomes, the competition level has a monotonic increasing effect on the market performance, thus search engines have an incentive to encourage both the eWOM among search users and competition among advertisers, and given the market-level effect of the percentage of advertisers employing a dynamic greedy bidding strategy, there is a cut-off point for strategic bidding behaviors.

Originality/value
This is one of the first research works to explore collective group decisions and resulting phenomena in the complex context of search engine advertising via developing and validating a simulation framework that supports assessments of various advertising strategies and estimations of the impact of mechanisms on the search market.


Background: The anion transporters SLC26A6 (PAT1) and SLC26A7, transporting at least chloride, oxalate, sulfate and bicarbonate, show a distinct expression and function in different mammalian species. They are expressed in kidney, but their exact localization in human kidney has not been studied. We therefore examined SLC26A6 and A7 expression in human kidneys. Methods: The localization of SLC26A6 and A7 in different segments of human nephrons was studied by RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry by comparing to the tubular markers PNRA, CD10, Tamm-Horsfall antigen, high molecular weight cytokeratin, CK7, AQP2 and H+V-ATPase. Results: In human kidney, SLC26A6 is expressed in distal segments of proximal tubules, parts of the thin and thick ascending limbs of Henle's loops, macula densa, distal convoluted tubules and a subpopulation of intercalated cells of collecting ducts. SLC26A7 is expressed in extraglomerular mesangial cells and a subpopulation of intercalated cells of collecting ducts. Conclusion: Our results show that in human kidney SLC26A6 and A7 have a distinct, partially overlapping expression in distal segments of nephrons. The distribution partly differs from that found previously in rodent kidneys.


The processor-to-memory communication on system-level buses dissipates a significant amount of the overall power in microprocessor-based architectures. A methodology has been set up to evaluate the effects of both encoding schemes and multi-level cache memories on the power consumption associated with the system-level address and data buses of a high-end computer system based on the PowerPC604e architecture. The main goal is to evaluate how different values of cache parameters (cache size, block size, associativity write strategy, and block replacement policy) and the introduction of bus encoding techniques, at the different levels of the memory hierarchy, affect the system-level power dissipation.


What does a name mean in translation? Quine argued, famously, that the meaning of gavagai is indeterminate until you learn the language that uses that word to refer to its object. The case is similar with scientific texts, especially if they are older; historical. Because the meanings of terms can drift over time, so too can the meanings that inform experiments and theory. As can a life's body of work and its contributions. Surely, these are also the meanings of a name; shortcuts to descriptions of the author who produced them, or of their thought (or maybe their collaborations). We are then led to wonder whether the names of scientists may also mean different things in different languages. Or even in the same language. This problem is examined here by leveraging the insights of historians of psychology who found that the meaning of "Wundt" changed in translation: his experimentalism was retained, and his Völkerpsychologie lost, so that what Wundt meant was altered even as his work—and his name—informed the disciplining of Modern Psychology as an experimental science. Those insights are then turned here into a general argument, regarding meaning-change in translation, but using a quantitative examination of the translations of Piaget's books from French into English and German. It is therefore Piaget who has the focus here, evidentially, but the goal is broader: understanding and theorizing "the mistaken mirror" that reflects only what you can think to see (with implications for replication and institutional memory).


We consider the scenario of online learning with sleeping experts, where not all experts are available at each round, and analyze the general framework of learning with feedback graphs, where the loss observations associated with each expert are characterized by a graph. A critical assumption in this framework is that the loss observations and the set of sleeping experts at each round are independent. We first extend the classical sleeping experts algorithm of Kleinberg et al. (2008) to the feedback graphs scenario, and prove matching upper and lower bounds for the sleeping regret of the resulting algorithm under the independence assumption. Our main contribution is then to relax this assumption, present a more general notion of sleeping regret, and derive a general algorithm with strong theoretical guarantees. We apply this new framework to the important scenario of online learning with abstention, where a learner can elect to abstain from making a prediction at the price of a certain cost. We empirically validate our algorithm against multiple online abstention algorithms on several real-world datasets, showing substantial performance improvements.


We present a fast calculation of the electromagnetic field near the focus of an objective with a high numerical aperture (NA). Instead of direct integration, the vectorial Debye diffraction integral is evaluated with the fast Fourier transform for calculating the electromagnetic field in the entire focal region. We generalize this concept with the chirp z transform for obtaining a flexible sampling grid and an additional gain in computation speed. Under the conditions for the validity of the Debye integral representation, our method yields the amplitude, phase and polarization of the focus field for an arbitrary paraxial input field on the objective. We present two case studies by calculating the focus fields of a 40 x 1.20 NA water immersion objective for different amplitude distributions of the input field, and a 100 x 1.45 NA oil immersion objective containing evanescent field contributions for both linearly and radially polarized input fields.


Falls account for significant morbidity and mortality in the older adult population. A comprehensive fall evaluation (CFE) is proposed, particularly for use in recurrent fallers, those who seek medical attention for a fall, and those with a gait and/or balance disorder. The CFE focuses on key factors in the medical and fall history, review of systems, and physical examination. Interventions utilize a multifactorial model, although balance exercise may be the most critical component. While some components may be marginally successful when presented individually as an intervention (such as correction of vision impairment or environmental hazard reduction), when presented together, fall risk can be significantly reduced.


In this paper we explore a new theory of discourse structure that stresses the role of purpose and processing in discourse. In this theory, discourse structure is composed of three separate but interrelated components: the structure of the sequence of utterances (called the linguistic structure), a structure of purposes (called the intentional structure), and the state of focus of attention (called the attentional state). The linguistic structure consists of segments of the discourse into which the utterances naturally aggregate. The intentional structure captures the discourse-relevant purposes, expressed in each of the linguistic segments as well as relationships among them. The attentional state is an abstraction of the focus of attention of the participants as the discourse unfolds. The attentional state, being dynamic, records the objects, properties, and relations that are salient at each point of the discourse. The distinction among these components is essential to provide an adequate explanation of such discourse phenomena as cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions.The theory of attention, intention, and aggregation of utterances is illustrated in the paper with a number of example discourses. Various properties of discourse are described, and explanations for the behavior of cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions are explored.This theory provides a framework for describing the processing of utterances in a discourse. Discourse processing requires recognizing how the utterances of the discourse aggregate into segments, recognizing the intentions expressed in the discourse and the relationships among intentions, and tracking the discourse through the operation of the mechanisms associated with attentional state. This processing description specifies in these recognition tasks the role of information from the discourse and from the participants' knowledge of the domain.


Summertime temperatures have increased 1°F to 2°F per decade in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, during the past forty years. At the same time, vegetated land cover in Tucson has diminished by 9 percent, as lush landscapes were replaced with gravel and fewer plants to reduce water and maintenance costs. Water conservation policies and landscape ordinances can exacerbate urban warming by encouraging this replacement of vegetated surfaces with rock. Data derived from computer simulations using three full-sized landscapes around identical buildings in Phoenix and Tucson indicated that these "zeroscapes" were uneconomical compared with "xeriscapes," which use low-water-use plants located for summer shade. Projected total energy-water savings for the xeriscapes ranged from $117 to $124 (15 to 22 percent) in Phoenix and $38 to $59 (8 to 15 percent) in Tucson, compared with the zeroscapes. "Mesiscapes" in Tucson, which contain large lawns and high-water-use plants, were $106 to $128 (26 to 34 percent) more costly than zeroscapes. However, in Phoenix, evapotranspirational cooling from strategically located turf areas and high-water-use plants could be cost-effective at current utility prices. Landscape ordinance modifications are presented to promote energy conservation and urban heat-island mitigation, as well as water savings.


On contract with the Social Security Administration, a special steering committee of the institute of Medicine was appointed to (1) study and report on equitable methods of reimbursement for physician's services under Titles 18 and 19 in teaching hospitals; (2) determine to what extent funds from the act are supporting training in specialties in excess supply; (3) determine how funds could be expended to support a more rational distribution of physician manpower both geographically and by specialty; (4) determine the extent these federal funds are being used to encourage teaching programs attracting disproportionate numbers of foreign medical graduates; and (5) determine the extent to which these funds are expended to meet the salaries of interns and residents. Ninety-six hospitals were field studied and 1,400 hospitals studied by questionnaire. These studies have now been completed and reports forwarded to Congress, the Health, Education and Welfare Department (HEW), and the Social Security Administration.


We investigate differences in timing errors in a task that imitated the movement sequence of a cello player. We trained a group of 17 young adults to perform a sequence of linear reversal movements of different lengths but with a constant movement time. Thus, each segment required the movement speed to be changed. The sequence had to be performed with fluidity, except for a �no-movement� segment that was embedded in the movement series. Feedback on timing was given for each segment. Results from this experiment show that the no-movement segment is more variable than any of the movement segments. There was no significant correlation between the timing errors of the successive movements and the timing error of the pause. These results provide further evidence in favor of two distinct timing processes: one used for continuous movements and one used for no-movement and discontinuous movements.


This first of Chaplin's two published autobiographies has been nearly inaccessible until now. Covering the period of Chaplin's life from his obscure birth to his signing, in 1916, of a $670,000 contract with the Mutual Film Corporation, the book has usually been dismissed as a ghost-written and unreliable fabrication. Chaplin biographer John McCabe, however, observes that 'at times the book is certainly accurate in spirit if not in detail.' The republication of "Charlie Chaplin's Own Story" enables readers to discover how at the age of twenty-seven 'the most popular man in the world' wished to be viewed by a public who knew him almost exclusively as the indefatigable Tramp. This work is the most elaborate and intriguing of Chaplin's fictionalized self-portraits. Professor Geduld's detailed introduction provides an authoritative account of Chaplin's theatrical career, which Chaplin covers erratically. Extensive annotations deal with little-known aspects of Chaplin's early life.


it would be prescribed for all patients, and detailed staging by axillary dissection, even by node sampling, would be unnecessary as well as harmful. Although I do not share the philosophy of those who regard limited axillary node sampling as essential for selecting patients for supplementary chemotherapy, I can understand why they believe it to be useful. Nevertheless, I cannot support a return to routine axillary clearance. Regional lymph nodes have an important immune function,7 while clinical experience proves that there is virtue in a wait and see policy. If treatment of the nodes should later prove necessary survival will not have been prejudiced by the delay. So why disturb those nodes at an early stage because of surgeons' needless anxiety? Moreover, overenthusiastic node investigation can certainly bedevil published results without the slightest overall benefit.8 When certain other treatments were fashionable we learnt that there was no advantage in oophorectomy or other forms of endocrine ablation at the time of initial treatment. Once this lesson was learnt patients were saved from excessive primary intervention and then calmly followed up until there was indication for further measures. Alas, with the introduction of more and more chemotherapeutic weapons there is a regrettable tendency for the management of some patients with cancer to become redolent of a surgical and pharmacological steeplechase to the grave. Fentiman and Mansel refer to a press release from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in which they made "a conservative estimate of 3000 women being undertreated annually,"9 a claim which I regard as unjustified. Far from the survival and morbidity of patients with breast cancer being prejudiced by alleged undertreatment (with methods that have a proved track record against more radical measures), there is a much more widespread tendency nowadays for many unfortunate women to be overtreated. I defend the more kindly treatment of breast cancer, deplore any return to routine axillary clearance, and condemn the unjustified accusation that patient survival is being prejudiced.


Elaborate case-comment (6 pages) on the most important ruling in patent law in The Netherlands in the last five years. It addresses the ruling of the Dutch Supreme Court 25 May 2012 AGA v. Occlutech. The paper contains a historical, transnational and comparative approach, tracing back the origins of some of the recent controversy on claim construction in the Netherlands, while also reflecting on recent literature and case-law in Germany and the United Kingdom. The author contrasts and compares the Dutch approach on claim construction with the new developments of the Revised Protocol of art. 69 of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The paper sets out and summarizes the Dutch standard for claim construction, touching on important elements in legal practice such as the impact of (a) the two-part form of a claim, (b) the file wrapper and patent prosecution history, (c) equivalence and (d) whether the degree of inventive step or innovative character of the patent, warrants a bigger scope of protection. It also compares the outcome of the decisions on the same patent between the same parties in Germany and the United Kingdom AGA and Occlutech. The paper concludes with looking back on the achievements of the EPC, while also looking forward to the new legislative developments surrounding the Unitary Patent and the Agreement for a Unified Patent Court.Note to readers: the case-comment appeared in a leading IP review in The Netherlands and is therefore in Dutch, but should be eligible for e.g. Google Translation. The PDF also contains the ruling of the Dutch Supreme Court and the advisory opinion of the Advocate-General.


BACKGROUND
Adjuvant therapy is commonly used in pemphigus to mitigate the high morbidity and mortality associated with the use of corticosteroids and improve disease control. However, these adjuvant agents are not without adverse effects of their own, including an increased risk of malignancy with the use of oral immunosuppressives. Intravenous pulse cyclophosphamide, which may be more efficacious and less toxic than oral immunosuppressives, has been used successfully in the treatment of pemphigus.

OBJECTIVE
To review 9 patients with severe or previously recalcitrant pemphigus who were treated with intravenous pulse cyclophosphamide therapy.

RESULTS
Six of the 9 patients responded to therapy, with 2 patients achieving remission from skin lesions. Five patients were able to decrease their daily dose of prednisone, and 1 was able to discontinue the use of prednisone completely. Most patients experienced minimal or no adverse effects.

CONCLUSIONS
Intravenous pulse cyclophosphamide may be an alternative treatment option in patients with pemphigus recalcitrant to standard therapy. The decreased cumulative dose of cyclophosphamide observed with monthly pulse doses may reduce the incidence of secondary malignancies when compared with continuous oral therapy. Controlled trials are needed to further evaluate the efficacy of this mode of therapy.


In this paper, a new unsupervised learning algorithm, namely Nonnegative Discriminative Feature Selection (NDFS), is proposed. To exploit the discriminative information in unsupervised scenarios, we perform spectral clustering to learn the cluster labels of the input samples, during which the feature selection is performed simultaneously. The joint learning of the cluster labels and feature selection matrix enables NDFS to select the most discriminative features. To learn more accurate cluster labels, a nonnegative constraint is explicitly imposed to the class indicators. To reduce the redundant or even noisy features, l2,1-norm minimization constraint is added into the objective function, which guarantees the feature selection matrix sparse in rows. Our algorithm exploits the discriminative information and feature correlation simultaneously to select a better feature subset. A simple yet efficient iterative algorithm is designed to optimize the proposed objective function. Experimental results on different real world datasets demonstrate the encouraging performance of our algorithm over the state-of-the-arts.


BACKGROUND
Few studies have been conducted to explore the associations of fatness and fitness during adolescence with risk factors of metabolic syndrome (MetS) during adulthood, particularly in Asians.

METHODS
Adolescent anthropometric and fitness data were collected during the participants' high school years (N = 15,896) and their corresponding health examination data from adulthood were taken from the National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) in Korea. A total of 1,006 participants (6.3%) were analyzed in the study.

RESULTS
The odds ratios (ORs) for being overweight (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) during adulthood was 11.87 (95% CI: 4.19-33.59) in men and 8.44 (95% CI: 1.78-40.02) in women, respectively, in the fattest group vs. the leanest group during adolescence. Participants with low fitness levels during adolescence were more likely to be overweight and have abnormal MetS risk factors in adulthood vs. those with high fitness levels. Joint exposure analyses of fatness and fitness showed that male participants who were more fat and unfit during adolescence had 4.11 (95% CI: 1.19-14.14) and 3.04 (95% CI: 1.17-11.12) times higher risk of having abnormal glucose and MetS risks during adulthood, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Fatness and fitness levels during adolescence appear to be significantly associated with the MetS risk factors and prevalence in adulthood in Koreans.


This article outlines a different way to think about building a retirement income strategy, which moves dramatically away from the concepts of safe withdrawal rates and failure rates. The focus is how to best meet two competing financial objectives for retirement: satisfying spending goals and preserving financial assets. The process described here focuses on allocating assets between a portfolio of stocks and bonds, inflation-adjusted and fixed single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs), and immediate variable annuities with guaranteed living benefit riders (VA/GLWBs). This process incorporates unique client circumstances, bases asset return assumptions on current market conditions, uses a consistent fee structure for a fair comparison between income tools, operationalizes the concept of diminishing returns from spending by incorporating a minimum needs threshold and a lifestyle spending goal, uses survival probabilities to calculate outcomes, and incorporates client preferences to balance the competing financial objectives for the final choice among the collection of allocations that define the efficient frontier for retirement income. Results are presented for a 65-year old couple whose lifestyle needs require a 4% inflation-adjusted withdrawal rate from retirement date assets. Their efficient frontier generally consists of combinations of stocks and fixed SPIAs. Perhaps surprisingly, bonds, inflation-adjusted SPIAs, and VA/GLWBs do not serve a useful role in the couple's optimal retirement income portfolio.


This paper describes the first three years of a community outreach service for psychogeriatric assessment and treatment, provided by a multidisciplinary team in an urban area. As one component of a comprehensive geriatric psychiatry service within a general hospital, this program provides a long-term link between patient, family, community agencies and hospital. The paper describes the functioning of the team, including its relationships with other hospital and community services. An overview is given of patient characteristics, referral sources, services provided, and outcomes at discharge from the program. Educational opportunities for students and staff in various health professions and settings are discussed.


This manual describes the development of the Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Adolescents (CP QOL-Teen), a condition-specific quality of life (QOL) questionnaire for adolescents with cerebral palsy aged 13 to 18 years. CP QOL-Teen extends on the Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children (CP QOL-Child), developed for children with cerebral palsy aged 4-12 years. The CP QOL-Teen was developed by a multidisciplinary team of clinical and adolescent health researchers, in collaboration with parents, and adolescents with cerebral palsy.Following the development of the Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children (CP QOL-Child) we received many requests for an instrument that captures the quality of life of adolescents with cerebral palsy. The CP QOL-Adolescent is a measure of quality of life for adolescents with cerebral palsy that can be used by researchers, clinicians, health professionals and educators to measure and assess changes in adolescent's quality of life. This manual provides only basic information about administering and scoring the CP QOL-Teen. Readers interested in background literature, development of the CP QOL-Teen and psychometric properties should refer to academic publications.


The present invention relates to an antiviral composition for use as antiviral agent from natural product. The composition comprising an active ingredient with an effective amount of Brassica oleracea L. extract. The composition is having an antiviral ability against herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and also respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).


The potential health hazard of the large amounts of Lead that occurs in canned baby food, domestic water from lead-lined tanks and, in printing and petroleum industries. Lead acetate administration at a does of 8 mg/kg body weight for 21 days resulted a significant increase in adrenal steroidogenic enzyme (Delta5-3beta- HSD) and serum levels of corticosterone, while serum levels of testosterone, FSH, LH and testicular spermatogenesis were decreased in albino rats. But lead-treated rats received exogenous testosterone for the last 14 days of lead treatment, showed prevention of adrenocortical hyperactivity by decreasing adrenal Delta5-3beta-HSD activity and serum level of corticosterone. Testosterone administration also increased serum level of testosterone, FSH and LH along with spermatogenesis. The results suggest that testosterone supplementation in lead-treated rats protects adrenocortical activity and testicular spermatogenesis.


The Service ORiented Computing EnviRonment (SORCER) targets service abstractions for transdisciplinary concurrent engineering with support for true service-oriented (SO) computing. SORCER's models are expressed in a topdown Var-oriented Modeling Language (VML) unified with programs in a bottom-up Exertion-Oriented Language (EOL). In this paper the basic concepts of mogramming are presented. On the one hand, modeling with service variables allows for computational fidelity within multiple types of evaluations. On the other hand, any combination of local and remote services can be described in EOL as a collaborative federation of engineering applications, tools, and utilities. An example of aircraft conceptual design application is given to illustrate how parametric models can participate in service-oriented engineering analyses.


The authors reflect on the outcomes of recent change management projects for introducing technology into Higher Education in the UK and discuss key aspects which have led to success in the increasing use and subsequent embedding of learning technologies in the classroom. They focus on three areas where it is suggested that institutions need to 'get it right' in terms of justifying the expensive introduction of technology into the learning environment: the building and maintaining of the technical infrastructure; the provision of appropriate initial and continuing user support, which includes relating the use of technology to pedagogy; and the management of the impact of change on those who are faced with adapting to different ways of learning and teaching. These are mapped to a set of critical success factors by the authors. The paper investigate these firstly, via a case-study within a technology-focussed university, where its commitment to the enhancement of the student experience through using technology to support assessment and feedback mechanisms has increased. The authors explore how academics were encouraged to become further engaged within the process. Consequently, the use of technology in the classroom was no longer seen as being the preserve of a group of 'enthusiasts' or 'early adopters' but was perceived to be relevant to a wider user group. A further case-study shows how the critical success factors were applied to develop a flexible learning module within a more traditional teaching environment. This paper explores the importance of balancing underlying pedagogical approaches to the introduction of new technologies. It is proposed that while technology can be an excellent tool it should not drive the pedagogy. The aim finally is to ensure that throughout and following a period of change both academics and students can benefit from the appropriate use of technology to enhance learning.


Addressing the scarcity of gender research in management control studies, this study examines whether CEO gender is a significant variable in explaining cross-sectional variation in management control choices after controlling for firm and industry context, for the presence of a board and for the individual CEO's experiences. Using survey data our results reveal an incremental explanatory power for CEO gender with control practices that to a large extent serve a CEO's own managerial decision making, such as action planning and the use of financial performance measures for company target setting and evaluation. We observe no gender effect at all with respect to those controls that are used almost exclusively to communicate with and guide employees (i.e., reward, compensation, and administrative controls). Based on insights from the literature on stereotypical gender role attributes, the results of our study imply that female CEOs sometimes conform to their gender role for controls which serve their own decision making and conform to their leadership role when controls involve communicating, guidance, evaluating, and rewarding. With this study we contribute not only to the control literature, but also more broadly to manager-effect studies by integrating different literatures to provide more insight into when CEO gender matters to explain control choices. We illustrate that differences in context and differences in control purposes wipe out a number of stereotype-driven perceptions.


Aim: HIV-contaminated people are increasingly at risk for cellular lung breakdown, though the increase reflects their heavy use of tobacco remains an open question. Methods: Since 1988, a member of infusion drug clients has been tentatively identified in Baltimore, Maryland, using semi-annual clinics, research center and social information, as a result of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) link to the intravenous experimental study. Our current research was conducted at Mayo Hospital, Lahore from October 2019 to September 2020. The cellular disintegration of the lungs through the connection with the National Demise Index was recognized. Cox relapse of risks was used to examine the cellular lung hazard effects of HIV disease, smoking status, medicines and clinical factors. Results: Among the 2087 members of the "AIDS Link to the Intravenous Experience" study, which was carried out over 19,830 person-years, 54 cell failures in the pulmonary passages were recognized; 15 of these passages involved people infected with HIV. All but one patient (95%) were smokers, who smoked an average of 1.2 packs per day. Mortality due to cell decay in the lungs increased during the period of highly dynamic antiretroviral treatment, in contrast to the exceptionally dynamic antiretroviral treatment period (proportion of mortality rate, 4.9; 99% certainty interval, 1.7-18). After adjusting for age, gender, smoking status, and treatment period, HIV infection was associated with extensive cellular degradation in the lungs (hazard ratio, 3.6; 95% certainty range, 1.6-9.7). Previous lung infections, particularly non-infectious diseases and asthma, have shown patterns of extensive cellular degradation in lung risk. The use of illegal drugs was not associated with extensive cellular degradation in lung risk. In HIV-infected people, smoking remains the most important hazard factor; CD4 cell counts and HIV load are not closely related to extensive cellular degradation in the lungs, and extensive hazard patterns with the use of exceptionally aggressive antiretroviral therapy are not critical. Conclusion: Contamination with HIV is associated with an increased danger of autonomous cellular lung breakdown.


The rapid progress of science and technology has led to an increasing trend of shift in paradigm from the traditional utilization of materials to newer ones, resulting in constant introduction of newer construction techniques and materials to the building industry. Profiled Steel Sheet Dry Board System is an innovative composite construction system. The system is a sandwich-like composite panel consisting of dry board layers (Cemboard) connected to profiled steel sheeting (Bondek II) by self-drilling, self-tapping screws. It can be exploited for a variety of structural purposes. It is very light and therefore easily transportable, and can be erected quickly by unskilled labour. This project is to study the Effect of Jointed Dry board and Overlapped Profiled Steel Sheet in Profiled Steel Sheet Dry Board Walling Unit With Window Opening. The 3 samples were provided which is the size of sample were 1320 mm x 1000 mm. All of sample is tested in one-way in-plane action which the supported at top and bottom edges against lateral displacement. The samples were subjected to axial load. Openings in the panels represent typical window openings. Ultimate loads, cracking patterns and lateral deflections of the panels are studied. Comparison were made between the sample with jointed and without jointed dry board. The parameters measured were ultimate load capacity and deformation patterns. The ultimate load capacity for jointed sample was found to be 333.6 kN, 271.7 kN and 253.5 kN


The intensive care unit (ICU) admits the most severely ill patients, and the goal of the unit can be interpreted as stabilizing patient physiology. Once these patients are discharged from the ICU to a step-down ward, they continue to have their vital signs monitored by nursing staff. Early detection of physiological deterioration has been highlighted as a key step to reduce ICU readmission and improve patient outcomes. Vital signs were collected for a dataset of 98 patients admitted to an ICU and who survived to hospital discharge after their stay on a step-down ward. A model of physiological normality was developed using data from the day of hospital discharge, and patients were retrospectively evaluated throughout their stay using this model. We show that the physiology of patients being cared for in the ICU improves very rapidly in the three days prior to discharge, and furthermore, that this recovery continues during their stay on the ward, albeit at a slower rate.


BACKGROUND
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the energy currency of the body; it takes part in various and indispensable metabolic processes for the maintenance of cell homeostasis, degrading to its hydrolysis product, adenosine diphosphate (ADP). Efficient ways to restore ATP are therefore necessary in the cells. When the cell lacks energy due to ischemic conditions or high ATP demand, phosphocreatine gives its phosphate group to ADP that converts to ATP, in a reaction catalyzed by the enzyme creatine kinase. For this reason, phosphocreatine is utilized as a pharmacological treatment in human diseases that involve a failure of the cellular energy, most notably in coronary artery disease.

OBJECTIVE
Commercially available phosphocreatine is currently synthesized using different methods, each of one characterized by a rather low yield of the final product, probably due to the low reactivity of the guanylating reagent. The aim of this work is to overcome the drawbacks of the synthetic methods currently employed, devising a novel synthetic route to obtain phosphocreatine and phosphocreatine prodrugs in higher yields and purity.

METHOD
To obtain a higher yield of the final product and a lower number of sub-products, this method utilizes a new guanylating agent characterized by high reactivity, endowed with a protecting group t-Boc on one of the two nitrogen atoms of the guanidinic function and a protected phosphate on the other one; that compound is then conjugated with an opportune secondary amine. The obtained product is cleaved first with acidic conditions to obtain the phosphocreatine prodrug (phosphocreatine ethyl ester) and then with an enzymatic method to obtain the phosphocreatine.

RESULT
Have been obtained in good yield and purity as demonstrated by HPLC and mass spectrometry analysis.

CONCLUSION
This novel synthetic route permits to obtain the phosphocreatine molecule in higher yield and purity compared to the methods currently employed with a combination of chemical and enzymatic methods.


Case Report Woman, aged 58. Housewife History: Referred to the Gordon Hospital in December 1963 with a presumptive diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. Following the removal of a gangrenous appendix nine years previously she developed persistent diarrheea with excess of mucus and flatus. March 1963: Her symptoms altered with bright red bleeding per rectum and alternating periods of diarrhcea and constipation. November 1963: She experienced attacks of colicky pain in the left iliac fossa associated with abdominal distension. Her health deteriorated and she lost lt stones.


Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (HS) is a major disease of cattle and buffaloes characterized by an acute, highly fatal septicaemia with high morbidity and mortality. In Asia, HS is caused by Pasteurella multocida serotype B:2 or 6:B. The production of iron regulated outer membrane proteins (IROMPs) is regulated by Fur protein through repression of the expression of the respective genes when complexed with iron. In this study, outer membrane proteins (OMPs) and iron-regulated outer membrane proteins (IROMPs) were prepared by extraction with 1.5 % sarcosyl from a
Pasteurella multocida 6:B local isolate cultured on BHI medium and on a medium supplemented with different concentration of 2,2'-dipyridyl. Outer membrane proteins
from the isolate were characterized by using sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) technique. The approximate size of each OMPs
detected were determined from log of molecular weight and Rf value. A total of 12 polypeptides ranging from 19.2 to 117.4 kDa were observed, including 33 and 37kDa
major OMPs of Pasteurella multocida and two other (117.4 and 91kDa) prominent protein bands. In another study, several primers were designed for amplification around the fu r gene. Sequence analysis from the amplified DNA revealed an additional sequence of 718bp upstream from fu r gene which was unique to the local isolate of Pasteurella multocida 6:B as compared to Pasteurella multocida (PM70). BLAST analysis showed that the sequence possess significant identity towards partial sequence of Pasteurella multocida P934 region 2 capsule biosynthesis gene cluster. The potential of this additional sequence as a specific marker for rapid identification of HS diagnosis in Malaysian outbreak should be considered. A study on the function of this gene should also be carried out to give a better understanding of the specific serotypes that causes HS outbreak in Malaysia.


While the Founding Fathers included a number of checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution as a way of dispersing power across the various branches of the federal government, they made no such allowance regarding the internal makeup of Congress. Specifically, Article I, Section 5, Clause 1 of the Constitution states that "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members. . . ." This clause, in effect, provides each chamber of Congress with the exclusive authority to determine how its membership will be comprised. Thus, when an election is contested, that is, when a dispute arises regarding who is the rightful occupant of a seat after all votes have been counted and a winner announced, the given chamber operates as the sole arbiter, insulated completely from Executive and Judicial pressures or constraints.


The Montreal classification of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) recognizes distinct subgroups based on location of disease, age at onset and behaviour for Crohn's disease (CD) and extent in ulcerative colitis (UC). CD with ileal involvement is in part genetically determined and tends to progress to surgery and to be more refractory to medical therapy compared to colonic disease location. We investigated the association of different aspects of the Montreal classification with the ileal and colonic mucosa-associated microbiota.

 Healthy control (HC) and IBD patients underwent colonoscopy with biopsy samples taken from terminal ileum, ascending and sigmoid colon. Mucosal 16s rRNA gene profiling was analysed and an amplicon sequence variant table was generated and normalized. Patients with prior intestinal resection, IBD-unclassified and recent antibiotic exposure were excluded. Endoscopic activity was defined as a segmental Mayo endoscopic subscore > 0 in UC and a simple endoscopic score > 2 in CD. Blood samples were drawn for genotyping and a weighted genetic risk score (GRS) was built based on 169 IBD risk variants. Pooled ileal and colonic samples were analysed for taxonomic differential abundance (DA) among the variables of the Montreal classification using a linear mixed-effects model (MaAsLin2) with age, sex, biopsy site, endoscopic activity and GRS as covariates. P-values were corrected for false discovery rate (FDR) and < 5% was considered significant.

 A total of 546 biopsy samples from 201 IBD patients and 48 HC were analysed. The characteristics of the cohort and Montreal classification are depicted in the Table. At colonoscopy 168 samples (31.4%) showed endoscopic activity. The multivariate analysis revealed that the genera Agathobacter and Faecalibacterium, as well as the family Ruminococacceae and the order Oscillospirales were significantly reduced in CD with ileal involvement (L1+L3) when compared to either isolated colonic CD (L2), UC (any extent) and HC independent of age, sex, endoscopic activity, biopsy site, and GRS (Figure). Samples from UC and isolated colonic CD patients did not show differences in their microbial profile irrespective of biopsy site. No differences in DA were observed in subgroups based on age at onset and disease behaviour in CD or extent in UC. GRS was not associated with microbial composition.

 These data suggest that CD with ileal involvement (Montreal L1+L3) is a major determinant of the tissue-associated microbial composition in both ileal and colonic mucosa irrespective of variables such as endoscopic activity and GRS. The reduction of several beneficial microbes in CD with ileal involvement might partially explain the more progressive phenotype in such patients.


This study investigated the influence the School Feeding Program (SFP) on pupils' enrolment, attendance and academic performance in primary schools in Njombe districtTanzania. It employed the following three specific objectives: To examine the levels of enrolment before and after the commencement of the school feeding program, to assess the influence of school feeding program on pupils' attendance and to determine the influence of school feeding program on pupils' academic performance. The study was supported by literature from other research studies done on school feeding program and very few from other subject areas. The study employed mixed research approach and adopted descriptive design in order to achieve the aim of the study. Data were collected from six primary schools in Njombe district. It involved a sample of 55 respondents including one District Education Officer (DEO), six head teachers, 12 teachers, 12 chairpersons of school committees, 12 parents and 12 pupils. Participants were selected through stratified random sampling, simple random sampling and purposive sampling. Data collection methods were documentary reviews, questionnaires and interviews. The study findings showed that school feeding program has increased pupils' enrolment, attendance and academic performance. Few schools have been not stable in terms of pupils' enrolment, attendance and academic performance due to parents' negative attitudes towards education, lack of teaching and learning materials, long distance to and from schools, poverty of parents, shortage of teachers, overcrowded classes, political issues and pupils who were orphans. The study recommends that the government through Ministry of Prime Minister's Office Regional Administration and Local Government should improve the infrastructure of the schools by cooperating with other educational stakeholders and encouraging parents to support SFPs by contributing contributions like money and food.


The cytoskeleton plays a key role in maintaining the highly asymmetrical shape and structural polarity of neurons that are essential for neuronal physiology. Cytoskeletal reorganization plays a key role in neuritogenesis. In neurodegenerative diseases, the cytoskeleton is abnormally assembled and impairment of neurotransmission occurs. In Alzheimer's disease, abundant amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles constitute the two major neuropathologic alterations present in the brain. Neurofibrillary tangles are formed of paired helical filaments consisting nearly entirely of the microtubule-associated protein tau. Under normal conditions tau binds to microtubules, stabilizing neuron structure and integrity. Hyperphosphorylation of tau is assumed to be the cause of formation of paired helical filaments. Another example of cytoskeletal abnormalities present in neurodegenerative diseases are the Lewy bodies considered as cytopathologic markers of Parkinson's disease. Lewy bodies are constituted of tubulin, MAP1, and MAP2. Neuronal shape, loss of dendrites and spines, as well as irregular distribution of neuronal elongations occur in specific brain areas of schizophrenic patients. Increase in non-phosphorylated MAP2 and MAP1B at hippocampus has been suggested as responsible for somatodendritic and cytoarchitectural abnormalities found in schizophrenia. In addition, neurofibrillary tangles are more frequent among schizophrenic patients who received pharmacologic antipsychotic treatment. Cumulative evidence suggests that neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric illnesses are associated with cytoskeletal alterations in neurons that, in turn, loose synaptic connectivity and the ability to transmit incoming axonal information to the somatodendritic domain. We will review evidence supporting that the neuronal cytoskeleton is disrupted in neurodegenerative and some psychiatric diseases, and therefore could be a target for drug therapy. In addition, current data indicating that melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland, promotes neuritogenesis through cytoskeletal rearrangements and in addition to the potential therapeutic use of melatonin in neurodegenerative diseases will be discussed.


Abstract. Reliable data on circumsolar radiation, which is caused by scattering of sunlight by cloud or aerosol particles, is becoming more and more important for the resource assessment and design of concentrating solar technologies (CSTs). However, measuring circumsolar radiation is demanding and only very limited data sets are available. As a step to bridge this gap, a method was developed which allows for determination of circumsolar radiation from cirrus cloud properties retrieved by the geostationary satellites of the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) family. The method takes output from the COCS algorithm to generate a cirrus mask from MSG data and then uses the retrieval algorithm APICS to obtain the optical thickness and the effective radius of the detected cirrus, which in turn are used to determine the circumsolar radiation from a pre-calculated look-up table. The look-up table was generated from extensive calculations using a specifically adjusted version of the Monte Carlo radiative transfer model MYSTIC and by developing a fast yet precise parameterization. APICS was also improved such that it determines the surface albedo, which is needed for the cloud property retrieval, in a self-consistent way instead of using external data. Furthermore, it was extended to consider new ice particle shapes to allow for an uncertainty analysis concerning this parameter. We found that the nescience of the ice particle shape leads to an uncertainty of up to 50%. A validation with 1 yr of ground-based measurements shows, however, that the frequency distribution of the circumsolar radiation can be well characterized with typical ice particle shape mixtures, which feature either smooth or severely roughened particle surfaces. However, when comparing instantaneous values, timing and amplitude errors become evident. For the circumsolar ratio (CSR) this is reflected in a mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 0.11 for both employed particle shape mixtures, and a bias of 4 and 11%, for the mixture with smooth and roughend particles, respectively. If measurements with sub-scale cumulus clouds within the relevant satellite pixels are manually excluded, the instantaneous agreement between satellite and ground measurements improves. For a 2-monthly time series, for which a manual screening of all-sky images was performed, MAD values of 0.08 and 0.07 were obtained for the two employed ice particle mixtures, respectively.


Ports represent the starting and ending point of maritime transport. Representing the meeting points of cargo exchange between maritime and other means of transport, they are an indispensable part of transport-logistic chain. Port also have an important role in development of the surrounding/hosting area from economic, social and environmental aspect. In order to operate successfully, a port must work and act in accordance with sustainability – environmentally, economically and socially responsible. The article presents a case study of sustainable coexistence between an economic subject – cargo port and its natural and social surrounding. Examples of port process and operations improvements in light of sustainable development and harmony with local community will be presented.Keywords: port system, local community, sustainable development


Since the Colombo Plan in the early 1950s, food aid has been an important and highly visible component of the Canadian development assistance program. Until the early 1970s, however, the Canadian food aid program was little more than a loosely connected collection of disparate programs designed to meet a host of sometimes conflicting objectives. In the wake of the world food crisis of 1972-75, a growing number of groups began to question the developmental effectiveness of food aid. In response, the Canadian government undertook an extensive review and assessment of its food aid program, which resulted in a series of new policy initiatives designed to change both the substance of food aid programs and the manner in which they were administered. These changes marked a watershed in the history of the Canadian food aid program, setting out the fundamental policy themes that have been consolidated and refined in the 1980s and early 1990s. Mark Charlton examines the evolution of the Canadian food aid program during this critical period of policy reform. Focusing on the rationale of the food aid program, the nature of the planning and programming process, the selection of delivery channels, the make-up of the food aid commodity basket, and the nature of donor-recipient relations, Charlton provides useful insights into the overall objectives and priorities of Canadian foreign policy in the developing world. He also reveals the impact of domestic economic interests, Canadian political culture, bureaucratic politics, and the global food aid regime on the evolution of Canadian aid policies.


BACKGROUND: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and fatal lung disease with an estimated median survival of only 3 years after diagnosis. Recent trials involving pirfenidone and nintedanib show a beneficial effect in the treatment of mild-to-moderate idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Some patients however seem to improve after start of antifibrotics. OBJECTIVE: To assess lung functional evolution of patients, diagnosed with IPF, who started treatment with pirfenidone at a tertiary care hospital in Leuven, Belgium. METHODS: Pulmonary function measurements of 99 patients diagnosed with mild-to-moderate IPF who started on pirfenidone were retrospectively collected from start of treatment until 12 months of follow up at a 3-month interval. During the study period, we compared % predicted forced vital capacity (%FVC) and % predicted diffusing capacity of the lungs for carbon monoxide (%DLCO), RESULTS: An increase in %FVC of 5% was seen in 14 of the 99 patients (14.1%) and 16 patients (16.1%) at 6 and 12 months respectively. An increase with 10% in %FVC was seen 6 patients (6.1%) at 6 months and 10 patients (10.1%) at 12 months. Stable disease, defined as change in %FVC between 5 and -5%, was seen in 37 (37.1%) patients and 25 (25.1%) patients at 6 and 12 months respectively. A similar result was seen in % DLCO as 8 of the 99 patients (8.1%) showed an increased %DLCO at the 6-month interval of more than 15%. That number increased up to 10 patients (10.1%) after 12 months of treatment. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that there is a subgroup of patients who improve on pirfenidone treatment. However, further research is necessary to identify those responders.


The recent court case and state ballot measures regarding mandatory labels for Genetically Modified Organisms ("GMOs") suggest the need for a deeper conversation about the federal framework for regulating biotechnology. What is it about GMOs that consumers feel they have the "right to know?" Why has a generation of federal biotechnology regulation failed to satisfy consumer concerns? Are those concerns irrational, or is the regulatory structure inadequate? This Article argues that many consumer concerns underlying the labeling movement raise important scientific and extrascientific questions that have been apparent since the advent of the technology in the 1980s. Moreover, these concerns persist because the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology has failed to respond to them effectively. The Coordinated Framework was based on statutes that pre-existed the technology and thus poorly fit the unique risks of genetic engineering. Today, genetic engineering is on the verge of a radical shift in technology, a shift that has already begun to burst the seams of those old statutes, leaving agencies with no regulatory authority at all over new products. This Article reviews the evidence behind persistent concerns about GMOs, considers the failures of the Coordinated Framework to address the most valid of those concerns, and canvasses policy questions that Congress must consider to more effectively tailor agency authority to address the risks and to enhance the potential of this rapidly-changing field of technology.


The action and interaction of benzylpenicillin and gentamicin on Streptococcus faecalis was studied using mainly turbidimetric methods. The minimum antibacterial concentration (MAC) of each antibiotic lay considerably below the conventionally determined minimum inhibitory concentration, and levels of the two agents exceeding the MAC were necessary in order to obtain a synergic interaction. Evidence was obtained that gentamicin interfered with bacterial lysis induced by penicillin, and this suggests that the aminoglycoside is responsible for the bactericidal activity of the combination, the role of the penicillin being solely to facilitate access of the aminoglycoside to its target site. Our findings do not, however, fully support the generally held view that the increased permeability of enterococci to aminoglycosides is due to penicillin-induced cell wall damage. 'Persisters'--cells surviving prolonged exposure to the optimum lethal concentration of penicillin--were not killed by subsequent exposure to gentamicin if the penicillin was removed but were killed if the penicillin remained present.


How can we think heritage in a society characterised by the destruction and dispersion of its material and immaterial cultural heritage? In March 2007, a bomb exploded in Al-Mutanabi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling area. Four years after the looting of Baghdad museums, this deadly event embodied destroyed cultural life in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi artists in exile quickly reacted from outside, reviving through their creations the atmosphere of the lost city. Between tribute and testament, their work questions heritage in the (un-) making, through a set of transnational practices. Drawing on interviews conducted with Iraqi artists in exile and on analyses of work related to Al-Mutanabi Street, this paper highlights the simultaneous processes of abstraction and rematerialisation of heritage practices, challenging the idea of heritage as a mark of authenticity.


To the Editor.— In their article ( Arch Dermatol 111:1585, 1975), Carson et al erred when they used the metyrapone test to assess hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis responsiveness to "stress" in patients still receiving triamcinolone acetonide therapy intramuscularly. "Certain precautions should be taken in a metyrapone test. First, the patient should not simultaneously receive drugs that suppress ACTH secretion (exogenous glucocorticosteroids). . . ." 1 That is, the metyrapone test seeks to create "stress" by blocking the endogenous production of cortisol, thus creating a deficiency in circulating glucocorticosteroids. Then the normal HPA axis response is to sense the deficiency, increase the release of ACTH, and, ultimately, increase measurable plasma 11-deoxycortisol. However, if the patient is already receiving significant doses of triamcinolone acetonide, no deficiency can develop and hence no "stress" can occur because metyrapone has no effect on exogenous circulating glucocorticosteroids. Therefore, in the patient receiving treatment, the HPA axis will fail to respond, not


ABSTRACT ABSTRACT ABSTRACT This paper investigates if the managerial work nature modifies the manager's perception regarding the adjustment of Information Technology (IT) to their task. The indicators of managerial work, as experience and frequency of IT use and manager decision-making roles, were based on studies of Vlahos and Ferrat (1998) and Vlahos, Ferratt and Knoepfle (2004) as well as the task technology fit, reasoned from the Task-Technology Fit model (TTF) (Goodhue, 1995). This paper contributes to understanding the IS as a support tool for the tasks that composed the manager's role in the organization. Through an exploratory study conducted with 238 managers, we observed that more increases the experience of the individual with the Information System (IS), greater the adjustment perceived for it, between the technology and the task running; and higher the user access the IS, greater the fit between the technology and their tasks. As for the decision-making roles, we identified the roles of manager/ entrepreneur and conflict manager are those who envisage a better adaptation of technology to their work, getting through the IS support for the work to proceed more efficiently.


The tools, methods, and techniques used to create business architecture are often quite different from those used in developing software architecture. This "impedance mismatch" or gap is aggravated by volatile business requirements that need to be satisfied in operational systems. Bridging this gap not only allows a more seamless transition and faster time to market, but also enables and empowers business analysts to contribute their deep subject matter expertise at many phases of the software-development life cycle, a critical aid in fruitful application development. This paper presents a case study of a project with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which explored the potential for reducing duplication of effort among patent offices by sharing work products. IBM provided an innovative method to support the analysis, the "business compiler," a tool that implements Grammar-oriented Object Design (GOOD). GOOD is a method for creating and maintaining dynamically reconfigurable software architectures driven by business-process architectures. The business compiler was used to capture business processes within real-time workshops for various lines of business and create an executable simulation of the processes used.


Background: There are various departments in hospital that produce hazardous, infectious, pathological and radioactive wastes. Utilizing proper methods of waste management is of high priority in order to prevent from releasing these wastes to environment. This study aimed to evaluate waste management efficiency in Karaj hospitals. Material & Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in Karaj during 2011-2013. All hospitals of Karaj had been selected as statistical population of this study (n=8) by census. The data had been collected by separating and weighting produced hospital wastes for 4 month (during one week at each month) and filling related checklists of health ministry. Collected Data had been analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The daily capita of waste was 4.1 kg per active bed, 5.6 kg per occupied bed and 9.4 kg per patient. The overall percentage score of present status of hospital waste management was assessed 88% and in 12% which indicate moderate and weak levels respectively. Hospital waste management had been evaluated weak in terms of collection, transportation and personnel but seen from the viewpoint in the separation and temporary storage, it was assessed moderate. However, in terms of disposal, assessment of hospital waste management showed it is in a desirable status. Conclusion: The present status of hospital waste management was far beyond the expectations among studies hospitals. Thus, developing an operational plan and monitoring its implementation is highly recommended to. Given the main weakness of hospital waste management was related to production, collection, separation, and transportation, taking these areas consideration is of high priority.


Background: Group work is often used in Physical Education (and Health – HPE). In this paper, we propose that despite: (1) its widespread use; (2) advances surrounding HPE models that utilize group strategies; and (3) a significant amount of literature dealing with group work in other school subjects, we do not have a particularly good theoretical understanding of group learning in HPE. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose one way of conceptualizing individual learning in peer interaction based on three tenets of post-Vygotskian theory that relate to the zone of proximal development (ZPD); namely that in learning situations: (i) group members engage in shared communication; (ii) expert–novice relationships can develop and change during group activities and (iii) constructing knowledge can be thought of as reaching agreement. Participants and setting: Empirical material was generated with eight different HPE classes in lower and upper secondary schools in Sweden. Schools were selected in a way that maximized variation and were distributed across four geographic locations with varying sizes and types of communities. Data collection: Observational material was produced at each of the sites with the use of two cameras: one stationary and the other mobile. Stationary filming maintained a wide-angled focus and captured the entire class. Mobile filming focused on different groups working within the classes. During mobile filming, between two and five students were generally in the frame and filming was directed at sequences in which a group of students worked together on a specific task. Data analysis: Analysis of the data focused on two kinds of incidents. The first comprised a sequence in which two or more students were interacting to complete a task which they could not immediately do and were engaged in collective signification by talking about or doing the activity in mutually compatible ways. These conditions were sufficient in our view to signal the creation of a ZPD. The second kind of incident fulfilled the first criteria but not the second – i.e. the students were interacting but not in mutually compatible ways. Findings: A post-Vygotskian interpretation of three group work sequences draws attention to: (i) the flexible and fluid nature of 'expertness' as it exists within groups; (ii) the unpredictable nature of member interactions and (iii) the challenging role that teachers occupy while trying to facilitate group work. Conclusion: Such an interpretation contributes to a growing understanding of group work and helps HPE practitioners to make the most of a teaching strategy which is already used widely in schools.


Across species, increases in white matter volume outpace increases in gray-matter volume, but increases in gray- matter volume outpace increases in the size of the corpus callosum. This dissertation explores the hypothesis that this hyposcaling of the callosum stems from the impact of the conduction delays and cellular costs of the long- distance connections on normal developmental mechanisms. Neuroanatomy research to date has only indirectly examined this relation, using measures such as brain volume. The research in this dissertation uses diffusion tensor imaging to more directly measure the relation between the length of the interhemispheric connections and the degree of connectivity -- the ratio of between-area connections to total projection neurons in the areas connected. Using tractography to detail the patterns of interhemispheric connectivity and to determine the length of the connections, and formulae based on histological results to estimate degree of connectivity, we show that, across normal young adult males, connection length is significantly negatively correlated with degree of connectivity in the anterior, posterior, and body of the callosum. Using the same methodology, in typically developing boys a significant relation between connection length and degree of connectivity was found only in the posterior of the callosum. The combined results indicate that the relation between connection length and degree of connectivity develops during childhood and adolescence. Children with autism are known to have enlarged brains during the first years of life. This is predicted to lead to decreased long-distance connectivity. To explore this prediction, neural networks which modeled inter- hemispheric interaction were grown at the rate of either typically developing children or children with autism. By 2 years of simulated age, the networks that modeled autistic growth showed a reduced reliance on long-distance connections, performance reductions, and reductions in structural connectivity. Using the same methodology as with the adults and children, the relation between connection length and degree of connectivity in adults with autism was examined. Connection length and degree of connectivity showed the typical negative relation, but with a reduced degree of connectivity in anterior regions -- the locus of development during the period of maximal brain overgrowth, and where axon diameters are smallest


Active immunotherapy with multiple doses of tumour homogenate incorporated in complete Freund adjuvant was used to treat 12 patients with advanced malignant disease. Evidence of some tumour destruction was observed in 10. Improvement in general clinical condition and the disappearance of symptoms referable to tumour occurred in seven of the patients. The duration of improvement varied considerably. Histological evidence of lymphocytic infiltration, necrosis, and fibrous replacement of tumour tissue is presented.


This article reevaluates traditional racial and gender disparities in the work satisfaction literature by examining the U.S. military: an institution that has ameliorated many racial inequalities while exacerbating gender conflict. The military departs from civilian society in some analytically useful ways, making it a unique, though underutilized, setting for examining inequality. Using data from the Pentagon's 1999 Survey of Active Duty Personnel (SADP), results suggest that black males and females, Latino males and females, and white females all experience greater perceived benefits to military service than do white males along several dimensions of self-assessed job satisfaction and quality of life. Perceptions of advantage relative to civilian reference group comparisons largely explain these findings. I conclude by discussing how the structure of organizations can be powerful enough to reverse differences in relative satisfaction among key status groups.


In this paper, we present and analyze a cholera epidemiological model with modifications to Fung (2014) cholera model. The extended model incorporates preventive and control measures as well as the possibility of disease transmission from person-to-person. Equilibrium analysis is conducted for the extended model for two cases of epidemic equilibrium and endemic equilibrium to establish disease free equilibrium state (DFE) and endemic equilibrium state (EE) respectively. We derive the basic reproduction numbers and establish the local asymptotical stability for the two models. We later use the results to compare the models at the DFE states as regards the effects of control on the extended model. The endemic equilibrium state (EE) of the extended model is also studied and found to be locally asymptotically stable when the basic reproduction number . This shows that cholera can be eliminated in a population only if the preventive and control measures are strong enough.


Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a key technology to enable massive machine type communications (mMTC) in 5G networks and beyond. In this paper, NOMA is applied to improve the random access efficiency in high-density spatially-distributed multi-cell wireless IoT networks, where IoT devices contend for accessing the shared wireless channel using an adaptive p-persistent slotted Aloha protocol. To enable a capacity-optimal network, a novel formulation of random channel access with NOMA is proposed, in which the transmission probability of each IoT device is tuned to maximize the geometric mean of users' expected capacity. It is shown that the network optimization objective is high dimensional and mathematically intractable, yet it admits favourable mathematical properties that enable the design of efficient learning-based algorithmic solutions. To this end, two algorithms, i.e., a centralized modelbased algorithm and a scalable distributed model-free algorithm, are proposed to optimally tune the transmission probabilities of IoT devices to attain the maximum capacity. The convergence of the proposed algorithms to the optimal solution is further established based on convex optimization and game-theoretic analysis. Extensive simulations demonstrate the merits of the novel formulation and the efficacy of the proposed algorithms.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the causes and treatment of postoperative venous outflow obstruction after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT).

METHODS
Clinical data of 776 patients after OLT were analyzed retrospectively between January 2000 and December 2006. The accumulated experiences in diagnosis and treatment of postoperative outflow obstruction after OLT were reviewed.

RESULTS
Venous outflow obstruction occurred in 10 patients (1.29%) after OLT, among those 6 had supra-hepatic inferior vena cava (IVC) stenosis, 2 had IVC stenosis of the post-hepatic segment, and 2 had outflow obstruction of hepatic vein. The diagnosis was confirmed by inferior vena cavography in all the patients. Of the 10 patients, 8 received percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) or metallic stent replacement, and 2 underwent liver retransplantation (re-LT) when interventional therapy failed. Three patients died from outflow obstruction, so the outflow obstruction related mortality was 30% in the patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Complications of outflow obstruction after OLT were associated with surgical technique like vascular anastomosis, various types of cavo-caval anastomosis and graft size mismatch between donor and recipient. Making an early diagnosis and giving timely treatment including interventional therapy or re-LT is the key to improve the prognosis of outflow obstruction.


We present a real-time approach for multi-person 3D motion capture at over 30 fps using a single RGB camera. It operates in generic scenes and is robust to difficult occlusions both by other people and objects. Our method operates in subsequent stages. The first stage is a convolutional neural network (CNN) that estimates 2D and 3D pose features along with identity assignments for all visible joints of all individuals. We contribute a new architecture for this CNN, called SelecSLS Net, that uses novel selective long and short range skip connections to improve the information flow allowing for a drastically faster network without compromising accuracy. In the second stage, a fully-connected neural network turns the possibly partial (on account of occlusion) 2D pose and 3D pose features for each subject into a complete 3D pose estimate per individual. The third stage applies space-time skeletal model fitting to the predicted 2D and 3D pose per subject to further reconcile the 2D and 3D pose, and enforce temporal coherence. Our method returns the full skeletal pose in joint angles for each subject. This is a further key distinction from previous work that neither extracted global body positions nor joint angle results of a coherent skeleton in real time for multi-person scenes. The proposed system runs on consumer hardware at a previously unseen speed of more than 30 fps given 512x320 images as input while achieving state-of-the-art accuracy, which we will demonstrate on a range of challenging real-world scenes.


This paper presents a robust high bandwidth discrete-time predictive current control scheme for voltage-source pulsewidth-modulated (VS-PWM) converters. First, to achieve high bandwidth current control characteristics, a digital predictive current controller with delay compensation is adopted. The compensation method utilizes a current observer with an adaptive internal model for system uncertainties. The predictive nature of both the current observer and the internal model forces the delays elements to be equivalently placed outside the closed loop system. Second, to ensure perfect tracking of the output current in the presence of uncertainties and providing means for attenuating low- and high- frequency system disturbances, the frequency modes of the disturbances to be eliminated should be included in the stable closed loop system. Toward this, an adaptive internal model for the estimated uncertainty dynamics is proposed. To cope with the high bandwidth property of the lump of uncertainties in VS-PWM converter applications, the disturbance slowly varying assumption is relaxed in the proposed controller. The relaxation is achieved by adopting a curbing sliding-mode-based feedback gain vector within the internal model observation system. Comparative evaluation tests were carried out on a grid-connected VS-PWM converter and a direct drive permanent magnet synchronous motor (DD-PMSM) drive system to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme at different operating conditions.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Low back pain is a common syndrome that causes disability and absence from work. Although there are several causes, the most common type of back pain is nonspecific. Exercises are often used to treat back pain, but there is controversy regarding its effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to review exercises for nonspecific low back pain treatment. CONTENT: This paper provides a definition and classification of back pain. Incidence and mechanisms of nonspecific low back pain and exercises used for its treatment are hereby reported. CONCLUSION: The most effective types of exercise therapy for chronic or acute low back pain are still controversial; however, exercise therapy is probably the most widely used conservative treatment throughout the world.


The association of adiponectin, apelin, visfatin and vaspin with different glycaemic states (normal glucose tolerance (NGT), (impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes (T2D)) and in the presence of periodontits were studied in saliva and blood (serum) samples. The utility of saliva and serum in measuring these adipokines was also compared. Prescreening was done to identify persons with ≥ 3 risk factors for T2D among; age 35 -55 years, overweight/obesity, high waist circumference, family history of T2D, hypertension or sedentary habits. They were then categorised as having no diabetes (NGT + IGT, Group A) and having diabetes (T2D, Group B) based on oral glucose tolerance test. Presence of periodontitis was assessed by a periodontist. Samples were analysed using ELISA. Of the 615 persons screened, 136 (22.1%) had 3 or more risk factors. Ninety (14.6%) persons (NGT (n = 48), IGT (n = 17) T2D (n = 25)) were enrolled. Concentrations of adipokines in groups A and B are presented in the table. Higher salivary vaspin and lower visfatin were observed in the presence of periodontitis. The utility of serum and saliva in the measurement of adipokines for diabetes vary considerably. In Asian Indians, lower adiponectin and higher visfatin in serum and increased salivary visfatin and apelin are useful biomarkers of diabetes, illustrating the involvement of inflammation in the pathogenesis of T2D. Disclosure R. Vinitha: None. K. Raghavan: None. V.K. Arun: None. P. Susairaj: None. A. Raghavan: None. A. Nanditha: None. K. Satheesh: None. C. Snehalatha: None. A. Ramachandran: None.


Electro-osmotic consolidation is considered to be an efficient technique for dewatering and consolidation of soft soil. In the present study, four experiments were conducted on a Na-rich bentonite using two reactive electrodes (copper and iron) and two inert electrodes (graphite and stainless steel) to study the transport and exchange behavior of ions during electro-osmotic consolidation. The results showed that the changes in pH and ion contents were limited to the zone close to the electrode due to the buffering capacity of bentonite and the significant reduction in electric current density. The ion concentration profiles indicated that Na+ ions were largely responsible for carrying the pore water to the cathode. The reactive electrodes are better at transporting Na+ ions and therefore induce better drainage than inert electrodes. Ion-exchange reactions occurred between the Cu2+ and Fe2+/Fe3+ ions released and pre-existing Na+ ions in the electrical double layer, causing decreased water adsorption capacity and plasticity index. The swelling and shrinkage characteristics of the bentonite were thus reduced, and electroosmotic consolidation may therefore provide a new way to improve the stability of expansive soils and slopes.


Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht Reader of Martin Heidegger: conception of presence production – In this paper present some points of Gumbrecht's philosophical thinking about the presence, over the Heidegger's Dasein senses, especially, regarding the possibilities and conditions of language in relation to this presentiment. From these logos, propose an introductory critique of the concepts of thing, of subject/object, of Cartesian worldview, showing, from the analyzed author, the possibilities of tangibility through language and what it represents in the face of existing of science paradigms.


In this volume the author provides an analysis of the centrally planned, socialist state economies and their common percentage in the Stalinist Plan introduced in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. Prybyla first explores the "neoclassical" plan in two variants (conservative and liberal), the "radical" plan (Maoplan), and the Yugoslav experiment (neomarket Yugoplan). He then examines specific countries as their governments search for alternative solutions to the economic problems that plague them. His dynamic presentation of the economic models clearly shows the transformation of the original Stalinist model, reveals the obstacles to reform created by the structural problems that exist within these economies, and demonstrates that inherent deficiencies within the systems must, in time, affect growth and balance.