Author(s): Chong, Junxiang Adam | Advisor(s): Sundara, Megha; Zuraw, Kie | Abstract: This dissertation examines the question of how phonological alternations are learnt. In constraint-based models of phonological learning, it is hypothesized that prior learning of phonotactics from the lexicon facilitates the learning of alternations. While this is an influential assumption, the empirical evidence for it is equivocal. In this dissertation, I investigate this link by examining the learning outcomes in cases where phonotactics and alternations mismatch, particularly in cases of derived environment effects. For example, in Korean, /t/ palatalizes to [c] before [i] across a morpheme boundary, yet [ti] sequences are attested within stems. Derived-environment effects have proven theoretically challenging to account for precisely because of the mismatch in generalizations within stems and across morpheme boundaries.Using an artificial grammar learning paradigm, I first show that alternation learning is facilitated when the phonotactics in the lexicon match the alternation. Participants who were trained on a language with vowel harmony within stems and across morpheme boundariessuccessfully learnt the vowel harmony alternation. Conversely, those who were trained on a language without vowel harmony in stems (derived-environment effect language) failed to learn the alternation across the morpheme boundary, despite being trained on this pattern. This supports the hypothesis of current models of phonological learning. Yet, when participants were only trained on a static phonotactic generalization, they did not readily extend this to unseen alternations. This suggests that learners are conservative, and need experience with alternations before extending a learnt phonotactic generalization.What does this mean for phonological patterns with a mismatch between phonotactics and alternations? I present corpus analyses as well as computational learning simulations of two cases which show these derived-environment patterns - Korean palatalization and Turkish velar deletion. I show that in both cases the reported mismatches between phonotactics and alternations are superficial. Korean palatalization is an active alternation supported by a gradient phonotactic constraint in the lexicon. Turkish velar deletion, however, is a morphologically circumscribed alternation with no accompanying phonotactic generalization in the lexicon. I also briefly discuss how this statistical pattern in Turkish is similarly the case with the well-known Finnish assibilation pattern. This undermines assumptions in previous analyses of these patterns. Instead, I argue that there is a bias to maintain similar generalizations, captured by more general constraints, in phonotactics as well as alternations. This further supports the claim that learning phonotactics aids in learning alternations, and further suggests that derived-environment patterns are typologically dispreferred.I conclude by exploring how a bias for more general constraints might be implemented using a Maximum Entropy learner, making specific use of the model's prior. Specifically, I propose a bias for the learner to prefer generalizations to be explained by more general constraints which are blind to morphological structure, over constraints which reference morphological structure. I show that, under such a model, a canonical derived-environment pattern with a mismatch in phonotactics and alternations is never accurately learnt.


Purpose
Economically motivated food crimes are widespread, and it appears countries and consumers across the globe are affected. Foods targeted and ways of dealing with food crimes vary according to several factors, including the source and destination of the food; demand; availability (e.g. short growing season); price; environmental impacts, such as sustainability (e.g. seafood); likely consumers (e.g. babies); and regulatory controls. Internationally, several foods are well known to be commonly targeted by unscrupulous criminal groups, ultimately leaving unsuspecting consumers exposed economically and physiologically. The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of food fraud and the criminals committing it.

Design/methodology/approach
Building on a systematic search of international scholarly literature from a wide cross-section of disciplines, parliamentary documents and media articles relating to food crime, this paper cautions the vulnerabilities to food crimes in Australia from a criminological perspective. It draws on crime opportunity theory to explain the modus operandi of criminals engaging in food fraud.

Findings
Inadequate testing regimes, unclear definitions and inadequate laws expose consumers and vulnerable industries to food crimes. With reference to uniquely Australian examples, this paper highlights exposure opportunities and concludes with lessons drawn internationally. Further research is underway to explore how these vulnerabilities can be resolved through closing regulatory gaps and the introduction of innovative technology.

Originality/value
This paper usefully draws on trends in the literature and applies crime opportunity theory to understand how food fraud may present in Australia for everyday foods, as well as emerging and highly prized markets.


Fungal endocarditis, in particular due to Candida species, requires medical and surgical treatment and amphotericin B is the drug of choice. Caspofungin is an echinocandin very effective against Candida and Aspergillus. We present a patient with Candida tropicalis endocarditis, fluconazol resistant, treated with caspofungin, on a compassional basis as a result of adverse effects with amphotericin B. The patient had a microbiological response.


When making decisions between different options, we often consider two basic properties of these options, how risky they are and when they will occur. For example, we may choose to gamble or to wait for a larger reward. Decisions under risk refer to decisions among known probabilistic options, inter-temporal decisions refer to choices between options that will be realized at known future timepoints. Risky and inter-temporal decisions have been captured theoretically primarily by ecology and microeconomics but findings from behavioral economics, psychology and neuroscience often contradicted theoretical predictions. As a consequence, a wealth of more descriptive models has emerged to explain the findings. A subset of these models has stressed the similarities between risky and inter-temporal findings. We discuss possible explanations for discrepancies and identify key behavioral experiments.


This study investigated the effects of chronic in vivo AMP-kinase activation with 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-d-ribofuranoside (AICAR) on lipolysis in subcutaneous inguinal, epididymal, and retroperitoneal fat pads. Male Wistar rats received daily single intraperitoneal injections of either saline or AICAR (0.7 g/kg body wt) for a period of 8 wk. The fat pads were used either to isolate adipocytes and measure basal and catecholamine-stimulated lipolysis or to assess signaling steps of lipolysis after 4 and 8 wk of AICAR treatment. Blood was sampled weekly to measure nonesterified fatty acids (NEFAs). AICAR treatment reduced basal and catecholamine-stimulated lipolysis at week 4 in adipocytes from all fat depots. However, at week 8, catecholamine-induced lipolysis significantly increased in inguinal and retroperitoneal adipocytes. Interestingly, plasma levels of NEFAs were also decreased and subsequently increased at 4 and 8 wk, respectively. The lipolytic cascade of the inguinal fat pad was the most drastically affected by the treatment, since the phosphorylation and content of most proteins involved in lipolysis were consistently undetected in this tissue after 4 and 8 wk of AICAR treatment. The enhancement of catecholamine-induced lipolysis in inguinal and retroperitoneal adipocytes after 8 wk of AICAR treatment was accompanied by increased contents of adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) and perilipin A in these fat depots. In summary, despite depot-specific regulation of the lipolytic cascade, catecholamine-induced lipolysis in isolated adipocytes correlated well with plasma NEFA concentrations in the course of chronic AICAR-induced AMPK activation. The mechanisms underlying these effects also involved time-dependent and depot-specific regulation of hormone-sensitive lipase, ATGL, and perilipin.


The result of a simple floating-point computation can be in great error, even though no error is signaled, no coding mistakes are in the program, and the computer hardware is functioning correctly. This paper proposes a set of instructions appropriate for a general purpose microprocessor that can be used to improve the credibility and accuracy of numerical computations. Such instructions provide direct hardware support for monitoring events which may threaten computational integrity, implementing floating-point data types of arbitrary precision, and repeating calculations with greater precision. These useful features are obtained by the efficient implementation of high radix on-line arithmetic. The prevalence of super-scalar and VLIW processors makes this approach especially attractive.


The current study sought to establish the effects of strategic alliances on performance of firms in the motor vehicle industry in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study specifically focused on assessing how technological alliances, marketing alliances, production alliances and logistics alliances affect performance of firms in motor vehicle industry in Nairobi County. The study was anchored on Resource Dependency Theory, Transaction Cost Theory, Knowledge Management Theory and Organizational Learning Theory. The study adopted a descriptive research design and targeted 18 firms in the automobile industry and operating in Nairobi County. The unit of observation comprised of 315 employees from the selected motor vehicle firms and occupying managerial positions. The study employed Slovenes Sampling formula in deriving a sample size of 158 respondents. Primary data was collected through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and analysed through both inferential and descriptive statistics. The statistics were generated by the help of SPSS and Ms Excel. The results of the analysis were presented using tables. The study established that producttion alliances and logistics alliances positively and significantly affect performances of motor vehicle industry (Beta=0.410, sig=0.000<0.05 and beta 0.301, sig=0.001<0.05). The study further established that technological alliances and marketing alliances positively but insignificantly affect performance of motor vehicle industry ((Beta=0.128, sig=0.089>0.05 and beta 0.109, sig=0.126>0.05). The results imply that enhancing increasing each of the variables with their one unit results to performance increase of the motor vehicle industry with the respective beta values. The study recommended that for there to be an enhanced performance amongst motor vehicle industry players in Nairobi County, there is a need for the firms to engage in alliances that contributed to operational effectiveness in areas of technology, marketing, production and logistics.
Keywords: Technological Alliances, Marketing Alliances, Production Alliances, Logistics Alliances and Performance of Motor Vehicle Firms


In this paper we are proposing the use of photography as a dedicated tool to capture latent needs and create anchor points for future solutions in engineering design. We are grounded in user centric design. Based on a needfinding project in India we demonstrate the usage of sequential photography techniques to identify and propose needs through priming the viewer into modes of divergent and convergent thinking. We have selected 49 out of a total of 381 pictures taken in October 2014. These pictures have been processed to our three types: snapshot, emphasized picture, and illustrated picture. Each technique and usage is described in detail, together comprising a proposed new method for needfinding.


Background: The issue of workplace lactation support has intensified due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) amendment of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) obliging employers to provide a reasonable break time for nursing mothers. Objectives: This objective of this study is to examine organizational policies on worksite lactation support as they relate to the new federal standards in state employees and within large state public and private universities. Methods: State laws were collected from National Conference of State Legislators. Policies for state employees and large public and private universities were collected via human resource or personnel administration websites. The policies were coded for content and compared to FLSA requirements. The presence of state law on lactation support and extent to which the organizational policies encompass FSLA were compared with state breastfeeding rates at 6 months. Results: After the ACA became effective in 2010, 33 state organizations, 36 state public universities, and 13 private universities issued the administrative notice and aligned their organizational policies with the federal requirements. Twenty-four states enacted worksite breastfeeding law prior to the 2010 federal law. Nineteen states with enacted worksite breastfeeding state laws also have lactation policies for state employees. Conclusion: States and universities vary in the presence of a formal, written lactation support policy for state employees. There was a significant correlation between State law and 6 months exclusive breastfeeding rates. Future research should investigate whether the federal law serves as stronger catalyst for organizational policies than does state law. Additionally, other policies such as paid maternity leave may also contribute to achieving the desired breastfeeding rates.


The discrepancy between the protective effect of early surgery of breast cancer and the poor benefits of mammography screening programs in the long term can be explained if mammography induces breast cancer at a much higher rate than anticipated. Mammography screening is associated in most countries with a higher incidence of breast cancer, attributed to overdiagnosis. X-ray-induced cancers can be distinguished from overdiagnosed cancers by the fact that their incidence depends on the number of previous mammograms, whereas overdiagnosis solely depends on the last screening mammogram, leading to diagnosis. The unbiased relationship between the number of mammograms and breast cancer incidence was evaluated from the data of the NHS Breast Cancer screening programme in women aged from 50 to 64 years in the United Kingdom. The delay between mammography and increased breast cancer incidence was confirmed from the data of the "Age" trial, a randomized trial of annual screening starting at age 40 in the UK. In women aged 50-64 attending screening at the NHS Breast Cancer programme, in situ breast cancer incidence increased linearly from 1993 to 2005 as a function of the number of mammograms. Incidence did not increase anymore after 2005 when the number of mammograms and the delay after screening was stable. Invasive breast cancer incidence increased more specifically in the 60-69 age group. The risk of breast cancer almost doubled after 15 years of screening. Additional cancers began to occur less than 6 years after mammography. These results are evidence that X-ray-induced carcinogenesis, rather than overdiagnosis, is the cause of the increase in breast cancer incidence.


Accurate field data are essential to understanding ecological systems and forecasting their responses to global change. Yet, data collection errors are common, and data analysis often lags far enough behind its collection that many errors can no longer be corrected, nor can anomalous observations be revisited. Needed is a system in which data quality assurance and control (QA/QC), along with the production of basic data summaries, can be automated immediately following data collection. Here, we implement and test a system to satisfy these needs. For two annual tree mortality censuses and a dendrometer band survey at two forest research sites, we used GitHub Actions continuous integration (CI) to automate data QA/QC and run routine data wrangling scripts to produce cleaned datasets ready for analysis. This system automation had numerous benefits, including (1) the production of near real‐time information on data collection status and errors requiring correction, resulting in final datasets free of detectable errors, (2) an apparent learning effect among field technicians, wherein original error rates in field data collection declined significantly following implementation of the system, and (3) an assurance of computational reproducibility—that is, robustness of the system to changes in code, data and software. By implementing CI, researchers can ensure that datasets are free of any errors for which a test can be coded. The result is dramatically improved data quality, increased skill among field technicians, and reduced need for expert oversight. Furthermore, we view CI implementation as a first step towards a data collection and analysis pipeline that is also more responsive to rapidly changing ecological dynamics, making it better suited to study ecological systems in the current era of rapid environmental change.


6-L-Thiodihydroorotate (TDHO) and 2-oxo-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyrimidine-4,6-dicarboxylate (HDDP) are potent inhibitors of mammalian dihydroorotase in vitro (R. I. Christopherson, K. J. Schmalzl, E. Szabados, R. J. Goodridge, M. C. Harsanyi, M. E. Sant, E. M. Algar, J. E. Anderson, A. Armstrong, S. C. Sharma, W. A. Bubb, and S. D. Lyons, Biochemistry, 28: 463-470, 1989). Using human CCRF-CEM leukemia cells growing in culture, TDHO and HDDP as the free acids have 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of 32 microM and greater than 1000 microM, respectively, whereas for TDHO methyl ester, the IC50 value is 25 microM, and for HDDP dimethyl ester, the IC50 value is 21 microM. These IC50 values were not affected by addition of dihydroorotate, uridine, or deoxycytidine to the culture medium. TDHO methyl ester (25 microM) had only slight inhibitory effects upon the dihydroorotase reaction of de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis in growing leukemia cells, cells arrested in G2 + M phases of the cell cycle. At 250 microM TDHO methyl ester, analysis of cell extracts by high-performance liquid chromatography showed that after 4 h carbamyl aspartate had accumulated from undetectable levels to 760 microM, whereas UTP decreased from 580 to 110 microM and CTP from 350 to 86 microM, indicating inhibition of dihydroorotase in growing leukemia cells. IMP accumulated from 63 to 350 microM, total guanylates increased while adenylates decreased, and the adenylate energy charge decreased from 0.91 to 0.69 after 4 h. The cellular concentration of 5-phosphoribosyl 1-pyrophosphate increased from 180 to 290 microM due to sparing from pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis resulting in complementary stimulation of the de novo purine pathway. HDDP dimethyl ester at concentrations of up to 250 microM had no discernable effect upon pyrimidine or purine nucleotide biosynthesis. At 25 microM HDDP-dimethyl ester, cells arrested in G2 + M phases initially, with accumulation of cells in G1/G0 at later times. These data suggest that the primary mechanisms of growth inhibition for TDHO and HDDP involve inhibition of cell cycle progression from late G2 or M phase to G1 phase and that blockade of the pyrimidine pathway by TDHO is a secondary effect found at higher concentrations.


Purpose of review This article reviews the recent developments in neck ultrasound for thyroid cancer published in the last 18 months, with emphasis on the emerging role of surgeon-performed ultrasound in clinical endocrine practice. Recent findings Ultrasound has evolved beyond the simple differentiation of solid and cystic thyroid nodules and their measurement. Although no single ultrasound feature has the highest accuracy in distinguishing between benign and malignant thyroid lesions, the combination of several ultrasound characteristics (e.g. hypoechogenicity, irregular borders and microcalcifications) within such thyroid nodules may have a stronger correlation for thyroid cancer. Based on these ultrasound features and risk for thyroid malignancy, the need for ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration, preoperative staging, lymph node mapping and extent of surgery can subsequently be determined and performed. Furthermore, ultrasound has an additional value intraoperatively and in the postoperative surveillance of patients treated for thyroid cancer. Surgeon-performed ultrasound has recently become indispensible in clinical practice where endocrine surgeons have integrated this versatile imaging modality in the evaluation and treatment of patients with thyroid cancer. Summary Ultrasound is an essential modality in the evaluation of thyroid malignancy. Surgeon-performed ultrasound has proved invaluable in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative setting. Future developments in ultrasound may lead to further improvement in the diagnostic accuracy of this modality.


When George W. Bush assumed office in January 2001, many pundits – some benevolently,others grudgingly – considered the new president's main agenda to be as simple as ABC – Anything But Clinton. When President Barack Obama assumed office eight years later, many correspondingly described the latest president's approach as ABB – Anything But Bush. The current U.S. president has inherited quite a number of difficult situations and crises from his predecessor that he has vowed to handle very differently: among others, the two unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo and other, undisclosed locations, the global financial crisis, the relationship
to Pakistan and Iran, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. This PRIF Report is concerned with how Obama handles one particularly tainted legacy of the Bush administration: the global promotion of democracy. Is Obama discarding his predecessor's favorite but severely criticized project, is he keeping it with slight modifications, or is he taking a completely new approach?
In order to answer this question, this PRIF Report turns to the larger context in which the Obama administration is operating. It first looks at how the idea of being an exceptional nation has shaped an exemplarist and an activist variant of democracy promotion, and portrays the current debate about this policy's underlying rationales and its impact. It then assesses Obama's immediate predecessors, Clinton and Bush, in terms of their democracy
promotion policies and the rationales they have mustered in its favor. In light of these parameters that form the backdrop against which the Obama administration has to position itself, the current administration's first initiatives regarding democracy promotion are assessed and interpreted with a view to this policy's future.
Obama, as this analysis shows, cannot and will not abandon democracy promotion altogether. Deeply engrained in the country's national identity is the notion that the United States holds a special place and has a special role to play among the nations of the world. A central part of this American 'exceptionalism' is the ambition to liberate and enlighten
the world by endowing it with human rights and democracy. That it is part of a genuine American mission to promote democracy abroad is fairly uncontroversial and no U.S. president can elude the issue. Controversies about how to promote democracy, however, have shaped the 20th century, especially the post-Cold War presidencies, and just as the controversy over means – quiet exemplarism or active (peaceful or military) intervention – the set of rationales for democracy promotion has developed and changed over time
and remains a matter of considerable contention at the beginning of the 21st century.
The analysis of rationales the Clinton and Bush administrations have drawn upon to legitimize the promotion of democracy shows that normative arguments play a very central role. Rationalist reasoning, however, is just as important: spreading democracy abroad, administration officials insist, makes the United States more secure, creates stable markets and opportunities for trade, provides other peoples with prosperity and security, and contributes to world peace. The Obama presidency, slow to develop its own democracy
agenda and rhetoric, likewise draws upon normative motivations but is relatively
silent when it comes to promoting democracy based on an agenda which pursues its own interests. This stands in especially sharp contrast to the Bush administrations, which had forcefully maintained that promoting democracy everywhere was a security imperative and did not shy away from accomplishing this aim through the use of military force, and which regularly employed Manichean language to underline the significance of democracy
promotion as a foreign policy panacea. The Obama team has substantially scaled
back the use of such grandiose rhetoric and has assumed a markedly more reserved stance on the issue.
In many respects, as it takes its first steps on the issue the Obama administration resembles the Clinton presidency in how it handles the promotion of democracy. Democracy promotion under Obama seems once again to be considered one goal among others and is handled within a basically pragmatic foreign policy direction. Obama, like Clinton, favors a non-confrontational approach to democracy promotion, focusing on states that are inviting help from outside – and not primarily on rogue states as Bush did – and also
decidedly favors multilateralism over unilateralism. Like both preceding presidencies, the Obama administration has raised the budget for democracy assistance and has affirmed repeatedly that it is committed to spreading democracy abroad as a responsibility the American people owe to the world.
Whereas, overall, democracy promotion under Obama stands in the light of continuity rather than change, he is beginning to shape his own approach. Distancing himself from the two George W. Bush administrations, Obama has conceded the existence of previous U.S. mistakes and now emphasizes mutual understanding and the non-coercive character of democracy (promotion). His administration has also changed the status of democracy
promotion from signature issue to embedding it along with human rights promotion as part of a broader development policy framework. Especially in contrast to the time during which the Clinton administrations were operating, the Obama team faces circumstances that have a discouraging effect on any ardent democracy promotion efforts: the democratic euphoria of the 1990s, fueled by the end of the Cold War and democracy's 'third wave', has given way to a debate about its global backlash, while the United States is concerned
with its own relative decline in light of new and aspiring rising powers on the
world stage. As a consequence, Obama – in contrast to both his predecessors – draws heavily on the image of the U.S. as a 'beacon': promoting democracy by example. This may, in general, be the style he personally prefers; it is also fitting at a juncture where the U.S. lacks the resources and the credibility to promote democracy emphatically and on a large scale. Within this global context, Obama is careful not to have democracy promotion stand in the way of his agenda of global reengagement, fostering constructive relationships
with all kinds of regimes and thus eliciting democratic change in the long run, a strategy strongly criticized by adherents of the Bush strategy. Whether he will be successful with his approach to democracy promotion within the foreign policy agenda remains to be seen.


Background: Stress affects various physiological processes of the body. It induces cardiac changes through sympatho-vagal imbalance. Among the various remedies for stress, studies have proven the effectiveness of breathing exercises like yoga and jogging, but the effect of blowing balloon (another form of breathing exercise) on alleviating stress has not been studied yet.
Objective: The objective of current study was to determine the effect of blowing balloons exercise in improving pulmonary function tests and reducing stress-induced cardiac changes.
Materials and methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted at Department of Physiology, Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi from 1st Feb 2016 to 31st Jan 2017. Sixty diagnosed students of moderate stress were included in the study after fulfilling the 14-item DASS (depression anxiety stress scale) Proforma. Pulmonary function tests, electrocardiogram (ECG) and DASS score of the participants was measured before and after a supervised blowing balloon exercise. Ten minutes ECG of the participants was recorded and the data were analyzed for measuring QTc interval and T peak to T end interval. These parameters were recorded by using Power lab model yam 4/25T and the data were analyzed by using software, lab chart 8 pro.
Results: Blowing balloon exercise resulted in significant reduction of DASS score of the study participants (p<0.001). Tidal volume, vital capacity, forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second and the ratio of forced expiratory volume in one second to the forced vital capacity were significantly improved (p<0.001) after blowing balloon exercise. The QTc interval of the participants were significantly reduced (p<0.05) after blowing balloon exercise.
Conclusion: Blowing balloon exercise is an effective way of improving pulmonary function tests and reducing stress.


Extensive interdisciplinary literatures have built on the seminal spatial dilemmas model, which depicts the evolution of cooperation on regular lattices, with strategies propagating locally by relative fitness. In this model agents may cooperate with neighbors, paying an individual cost to enhance their collective welfare, or they may exploit cooperative neighbors and diminish collective welfare. Recent research has extended the model in numerous ways, incorporating behavioral noise, implementing other network topologies or adaptive networks, and employing alternative dynamics of replication. Although the underlying dilemma arises from two distinct dimensions—the gains for exploiting cooperative partners (Greed) and the cost of cooperating with exploitative partners (Fear)–most work following from the spatial dilemmas model has argued or assumed that the dilemma can be represented with a single parameter: This research has typically examined Greed or Fear in isolation, or a composite such as the K-index of Cooperation or the ratio of the benefit to cost of cooperation. We challenge this claim on theoretical grounds—showing that embedding interaction in networks generally leads Greed and Fear to have divergent, interactive, and highly nonlinear effects on cooperation at the macro level, even when individuals respond identically to Greed and Fear. Using computational experiments, we characterize both dynamic local behavior and long run outcomes across regions of this space. We also simulate interventions to investigate changes of Greed and Fear over time, showing how model behavior changes asymmetrically as boundaries in payoff space are crossed, leading some interventions to have irreversible effects on cooperation. We then replicate our experiments on inter-organizational network data derived from links through shared directors among 2,400 large US corporations, thus demonstrating our findings for Greed and Fear on a naturally-occurring network. In closing, we discuss implications of our main findings regarding Greed and Fear for the problem of cooperation on inter-organizational networks.


Cajal bodies (CBs) are nuclear organelles that are usually identified by the marker protein p80-coilin. Because no orthologue of coilin is known in Drosophila melanogaster, we identified D. melanogaster CBs using probes for other components that are relatively diagnostic for CBs in vertebrate cells. U85 small CB–specific RNA, U2 small nuclear RNA, the survival of motor neurons protein, and fibrillarin occur together in a nuclear body that is closely associated with the nucleolus. Based on its similarity to CBs in other organisms, we refer to this structure as the D. melanogaster CB. Surprisingly, the D. melanogaster U7 small nuclear RNP resides in a separate nuclear body, which we call the histone locus body (HLB). The HLB is invariably colocalized with the histone gene locus. Thus, canonical CB components are distributed into at least two nuclear bodies in D. melanogaster. The identification of these nuclear bodies now permits a broad range of questions to be asked about CB structure and function in a genetically tractable organism.


The paper "An Interval Logic for Real-Time System Specification" (Mattolini and Nesi, IEEE Trans. Software Eng., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 208-227, Mar. 2001) presents the TILCO specification language and compares it to other existing similar languages. In this comment, we show that several of the logic formulas used for the comparison are flawed and/or overly complicated and we explain why, in this respect, the comparison is moot


MicroRNA (miRNA) circulating in plasma have been proposed as biomarkers for a variety of conditions and diseases, including complications during pregnancy. During pregnancy, about 15–25% of maternal plasma exosomes, a small size-class of EVs, are hypothesized to originate in the placenta, and may play a role in communication between the fetus and mother. However, few studies have addressed changes in miRNA over the course of pregnancy with repeated measures, nor focused on diverse populations. We describe changes in miRNA in early and late pregnancy from the MADRES cohort of primarily low-income Hispanic women based in Los Angeles, CA. miRNA derived from extracellular-vesicles (EVs) were isolated from maternal blood plasma samples collected in early and late pregnancy. In this study, we identified 64 of 130 detectable miRNA which significantly increased with gestational age at the time of collection (GA), and 26 which decreased with GA. Possible fetal sex-specific associations were observed for 30 of these 90 significant miRNA. Predicted gene targets for miRNA significantly associated with GA were identified using MirDIP and were found to be enriched for Gene Ontology categories that included energetic and metabolic processes but were underrepresented in immune-related categories. Circulating EV-associated miRNA during pregnancy are likely important for maternal-fetal communication, and may play roles in supporting and maintaining a healthy pregnancy, given the changing needs of the fetus.


The use of long piles to support construction loads has been recognized for thousands of years. In the last century, it has been introduced the use of pressure for embedding pile foundations that is named injected piles. In field implementations, if the design depth of the piles is long enough then additional piles are required to be connected. It needs time delay to connect between the earlier embedded pile to the additional one. The time delay can be also caused by other things such as equipment problems, unwilling bad weather etc. Based on the experience of pile injection records, due to the time delay, there is a temporary increase in pile bearing capacity, so it takes more effort to continue pile penetrations until the specified depth. In this study, the effects of erection time delays on piles are investigated. This study is conducted using experimental injected-pile models at the laboratory. The initial depth of earlier piles prior to further injection is set the relatively same, while the time delays are varied. The injection loads for penetration are recorded as well as the depth of penetration. The results of the experiments in terms of variation of time delays and additional penetration loads show that there are 'jump loads' at the initial last depth due to time delay until a certain period. It can be concluded that the time delay on the pile can increase the bearing capacity and must be limited to a certain time in case of pile connection work on site. The variation additional loads due to the time delays in a soil mass may be affected by soil parameters such as density and particle size of the soil.


Collagen extracted from rat skin by neutral-salt solutions contains less aldehydes than the more insoluble collagen fractions. The concentration of aldehydes in collagen is directly related to its capacity to form stable cross-linked gels, which do not redissolve on cooling and become more insoluble in a variety of reagents. Whereas the absorption spectrum of neutral-salt-soluble collagen treated with N-methylbenzothiazolone hydrazone resembles that of acetaldehyde, the more insoluble collagen fractions show increasing amounts of a component that behaves like an alphabeta-unsaturated aldehyde. The ratio between alpha- and beta-sub-units present in a particular fraction of soluble collagen seems to be constant and independent of the age of the animal. Neutral-salt-soluble collagen, which has a low concentration of beta-components, will generate intramolecular bonds if gelled at 37 degrees . These intramolecular bonds seem to precede the formation of stable intermolecular cross-links, since these gels can redissolve when cooled to yield a soluble collagen with a higher content of beta-components of intramolecular origin.


This study aimed to examine social constructivism as a learning theory and its implications for teaching methods, student motivation, and the whole teaching/learning process. Social constructivism is a collaborative learning approach that emphasizes student involvement, discussion, and knowledge exchange. According to social constructionism, we never know universally true or untrue, good or bad, right or wrong. Each of us invents our universe based on our impressions of reality. Language, communication, and speech are social constructions in social constructionism and occupy a pivotal position in the interactive process we comprehend the world and ourselves. It is the teacher's responsibility to use learner-centered and collaborative teaching approaches. The underlying factor is that students collaborate in groups to share ideas, solve problems, or create something new to add to their existing knowledge. This learning theory stresses active interaction among learners, the teacher, and other components of the teaching-learning process rather than teacher monotony in the classroom. It also exhibits pupils to remember facts they uncover and construct themselves rather than those the teacher tells them.


Abstruct- A turn-off failure mode in individual MOScontrolled thyristors (MCT's), initiated by a long gate voltage rise-time, is identified and analyzed. It is shown to be caused by turn-off current crowding in the MCT. In addition, a differential failure mode in paralleled devices is demonstrated in which the slower of the two MCT's fails to turn off. This is caused by the increase in anode current through the slower device and the decrease in gate voltage rise-time due to the MCT's Miller capacitance.


Ultrawideband (UWB) communication based on the impulse radio paradigm is becoming increasingly popular. According to the IEEE 802.15 WPAN low rate alternative PHY Task Group 4a, UWB will play a major role in localization applications, due to the high time resolution of UWB signals which allow accurate indirect measurements of distance between transceivers. Key for the successful implementation of UWB transceivers is the level of integration that will be reached, for which a simulation environment that helps take appropriate design decisions is crucial. Owing to this motivation, in this paper we propose a multiresolution UWB simulation environment based on the VHDL-AMS hardware description language, along with a proper methodology which helps tackle the complexity of designing a mixed-signal UWB system-on-chip. We applied the methodology and used the simulation environment for the specification and design of an UWB transceiver based on the energy detection principle. As a by-product, simulation results show the effectiveness of UWB in the so-called ranging application, that is the accurate evaluation of the distance between a couple of transceivers using the two-way-ranging method.


The concept of the Third World emerged after 1945 as a way to refer to the developing regions of the world, most often encompassing Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. As a descriptive shorthand, the Third World entered common usage to contrast these regions from the capitalist "First World" and the communist "Second World," even though some nations in these regions overtly aligned with one of the superpowers while others did not ascribe to such classifications. The term thus defies easy categorization and was used by historical actors to reflect different political and economic understandings of their geopolitical status. In the latter half of the 20th century, the Third World also gained purchase among some political leaders to describe non-Western, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist nations that had gained their independence from colonial rule and worked together to resist Cold War alignment. However, Third World leaders struggled to sustain their transnational solidarity, sometimes dividing along the lines of the broader superpower rivalry, regional or sectarian conflicts, and differing aspirations for world order.
 US relations with the Third World were often fraught and complex. The United States did not maintain a single policy toward the Third World as such, reflective of its enormous diversity in language, culture, and politics. Instead, the United States devised foreign policies toward Third World nations according to different perceived imperatives and interests. A major theme in the history of US relations with the Third World was the US government's overarching effort after World War II to undermine the spread of international communism, against which it deployed a wide range of military, political, social, and economic tools. In kind, Third World political leaders often strove to evade direct control by the United States and entered into diplomatic relations cognizant of the power asymmetries at work in the international system. In the 21st century, scholars and policymakers continue to use the Third World term, though it is often used interchangeably with the Global South and the underdeveloped, developing, and non-Western world.


This a valuable contribution as it links drought entries in a recently constructed disaster database (GDIS), which is based on EM-DAT, with actual droughts identified based on a state-of-the-art reanalysis dataset. The work is important because typically disaster databases are not based on information derived from meteorological variables and establishing such links gives credence to the databases but also serves to identify hazard thresholds and differences in vulnerability.


This paper outlines a franchisees' partner selection system that focuses the key role of the franchising formula for the national economy development. The research findings come from an exploratory study of forty-five franchisee companies operating in the Northwest of Italy. The empirical evidences highlight the importance of strategic and operational aspects in the partner selection processes. The study reveals the importance of an in-depth evaluation of the franchising formula in order to assure business growth and to reduce operational risk. The research underlines two distinct partner selection approaches and these appear to be relevant in explaining satisfaction/dissatisfaction in the post-contractual stage. The article suggests to innovate franchisors' recruitment policies and provides a specific framework for that as an effective way to sustain a vital business network, redesign the active employment policies in the labour market and support entrepreneurship in the service sector.


Clinical cardioplegic arrest may coincide with a washout of cardioplegic agents by varying amounts of extracoronary collateral blood flow. This may shorten the duration of electromechanical arrest. Furthermore, even in the absence of electromechanical cardiac activity, washout may influence the cardioprotective properties of cardioplegic methods. The present study was designed to quantify the effects of cardioplegic washout. In a standardized isolated paracorporeal dog heart model, the St. Thomas's Hospital solution (ST-CP) and the Bretschneider histidine buffered solution (B-CP) were compared under the condition of washout by arterial blood. An inverse relationship was found between the amount of blood flowing through the coronary system and the duration of electromechanical arrest. Flow rates compatible with a 100 min period of complete electromechanical arrest were less than 0.41 ml/100 gr heart weight . min in ST-CP arrest and less than 0.21 ml/100 gr . min in B-CP arrest. This would indicate a greater safety against washout-induced re-excitation in ST-CP arrest. Postarrest myocardial function after 2 hours of complete electromechanical arrest at 20 degrees C was distinctly influenced by washout with arterial blood (20 degrees C) even in the absence of cardiac activity. A 100-min period of 0.2 ml/100 gr . min blood flow during arrest improved postarrest recovery of left ventricular developed pressure by 10% (76% versus 66%) after ST-CP arrest. By contrast, after B-CP arrest at equal rates of washout, recovery was diminished by 20% (79% versus 99%). It is concluded, that ST-CP, as compared to B-CP, provides longer periods of electromechanical arrest under the same washout conditions. Whereas postarrest recovery in the B-CP group is clearly superior to ST-CP in totally ischemic hearts, i.e. in hearts without collateral blood supply (99% versus 66%), this advantage may vanish in the presence of cardioplegic washout.


Ketamine is the prototype of a new generation of antidepressant drugs, which is reported in clinical studies to be effective in treatment-resistant patients, with an effect that appears within hours and lasts for a few days. Chronic mild stress (CMS) is a well-established and widely used animal model of depression, in which anhedonia, anxiogenesis and cognitive dysfunction can be observed reliably. Studies using acute or brief ketamine treatment following withdrawal from CMS have replicated the clinical finding of a rapid onset of antidepressant action. However, there have been no CMS studies of chronic daily ketamine treatment or continued stress following ketamine treatment, which would have greater translational potential in relation to the long-term maintenance of antidepressant effects. Wistar rats were drug treated following an initial 2 weeks of CMS exposure, which continued alongside daily drug treatment. A first experiment tested a range of chronic (5 weeks) ketamine doses (5–30 mg/kg); a second compared the effects of subacute (3–5 days) and chronic (5 weeks) treatment. CMS-induced anhedonic, anxiogenic and dyscognitive effects, as measured, respectively, by decreased sucrose intake, avoidance of open arms in the elevated plus maze and loss of discrimination in the novel object recognition test. A sustained antidepressant-like effect of ketamine in the sucrose intake test was observed in both experiments, with an onset at around 1 week, faster than imipramine, and an optimum dose of 10 mg/kg. Anxiogenic and dyscognitive effects of CMS, in the elevated plus maze and novel object recognition test, respectively, were fully reversed by both subacute and chronic ketamine treatment. Daily treatment with ketamine in the CMS model causes sustained long-term antidepressant, anxiolytic and procognitive effects. The demonstration of a procognitive effect of ketamine may have particular translational value.


Northern Tunisia is the rainiest part of the country where most of the water management structures (dams, reservoirs, etc) are located. Its strategic situation with respect to surface water resources encourages the investigation of the climate change impacts projected by climate models. The goal of this study is first to compare the observed precipitation with climate model outputs, and then to evaluate the future changes projected by different climate models. The study area is subdivided into four regions: the upstream and downstream transboundary Medjerda basin, the northern coastal basins and the eastern coastal basins. A database provided by the Tunisian hydrological service includes 388 stations with complete monthly precipitation data over the period 1961–2000. An ensemble of Regional Climate Models (RCM) simulations provided by the European Union‐funded project ENSEMBLES are used. Six RCM model runs (CNR‐A, DMI‐A, DMI‐B, ICT‐E, SMH‐B and SMH‐E) are analysed, for the control period 1961–2000 and two projection periods, 2011–2050 and 2051–2090. The models efficiency in reproducing seasonal precipitation amounts and variability is evaluated. A 1‐km monthly precipitation reference grid is computed through the interpolation of rainfall observations during the period 1961–2000 with kriging techniques. Monthly precipitation series averaged over the four basins are built for comparison during the control period. The RCM outputs are evaluated with respect to the annual precipitation cycle and rainfall frequency distribution using robust statistics. For the control period, features of the seasonal regimes are well reproduced by all models. It is found that models underestimate seasonal precipitation on average by 20%. The discrepancy between model outputs and observations depends on the season. For the future, in summer and autumn the different models do not project major changes in the seasonal distributions. However, for winter and spring, all the models project a significant decrease of precipitations. Copyright © 2013 Royal Meteorological Society


INTRODUCTION
Testosterone replacement therapy has been used in the treatment of sexual dysfunction; however, its use remains controversial, and the effectiveness and long-term health implications are unknown.

AIM
To evaluate the association between sex hormone serum levels, erectile function, and sexual drive in a population-based sample of men.

METHODS
A stratified random sample of men residing in Olmsted County, Minnesota, completed a questionnaire containing questions from the Brief Male Sexual Function Inventory (BMSFI), and participated in a clinical exam, which included serum hormone measurements.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Levels of sexual drive (libido) and erectile function as assessed by the BMSFI and serum testosterone, bioavailable testosterone, and estradiol measurements.

RESULTS
Out of 414 men, 294 had a regular sexual partner and androgen measurements at the 14th year of follow-up. Total testosterone and erectile function were significantly correlated even after adjustment for age (r = 0.12, P = 0.04). Conversely, total testosterone was not significantly correlated with sex drive (r = 0.08, P = 0.17). Bioavailable testosterone was significantly correlated with both erectile function and sex drive (r = 0.16, P = 0.01 and r = 0.20, P = 0.001, respectively). However, these associations disappeared after age adjustment (r = 0.04 and r = 0.09).

CONCLUSIONS
These cross-sectional results suggest the relationship between sex hormones and sexual function is complex, and that the age-related decline in sexual function may be due to age-related declines in levels of bioavailable testosterone rather than total testosterone levels.


The effect of periodic loss on the performance of refractive-index gratings has been studied in detail. It is shown that the loss periodicity and relative phase strongly affects the symmetry of the reflection, transmission, and loss spectra. This asymmetry is explained successfully through consideration of the overlap between the standing-wave intensity distribution and the periodic loss pattern.


This study emphasizes the importance of Rho/ROCK pathway in lovastatin‐induced apoptosis as replenishment with exogenous isoprenoid, geranylgeranylpyrophosphate (GGPP), resulted in inhibition of apoptosis in cultured tumor cells. Treatment of C6 glioma cells with Toxin B and exoenzyme C3 resulted in cell death suggesting the role of geranylgeranylated protein(s) in the survival of glioma cells. Relative apoptotic death observed in cells transfected with dominant negative constructs of RhoA, Rac, and cdc42 imply Rho A as playing the major role in cell survival. Furthermore, the inhibition of Rho A kinase (ROCK), a direct downstream effector of Rho A, by Y‐27632 or dominant negative of ROCK, induced apoptosis in glioma cells. These findings indicate that RhoA/ROCK pathway is involved negatively in the regulation of glioma cell death pathway. Moreover, in vivo studies of lovastatin treatment in animals implanted with C6 glioma cell tumors also resulted in smaller tumor size and induced apoptosis in the tumor tissue. The implantation of stably transfected C6 glioma cells with expression vector of C3 exoenzyme, dominant negative of RhoA and ROCK, resulted in significant smaller tumor mass, further establishing the importance of geranylgeranylated proteins, specifically RhoA and its downstream effecter ROCK, in cell survival and tumor genesis © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This study provides baseline data on fatty acid profiles and carotenoids in eggs of the leatherback sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea. Correlations among such compounds, persistent organic pollutants, and reproductive parameters are also investigated. A number of 18 clutches were evaluated during June and August of 2008 at Reserva Pacuare Beach, in the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. Viability and fertility were calculated for each nest. Concentration levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids (SFAs and PUFAs), carotenoids and different congeners of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were determined from egg-yolk samples. Mean ± SD values were calculated for each compound and for each clutch. Correlations were performed searching for interactions among different compounds and for potential effects on reproductive parameters, thus all the studied compounds were related to each other and to any of the reproductive parameters. Low carotenoid levels characterized all eggs of this species, and a positive relationship between carotenoid concentrations and the viability rate was found. POPs and PUFA were positive and strongly correlated, suggesting molecular interactions. PUFAs appeared to increase fertility rate and hatchling length. This study provides potential evidences of PUFA enhancing fertility and hatchling size, and of carotenoids limiting vitellogenesis. The positive correlation found between POPs and PUFAs may indicate that harmful effects of these contaminants on the reproduction of leatherback turtles could be masked.


The FVB/N (FVB) mouse has been a popular background strain for constructing transgenic mice. However, behavioral phenotyping of the resultant mice is complicated, due to severe visual impairment in the FVB background strain. Previous studies reported cognitive impairments with the FVB strain, suggesting the background as unsuitable for behavioral analysis. In this study, we compared FVB mice to the well-characterized C57BL/6 (B6) strain in a battery of hippocampus-dependent tasks that had several nonvisual cues. The tasks included: trace eyeblink conditioning, spontaneous alternation in the Y maze, social recognition, trace and contextual fear conditioning, and odor habituation-dishabituation. FVB mice were able to learn all the tasks, often to similar levels as B6 mice. In contrast to previous reports, our data suggest FVB mice are not cognitively deficient with temporal memory tasks, when the tasks do not rely heavily upon vision. Thus, the FVB strain may be used as the genetic background for behavioral phenotyping when nonvisual hippocampal-dependent tasks are utilized.


This study aims to investigate the effect of earnings opacity on the cost of capital as measured by an index of earnings opacity which is constructed from seven measures including earnings aggressiveness, income smoothing, earnings management, a restatement of financial statements, the proportion of notes to financial statements, stock trading volume, and bid-ask. spreads . This study focuses on all companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2009-2013. However, financial sector companies were excluded from the sample because financial sector companies have specific characteristics related to governance and accounting standards, besides that the financial sector also has a special set of rules that will affect discretionary accruals which is one measure of earnings opacity. Regression testing shows results that are consistent with the results of previous studies. This research proves that the higher the profit opacity, the higher the cost of equity. This study has limitations where the earnings opacity index is built from seven dimensions, one of which is the restatement of financial statements. In Indonesia, in the non-financial sector, there are very few samples that restate financial statements. Further research can use a larger number of samples and additional variables such as the reform of the financial reporting system.


The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of class walking on lifestyle activity. The subjects were recruited from the community around the university, and volunteered to eight weeks intervention. The intervention groups were 2 different walking program groups that included a class-walking group (A : n=32) and a voluntary walking group (B : n=31) ; and the control was a blood-pressure monitor group (C : n=22). Only A group participated in a walking class with group instruction. Physical activity was measured by pedometer counts before the start of the intervention, during the 8-week intervention and again as follow up four months afterwards. In A group, the number of pedometer counts, during the group walking activity of the 5 th and 6 th weeks, was measured in order to evaluate the number of voluntary steps on the class-walking day. Although there was no significant difference among the three groups in daily activity before the intervention, the activity of A group (12367•}3290) and B group (9988•}3461) was significantly increased during the intervention. Also, there were significant differences between A and B, A and C. As for A group, the number of steps due to group walking (9025•}584 steps) enhanced the daily activity on the class-walking days (16191•}3988 steps), but significantly attenuated the voluntary steps on the class-walking days (7166•}3988 steps), which did not significantly differ from the baseline of the daily activity. The number of steps on the non-class walking days (i. e. steps other than those taken on the class-walking day ;11719•}3454 steps) was not significantly different than that of B. There was significant enhancement of daily activity 4 months after the intervention for A (11487•}4057) and B (9564•}2545 steps), but not for C (9070•}3485 steps), compared to the baseline. There was not a significant difference between the daily activity of A and B after the intervention. These data suggest that the instruction given and the steps taken in class walking enhance daily activity during the intervention period, and that voluntary steps play a more important role in whether or not one remains active and adheres to regular exercise . (Jpn. J. Phys. Fitness Sports Med. 2000, 49 : 571•`580) key word : exercise adherence, lifestyle activity, walking, voluntary steps


In a Mobile Ad hoc Network broadcasting (such as flooding) is an important primitive provided by network layer that floods the network with redundancy, contention, collision and energy inefficiency. In this paper we propose a forwarding node based heuristic technique for multiple criteria broadcasting in MANET, which is comparatively simpler than the prior researches. The modulo-2 arithmetic calculation based routing technique proves increased probability of success with faster network coverage by decreasing number of forward nodes to avoid redundancy of different scenarios described in this paper.


Although the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and some evangelical churches continue to be the central opposition to sexual and reproductive rights (SRR), in recent decades, various sectors from the civil society have also begun to get politically active with the purpose of resisting the advance of the SRR agenda. Several "pro-life" NGOs are becoming increasingly important in Argentina. This article aims to describe the emergence and development of these NGOs in the country, the changes in their public identities and actions, as well as the ways in which these NGOs relate religion with politics. At the beginning, most of these organizations maintained a strong catholic identity; however, in the last two decades, a series of evangelical organizations have begun to emerge. In addition, many other NGOs are downplaying their religious identity, displacing it to a secondary position. This phenomenon evidences the complex nature of the limits between religion and secularity in the political activities of these organizations, in the context of the current debates around sexual policies.


The proportion of adult women without children in the United States has increased in recent years and there are multiple reasons women do not have children. Past research concerning the well-being of women relative to their motherhood status does not recognize the great diversity among women without children. I attempt to fill that gap by classifying women based on the presence or absence of children, fertility barriers, and childbearing intentions. The classification results in five motherhood situations: mothers, voluntarily childfree, women delaying motherhood, involuntarily childless with situational barriers and involuntarily childless with biomedical barriers. This study specifies the relationship between women's life satisfaction and motherhood situation using data from the first wave of the National Survey of Fertility Barriers (N=4,712). I draw on identity theory and life course theory to compare the life satisfaction of women with and without children to see if the status (not having children) is more important than the process (the reason women have no children). I also test the moderating effects of importance of motherhood, age, and marital status. Findings show that women who delay motherhood and childless women with situational barriers are different from women who choose to be childfree or women who have biomedical barriers. Therefore it is important not only to compare mothers to non-mothers, but also to explore the reasons why women do not have children when examining differences in life satisfaction.


Abstract Purpose: In patients with a neuroendocrine tumour (NET), the extent of disease strongly influences the outcome and multidisciplinary therapeutic management. Thus, systematic analysis of the diagnostic performance of the existing staging modalities is necessary. The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of 2 whole-body imaging modalities, [68Ga]DOTATOC positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with NET with regard to possible impact on treatment decisions. Materials and methods: [68Ga]DOTATOC-PET/CT and whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (wbMRI) were performed on 51 patients (25 females, 26 males, mean age 57 years) with histologically proven NET and suspicion of metastatic spread within a mean interval of 2.4 days (range 0–28 days). PET/CT was performed after intravenous administration of 150 MBq [68Ga]DOTATOC. The CT protocol comprised multiphase contrast-enhanced imaging. The MRI protocol consisted of standard sequences before and after intravenous contrast administration at 1.5 T. Each modality (PET, CT, PET/CT, wbMRI) was evaluated independently by 2 experienced readers. Consensus decision based on correlation of all imaging data, histologic and surgical findings and clinical follow-up was established as the standard of reference. Lesion-based and patient-based analysis was performed. Detection rates and accuracy were compared using the McNemar test. P values <0.05 were considered significant. The impact of whole-body imaging on the treatment decision was evaluated by the interdisciplinary tumour board of our institution. Results: 593 metastatic lesions were detected in 41 of 51 (80%) patients with NET (lung 54, liver 266, bone 131, lymph node 99, other 43). One hundred and twenty PET-negative lesions were detected by CT or MRI. Of all 593 lesions detected, PET identified 381 (64%) true-positive lesions, CT 482 (81%), PET/CT 545 (92%) and wbMRI 540 (91%). Comparison of lesion-based detection rates between PET/CT and wbMRI revealed significantly higher sensitivity of PET/CT for metastatic lymph nodes (100% vs 73%; P < 0.0001) and pulmonary lesions (100% vs 87%; P = 0.0233), whereas wbMRI had significantly higher detection rates for liver (99% vs 92%; P < 0.0001) and bone lesions (96% vs 82%; P < 0.0001). Of all 593 lesions, 22 were found only in PET, 11 only in CT and 47 only in wbMRI. The patient-based overall assessment of the metastatic status of the patient showed comparable sensitivity of PET/CT and MRI with slightly higher accuracy of PET/CT. Patient-based analysis of metastatic organ involvement revealed significantly higher accuracy of PET/CT for bone and lymph node metastases (100% vs 88%; P = 0.0412 and 98% vs 78%; P = 0.0044) and for the overall comparison (99% vs 89%; P < 0.0001). The imaging results influenced the treatment decision in 30 patients (59%) with comparable information from PET/CT and wbMRI in 30 patients, additional relevant information from PET/CT in 16 patients and from wbMRI in 7 patients. Conclusion: PET/CT and wbMRI showed comparable overall lesion-based detection rates for metastatic involvement in NET but significantly differed in organ-based detection rates with superiority of PET/CT for lymph node and pulmonary lesions and of wbMRI for liver and bone metastases. Patient-based analysis revealed superiority of PET/CT for NET staging. Individual treatment strategies benefit from complementary information from PET/CT and MRI.


Power-line communication (PLC) carries data on a conductor that is also used simultaneously for AC electric power transmission or electric power distribution to consumers. Power-line communications systems operate by adding a modulated carrier signal to the wiring system. Different types of power-line communications use different frequency bands. Since the power distribution system was originally intended for transmission of AC power at typical frequencies of 50 or 60 Hz, power wire circuits have only a limited ability to carry higher frequencies. Data rates and distance limits vary widely over many power-line communication standards. Lowfrequency (about 100–200 kHz) carriers impressed on highvoltage transmission lines may carry one or two analog voice circuits, or telemetry and control circuits with an equivalent data rate of a few hundred bits per second; however, these circuits may be many miles long. Higher data rates generally imply shorter ranges; a local area network operating at millions of bits per second may only cover one floor of an office building, but eliminates the need for installation of dedicated network cabling. Reliable and high speed communication over power lines requires a robust modulation scheme, like a Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) based modulation technique, hence the quality of data communication over the noisy in-home power line network can be improved. This paper investigates the performance of conventional Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Discrete Wavelet Transform-based OFDM (DWT-OFDM) systems in the presence of background and impulsive noise in multipath power lines as a communication channels. The time and frequency localization properties of the wavelet transform mitigates narrowband and heavy impulsive noise in the power lines which results in performance improvement. Simulation results in terms of PAPR, PSD, and Bit Error Rate (BER) show that DWTOFDM is more robust against interference and multipath effects compared to DFT-OFDM, and increasing the length of the basis function improves BER and PAPR.


Ten wetland ponds, each 1430 m2 (1/3 acre) in area are being utilized to evaluate the treatment of wastewater from a pulp mill. The ponds are being operated at a depth of 46 cm (18″) and detention times are 2 and 10 days. Six of the ponds have been planted to cattails ( Typha latifolia ) and three to bulrush ( Scirpus acutus ). One of the ponds is filled with large (150 mm) stone to compare a subsurface non-plant system.

In 24 stock tanks, 8 aquatic plant species (Cattail, Hardstem Bulrush, Bolander's Rush, Common Spike Rush, Water Mannagrass, Beaked Sedge, Water Parsley and Yellow Pond Lily) are being grown to evaluate the effect of plants in the wetland treatment of wastewater. These same species are being evaluated in a larger area for competitiveness and hardiness in the wastewater.

The ponds were planted in the winter of 1990/91. Results of this work on treatment of biochemical oxygen demand, solids and colour removal will be reported. Removals are in the range of 55%, 70% and less than 5% for the three parameters, respectively.


Due to the reported impacts of some socio-economic factors on academic performance and nations' education value, there is need for strong awareness to assist students in making the right decision. To this effect, this study proposes and designs student decision support system for determining the extent to which different levels of some socioeconomic factors involvement can jointly affect academic performance. The factors are: Student's interest, Relationship status, Entrepreneurial activities, Peer influence, Health and family background. The traditional decision support system architecture was extended in this study by introducing two components: Fuzzy engine and Mining Engine. Fuzzy engine was introduced to capture intra uncertainties in students' judgment about the data gathered and Mining engine to extract hidden and previously unknown interesting patterns from the dataset. The predictive model was established using fuzzy association rule mining technique. The dataset was gathered using one-on-one questionnaire interaction with students from 4 Universities in Nigeria. The system evaluates students' linguistic levels of involvement and predicts the possible class of honours for them with explicit interpretation of the fired patterns. This system will assist the students in decision making as to the extent they can be involved in some socioeconomic activities relative to their family and health status in order to have their desired classes of honour.


Background: Perforated peptic ulcer (PPU) is relatively rare, but life threatening with the mortality varying from 10% to 40%. While common causes of peptic ulcer disease are H. Pylori, increased inadvertent use of NSAIDS, smoking and stress of modern life, the specific etiologic agent cannot be incriminated in the causation of its perforation.Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of perforated peptic ulcer in fasting Muslims.Methods: This prospective analysis was conducted for the risk factors associated with perforated peptic ulcer (PPU) in patients attending Surgical Emergency hospital & Sulaimaniyah Teaching Hospital on 312 cases (246 male & 66 females) during the period of one month before Ramadan (Shaban), holy Ramadan and one month after Ramadan (Shawal) for ten successive years from 2006 to 2015. Descriptive analysis and Chi square test was used to find an association between studying variables.Result: The number of PPU per month was higher in Ramadan, 16.6 patients per month vs. 7.3 patients per each other month and also high among group 1 fasting patients. Predisposing factors played a major role in these differences.Conclusion: This study found that the incidence of PPU is relatively high among people who have predisposing factors, including young adults age, but earlier in non-fasting people , male gender, but no difference between the two groups in those using non -steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, history of dyspepsia. Those patients have previous peptic ulcer disease diagnosed on esophagogastroduodenoscopy more prone to perforation. Long period day after day fasting, but not daytime length duration may increase PPU.Recommendations: This study recommends that the people with these risk factors must be well informed and need special care to avoid such complications. This study also suggests further studies regarding this subject.


This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to the subject of Quantum Theory and Symmetries as featured in the conference `5th International Symposium on Quantum Theory and Symmetries', University of Valladolid, Spain, July 22–28 2007 (http://tristan.fam.cie.uva.es/~qts5/). Invited speakers at that meeting as well as other researchers working in the field are invited to submit a research paper to this issue. Please note that papers from speakers presenting contributed talks will be published separately in a volume of Journal of Physics Conference Series. Editorial policy The Editorial Board has invited Manuel Gadella, José Manuel Izquierdo, Sengül Kuru, Javier Negro and Mariano A del Olmo to serve as Guest Editors for the special issue. Their criteria for the acceptance of contributions are as follows: •The subject of the paper should relate to the subject of the workshop (see list of topics in the website of the conference http://tristan.fam.cie.uva.es/~qts5/) •Contributions will be refereed and processed according to the usual procedure of the journal. •Conference papers may be based on already published work but should either (a) contain significant additional new results and/or insights or (b) give a survey of the present state of the art, a critical assessment of the present understanding of a topic, and a discussion of open problems. •Papers submitted by non-participants should be original and contain substantial new results. Guidelines for preparation of contributions •The deadline for contributed papers will be 30 October 2007. This deadline will allow the special issue to appear in June 2008. •There is a nominal page limit of 16 printed pages (approximately 9600 words) per contribution. For papers exceeding this limit, the Guest Editors reserve the right to request a reduction in length. Further advice on publishing your work in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical may be found at www.iop.org/Journals/jphysa. •Contributions to the special issue should if possible be submitted electronically by web upload at www.iop.org/Journals/jphysa, or by email to firstname.lastname@example.com, quoting `JPhysA Special Issue—QTS5'. Submissions should ideally be in standard LaTeX form. Please see the website for further information on electronic submissions. •Authors unable to submit electronically may send hard-copy contributions to: Publishing Administrators, Journal of Physics A, Institute of Physics Publishing, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK, enclosing electronic code on floppy disk if available and quoting `JPhysA Special Issue—QTS5'. •All contributions should be accompanied by a read-me file or covering letter giving the postal and email addresses for correspondence. The Publishing Office should be notified of any subsequent change of address. This special issue will be published in the paper and online versions of the journal. Each participant at the workshop and the corresponding author of each contribution will receive a complimentary copy of the issue.


Since Singer's and Blom's original article was presented on the results of their initial group of tracheo-esophageal puncture (TEP) candidates, several articles (Wood, et al, 1981; Donegan, et al, 1981) have appeared in the literature reporting results of other groups of TEP procedures done at various centres. These articles also included details of limitations of the procedure. In these case reports, a small group of patients who have undergone TEP are noted and the problems and limitations of the procedure are discussed from the viewpoint of the speech pathologist. Suggestions are also presented (based on past experience), for avoiding failure of the procedure. Also, the tracheo-esophageal speech of one patient is investigated to demonstrate possible improvement in communication skills, following TEP.


The impact of salt stress under different salinity level (0, 50, 100, 150, 200 mMol of NaCl) on ten genotypes of durum wheat namely: Werd Bled, Hmira, Bidi, Arbi, INRAT 69, Agili, Derbassi and Bayatha, Karim and Maali was conducted. Germination rate were recorded daily using radicle extrusion as a criterion. Morphological studies root length, shoot length, fresh weight and dry weight of root and shoot were also measured. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that germination rate of durum wheat genotypes was significantly affected by the salt stress. Results show a reduction of germination rate in response to the highest dose of NaCl for almost all the varieties except for Maali and Derbassi durum wheat cultivar in case150 and 200 mMol concentrations. After 6 days of germination, these lines showed germination percentage respectively of 70 and 60% against a rate of 0% for Bidi AP4 and Bayatha. For morphological traits, the effect of varieties was highly significant (P<0.01) on almost traits measured expect shoot dry weight, root fresh weight and root dry weight. Results show that all studied traits were significantly (P<0.001) reduced due to salt stress. The data showed that different level of salinity significantly affected the growth attributes by reducing root and shoot length for salinity below 50 mMol NaCl. Fresh weight and dry weight of root and shoot were reduced significantly with subsequent treatment.

 Key words: Durum wheat, germination, landraces, salt stress.


Abstract In this article, we explore the use of Bayesian networks for identifying the timbre of musical instruments. Peak spectral amplitude in ten frequency windows is extracted for each of 20 time windows to be used as features. Over a large data set of 24,000 audio examples covering the full musical range of 24 different common orchestral instruments, four different Bayesian network structures, including naive Bayes, are examined and compared with two support vector machines and a k-nearest neighbor classifier. Classification accuracy is examined by instrument, instrument family, and data set size. Bayesian networks with conditional dependencies in the time and frequency dimensions achieved 98 percent accuracy in the instrument classification task and 97 percent accuracy in the instrument family identification task. These results demonstrate a significant improvement over the previous approaches in the literature on this data set. Additionally, we tested our Bayesian approach on the widely used Iowa musical instrument data set, with similar results.


Background: Students in various institutions of learning have been found to be affected by a number of disease conditions which are usually related to various factors including their environment, habitsand social factors amongst others. It was thus the aim of this st udy to determine the distribution of the disease conditions that were prevalent among students of the Bayelsa State College of Health Technology. Materials and Methods: A retrospective archival research design was used to determine the distribution of dise ase conditions among students of the Bayelsa State College of Health Technology, Otuogidi, Ogbia town, Nigeria. Data was gotten from clinic records of all students whom received treatment at the College clinic between January 2012 and December 2013. Result s: Various disease conditions including malaria, mental stress, peptic ulcer disease, helminthic diseases, sexually transmitted infections and cases of vaginal discharge amongst others; were found to have been affected the students whom visi ted the College clinic between January 2012 and December 2013. Conclusion: Malaria and mental stress are disease conditions prevalent among students within our study area with an interesting relationship with seasons for malaria and a relationship with semester examinations for mental stress. Other disease conditions were also present but to a far much lesser degree to the occurrence of malaria. The use of Insecticide - Treated Nets by students, proper environmental sanitation as well as health education was recomm ended to tackle prevailing health issues in our study area.


Convolution is a central operation in Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), which applies a kernel to overlapping regions shifted across the image. However, because of the strong correlations in real-world image data, convolutional kernels are in effect re-learning redundant data. In this work, we show that this redundancy has made neural network training challenging, and propose network deconvolution, a procedure which optimally removes pixel-wise and channel-wise correlations before the data is fed into each layer. Network deconvolution can be efficiently calculated at a fraction of the computational cost of a convolution layer. We also show that the deconvolution filters in the first layer of the network resemble the center-surround structure found in biological neurons in the visual regions of the brain. Filtering with such kernels results in a sparse representation, a desired property that has been missing in the training of neural networks. Learning from the sparse representation promotes faster convergence and superior results without the use of batch normalization. We apply our network deconvolution operation to 10 modern neural network models by replacing batch normalization within each. Extensive experiments show that the network deconvolution operation is able to deliver performance improvement in all cases on the CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, Cityscapes, and ImageNet datasets.


In this study the interobserver reliability of three established measurement methods to objectify secondary deformities of the shoulder in obstetric brachial plexus lesion was evaluated (OBPL). Magnet resonance imaging scans of 30 affected shoulders of 29 OBPL children, mean age 1 year 9 months (range 3 months to 6.3 years) were used. The reliability of the measurement of glenoid version had a standard deviation of differences of measurements between 5.4 and 5.9°. The reliability of the glenoid form showed a kappa value between 0.52 and 0.64, and the reliability of the humeral subluxation had a standard deviation between 7.7 and 12.4°. The measurement methods showed no systematic bias.


Surface modification of heterogeneous photocatalysts with single-atom catalysts (SACs) is an attractive approach for achieving enhanced photocatalytic performance. However, there is limited knowledge of the mechanism of photocatalytic enhancement in SAC-modified photocatalysts, which makes the rational design of high-performance SAC-based photocatalysts challenging. Herein, a series of photocatalysts for the aerobic degradation of pollutants based on anatase TiO2 modified with various low-cost, non-noble SACs (vanadate, Cu, and Fe ions) is reported. The most active SAC-modified photocatalysts outperform TiO2 modified with the corresponding metal oxide nanoparticles and state-of-the-art benchmark photocatalysts such as platinized TiO2 and commercial P25 powders. A combination of in situ electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and theoretical calculations reveal that the best-performing photocatalysts modified with Cu(II) and vanadate SACs exhibit significant differences in the mechanism of activity enhancement, particularly with respect to the rate of oxygen reduction. The superior performance of vanadate SAC-modified TiO2 is found to be related to the shallow character of the SAC-induced intragap states, which allows for both the effective extraction of photogenerated electrons and fast catalytic turnover in the reduction of dioxygen, which translates directly into diminished recombination. These results provide essential guidelines for developing efficient SAC-based photocatalysts.


We present a multi-contextual interactive project which aims to create an open and real-time musical environment extending a natural ambient environment, namely an urban landscape. The basic idea is to convert in real-time the input from a camera sensor recording a urban landscape (in our first test-case: Tokyo city at night) into an electronic musical soundscape. This is achieved by considering each blinking light as a rhythm source (or to combine several lights into a single source in order to have more complex rhythmic structures), to associate it to some sound from a sound bank and possibly to add some sound effects. This will thus generate many layers of intertwined rhythms that represent the pulse of the city through its blinking lights. Therefore this project encompass artistic creation process embedding image tracking, artificial intelligence with inductive original tempo tracking and beat prediction algorithms. We perform pertinent image and symbolic descriptors extractions, as pulsation and rhythm features, in order to synchronize both musical and control worlds with the natural visual environment. The key idea is to achieve an emergent rhythmic process for musical creation and generative music.


Ocular metastases originate from 8-9.7% of breast cancers and 1-6.7% of lung cancers. Symptomatic ocular metastases of lung cancer are rare. A 68-year-old male patient with otherwise good health presented with impaired vision of the left eye. Posterior segment examination of the left eye revealed retinal detachment and subretinal choroidal mass. Orbital magnetic resonance im - aging showed a metastatic lesion and chest computed tomography revealed a mass. Clinical exam - ination and laboratory investigations revealed no other metastases. Non-small cell lung cancer was diagnosed with transthoracic biopsy of the mass. Retina detachment may be the first sign in patients with lung cancer; therefore, such patients should be investigated for the primary site of cancer.


Rainfall data play is an important element for hydrology and water resource management and development, in particular for integrated watershed management. The current study uses feedforward artificial neural networks (ANNs); i.e. pseudo Mac Laurin generalised BP order 1 and order 2 derivatives (GenerMcL1BP and GenerMcL2BP) techniques to fill in hydrological data, specifically annual rainfall data (totals). Performance of these techniques is evaluated by using the root mean square error of predictions (RMSEp). A preliminary case study in South Africa is done using the Bleskop (SAWS gauge no. 0228170) (control) rainfall station and the Luckhoff-Pol (SAWS gauge no. 0228495) (target) rainfall station, both from the Orange River drainage system (D). Results are compared with the generalized BP (GenerBP) technique which was used on the same data set in a previous study. It was confirmed that increasing gap size affects negatively the accuracy of estimated missing values (RMSEp). The two techniques (GenerMcL1BP and GenerMcL2BP) gave close results as compared with GenerBP, however their performance was generally slightly lower. Hence the GenerMcL1BP and GenerMcL2BP were generally acceptable to fill in the annual total rainfall values at Luchoff-Pol station. Further work could be recommended on other rainfall data sets of South Africa, which is a semi-arid country.


Fetal heart rate extraction from the abdominal ECG is of great importance due to the information that carries in assessing appropriately the fetus well-being during pregnancy. In this work a novel automated method is presented for the detection of the QRS complexes of the fetus cardiac activity using multichannel maternal ECG recordings. No accessory preprocessing step for noise filtering is required. The method is based on the complex continuous wavelet transform and modulus maxima theory. The proposed method was validated using real signals, recorded at different weeks of gestation, covering most of the pregnancy period. The system performs well, since almost all fetal beats are detected (accuracy: 99.5%).


Portable and battery operated devices pose a unique design challenge in terms of performance requirements, low-power constraints, and short design cycles. Embedded soft cores, on the other hand, provide functional flexibility and guarantee rapid design and thus are gaining popularity in designing such portable and battery operated devices. To address the low power needs, dynamic voltage scaled (DVS) processors provide a new tradeoff dimension to the designer. This work proposes an application-specific design space exploration framework for selecting energy-efficient operating points in an embedded soft core. Specifically, we address the problem of selecting an appropriate number of operating voltage/frequency points and the distribution of these points along the valid voltage span of a processor, given the application that is to be executed on the processor. Furthermore, we provide a static intra-task scheduling technique that reduces energy consumption (4-20% in our experiments) even when the worst-case application execution time does not leave any slack for effective voltage scaling. We have experimentally verified our technologies on a large set of embedded benchmarks selected from MiBench, PowerStone, and MediaBench.


This study was conducted in the framework of the United Nations Development Account project "Global Initiative towards Post -COVID-19 Resurgence of the Micro-, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Sector" (under the "Access to markets" cluster), which aims to analyse the actions of competition authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and facilitate their recovery. This document analyses the role of competition policy in the digital economy, with an emphasis on the relation between business strategies, technological innovation and market concentration; as well as the suitability of the current legal and institutional frameworks for competition in Latin American countries for facing the current challenges. It also describes some of the practices used by large technology firms and the way these strategies condition market access for SMEs. It aims to demonstrate need for compatibility between industrial and competition policies and for greater coordination among the agencies responsible for data protection and competition policy and among the different government agencies.


The idea that South America was an island continent over most of the Cenozoic, during which its unusual mammalian faunas evolved in isolation, is outstandingly influential in biogeography. Although large numbers of recent fossil discoveries and related advances require that the original isolation concept be significantly modified, it is still repeated in much current literature. The persistence of the idea inspired us to present here an integrated paleobiogeographic account of mammals, reptiles, and plants from the Jurassic to the Paleogene of Patagonia, which has by far the richest fossil record on the continent. All three groups show distribution patterns that are broadly consistent with South America's long separation history, first from Laurasia by the Late Jurassic, then from Africa and India-Madagascar during the late Early Cretaceous, and finally from Antarctica and Australia during the early-middle Eocene, after which "isolation" finally commenced. We highlight areas of promising future research a...


Introduction In low-income and underserved populations, financial hardship and multiple competing roles and responsibilities lead to difficulties in lifestyle change for cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. To improve CVD prevention behaviors, we adapted, pilot-tested, and evaluated a problem-solving intervention designed to address barriers to lifestyle change. Methods The sample consisted of 81 participants from 3 underserved populations, including 28 Hispanic or non-Hispanic white women in a western community (site 1), 31 African-American women in a semirural southern community (site 2), and 22 adults in an Appalachian community (site 3). Incorporating focus group findings, we assessed a standardized intervention involving 6-to-8 week group sessions devoted to problem-solving in the fall of 2009. Results Most sessions were attended by 76.5% of participants, demonstrating participant adoption and engagement. The intervention resulted in significant improvement in problem-solving skills (P < .001) and perceived stress (P < .05). Diet, physical activity, and weight remained stable, although 72% of individuals reported maintenance or increase in daily fruit and vegetable intake, and 67% reported maintenance or increase in daily physical activity. Conclusion Study results suggest the intervention was acceptable to rural, underserved populations and effective in training them in problem-solving skills and stress management for CVD risk reduction.


Mutations in the XPD subunit of the transcription/DNA repair factor (TFIIH) give rise to trichothiodystrophy (TTD), a rare hereditary multisystem disorder with skin abnormalities. Here, we show that TTD primary dermal fibroblasts contain low amounts of collagen type VI alpha1 subunit (COL6A1), a fundamental component of soft connective tissues. We demonstrate that COL6A1 expression is downregulated by the sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 (SREBP-1) whose removal from the promoter is a key step in COL6A1 transcription upregulation in response to cell confluence. We provide evidence for TFIIH being involved in transcription derepression, thus highlighting a new function of TFIIH in gene expression regulation. The lack of COL6A1 upregulation in TTD is caused by the inability of the mutated TFIIH complexes to remove SREBP-1 from COL6A1 promoter and to sustain the subsequent high rate of COL6A1 transcription. This defect might account for the pathologic features that TTD shares with hereditary disorders because of mutations in COL6A genes.


This paper focuses on preschool teachers' use of online social networks for discussions about tablets in preschools. Posts initiating discussions (n = 465) were analysed to increase understanding of what questions tablets raise among preschool teachers and to understand online communication from a professional development perspective. Posts were analysed using thematic analysis in combination with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework, which illustrates what kind of knowledge teachers need in order to teach efficiently with technology. The results indicate that traditional means of professional development are frequently discussed but that the newness of tablets in preschools makes it difficult for preschool teachers to find support in research, training and literature. Thus, communication can partly be described as collegial support. Questions often aim at urgent and specific forms of desired knowledge, possibly challenging to address by acts of reading literature, attending courses or lectures. Furthermore, market interests become visible, as providers of services and products promote lectures, books, websites and applications. As rapidly changing technologies enter the preschool practice, it seems that preschool teachers will increasingly be dependent on more direct and flexible forms of professional development.


Far from being a universal of the human mind, classical botanical and zoological folk taxonomies, which are based on general morphology and organized in a tree diagram, might be nothing more than a simple contextual choice in lowland South America. In words and deeds, the Ucayali Asheninka (Arawak) do not give priority to such taxonomies over other groupings, which the traditional ethnosciences usually over-look or see as being of secondary importance. When analyzed, this attitude turns out to be fully coherent with their animistic ontology, which is a more fundamental value than a mere cosmological discourse. It not only permeates all of the everyday organization of living beings, but it also seems to shape habits of perception, which cannot be reduced to our own. This is so true that, under the hypothesis of the universality of a modular human mind, we must inquire into the possibility of culture reorienting certain cognitive modules.


This paper is intended to supplement to the existing 1999 relay trip circuit design paper to address the use microprocessor relays. The report will exclude ac voltage and current inputs, GOOSE, internals of relays, and IRIG and communication issues. It will include signaling between protective elements such as relays, breakers, etc. primarily as it applies to trip and control circuits.


Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent joint disease worldwide and a leading source of pain and disability. To date, this disease lacks curative treatment as underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. The histone methyltransferase DOT1L protects against osteoarthritis, and DOT1L-mediated H3K79 methylation is reduced in human and mouse osteoarthritic joints. Thus, restoring DOT1L function seems to be critical to preserve joint health. However, DOT1L-regulating molecules and networks remain elusive, in the joint and beyond. Here, we identify transcription factors and networks that regulate DOT1L gene expression using a novel bioinformatics pipeline. Thereby, we unravel an undiscovered link between the hypoxia pathway and DOT1L. We provide unprecedented evidence that hypoxia enhances DOT1L expression and H3K79 methylation via hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α). Importantly, we demonstrate that DOT1L contributes to the protective effects of hypoxia in articular cartilage and osteoarthritis. Intra-articular treatment with a selective hypoxia mimetic in mice after surgical induction of osteoarthritis restores DOT1L function and stalls disease progression. Collectively, our data unravel a novel molecular mechanism that protects against osteoarthritis with hypoxia inducing DOT1L transcription in cartilage. Local treatment with a selective hypoxia mimetic in the joint restores DOT1L function and could be an attractive therapeutic strategy for osteoarthritis.