Background . The prevalence and incidence of diabetes mellitus is increasing at an alarming rate worldwide, especially in Africa. It was long thought that Africans suffer mainly from communicable diseases, but data from sources such as the International Diabetes Federation show an increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases in Africa.  Objectives. To review startling data from the International Diabetes Federation about the population of diabetics in Africa.  Methods. The data are presented as percentages of each variable, specifically the residential setting, gender and age group of populations in countries of the north, southern, west, east and central Africa sub-regions. This was done for easier comprehension and comparison than if presented as raw values. The patterns and trends in the countries of each sub-region are thereafter discussed. Variation in the prevalence of diabetes between individual countries was observed.  Results. Diabetes prevalence is significantly higher in urban than in rural areas: of the diabetic population, 55.90% are urban dwellers v. 44.10% rural. An exception is the east Africa sub-region, with 38.16% urban dwellers, as against 61. 84% rural, but the overall pattern shows urbanisation as a major factor for the increasing prevalence of diabetes in Africa. The most productive demographic of society (20 - 59 years old) were the most affected by diabetes in all African countries and sub-regions: north, 72.87%; southern, 75.57%; west, 82.49%; east, 84.06%; and central, 83.74%. These are citizens in their prime and the most useful segment of the workforce. Diabetes is not sex-sensitive in Africa, with 48.89% of diabetics male v. 51.11% female, apart from in the north and southern Africa regions (44.16% male and 55.84% female, and 43.52% male and 56.48% female, respectively). The rate of death due to diabetes is very high in Africa. The number of undiagnosed cases is huge. The economic impacts of diabetes, which include increased use of health services and loss of productivity, and consequent financial burden, are severe.  Conclusion. Given the rising global prevalence of diabetes, and projections that this will continue to increase substantially over the coming decades, we suggest measures to be taken to stem the tide of the disease, in Africa in particular and the world at large. The prevalence of diabetes can be reduced drastically with timely action on these recommendations. Intervention strategies to control diabetes need to be intensified.


We report CoFe2O4 nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized using a facile hydrothermal growth and their attachment on 3D carbon fiber papers (CFPs) for efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The CFPs covered with CoFe2O4 NPs show orders of magnitude higher OER performance than bare CFP due to high activity of CoFe2O4 NPs, leading to a small overpotential of 378 mV to get a current density of 10 mA/cm(2). Significantly, the CoFe2O4 NPs-on-CFP electrodes exhibit remarkably long stability evaluated by continuous cycling (over 15 h) and operation with a high current density at a fixed potential (over 40 h) without any morphological change and with preservation of all materials within the electrode. Furthermore, the CoFe2O4 NPs-on-CFP electrodes also exhibit hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance, which is considerably higher than that of bare CFP, acting as a bifunctional electrocatalyst. The achieved results show promising potential for efficient, cost-effective, and durable hydrogen generation at large scales using earth-abundant materials and cheap fabrication processes.


Background: The histological pattern and frequency of glomerular diseases differs according to the geographic area, race, age and indications for renal biopsy. This study was conducted to evaluate the frequency of different histological patterns of glomerulonephritis during a 10 years period at our institute. Study Design: Retrospective Case series. Period: 1st January 2007 to 31st, December 2017. Study Setting: Institute of kidney diseases, Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar, Pakistan. Results and Discussion: Clinical records of 415 native renal biopsies performed in patients with mean age 27.17 ± 14.98 years were included in this study. Males were 266 (64.1%) and females 149 (35.9%). Data was analysed for three age groups separately, Children (<18 years) 147 (35.5%), Adults (18-59 years) 253 (61.0%) and elderly (>60 years) 15 (3.6%). Primary GN (glomerulonephritis) was the most common (74.21%) followed by secondary GN (26.41%). Among primary glomerular diseases, Focal segmental glomerulonephritis (FSGS) was (29.6%), membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) also known as mesangiocapillary glomerulonephritis constituted 19.5% and Membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) was the third most common (16.6%). Among secondary GN, acute tubular necrosis (ATN) was the most common (25.4%), followed by amyloidosis (14.7%), hypertensive nephropathy (13.7%) and lupus nephritis (12.8%) respectively. There was a slight male predominance in all types of primary GN except for focal necrotizing GN and most of the secondary types except lupus nephritis and chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis (TIN). Below 18 years, MPGN was (58.3%), focal necrotising GN (57.1%) and minimal change disease (MCD) was (52.2%). Crescentic GN (89.5%), MGN (74.5%), immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy (72.7%), chronic sclerosing GN (CSGN) (64.7%) and FSGS (56%) were more common in adults. Frequency of immunoglobulin M (IgM) nephropathy (50%) was equal in children and adults. In elderly patients, the commonest GN reported was hypertensive nephropathy (28.6%), amyloidosis (6.7%) and MGN (5.9%). Conclusion: Among the wide variety of histological patterns, FSGS was the commonest GN in adults followed by MPGN and MGN. Among adults, primary GN was more common. When compared with other studies, FSGS is more common in the present study and some Indian studies, while membranous GN is more common in other regional countries.


Convective driving, the mechanism originally proposed by Brickhill for pulsating white dwarf stars, has gained general acceptance as the generic linear instability mechanism in DAV and DBV white dwarfs. This physical mechanism naturally leads to a nonlinear formulation, reproducing the observed light curves of many pulsating white dwarfs. This numerical model can also provide information on the average depth of a star's convection zone and the inclination angle of its pulsation axis. In this paper, we give two sets of results of nonlinear light curve fits to data on the DBV GD 358. Our first fit is based on data gathered in 2006 by the Whole Earth Telescope; this data set was multiperiodic containing at least 12 individual modes. Our second fit utilizes data obtained in 1996, when GD 358 underwent a dramatic change in excited frequencies accompanied by a rapid increase in fractional amplitude; during this event it was essentially monoperiodic. We argue that GD 358's convection zone was much thinner in 1996 than in 2006, and we interpret this as a result of a short-lived increase in its surface temperature. In addition, we find strong evidence of oblique pulsation using two sets of evenly split triplets in the 2006 data. This marks the first time that oblique pulsation has been identified in a variable white dwarf star.


AIM
To elucidate the frequency and characteristics of pancreatic involvement in the course of acute (nonfulminant) viral hepatitis.

METHODS
We prospectively assessed the pancreatic involvement in patients with acute viral hepatitis who presented with severe abdomimanl pain.

RESULTS
We studied 124 patients with acute viral hepatitis, of whom 24 presented with severe abdominal pain. Seven patients (5.65%) were diagnosed to have acute pancreatitis. All were young males. Five patients had pancreatitis in the first week and two in the fourth week after the onset of jaundice. The pancreatitis was mild and all had uneventful recovery from both pancreatitis and hepatitis on conservative treatment. The etiology of pancreatitis was hepatitis E virus in 4, hepatitis A virus in 2, and hepatitis B virus in 1 patient. One patient had biliary sludge along with HEV infection. The abdominal pain of remaining seventeen patients was attributed to stretching of Glisson's capsule.

CONCLUSION
Acute pancreatitis occurs in 5.65% of patients with acute viral hepatitis, it is mild and recovers with conservative management.


The use of SiC technology to face the automotive challenges in the coming years is among the objectives pursued in the ECSEL JU project WInSiC4AP. The project is supported with a synergy between ECSEL JU and ESI financing that will enable complementary activities with significant economic and social impact. The Project led by DTSMNS (Distretto Tecnologico Sicilia Micro e Nano Sistemi) started on June 2017 for a duration of 36 months on research, technology, package and applications. This paper will address the main activities in 2nd year of project for automotive with a focus on innovations in SiC technology and the power module packaging.


Background: Nutient foramen is an opening into the bone shaft which gives passage to the blood vessels of the medullary cavity of a bone. The knowledge of nutrient foramen is important in surgical procedures like bone grafting and more recently in microsurgical vascularised bone transplantation. Aim: to determine the number, direction, position of nutrient foramen and whether the nutrient foramina obey the general rule that is, directed away from the growing end of the bone. Materials and methods: The present study has been undertaken to review 1000 long bones including clavicle and miniature long bones. Results 6.8% of bones showed no foramen while 10% of bones had double foramen. Conclusion: Majority of the bones followed the growing end theory. Clavicle showed more variation as to the surface on which nutrient foramen was present. None of the earlier workers have done compiled study of all types of long bones in a single study.


A population of Butlerius butleri Goodey, 1929 was isolated from vermicompost in Kerman in the Kerman Province of Iran during a nematode survey that was conducted during 2014. This population of B. butleri is characterized by the presence of a dorsal thorn-like tooth (4 to 5 μm long), long spicules (44 to 47 μm long), gubernaculum (33 to 37 μm or more than half of the spicule length), three pairs of precloacal papillae, five pairs of postcloacal papillae (papillae V3 and V5 comprising three small papillae), and a long filiform tail (304 to 409 μm in females, 312 to 380 μm in males). Molecular and phylogenetic analysis of B. butleri individuals from this Iranian population based on 18S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) sequence placed this species close to Pseudodiplogasteroides compositus (AB597237) and an unidentified Pseudodiplogasteroides species (AB597238). Measurements, illustrations, and the phylogenetic tree, including the position of B. butleri are provided.


One of the major risk factors for developing breast cancer is a positive family history for this disease. A detailed family history is critical for breast cancer risk evaluation and for evaluation of the probability of a genetic predisposition to breast cancer in the family (the hereditary breast/ovarian cancer syndrome). Various models have been developed to evaluate these risks. The diagnosis of a low, moderate or high breast cancer risk is associated with adapted breast cancer screening procedures. Screening with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is recommended only for women identified as high risk. Genetic testing of the main breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, is now available in a clinical setting.


ABSTRACT An essential step in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication is the movement of the viral preintegration complex from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. The pathway(s) and timing for HIV-1 DNA nuclear entry in cycling cells have not been established. Here, we show that if cycling cells are infected before S phase, viral DNA can be integrated prior to passage of the host DNA replication fork through the integration site, as indicated by stable inheritance in both daughter cells. We conclude that efficient nuclear entry can occur independently of mitotic nuclear disassembly in cycling cells.


Vital exhaustion (VE) results from the experience of chronic stress. However, research on stress types and their relation to VE is rare. Moreover, the role of implicit motives in these processes has not yet been investigated. Analysis included 101 vitally exhausted men aged 40–65 years. Participants provided self-report data on their experience of chronic stress and social support. Subtypes of work-related and social stress were positively associated with VE. Implicit affiliation and achievement motives were linked to social support and chronic stress, and indirectly to VE. Moreover, they moderated the relationship between stress and exhaustion. In conclusion, implicit motives are key factors in the stress process: They are involved in an individual's experience of stress and stress-related consequences for mental health.


This thesis is primarily concerned with the relationship of energy metabolism to protein metabolism. The field of enquiry was subsequently extended to the metabolism of liver phospholipids and ribonucleic acid, since both of these display certain metabolic features in common with liver protein. The influence of energy intake on protein metabolism in the rat was explored in a study of nitrogen-balance and the protein content of the liver. Rats were fed diets, either adequate in protein content or free from protein, in combination with various levels of energy intake provided by carbohydrate or fat. At the adequate level of protein intake, nitrogen-balance and the protein content of the liver were affected in a strictly linear fashion by variations in energy supply, whereas on the protein-free diet energy intake appeared to have no considerable effect on these. A study was made of the bodily distribution of the changes in nitrogen balance produced by varying the energy content of the diet containing protein. As an extension of these experiments, measurements were made, under the same nutritional conditions, of the rate of incorporation of an isotopically labelled amino acid (glycine-2-14G) into the mixed proteins of the liver. In the post-absorptive state, the rate of glycine incorporation was essentially the same, at any given plane of energy intake, for animals previously fed the protein-containing and protein-free diets. At each level of protein intake, however, the influence of the energy content of the preceding diet was apparent, the effect being considerably more marked when the preceding diet contained protein. This difference in the response of protein metabolism to energy Intake at the two protein levels accounts for the fact that energy intake affected the amount of protein in the liver on one diet, but not on the other. On feeding protein, the pattern of protein metabolism was completely changed. The influx of amino, acids into the liver promoted a rapid increase in the rate of Incorporation of labelled glycine, independent of both the protein and energy content of the previous diet. These observations suggest that synthesis of liver protein proceeds in intermittent bursts, following the ingestion of protein, while the effect of energy Intake on the rate of protein synthesis is a prolonged one exerted between meals on the so-called "endogenous" metabolism of protein. The picture obtained in studying phospholipid metabolism in the liver showed some resemblance to that of liver protein. Only when the diet did the synthesis of phospholid in the liver increase in response to increments in response to increments in energy intake. It is suggested that the feeding of a protein-free diet so reduces the concentration of some precursor or essential component in phospholipid formation that it becomes the limiting factor in the rate of synthesis. Choline was eliminated as the missing factor. No such factor restricts the response of ribonucleic acid metabolism to changes in the energy level of the protein-free diet; the rate of synthesis of ribonucleic acid, as measured by combined quantitative and isotopic studies (32P and glycine-2A4C), appears to be determined, by the energy content of the diet, rather than by its protein content, a fact of particular interest in view of the alleged relationship between ribonucleic acid and protein synthesis. The stimulating effect of an increased energy intake on ribonucleic acid synthesis has been shown to result from the improvement in energy balance rather than from direct involvement in energy balance rather than from direct involvement of ribonucleic acid in energy metabolism. Vitamin B12 was eliminated as a dietary factor affecting the synthesis of ribonucleic acid under the conditions of these experiments. As an hypothesis consistent with these observations on the metabolism of protein, phospholipids and ribonucleic acid in the liver, the availability of energy may be pictured as the factor governing their rates of synthesis. Provided no other component of the synthetic mechanism limits the response to a change in available energy, an improvement in energy balance is associated with an augmented rate of synthesis, It would, however, seem that the increased protein synthesis following the ingestion of protein is independent of energy intake. The findings of these experiments are discussed in the light of current views on the biosynthesis of proteins.


From the 90th years of the last century is the production of pigs and pork industry in the Czech Republic thanks to decreasing self-sufficiency CR in this commodity frequently discussed topic. Low and fluctuating producer I s price, increased imports of live animals and pig meat abroad and the high costs of production are often referred as one of the critical reasons for the current situation in the livestock sector. This paper deals with the calculation of cost of production in the fattening period of pigs and assessment of the influence of selected factors on the amount of these costs. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the production costs in the final stage of pig production and overview of the influence of selected factors (the prices per year and the size of agricultural land area of farm) on the amount of costs. To meet the goal was used data of anonymous questionnaire survey of farms from the years 2006 – 2010. To quantify the cost of production was used two-stage calculation. Using analysis of variance and program STATISTICA was evaluated statistical significance of selected factors on indicators – cost items. The amount of total cost in the fattening stage of pigs increased from 2006 to 2008, in 2009 and 2010 were identified annual declines, as a result of reducing the cost of feed and labor costs. The average total cost in the fattening period of pig in the period of 2006 – 2010 amounted to 1 752.8 CZK /100 FD. Feed costs in the cost structure are the most important item in the period represented on average 65.6% of total cost in the fattening period of pigs. For farms without agricultural land, the proportion was 2.4% higher. Pieces of knowledge introduced in this paper resulted from solution of an institutional research intention MSM 6046070906 "Economics of resources of Czech agriculture and their efficient use in frame of multifunctional agri-food systems".


BACKGROUND
This study aimed to assess the efficacy of acute sub-anesthetic dosages of xenon inhalation to cause erythropoiesis, and determine the effect of chronic xenon dosing on hematological parameters and athletic performance.

METHODS
To assess the acute effects, 7 subjects breathed three sub-anesthetic concentrations of xenon: FiXe 30% for 20 minutes, FiXe 50% for 5 minutes and FiXe 70% for 2 minutes. EPO was measured at baseline, during and post xenon inhalation. To determine the chronic effects, 8 subjects breathed FiXe 70% for 2 minutes on 7 consecutive days, and EPO, total blood and plasma volume were measured. Phase II involved assessment of 12 subjects for EPO, total blood volume, V̇O2max, and 3km time before and after random assignment to 4 weeks of xenon or sham gas inhalation.

RESULTS
FiXe 50% and 70% stimulated an increase in EPO at 6 hours (+2.3mIU/mL [95%CI 0.1-4.5], P=0.038) and at 192 hours post inhalation (+2.9mIU/mL [95%CI 0.6-5.1], P=0.017), respectively. Seven consecutive days of dosing significantly markedly elevated plasma volume (+491mL [95%CI 194-789], P=0.002). Phase II showed no significant effect on EPO, hemoglobin mass, plasma volume, V̇O2max, or 3 km time.

CONCLUSIONS
Acute exposure to sub-anesthetic doses of xenon caused a consistent increase in EPO, and 7 consecutive days of xenon inhalation significantly expanded plasma volume. However, this physiological response appeared to be transient and 4 weeks of xenon inhalation did not stimulate increases in plasma volume or erythropoiesis, leaving cardiorespiratory fitness and athletic performance unchanged.


To the Editor: Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) can be a serious complication resulting from the transfusion of plasma that contains antibodies against recipient white blood cells. There have been only four previously reported cases of recurrent TRALI [1–3]. We describe a patient with recurrent TRALI, emphasizing potential strategies to prevent this disease. A 25-year-old man with hereditary factor V deficiency and a baseline FV level of <2% received five units of fresh frozen plasma after a spontaneous axillary hematoma and developed TRALI. The patient recovered fully and was discharged 48 hr later. Five months later, he received two units of plasma after a trauma-induced right foot hematoma and suffered a recurrent episode of TRALI. Donors associated with the initial and recurrent TRALI episodes were tested for anti-HLA class I, anti-HLA class II, and antigranulocyte antibodies. Sera from three female donors from the first transfusion episode and one female donor from the second transfusion episode showed antibodies against HLA class I, class II, or both (Table I). None showed antigranulocyte antibodies. The patient could not be HLA-typed because of relocation. Both TRALI episodes of our patient met American–European Consensus Conference criteria, including a new episode of acute lung injury occurring within 6 hr of transfusion, bilateral pulmonary infiltrates on chest X-ray, and no evidence of an alternative risk factor for acute lung injury nor of circulatory overload [4]. Our patient was in good health, did not have any of the known


Recent discoveries on neural network pruning reveal that, with a carefully chosen layerwise sparsity, a simple magnitude-based pruning achieves state-of-the-art tradeoff between sparsity and performance. However, without a clear consensus on "how to choose," the layerwise sparsities are mostly selected algorithm-by-algorithm, often resorting to handcrafted heuristics or an extensive hyperparameter search. To fill this gap, we propose a novel importance score for global pruning, coined layer-adaptive magnitude-based pruning (LAMP) score; the score is a rescaled version of weight magnitude that incorporates the model-level $\ell_2$ distortion incurred by pruning, and does not require any hyperparameter tuning or heavy computation. Under diverse datasets and models, LAMP consistently outperforms popular existing schemes for layerwise sparsity selection. Furthermore, we observe that LAMP continues to outperform baselines even in weight-rewinding setups, while the connectivity-oriented layerwise sparsity (the strongest baseline overall) performs worse than a simple global magnitude-based pruning in this case.


Chrysomelina larvae possess a sophisticated strategy in terms of chemical defense adapted to their natural habitat. In case of a predatory attack, the deterrent secretions are presented from dorsal glands. Three different ways to produce the repellent glucosides are proposed. Irrespective of the deterrent production, all larvae show common principles: the glucosidically bound precursors are transferred via the hemolymph into the glandular reservoir. Until recently, almost no genomic and transcriptomic data were available for leaf beetles. In order to comprehensively study the defense metabolism with respect to transport proteins in leaf beetle species, the transcriptomes of Phaedon cochleariae as well as Chrysomela populi were sequenced by applying next-generation sequencing technologies. The transcript sequences of these leaf beetles were assembled de novo to provide essential transcript catalogues. These sequences were then annotated and putative functions assigned. Thereafter, in addition to phylogenetic studies, RNA interference (RNAi) methodology was applied to characterize particular enzymes and proteins. To circumvent the knock-down of non-target transcripts, an off-target prediction method was implemented. Combining RNA-seq with RNAi, and subsequently studying differential expression, promoted the observation of enzymes involved in the sequestration process. Two enzymes namely a salicyl alcohol oxidase in C. populi and a juvenile hormone-binding protein of P. cochleariae were observed, RNAi targeting the most abundant sugar transporters in P. cochleariae revealed a counter-regulation which ensures the defense ability, and RNAi targeting the most abundant glandular ABC transporter in C. populi validated its significant function. In conclusion, sequencing of transcriptomes and RNA-seq after triggering RNAi followed by the analysis of differential gene expression holds great opportunities for the study of genes of interest in non-model organisms.


The first of its kind, this annotated guide describes and evaluates more than 400 works in English. Rothschild's lively annotations discuss important features of each work-including the quality of the graphics, characterizations, dialogue, and the appropriate audience-and introduces mainstream readers to the variety and quality of graphic novels, helps them distinguish between classics and hackwork, and alerts experienced readers to material they may not have discovered. Designed for individuals who need information about graphic novels and for those interested in acquiring them, this book will especially appeal to librarians, booksellers, bookstore owners, educators working with teen and reluctant readers, as well as to readers interested in this genre.


In the last twenty years the extraordinary rise of information technology has made possible key technological developments at the service of precision in radiotherapy treatments: in obtaining three-dimensional images, in systems planning and in radiation units. Thus in less than two decades there progress has been made from radiotherapy in two dimensions (RT 2D) to 3D conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) and to modulation of intensity modulated radiotherapy for maximum conformation (IMRT). High precision in radiation delivery adjusts the prescribed dosage to the white volume, better preserving the adjacent healthy tissue. It is thus possible to aspire to improving the therapeutic index in two respects, either reducing late toxicity when this is a problem of sufficient scale, or scaling the dosage in the white volume in order to increase tumour control without provoking further toxicity. A final component in reaching the present state of radiotherapy is of capital importance: the guided image which makes it possible to direct the beams of radiation, adapting them to the possible changes of position of the white volume before or during treatment.


and psychiatric disorders – was there really one? I read with great interest the article by Crossley et al 1 and, although commending their work, I was surprised to arrive at the opposite conclusion to that of the authors. In their metaanalysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging correlates of 'psychiatric' and 'neurological' conditions they find that both classifications appear to correlate with some distinct regional brain volume changes. In their discussion of these findings they conclude that their analysis lends weight to the argument that the disorders may be thought of as belonging to two distinct classes. I was surprised at this conclusion and would ask the reader to consider that these results may actually suggest the opposite for the following three reasons. First, given the established functional organisation of brain anatomy one might, a priori, predict that different clinical symptoms (hallucinations v. motor apraxia for example) are associated with dysfunctional activity in spatially distinct brain regions. With this in mind, the finding that the psychiatric and neurological classes affected different brain structures is perhaps not surprising. Personally, I found the considerable overlap between the classes the most interesting finding. This finding suggests that disease-specific 'lesions' have a considerable effect on wider neural network structure. Understanding of the mechanisms of these shared findings requires input from both specialties. Following on from this it is important to remember that the grey matter volume reduction was reliably found in both classes of disorder albeit in some different brain regions. A finding more parsimonious with the authors' conclusion would have been if there was no evidence of volume loss in one set of disorders v. the other. This would clearly have segregated the conditions. Instead, we must now accept that the presence of structural brain changes does not de facto indicate a neurological condition as compared to a psychiatric one. Undoubtedly, the aetiological mechanisms of volume changes are not the same across disorders; no classically defined psychiatric condition is driven by known progressive proteinopathy, for example. However, the finding that both sets of conditions are associated with structural brain changes clearly establishes both as disorders of the central nervous system. Finally, from a clinical perspective, the symptoms patients experience do not sit neatly on either side of the classic psychiatric and neurological divide and the findings from this paper may go some way as to explaining why. To segregate these classes based on a few regional differences in grey matter volume may appear somewhat artificial especially in face of the clinical burden of psychiatric symptoms in neurological patients and vice versa. Furthermore, I do not believe that either group of patients are best served by the call to keep the intellectual framework of these two groups of disorders separate. Importantly, accepting that there are neurobiological similarities between traditionally neurological and psychiatric conditions does not equate to saying that either clinical specialty should feel threatened by the other. The considerable differences in clinical approach, decision-making and support structures employed by neurologists and psychiatrists are sufficiently distinct that we should not feel threatened to admit that the disorders we are seeing manifest from dysfunction of the same organ. Accepting this stance will, hopefully, facilitate the cross-fertilisation of knowledge and lead to improved care for both sets of patients.


Abstract. Forty male lambs of five Southern Spanish breeds were used to study the effects of the breed in their sensorial characteristics. The used breeds were: Segurena, Spanish Merino, Grazalema Merino, Churra Lebrijana and Montesina breeds. Milk lambs were slaughtered at 12 kg of live weight. A descriptive sensory evaluation was developed using the longissimus lumborum from each animal by a panel of 12 experts and a Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) was used to discriminate among them. Generalized Procrustes Analysis clearly differentiated Churra Lebrijana of out the rest breeds. Churra Lebrijana was defined as more tender, juicier and with less lamb odour than the rest of the Southern Spanish lamb breeds. Thus, GPA is able to discriminate among breeds.


Short hard gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are believed to be produced by compact
binary coalescences (CBC) { either double neutron stars or neutron star{black
hole binaries. The same source is expected to emit strong gravitational radiation,
detectable with existing and planned gravitational wave observatories. The focus
of this work is to describe a series of searches for gravitational waves (GW) from
compact binary coalescence (CBC) events triggered by short gamma-ray burst
detections. Specifically, we will present the motivation, frameworks, implementations
and results of searches for GW associated with short gamma-ray bursts
detected by Swift, Fermi{GBM and the InterPlanetary Network (IPN) gamma-ray
detectors.
We will begin by presenting the main concepts that lay the foundation of
gravitational waves emission, as they are formulated in the theory of General
Relativity; we will also brie
y describe the operational principles of GW detectors,
together with explaining the main challenges that the GW detection process is
faced with. Further, we will motivate the use of observations in the electromagnetic
(EM) band as triggers for GW searches, with an emphasis on possible EM signals
from CBC events.
We will briefly present the data analysis techniques including concepts as
matched{filtering through a collection of theoretical GW waveforms, signal{to{
noise ratio, coincident and coherent analysis approaches, signal{based veto tests
and detection candidates' ranking. We will use two different GW{GRB search
examples to illustrate the use of the existing coincident and coherent analysis
methods. We will also present a series of techniques meant to improve the sensitivity
of existing GW triggered searches. These include shifting background data
in time in order to obtain extended coincident data and setting a prior on the
GRB inclination angle, in accordance with astrophysical observations, in order to
restrict the searched parameter space.
We will describe the GW data analysis and present results from a GW search
around 12 short gamma-ray bursts detected by the InterPlanetary Network (IPN)
between 2006 and 2007. The IPN{detected bursts usually have extended localization
error boxes and a search for GW was performed at different sky locations
across these error regions. Since no GW detection was made, we set upper limits
on the distances to the GRB progenitors; we briefly discuss the implications that
two IPN GRBs error regions overlap two nearby galaxies.


Introduction The pathophysiology of acute left ventricular dysfunction after acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is incompletely understood. In this study, we carried out a case-control study of left ventricular (LV) biomechanical behaviour in vivo using an immersed boundary-finite element (IB/FE) method. Methods Cardiac magnetic resonance images were acquired from six healthy volunteers (the healthy group) and six patients with acute LV dysfunction post-acute STEMI (the MI group) with no-reflow, defined as an acute reduction in myocardial blood flow despite a patent epicardial coronary artery. The two groups were age matched. The passive and active myocardial parameters were determined from the measured in vivo data (LV cavity volume and strain) to match the LV dynamics in diastole and systole. Results Student's t-test was used for significance test. Our results show that even though the average measured peak cuff-pressure in the MI group is much lower than the healthy group (122 ± 21 vs. 150 ± 20mmHg, p < 0.05), the peak systolic active tension in the MI group is higher (68.9 ± 6.8 vs. 64.7 ± 8.4kPa, p = 0.15), therefore the required active tension per mmHg increase is significantly higher in the MI group (0.57 ± 0.05 vs. 0.43 ± 0.05 kPa/mmHg, p < 0.01), which may suggest that the viable myocardium in the MI group is working harder to compensate for the loss of contraction even with much lower blood pressure. Compared to the healthy group, the MI group also has a larger end-diastolic volume (143 ± 23 vs. 122 ± 16 mL, p = 0.09), and a lower ejection fraction (39 ± 3% vs. 53 ± 2%, p < 0.01). Conclusions In summary, we have shown for the first time that, compared with controls, patients with recent ST-elevation myocardial infarction exhibit increased active tension generation in combination with predictable changes in end-diastolic volume and ejection fraction. Active tension generation is a novel biomechanical index, and its clinical and prognostic significance merits further study. Funding British Heart Foundation (PG/14/64/31043)


Embedded visual assist systems are emerging as increasingly viable tools for aiding visually impaired persons in their day-to-day life activities. Novel wearable devices with imaging capabilities will be uniquely positioned to assist visually impaired in activities such as grocery shopping. However, supporting such time-sensitive applications on embedded platforms requires an intelligent trade-off between accuracy and computational efficiency. In order to maximize their utility in real-world scenarios, visual classifiers often need to recognize objects within large sets of object classes that are both diverse and deep. In a grocery market, simultaneously recognizing the appearance of people, shopping carts, and pasta is an example of a common diverse object classification task. Moreover, a useful visual-aid system would need deep classification capability to distinguish among the many styles and brands of pasta to direct attention to a particular box. Exemplar Support Vector Machines (ESVMs) provide a means of achieving this specificity, but are resource intensive as computation increases rapidly with the number of classes to be recognized. To maintain scalability without sacrificing accuracy, we examine the use of a biologically-inspired classifier (HMAX) as a front-end filter that can narrow the set of ESVMs to be evaluated. We show that a hierarchical classifier combining HMAX and ESVM performs better than either of the two individually. We achieve 12% improvement in accuracy over HMAX and 4% improvement over ESVM while reducing computational overhead of evaluating all possible exemplars.


Automorphisms of Z/nZ is isomorphic to (Z/Z)×. If G is a finite abelian group, which is isomorphic to direct product of m cyclic groups of order q where q = p\(^n\) for some prime p. Then Aut(G) is isomorphic to the set of m×m matrices with determinant coprime to p, GL\(_m\) (e\(_q\)) Also Aut(G)=p\(^{(n-1)}\) \(^{(m2)}\) GL\(_m\) (Z\(_q\)). If \(\alpha\)is an automorphism of S\(_n\)and t is a transposition of S\(_n\)for n \(\not\) 6, then \(\alpha\)(t)is a transposition. If \(\alpha\) maps transposition to a transposition, then \(\alpha\) is an inner automorphism. Then AUT (S\(_n)\) \(\simeq\) S \(_n\) \(\not\) 6. Furthermore, there exists an outer automorphism of S\(_6\)and OUT (S\(_6\)) \(\simeq\) \(\frac{z}{zz}\). Thus OUT (S\(_g\))=2. Coset enumeration is one of the basic methods for investigating finitely generated subgroups in finitely presented.. Information are gradually added to a coset, a relation, a subgroup tables and once they are filled in, all cosets have been enumerated, the algorithm terminates. Goldschmidt's Lemma on the number of isomorphism classes of amalgams having fixed type, verify that there is one isomorphism class of amalgam of type A=(S\(_n\)S\(_n\)S_(n-1), \(\phi\)\(_1\), \(\phi\)\(_2\)) where \(\phi\) is an identity map from S_(n-1) to (S\(_n\)for i=1, 2 and n\(\not\) 2,3,6,7. When n=2,7 we have two isomorphic class of amalgam of type A. Finally, i A and A' are cyclic amalgams of the same type then there universal completions are isospectral.


In order to protect a server to become overloading due to concentration of accesses, a mirror server system is widely used for distributing the load to multiservers. For such a system, it is very important for users to select an appropriate one among the servers. In the previous systems, the DNS (domain name system) Round-Robin mechanism is widely adopted for this purpose, otherwise users must choose a server by themselves. Even in the former method, however, since all servers are evenly assigned to clients without any cares of the performance and process status of the servers, the load of each server is deflected. To solve the above problem, this article proposes a new adaptive load balancing method based on the ordinary DNS Round-Robin mechanism. In this proposal, a DNS server for the mirror-server system periodically probes the status of each server. For a query from each client, the DNS server changes its response from the probed results and IP address of the client. Finally, the prototype system of the proposal is implemented and the file transfer speeds of both the proposed method and Round-Robin DNS method are estimated for the mirror server system of RingServer Project in Japan.


The authors wish to discuss some problems which currently appear in the clinical practice during the treatment of rectal cancer patients, when implementing the treatment protocols. According to these guidelines, patients with tumours in stages II and III have as a first step of treatment neo-adjuvant radio-chemotherapy, followed by surgical intervention and, sometimes, postoperative chemotherapy. A first problem is the fact that the implementation of this treatment protocol might be in the disadvantage of patients with tumours having a decreased response to radio- and chemotherapy, in which case one delays the implementation of other treatment methods. This phenomenon is caused by the lack of clinically applied strategies, useful in the identification of those patients, even if at present there are immunohistochemistry and genetic markers which offer data regarding the tumour resistance to radio-chemotherapy. A second problem to be analyzed is related to the attitude towards the patients with a complete response to neo-adjuvant radio-chemotherapy. In those patients, the current guidelines do not point out the criteria according to which one may include the patient in a "wait-and-see" group of patients, thus avoiding the specific complications of the surgery of the rectum. Out of the analysis of the personal data and of the data found in literature, we have drawn a few criteria which may allow the patient to be included in a group with "watchful waiting".


Over the past several years, the authors of this work have investigated external structures of microdrile oligochaetes using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Both published and still-unpublished data have revealed new structures of interest, especially those associated with mating, ciliate sense receptors, chaetae, and dorsal pores. Mating systems can be classified in 3 categories: grasping, coupling, and embracing. Ciliate sense receptors can be classified as poorly defined (unelevated), sensory buds, or papillae, and are provided with blunt cilia and/or sharp cilia. They are present along the whole body (including clitellum, budding, and regeneration zones), scattered on the prostomium, peristomium, and pygidium, arranged in transversal rows and scattered in chaetal segments. Somatic chaetae show great variability when observed by SEM. Hair chaetae are at least potentially provided with denticulations. Dorsal pores were observed in aquatic microdriles. SEM proves to be an invaluable tool to discover important structures associated with functional anatomy in microdriles.


Despite great ferment and activity among historians of science in recent years, the history of physiology after 1850 has received little attention. Gerald Geison makes an important contribution to our knowledge of this neglected area by investigating the achievements of English physiologists at the Cambridge School from 1870 to 1900. He describes individual scientists, their research, the scientific issues affecting their work, and socio-institutional influences on the group. He pays special attention to the personality and contributions of Michael Foster, founding father of the Cambridge School. Foster's specific research interest was the origin of the rhythmic heartbeat, and the author contends that the school itself descended from and developed around this concern.Originally published in 1978.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Use this guide to learn about the field of Digital Humanities, software tools for humanist research, and resources to get started on new projects.


A key problem of component-based grid application configuration is to map services onto the execution nodes of the grid environment such that all services of the application satisfy some minimum quality requirements. This problem is known to be NP-hard. This paper presents two extensions to our previous ant-based application service mapping heuristic, in order to establish some coordination among the working agents in a decentralized environment and improve its convergence rate. The first extension proposes to use gatekeepers that learn to guide the movement of intelligent foraging ants. The second extension is a coordination mechanism to allow an ant to draw on the learned knowledge of its co-workers. The simulation evaluation of the proposed extensions shows that inclusion of scaled sleep time further improves the convergence rates while the gatekeepers seem to have a negative effect.


Objective. As a result of recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, the number of people surviving cancer is increasing. A subgroup of cancer survivors report long-lasting physical and psychological complaints including decreased cardiorespiratory capacity, decreased physical functioning, and decreased quality of life (QoL). Physical and psychological rehabilitation had beneficial effects on cancer survivors' physical fitness and QoL. Physical training appeared to have a primarily positive effect on the physical and functional aspects of QoL, whereas cognitive-behavioural therapy was shown to be beneficial for the psychosocial aspects. Therefore, compared to a single intervention, combining physical training with cognitive-behavioural therapy may lead to greater improvements in QoL by having benefits on both physical and psychosocial functioning. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to determine the effects of a group-based combined self-management physical and cognitive-behavioural intervention (PT+CBT) on the physical fitness and quality of life of cancer survivors compared to group-based self-management physical training (PT) and a waiting list control group (WLC). Methods. Between February 2004 and January 2007, a total of 209 cancer survivors (all cancer types, medical treatment completed at least three months ago) were recruited and were randomly assigned to 12-week PT+CBT (n=76) or 12-week PT (n=71), or participated in WLC (n=62). The WLC group consisted of cancer survivors on a waiting-list using the same inclusion criteria. QoL was measured using the EORTC-QLQ-C30 and the RAND-36. Physical fitness was assessed by means of an exhaustive exercise test and muscle strength testing. Physical activity levels were determined using the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly. The intervention groups were measured at baseline and post-intervention. QoL was also assessed at three and nine months post-intervention. The WLC group was measured at baseline and 12 weeks later. Results. The sample compromised 179 women and 30 men. The age of participants ranged from 18 to 74 years with a mean of 49.9 years. 57.4% survivors were diagnosed with breast cancer, 15.8% with haematological cancer, 11.5% with gynaecological cancer and 15.3% with other types of cancer. In terms of treatment, 84.7% had surgery, 67.5% received chemotherapy and 58.9% received radiation therapy. There was no difference in changes of QoL, physical fitness and physical activity between PT and PT+CBT at the short-term as well as, concerning QoL, at the long-term. Compared to control, participants in both intervention groups exhibited significant and clinically relevant improvements in role limitations due to physical problems, physical functioning, vitality and health change. Furthermore, peak exercise capacity and muscle strength of the lower limb of PT+CBT and PT participants were increased after the intervention compared to the control subjects. Conlusion. The intensive, supervised, group-based physical training programme that integrated principles of self-management and the advantages of peer contact improved cancer survivors' physical fitness and QoL. Combining the physical training with a cognitive-behavioural intervention did not add to these beneficial effects of physical training neither in the short-term nor in the long-term.


PURPOSE
This phase III study was performed to determine the superiority of doxorubicin (DOX) and vinorelbine (VNB) (arm 1) versus DOX alone (arm 2) in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) for overall survival (OS), time to treatment failure (TTF), toxicity, and quality of life (QOL).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Three hundred three patients were randomized to DOX 50 mg/m(2) intravenously (IV) on day 1 and VNB 25 mg/m(2) IV on days 1 and 8 (arm 1) or DOX 70 mg/m(2) IV on day 1 (arm 2). Both regimens were given every 3 weeks until a cumulative DOX dose of 450 mg/m(2). After 16 of the first 65 randomized patients experienced febrile neutropenia (FN), the doses were reduced to DOX 40 mg/m(2) on day 1 and VNB 20 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 8 versus DOX 60 mg/m(2) on day 1. Eligible patients were vinca alkaloid and anthracycline naive. Chemotherapy was first-line or second-line for MBC.

RESULTS
Three patients were ineligible. Thus, 300 patients were assessable for toxicity and to determine time to disease progression (TTP), TTF, and OS. Two hundred eighty-nine patients were assessable for response, and 99 responders were assessable for response duration (RD). The response rates, QOL, and median RD, TTP, and TTF were not significantly different between the arms. Median OS was 13.8 months for arm 1 versus 14.4 months for arm 2 (P =.4). Grade 3 or 4 granulocytopenia was equivalent in both arms but more grade 3/4 neurotoxicity, mild venous toxicity, and FN were seen on arm 1.

CONCLUSION
The survival with DOX and VNB is not superior to DOX alone in MBC.


It is not well recognized that promethazine can be given intravenously-for example, it is listed only for the oral and intramuscular routes in Wood's Paediatric Vade-Mecum.1 Promethazine needs to be diluted in water and is given here over a period of an hour by further diluting it with dextrose saline. Drowsiness is a common side effect, but despite this many of the children are able to leave hospital during the day. Repeated injections are avoided by using heparin locks -after the giving set has been disconnected heparin 100 U/ml is injected into a Butterfly intermittent infusion set or, even more satisfactory, into a male adapter plug connected to a short Teflon catheter. Advances in the style of treatment may not affect the long-term outlook, but at least the burden is made less onerous for the children and their parents.-I am, etc.,


We study the phase diagram of spin-one polar condensates in a two dimensional optical lattice with magnetic anisotropy. We show that the topological binding of vorticity to nematic disclinations allows for a rich variety of phase transitions. These include Kosterlitz-Thouless-like transitions with a superfluid stiffness jump that can be experimentally tuned to take a continuous set of values, and a new cascaded Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, characterized by two divergent length scales. For higher integer spin bosons S, the thermal phase transition out of the planar polar phase is strongly affected by the parity of S.


This paper presents a novel introduction of online target-specific metric learning in track fragment (tracklet) association by network flow optimization for long-term multi-person tracking. Different from other network flow formulation, each node in our network represents a tracklet, and each edge represents the likelihood of neighboring tracklets belonging to the same trajectory as measured by our proposed affinity score. In our method, target-specific similarity metrics are learned, which give rise to the appearance-based models used in the tracklet affinity estimation. Trajectory-based tracklets are refined by using the learned metrics to account for appearance consistency and to identify reliable tracklets. The metrics are then re-learned using reliable tracklets for computing tracklet affinity scores. Long-term trajectories are then obtained through network flow optimization. Occlusions and missed detections are handled by a trajectory completion step. Our method is effective for long-term tracking even when the targets are spatially close or completely occluded by others. We validate our proposed framework on several public datasets and show that it outperforms several state of art methods.


Abstract Objectives. Inflammatory responses are closely knit with low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol in driving atherosclerosis. Even if LDL-cholesterol is causative to atherosclerotic diseases and LDL-cholesterol lowering reduces hard clinical endpoints, there is a residual risk for clinical events, possibly driven by inflammatory processes, in accordance with its role in autoimmune diseases. Design. As LDL-cholesterol treatment targets are reduced, the use of non-statin lipid-lowering drugs will probably increase. Atherosclerotic plaques evolve through lipid infiltration and modification in the intima, furthermore infiltration of cells including monocytes, macrophages, T-lymphocytes and neutrophils initiating inflammatory signaling. Here we briefly review inflammation in atherosclerosis and the effects of the non-statin lipid-lowering drugs on inflammation. The review is limited to the most common non-statin lipid lowering drugs, i.e. proprotein convertase subtilisin-kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors, bile acid sequestrants (BAS) and cholesterol absorption inhibitors. Results. PCSK9 inhibition is mostly studied together with statins and is associated with a reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, PCSK9 inhibitors seem to have an effect on monocyte migration trough CCR2. They also have an interaction with sirtuins, possibly offering a therapeutic target. BAS have several interesting effects on inflammation, including reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines and a reduction of the number of infiltrating macrophages, however there are relatively few reports considering that these drugs have been on the market for decades. Ezetimibe also has effects on inflammation including reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules, however these effects are usually accomplished in tandem with statins. Conclusion. This topic adds an interesting piece to the puzzle of atherosclerosis, indicating that PCSK9 inhibition, BAS and ezetimibe all affect thromboinflammation.


In our aging society, the number of patients suffering from poorly healing bone defects increases. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are used in the clinic to promote bone regeneration. However, poor control of BMP delivery and thus activity necessitates high doses, resulting in adverse effects and increased costs. It has been demonstrated that messenger RNA (mRNA) provides a superior alternative to protein delivery due to local uptake and prolonged expression restricted to the site of action. Here, we present the development of porous collagen scaffolds incorporating peptide-mRNA nanoparticles (NPs). Nanoparticles were generated by simply mixing aqueous solutions of the cationic cell-penetrating peptide PepFect14 (PF14) and mRNA. Peptide-mRNA complexes were uniformly distributed throughout the scaffolds, and matrices fully preserved cell attachment and viability. There was a clear dependence of protein expression on the incorporated amount of mRNA. Importantly, after lyophilization, the mRNA formulation in the collagen scaffolds retained activity also at 4 °C over two weeks. Overall, our results demonstrate that collagen scaffolds incorporating peptide-mRNA complexes hold promise as off-the-shelf functional biomaterials for applications in regenerative medicine and constitute a viable alternative to lipid-based mRNA formulations.


Fuel homeostasis in mammals is accomplished by the interplay between tissues and organs with distinct metabolic roles. These regulatory mechanisms are disrupted in obesity and diabetes, leading to a renewed emphasis on discovery of molecular and pharmacologic methods for reversing metabolic disorders. In this chapter, we review the use of recombinant adenoviral vectors as tools for delivering metabolic regulatory genes to cells in culture and to tissues of intact animals. Included are studies on the use of these vectors for gaining insights into the biochemical mechanisms that regulate glucose-stimulated insulin secretion from pancreatic islet beta-cells. We also highlight their use for understanding the function of newly discovered genes that regulate glycogen metabolism in liver and other tissues, and for evaluating "candidate" genes such as glucose-6-phosphatase, which may contribute to development of metabolic dysfunction in pancreatic islets and liver. Finally, we discuss the use of adenoviral and related vectors for causing chronic increases in the levels of circulating hormones. These examples serve to highlight the power of viral gene transfer vectors as tools for understanding metabolic regulatory mechanisms.


Future high performance large radar phased array antennas will require true time delay (TTD), rather than phase shifters, in order to support high bandwidth pulses over a range of scanning angles. Currently, RF Rotman lenses are used as TTD elements, offering a somewhat limited performance with respect to their RF characteristics. Recently, photonic architectures, comprising optical transmitters and receivers, together with some optical circuitry to optically process RF signals, have been proposed as candidates for inclusion within wideband RF systems, which need true time delay to cover an RF bandwidth as large as 18 GHz. In this paper a novel microwave photonic implementation of a Rotman-lens is proposed, offering improved functionality and performance. The proposed scanning unit is an optical module, where photo-detectors connected to the transmitting/receiving antennas are the interfaces, converting between the RF signals and their respective optical waves. The optical module is basically a photonic Rotman lens, quite similar in design to its RF counterpart. However, in addition to the improvement that is obtained by realizing the solution in a photonic module, the proposed photonic Rotman lens improved design is capable of realizing a linear phase profile with a varied slope, that is obtained at the output of the lens for any possible position at the input to the lens. This is in contrast to what is currently available with the conventional RF Rotman lens, where output phase front linearity is obtained for a small and discrete number of input positions. The improved performance is obtained by numerically optimizing the curves of the photonic input and output surfaces of the lens, having an off-centered elliptical profiles, rather than the classically used spherical curvatures. Performance characteristics will be reviewed.


Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are being tested and adopted at a significant rate in humanitarian emergency response. However, the crossing of physical, biological, and cyber domains that characterises these technologies threatens the independence of humanitarian organisations. This is occurring in an environment in which the value and purpose of independence is already seriously questioned, both in practice, and in principle. This paper argues that the loss of independence stems from two related trends. First, several 4IR technologies are improving the capacity of humanitarian organisations to gather, synthesise, and analyse data, resulting in the production of information of increasingly strategic, political or military value. Second, the cyber component of these technologies simultaneously renders that information more vulnerable to unauthorised access by third parties with relevant political, military or economic agendas. This parallels the "capability/ vulnerability paradox" identified in literature discussing cybersecurity in relation to the military or so-called "smart cities". In conflict and disaster settings, this paradox increases the likelihood of humanitarian actors functioning as appendages of other organisations. This loss of independence potentially has operational implications relating to access, and material impact on the ongoing debate around the importance of independence in humanitarian work.


Abstract. Approximately 57% of the Brazilian northeast region is recognized as semi-arid land and has been undergoing intense land use processes in the last decades, which have resulted in severe degradation of its natural assets. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the areas that are susceptible to desertification in this region based on the 11 influencing factors of desertification (pedology, geology, geomorphology, topography data, land use and land cover change, aridity index, livestock density, rural population density, fire hot spot density, human development index, conservation units) which were simulated for two different periods: 2000 and 2010. Each indicator were assigned weights ranging from 1 to 2 (representing the best and the worst conditions), representing classes indicating low, moderate and high susceptibility to desertification. The results indicate that 94% of the Brazilian northeast region is under moderate to high susceptibility to desertification. The areas that were susceptible to soil desertification increased by approximately 4.6% (83.4 km2) from 2000 to 2010. The implementation of the methodology provides the technical basis for decision-making that involves mitigating actions and the first comprehensive national assessment within the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification framework.


This article introduces the concept of abnormativity as way of theorizing the realities of subjects who suffer from marginalization and/or erasure, specifically sex workers. It then develops livability as a playbook of political action which attends to the abnormative lives of sex workers by balancing resistance to institutionalized forms of marginalization with queer critical approaches to heteronormativity. It proposes this framework as suitable for frontline sex-worker support projects, outlining the limitations and benefits of three ethico-political models that aim to address the conditions of abnormativity: the politics of recognition, intersectional recognition, and critical intelligibility. It argues that each of these models is insufficient on its own, but that intersectional recognition and critical intelligibility can be mobilized productively together as the politics of livability.


Voluntary certifications offer consumers information on the process in which products are produced. Farmers' organizations play an important role in the management of certifications and in small-farmer access to certified markets. Costa Rican farmers' organizations have a long history of participation in the certified value chain and in fomenting small farmers' access to certified markets. Farmers' organizations also make strategic decisions related to the organization's participation in the certified value chain and how farmers are supported and incentivized to join.For these reasons Costa Rica provides an interesting milieu to study how farmers' organizations manage certifications. Because of their importance in the certification process in Costa Rica, this research focuses on cooperatives and consortia of cooperatives. Considering the gap in knowledge regarding the role of cooperatives and voluntary coffee certifications, this thesis presents the following questions: What is the role of cooperatives in the management of voluntary coffee certifications?, What are the advantages and disadvantages of participation in voluntary certifications for cooperatives?, What changes do certifications induce at the cooperative and farm levels?, What social aspects in Costa Rica influence the management and effectiveness of certifications? Administrators from twenty of the twenty-two coffee cooperatives in Costa Rica were interviewed to obtain basic data on harvest size, membership and management and participation in certifications. Four cooperatives were selected for in-depth case studies.Certifications are often criticized for not eliciting widespread change at the farm level due to the selection of compliant farms, but it is the structure of the certifications, including low demand, weak and variable price incentives, high costs of auditing and high requirements for management and training, which incentivize cooperatives to choose individual certifications.In Costa Rica, voluntary coffee certifications promote small but real benefits to cooperatives and their members. Cooperatives make decisions about the management of certifications based on their business strategies, the type of coffee they produce and the social capital inherent in the cooperative, which is manifested as a group solidarity approach or a commercial approach.Certifications incite a more holistic approach to coffee production by requiring training and services related to sustainable production. Certifications encourage cooperatives to collaborate with other stakeholders, increasing their connectedness and organizational social capital. This gives members access to new knowledge and services and has the potential to create a virtuous cycle of the production of social capital.Certifications, however, may induce cooperatives to offer additional services or financial incentives to some members and not to others. A high level of social capital is needed at the administrative level to ensure an equitable distribution of the benefits of certifications while still offering members incentives to pursue certifications.


A simple neural network-based approach is introduced, which allows the computation of the coefficients of the generalized non-orthogonal 2D Gabor transform representation. The network is trained using a recursive least squares (RLS) type algorithm. This RLS learning algorithm offers better accuracy and faster convergence when compared to the least mean squares based algorithms. The aim is to achieve minimum mean squared error for the reconstructed image from the set of the Gabor coefficients. Applications of this scheme in image data reduction and pattern classification are demonstrated in the simulation results.<<ETX>>


This article introduces a methodology, "Iconic Legisigns-Guided Interviewing," which aims at understanding and addressing communicative, cultural, and contextual gaps at the margins that have historically muted underserved populations. Grounded in the theories of visual and sensory research, this new method aims at overcoming the limitations of technology-dependent video-/photograph-elicitation research in geographically isolated regions and seeks to create an open and enabling dialogic environment for illiterate (and low-literate) politicoeconomically marginalized people. This method was developed with active participation of low-literate community members and iteratively tested in underserved spaces of rural Bengal. In this approach, organically cocreated images, more specifically iconic legisigns, were employed as prompts to make interview processes focused and inclusive and to complement conventional semistructured in-depth interviewing. This local-centric method helps research participants to cocreate knowledge, decide discussion pointers, and come up with respondent-generated questions/probes and also seeks to ensure inclusivity and discursive control of participants over the research.


Three closely associated arthropleurid trackways, Diplichnites cuithensis, from the Lower Carboniferous of Fife, Scotland, exhibit signs of interaction between track-makers. An extra file of footprints is found on the downslope side of two trackways (A and C), the upslope side of another (B). These additional files of footprints suggest that either: each trackway resulted from two arthropleurids of different sizes walking in tandem, matching their footprints exactly on one side for some distance; or that one arthropleurid was partially mounted on the back of another producing the three parallel files. It is here argued that the latter is correct and that this represents evidence of mating behaviour in arthropleurids.


AIM:To develop a high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/ESI)method for simultaneous determination of quetiapine and its sulfoxide-, 7-hydroxy-, 7-hydroxy-N-dealkyl-metabolites in human plasma. METHODS: The HPLC separation of the compounds was performed on a Kromasil C18, (5μm, 4.6 mm×150 mm) column, using water (formic acid: 1.70 mmol/L, ammonium acetate: 5.8 mmol/L)-acetoni-trile (65:35) as mobile phase, with a flow-rate of 0.95 mL/min. The compounds were ionized in the electrospray ionization (ESI) ion source of the mass spectrometer and detected in the selected ion recording (SIR) mode. The samples were extracted using solid-phase extraction columns. RESULTS: The calibration curves were linear in theranges of 10-2000 μg/L for quetiapine, 1-200 μg/L for its metabolites, respectively. The average extraction recoveries for all the four samples were above 85 %. The methodology recoveries were much higher than 95 %. Theintra-day and inter-day RSD are less than 15 %. CONCLUSION: The method is accurate, sensitive, and simple for study of pharmacokinetics and metabolic mechanism of quetiapine in patients at therapeutic dose.


The world has experienced an unprecedented mental health crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (Liu et al., 2020). After more than two years navigating the associated uncertainty and distress, the impact on youth mental health continues to be a pressing concern. Those in the mental health field, as well as the children and families plagued by its impact, are inundated with seeing firsthand the impact on youth's functioning. This includes increases in depression and suicide (Asarnow & Chung, 2021; Manzar et al., 2021), and having to navigate siloes in care and often even an inability when in crisis to access a continuum of services (Zhai, 2021). This has highlighted the significant issues with accessibility of mental health care and inequitable access to care for youth mental health both in the United States and globally. We continue to experience daily the impact of insufficient resources for youth behavioral health. For those in the field who prioritize the need for more robust intervention approaches, the child mental health crisis associated with the pandemic has highlighted the need for us to develop more novel and innovative interventions.


In human-centered intelligent building, real-time measurements of human thermal comfort play critical roles and supply feedback control signals for building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Due to the challenges of intra- and inter-individual differences and skin subtleness variations, there has not been any satisfactory solution for thermal comfort measurements until now. In this paper, a contactless measuring method based on a skin sensitivity index and deep learning (NISDL) was proposed to measure real-time skin temperature. A new evaluating index, named the skin sensitivity index (SSI), was defined to overcome individual differences and skin subtleness variations. To illustrate the effectiveness of SSI proposed, a two multi-layers deep learning framework (NISDL method I and II) was designed and the DenseNet201 was used for extracting features from skin images. The partly personal saturation temperature (NIPST) algorithm was use for algorithm comparisons. Another deep learning algorithm without SSI (DL) was also generated for algorithm comparisons. Finally, a total of 1.44 million image data was used for algorithm validation. The results show that 55.62% and 52.25% error values (NISDL method I, II) are scattered at (0 °C, 0.25 °C), and the same error intervals distribution of NIPST is 35.39%.


It is shown that the neverending oscillatory behavior of the generic solution, near a cosmological singularity, of the massless bosonic sector of superstring theory can be described as a billiard motion within a simplex in nine-dimensional hyperbolic space. The Coxeter group of reflections of this billiard is discrete and is the Weyl group of the hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebra E10 (for type II) or BE10 (for type I or heterotic), which are both arithmetic. These results lead to a proof of the chaotic ("Anosov") nature of the classical cosmological oscillations, and suggest a "chaotic quantum billiard" scenario of vacuum selection in string theory.


Abstract Background: Cigarette smoking is a very common habit worldwide contributing to risk of kidney dysfunction and diabetes (DM). However, the mechanisms are unclear. Aim: The goal of the present study was to assess the effects of cigarette smoking on kidney oxidative stress, inflammation, and remodeling in streptozotocin (STZ) rat model of diabetes. Methods: Rats were randomized into control (intraperitoneal (i.p.) citrate buffer injection and exposure to fresh air), cigarette smoking (1 h daily for 6 d/week, citrate buffer), DM (single dose STZ 35 mg/kg i.p. and exposure to fresh air), and DM + smoking groups for a period of 4 weeks. Kidney biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and remodeling were measured. Results: A significant increase in kidney to body weight ratio was observed in diabetic groups. Diabetes but not smoking increased blood urea nitrogen levels without changes in creatinine levels. Kidney levels of thiobarbituric acid substances, nitrite, endothelin-1, and C-reactive protein were increased significantly in the DM + smoking groups. Smoking induced GSH expression and activity of superoxide dismutase. A significant increase in kidney fibrosis was observed in the DM + smoking group coupled with a similar increase in transforming growth factor beta. Protein levels of matrix metalloproteinase-2, (MMP-2), mitogen-activated protein kinases, and c-Jun N terminal kinase were elevated in Smoking and DM + smoking groups. Conclusion: Cigarette smoke might promote risk of kidney dysfunction in DM by augmentation of renal inflammation, oxidant radicals and fibrosis. The kidney promotes compensatory increase in MMP-2 in response to smoking probably to prevent pro-fibrotic factors induced-fibrosis.


Abstract. In this work, a method to predict the rheological properties of ultrasonic gel, as a reference substance of cement paste, is presented. For this purpose, images are taken with a stereo camera system which show a mixing paddle moving through the ultrasonic gels of different consistency, thus setting them in motion. A digital elevation model (DEM) and a corresponding orthophoto are created from the image pairs using classical image matching and orthoprojection methods. These are used as inputs into a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which predicts the support points of a flow curve which classically have to be determined in a rheometer in the laboratory. A simple network architecture consisting of a small number of convolution layers is compared with a pre-trained ResNet-18, which is fine-tuned using gel images. In a second series of experiments, rheological parameters, which alternatively need to be deduced from the flow curve in a separate step, are determined directly from the images. In the third series of experiments, the influence of different factors is tested, such as the position of the cameras relative to the direction of paddle movement and the importance of the DEMs and orthophotos in the training. It is shown in this paper that it is possible to predict the rheological properties of the ultrasonic gels with a suitable setup with a satisfying accuracy.


The elastic modulus and the apparent density of the trabecular bone were evaluated from spherical indentation tests and Computed Tomography and their relationship was quantified. After the femurs were prepared and embedded with respect to their anatomical orientation, the transverse planes of the trabecular bone specimens were scanned at 1mm intervals using a CT scanner. The metaphyseal regions were sectioned with a diamond-blade saw, producing 8mm cubes. Using a custom-made spherical indentation tester, the cubes were mechanically tested in the anteriorposterior (AP), medial-lateral (ML), and inferior-superior (IS) directions. After determination of modulus from the mechanical testing, the apparent densities of the specimens were measured. The results showed that the IS modulus was significantly greater than both the AP and ML moduli with the AP modulus greater than the ML modulus. This demonstrated that orthogonality was a structural characteristic of the trabecular bone. The power relationship between the modulus and the apparent density was also found to be statistically significant.


Propagation of two kinds of information on complex networks is studied. With assumption that new kind of information is generated after interacting between these two kinds of information, how rate of generating new information and rate of its recovery influence propagation are researched. Experiments show that when rates of propagation of these three kinds of information are same three kinds of information exist after system reaching stable under condition that the rate of generating new information is big. While rates of propagation of these three kinds of information differ a lot, information with big propagation rate exists after system reaching stable. The results could be extended into research of propagation of multi-information on complex networks.


There are urgent needs for humanized mouse models of viral respiratory diseases to study immunopathogenesis and therapeutic interventions. Although human immune system (HIS) mice permit analysis in real time of human immune responses in vivo, evolutionary divergences preclude their usefulness for the respiratory viruses that do not infect mouse lungs. In this study, we sought to use HIS mice with human lung (HL) tissue xenografts (HISL mice) to address this issue. The grafted HL tissue maintained histologically normal structure, and populated with human tissue-resident immune cells, including CD11c + dendritic cells and CD4 + and CD8 + tissue-resident memory T cells. HISL mice showed a marked expansion of tissue-resident memory T cells and generation of viral Ag-specific T cells in the HL xenografts, and production of antiviral IgM and IgG Abs upon immunization of the HL xenograft by H1N1 influenza viruses. RNA-seq analysis on H1N1-infected and control HL xenografts identified a total of 5089 differentially expressed genes with enrichments for genes involved in respiratory diseases, viral infections, and associated immune responses. Furthermore, prophylactic viral exposures resulted in protection against subsequent lethal challenge by intranasal viral inoculation. This study supports the usefulness of this preclinical model in exploring the immunopathology and therapies of respiratory viral diseases. The Journal of Immunology , 2022, 208: 420 (cid:1) 428.


Abstract Purpose.  The study presented here consists of an analysis of the latest labour law reform in Brazil as a response to the crisis that affects this country. Design/methodology/approach.  The analysis considers some key alterations across in order to highlight the principal scope of the labour law reform, in individual, collective and procedural labour law.  Findings.  Although the main purpose of the reform was to incentivize the labour market, it is questionable that these particular reforms will be able to fulfill such a scope. Without prejudice, it can be recognizable as an important modernization of the labour law regulations, considering the former law dated from 1943 (notwithstanding the minor alterations along the years). Research limitations/implications.  The research is part of a debate adding a perspective from a Southern-American country.  Originality/value.  The paper consists of further material for an ongoing discussion on the impact of a crisis in the labour market and the adequacy of reforms as a response to them. Paper type.  Issues paper. Keywords:  Brazil, Labour law, Flexibility, Reform, Constitutionality.


A novel tetra-iron(III) complex, K6[Fe4(ccdp)2(μ-O)(μ-OH)(D-GluA)2](NO3)3·10H2O (K6[1](NO3)3·10H2O) with two gluconato and two N,N′-bis[2-carboxobenzomethyl]-N,N′-bis[carboxomethyl]-1,3-diaminopropan-2-oxy (ccdp5−) ligands has been synthesized and fully characterized using different techniques including single crystal X-ray crystallography. K6[1](NO3)3·10H2O showed stability aqueous solution, in biological samples such as human and fetal bovine serum (HS and FBS) and cell cultures such as phosphate buffer saline and minimum essential medium (PBS and MEM) using UV-Vis spectroscopy at room temperature and 37 °C. The redox behavior of the complex was studied using cyclic and square wave voltammetries in aqueous and DMF solutions. Furthermore, magnetic study using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and Guoy balance magnetic moment measurements indicated antiferromagnetic coupling among the metal centers of the (μ-O)(μ-OH) bridged tetra-iron(III) anion core of the complex. Electrochemical studies of the K6[1](NO3)3·10H2O in aqueous and DMF solutions using cyclic and square-wave voltammetries revealed the presence of multi-accessible electron metal-based redox events.


Margherita, S. S. (Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa.), and H. Friedmann. Induction of nonspecific resistance by endotoxin in unresponsive mice. J. Bacteriol. 89:277-280. 1965.-Serratia marcescens endotoxin was tested for protective effect in animals of varying immunological competence. A quantity of endotoxin capable of inducing resistance in mice to a standardized challenge of Diplococcus pneumoniae was equally effective in animals immunologically paralyzed with a high dose of homologous pneumococcal polysaccharide. Failure of the unresponsive state to influence the degree of resistance induced by endotoxin suggests that a specific humoral factor does not play a significant role in the nonspecific resistance.


FEA proves to be an extremely useful in the design of shifters. A finite element model for our shifter assembly was setup with reference of our corporate shifter test standards. The assembly model took account of the main components. It can represent the real test scenarios. The forces between components were properly transferred in the assembly model. Such a model can offer a great capacity for design engineers to evaluate concept designs, investigating the various performances and features of each component and the whole shifters. Totally, three concept designs were evaluated with the assembly FEA model. Such a model can save a lot of real tests, greatly reducing the design costs and tremendously speed up our design cycle. ANSYS is proved to be a very efficient way to help design better products.


The work of Protestant religious groups in socialistic Yugoslavia was directly dependent on social and political circumstances in country. Protestant religious groups was numerous and various, not only in their relation with government, witth other religious groups, and the way they fulfi lled social obligations. Largest protestant churches> Evangelic Church and Reformed Christian Church, as traditional churches, have guided Protestant Christianity in Yugoslavia. Characteristics of their work are> respect for constitutional laws, cooperation with governmental agencies and high level of inter-religious tolerance. The other, less numerous Protestant Churches, was in some religious characteristic similar with traditional churches, but some of them wanted to go their own way with their own religious practice. Even tough Protestant religious groups and churches had considerable fewer believers then other traditional churches and religious groups in Yugoslavia (Serbien Ortodox Church, Catholic Church and Islamic Religion), they got more credits then they deserved. That was because they had international support and protection from their bases abroad or from international religious organizations in Europe and United States of America.


Nowadays, the top-k accuracy is a major performance criterion when benchmarking multiclass classifier using datasets with a large number of categories. Top-k multiclass SVM has been designed with the aim to minimize the empirical risk based on the top-k accuracy. There already exist two SDCA-based algorithms to learn the top-k SVM, enjoying several preferable properties for optimization, although both the algorithms suffer from two disadvantages. A weak point is that, since the design of the algorithms are specialized only to the top-k hinge, their applicability to other variants is limited. The other disadvantage is that both the two algorithms cannot attain the optimal solution in most cases due to their theoritical imperfections. In this study, a weighted extension of top-k SVM is considered, and novel learning algorithms based on the Frank-Wolfe algorithm is devised. The new learning algorithms possess all the favorable properties of SDCA as well as the applicability not only to the original top-k SVM but also to the weighted extension. Geometrical convergence is achieved by smoothing the loss functions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that only the proposed Frank-Wolfe algorithms can converge to the optimum, in contrast with the failure of the two existing SDCA-based algorithms. Finally, our analytical results for these two studies are presented to shed light on the meaning of the solutions produced from their algorithms.


In this chapter, we will give comprehensive examples of applying RL in optimizing the physical layer of wireless communications by defining different class of problems and the possible solutions to handle them. In Section 9.2, we present all the basic theory needed to address a RL problem, i.e. Markov decision process (MDP), Partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), but also two very important and widely used algorithms for RL, i.e. the Q-learning and SARSA algorithms. We also introduce the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) paradigm and the section ends with an introduction to the multi-armed bandits (MAB) framework. Section 9.3 focuses on some toy examples to illustrate how the basic concepts of RL are employed in communication systems. We present applications extracted from literature with simplified system models using similar notation as in Section 9.2 of this Chapter. In Section 9.3, we also focus on modeling RL problems, i.e. how action and state spaces and rewards are chosen. The Chapter is concluded in Section 9.4 with a prospective thought on RL trends and it ends with a review of a broader state of the art in Section 9.5.


A highly modularised and open system is described in this paper, and its ability to support the library's strategy. By focusing on a single problem, it is possible to solve it in a qualitatively or quantitatively different way that is dictated by business vision and user needs. This results in a highly innovative library system when seen as a whole.


jMetal, an open source, Java-based framework for multi-objective optimization with metaheuristics, has become a valuable tool for many researches in the area as well as for some industrial partners in the last ten years. Our experience using and maintaining it during that time, as well as the received comments and suggestions, have helped us improve the jMetal design and identify significant features to incorporate. This paper revisits the jMetal architecture, describing its refined new design, which relies on design patterns, principles from object-oriented design, and a better use of the Java language features to improve the quality of the code, without disregarding jMetal ever goals of simplicity, facility of use, flexibility, extensibility and portability. Among the newly incorporated features, jMetal supports live interaction with running algorithms and parallel execution of algorithms.


In recent years, biomedical research has faced increased scrutiny over issues related to reproducibility and quality in scientific findings(1-3). In response to this scrutiny, funding institutions and journals have implemented top-down policies for grant and manuscript review. While a positive step forward, the long-term merit of these policies is questionable given their emphasis on completing a check-list of items instead of a fundamental re-assessment of how scientific investigation is conducted. Moreover, the top-down style of management used to institute these policies can be argued as being ineffective in engaging the scientific workforce to act upon these issues. To meet current and future biomedical needs, new investigative methods that emphasize collective-thinking, teamwork, shared knowledge and cultivate change from the bottom-up are warranted. Here, a perspective on a new approach to biomedical investigation within the individual laboratory that emphasizes collaboration and quality is discussed.


Depression has long been recognized as a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease in healthy individuals, for recurrent events in patients with established cardiovascular disease, and for adverse outcomes after coronary bypass surgery.1 The World Health Organization highlighted the detrimental effects of depression on medical illnesses as 1 of its 10 most important global public health problems for 2007.2,3 These findings have ignited a debate regarding whether routine screening for and treatment of depression can improve the prognosis of patients with cardiovascular disease.

Primary care patients, including those with cardiovascular disease, clearly benefit from depression screening when staff-assisted depression care supports are in place to assure accurate diagnosis, effective treatment, and follow-up.4–6 Although screening alone does not improve depression or cardiovascular outcomes,7,8 screening can improve depression when combined with a collaborative care intervention in which a designated depression care manager, in consultation with a supervising psychiatrist, support the patient's primary care provider or treating medical specialist by providing education, patient activation, close follow-up, symptom monitoring, and treatment intensification as necessary. Collaborative care interventions typically take 6 to 12 months, and many aspects of treatment can be accomplished over the telephone.6,9–11 Although collaborative care is associated with increased cost in the short term,5 it reduces costs in the longer term.12–14

The IMPACT (Improving Mood–Promoting Access to Collaborative Treatment)15,16 model of collaborative care has been shown to improve depression in a variety of settings including health maintenance organizations, fee-for-service groups, inner-city county hospitals, and Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers. Collaborative care programs like IMPACT are effective across different age groups17 and cultures18 as well as in patients with cancer,19 patients with diabetes,20,21 and patients who have undergone coronary bypass surgery.22 Project COPES (Coronary Psychosocial Evaluation Studies)23 has now extended the proven benefits of the IMPACT model to patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The COPES trial randomly assigned 157 patients with persistent depressive symptoms status post ACS from 5 hospital systems to a 6-month interdisciplinary stepped-care intervention adapted from the IMPACT model (n=80) or to usual care (n=77). After 6 months, intervention patients were more likely than usual care patients to report receiving care for distress or depression, to rate their depression care as excellent or very good, and to experience a significantly greater reduction in depressive symptoms.

The COPES trial23 had many important strengths. First, participants were required to show evidence of persistent depressive symptoms for 3 months. This "watchful waiting" strategy makes sense in the context of the relatively high rate of improvement in depression after hospital admission. It also focuses resource-intensive interventions on patients who may benefit most. Second, patient preferences were explicitly incorporated so that participants were encouraged to choose the treatment with which they felt most comfortable (pharmacotherapy and/or psychotherapy). This resulted in a high rate of engagement and patient satisfaction compared with usual care. Third, symptoms were monitored frequently with the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire,24 which has demonstrated excellent validity and response to change. Finally, the stepped-care approach allowed treatment to be individually tailored and intensified as necessary. This is analogous to care for cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension or dyslipidemia in which adjustments are made until treatment targets are reached.

As the authors acknowledge, there were some limitations of the intervention. Despite the overall high acceptance, 22 of the 80 patients assigned to the intervention did not participate or dropped out prematurely, suggesting that the care management strategy might be improved for future trials. Of note, the COPES intervention23 was not truly "collaborative care" in that it was performed by members of a separate research team who were not involved in the patient's clinical care. Collaborating with the patient's primary care provider or cardiologist might reduce dropouts, create more patient-centered care through better integration of mental health and medical care, and further improve patient satisfaction. In the original IMPACT study,15 for example, more than 90% of participants remained actively engaged in the intervention for 10 months or more, and over 75% reported high satisfaction with care at follow-up.

Although the finding of fewer adverse cardiac events in the COPES intervention23 group is promising, the number of events was too small to draw any definitive conclusions. However, we do not need to demonstrate a beneficial effect of depression treatment on cardiac outcomes before we implement evidence-based approaches to improving depression care. Screening plus interdisciplinary stepped care for depression improves emotional health,15 physical functioning,25 and quality of life26,27 in patients with comorbid medical illnesses including cardiovascular disease.5,19–22 Helpful resources for organizations interested in implementing collaborative care programs can be found at the IMPACT implementation center (http://impact-uw.org), funded by the John Hart-ford Foundation, or on the Web site of the MacArthur Initiative on Depression in Primary Care (http://www.depression-primarycare.org).

In summary, the COPES trial23 has demonstrated that a systematic stepped-care intervention for depression is well accepted and improves depressive symptoms in patients post ACS. The next step is to perform a larger randomized trial with sufficient power to evaluate the potential benefit of such an intervention on cardiovascular outcomes and cost-effectiveness. In the meantime, we have ample evidence that all primary care patients, including those with cardiovascular disease, should be screened for depression in the context of an interdisciplinary stepped-care treatment program.


This paper considers time based media and specifically digital representations of repetitive labour utilised in the process of art production. There is some precedence for the consideration of repetition observed as a repeated subject or object, and especially the Warholian like repeated image. Rosalind Krauss observed in The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition (1981) that many artists are 'condemned to repeating as if by compulsion, the logically fraudulent original'. Here I address a different presentation of repetition, the repeated action of labour that accumulates during the process of production, and the digital imagery that allows access to this often-temporal activity.
Referring to work produced as case studies, for a practice based PhD entitled 'Moments of Repetition in the Process of Art Production: Temporalities, Labour, Appropriations and Authorships' (2010) I will discuss how repetition may interact with time based media. Considering not just the repetitive aspects of 'the loop' but also elements of 'time' altered through digital representations.
Simple digital imagery and animation sequencing can help identify a number of issues that are significant to the consideration of repetition as it relates to the process of production. They include 'failure through repetition', 'temporality', 'erasure' and 'shifting authorships'.
The purpose of the repeated action within process can be considered more complex than a means to an end. It is not just a prerequisite to forming a critical mass or achieving a particular form. When observed from the standpoint of different schema such as time, the simulacra, mimesis or theories of replication, the repetition within process can be seen to affect the object, its relation to the viewer, authorship (either deferring or claiming) and the subject.
The paper concludes that a strong critical position can be utilised through observing the process of production as revealed through digital media. Process as a critical tool to help connect with the wider concepts that repetition can present to us.