Purpose To estimate the joint effects of single nucleotide polymorphysms (SNPs) in the genes complement factor H (CFH), HtrA serine peptidase 1 (HTRA1), and age-related maculopathy susceptibility 2 (LOC387715/ARMS2) in a Caucasian age related macular degeneration (AMD) case-control cohort. Methods We genotyped three SNPs, rs1061170 (exon 9, CFH), rs11200638 (HTRA1 promoter, −512 bp), and rs10490924 (6.6 kb upstream of HTRA1 in LOC387715/ARMS2) in 333 cases with advanced AMD (choroidal neovascularization [CNV] and geographic atrophy) and 171 age-matched examined controls. Association tests were performed for individual SNPs and jointly with the CFH SNP Y402H. Analyses for interaction were also performed. Results The linkage disequilibrium measure for two SNPs on 10q26, rs10490924 and rs11200638, is D'=0.8 and all four possible haplotypes of the two SNPs were detected in the samples. The allelic association test for rs11200638 on the promoter of HTRA1 yielded p-values less than 10−10 for geographic atrophy, less than 10−16 for neovascularization, and less than 10−19 for the pooled phenotypes (with an odds ration [OR] of 3.973; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.928, 5.390). Disease risk is conferred in a dosage-dependent fashion. Similar figures were observed for the LOC387715/ARMS2 SNP. No interaction was detected between either between the 10q26 SNPs or the CFH SNP. Conclusions This is the first analysis to show that the two 10q26 SNPs are not in complete linkage disequilibrium. Our studies however show that both the HTRA1 and LOC387715/ARMS2 SNP appear to contribute equally to disease risk (both geographic atrophy and choroidal neovascularization) with no evidence of interaction with CFH.


CSFR1 is required for the homeostasis of microglia in the adult brain. Microglia are innate immune cells that reside in the brain and are derived from hematopoietic cells in the yolk that migrate into the central nervous system before formation of the blood-brain barrier. During development, proliferation of microglia in the brain requires the receptor tyrosine kinase colony-stimulating factor receptor 1 (CSFR1) (see Hughes and Bergles). Elmore et al. found that CSFR1 activity was also required for the survival of microglia in adult mice and uncovered a latent population of microglial progenitors that may contribute to immune homeostasis in the brain. Compared to mice fed with a normal diet and exposed to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to induce neural inflammation, mice fed chow mixed with the CSFR1 inhibitor PLX3397 and exposed to LPS had decreased abundance of microglial markers, fewer microglia, and reduced expression of multiple genes encoding pro-inflammatory cytokines. Microglia in mice fed PLX3397 had a phagocytic-like morphology, were positive for cleaved-caspase 3, and stained with the cell-impermeable DNA dye propidium iodide, suggesting that they were undergoing apoptotic cell death. Depletion of microglia with PLX3397 did not affect the overall brain volume, performance on several behavioral tasks, the integrity of the blood-brain barrier, or the abundance of neuronal and oligodendrocytic markers, and increased the abundance of markers of astrogliosis, a process associated with neuroinflammation, without increasing the number of astrocytes. Mice fed PLX3397 for 7 days showed partial repopulation of microglia within 3 days after being switched back to a normal diet. Fate-mapping studies and comparative gene expression analysis of microglia-depleted and microglia-repopulated brains suggested that new microglia arose from proliferation of a brain-resident progenitor and not infiltration by peripheral macrophages. Thus, CSFR1 is required for microglial survival and homeostasis in the adult brain. M. R. P. Elmore, A. R. Najafi, M. A. Koike, N. N. Dagher, E. E. Spangenberg, R. A. Rice, M. Kitazawa, B. Matusow, H. Nguyen, B. L. West, K. N. Green, Colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor signaling is necessary for microglia viability, unmasking a microglia progenitor cell in the adult brain. Neuron 82, 380–397 (2014). [Abstract] E. G. Hughes, D. E. Bergles, Hidden progenitors replace microglia in the adult brain. Neuron 82, 253–255 (2014). [Abstract]


The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature provides a broad-ranging introduction to some of the key critical fields, genres, and periods in Canadian literary studies. The essays in this volume, written by prominent theorists in the field, reflect the plurality of critical perspectives, regional and historical specializations, and theoretical positions that constitute the field of Canadian literary criticism across a range of genres and historical periods. The volume provides a dynamic introduction to current areas of critical interest, including (1) attention to the links between the literary and the public sphere, encompassing such topics as neoliberalism, trauma and memory, citizenship, material culture, literary prizes, disability studies, literature and history, digital cultures, globalization studies, and environmentalism or ecocriticism; (2) interest in Indigenous literatures and settler-Indigenous relations; (3) attention to multiple diasporic and postcolonial contexts within Canada; (4) interest in the institutionalization of Canadian literature as a discipline; (5) a turn towards book history and literary history, with a renewed interest in early Canadian literature; (6) a growing interest in articulating the affective character of the "literary" - including an interest in affect theory, mourning, melancholy, haunting, memory, and autobiography. The book represents a diverse array of interests - from the revival of early Canadian writing, to the continued interest in Indigenous, regional, and diasporic traditions, to more recent discussions of globalization, market forces, and neoliberalism. It includes a distinct section dedicated to Indigenous literatures and traditions, as well as a section that reflects on the discipline of Canadian literature as a whole.


This study presents a simple decision-support system for the detection of tic events during the Tourette Syndrome (TS). The system is based on a triaxial accelerometer placed on the patient's trunk. TS is a neurological disorder that emerges during childhood and that is characterized by a large spectrum of involuntary/compulsive movements and sounds. 12 subjects with chronic TS participated in the study and the tic events were both measured by the proposed device and visually classified through video recording. 3D-acceleration timeseries were combined through a module operator and their noise was eliminated by a median filter. Signal to noise ratio was improved by a nonlinear energy operator. Finally, a time-variant threshold was used to detect tic events. The automatic tic recognition showed a performance around 80 % in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. In conclusion, this simple, automatic and unobtrusive method offers an alternative approach to quantitatively assess the tic events in clinical and non clinical environments. This overcomes the limitations of the current motor tic evaluation which is done by clinical observation and/or video-inspection in specialized neurological centres.


Speciation lies at the heart of evolution and the study of reproductive barriers allows a better understanding of the different steps leading to the complete isolation of two species. Pre-mating (behavior tactics, habitat or food divergence, phenotypic divergence and assortative mating) and post-mating, post-zygotic isolation barriers (selection against unfit hybrids) are well studied in numerous species, but little is known about what is happening between insemination and fertilization (post-mating, pre-zygotic isolation barriers). In this study, we chose the well-studied population of pied and collared flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca and F. albicollis) of the hybrid zone of Oland, Sweden, to investigate possible patterns of gamete divergence between these two closely related species. We compared sperm morphology between the two species and their hybrids, analyzing traits that are thought to play an important role in the fertilization success of the males. We did not detect any divergence in sperm morphology between the two species, but we report an extreme reduction of sperm production in hybrid males, as well as spermatogenesis dysfunctions and particularly high rates of extra-pair young in the nests of hybrid males.


The Public Funds Investment Policies Survey is an annual publication, now in its second year, which surveys the current investment policy disclosures of the 25 largest (by AUM) SWFs in the world, as listed by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, and the 26 largest (by AUM) SPFs, as listed in the Pension & Investments/Towers Watson 300 Ranking (2012). The policies reviewed in this survey were obtained directly from the funds when possible, using data available as of summer 2015. Because a minority of funds (primarily SWFs) does not disclose investment policies, caution should be used in interpreting these results. Many funds may have extensive internal policies but choose not to disclose these policies, and the lack of disclosure should not be taken as evidence that such policies do not exist. When possible, reference was made to other sources of data to corroborate or augment disclosed data.


Crowdsourcing is an approach to replace the work traditionally done by a single person with the collective action of a group of people via the Internet. It has established itself in the mainstream of research methodology in recent years using a variety of approaches to engage humans in solving problems that computers, as yet, cannot solve.

Several common approaches to crowdsourcing have been successful, including peer production (in which the participants are inherently interested in contributing), microworking (in which participants are paid small amounts of money per task) and games or gamification (in which the participants are entertained as they complete the tasks).

An alternative approach to crowdsourcing using social networks is proposed here. Social networks offer access to large user communities through integrated software applications and, as they mature, are utilised in different ways, with decentralised and unevenly-distributed organisation of content.

This research investigates whether collective intelligence systems are facilitated better on social networks and how the contributed human effort can be optimised. These questions are investigated using two case studies of problem solving: anaphoric coreference in text documents and classifying images in the marine biology domain.

Social networks themselves can be considered inherent, self-organised problem solving systems, an approach defined here as 'groupsourcing', sharing common features with other crowdsourcing approaches; however, the benefits are tempered with the many challenges this approach presents. In comparison to other methods of crowdsourcing, harnessing collective intelligence on social networks offers a high-accuracy, data-driven and low-cost approach.


The hemodynamic, metabolic, and biochemical changes produced during the transition from fetal to neonatal life may be aggravated if an episode of asphyxia occurs during fetal life. The aim of the study was to examine regional cerebral blood flow (RCBF), histological changes, and cerebral brain metabolism in preterm lambs, and to analyze the role of oxidative stress in the first hours of postnatal life following severe fetal asphyxia. Eighteen chronically instrumented newborn lambs were randomly assigned to either a control group or the hypoxic–ischemic (HI) group, in which case fetal asphyxia was induced just before delivery. All the animals were maintained on intermittent positive pressure ventilation for 3 h after delivery. During the HI insult, the injured group developed acidosis, hypoxia, hypercapnia, lactic acidosis, and tachycardia (relative to the control group), without hypotension. The intermittent positive pressure ventilation transiently improved gas exchange and cardiovascular parameters. After HI injury and during ventilatory support, there continued to be an increased RCBF in inner regions among the HI group, but no significant differences were detected in cortical flow compared to the control group. Also, the magnitude of the increase in TUNEL positive cells (apoptosis) and antioxidant enzymes, and decrease of ATP reserves was significantly greater in the brain regions where the RCBF was not higher. In conclusion, our findings identify early metabolic, histological, and hemodynamic changes involved in brain damage in premature asphyxiated lambs. Such changes have been described in human neonates, so our model could be useful to test the safety and the effectiveness of different neuroprotective or ventilation strategies applied in the first hours after fetal HI injury.


In this study, as doctoral graduate students who participated positive action in international academic presentation between the International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEE2015), and 2015 International Symposium on Cultural Differences (ISCD2015) and 2014 International Symposium on Urban Construction of Rural Culture (ISUCRC2014). This study aims to investigate the impact of International Conference between Taiwan and Croatia Country. After the participation, there are summarized at detailed records, observation, analysis, and aggregate, study research of the three conferences in industry, government, academic research and training of situation. It gets ideas and thoughts to participate in international learning experience, academic exchanges worldwide situation in the region of the countries. This study found that three sessions of proceeding from the paper submission, modification, transportation arrangements, booking travel and accommodation, applying grant, the agenda of Conference and workshop, welcome reception, opening ceremony and thematic papers published seminars, site management, exchange of experts, visiting travel event, banquet dinner party they also have a significant different. This study is tangible to enhance citizen diplomacy, international perspective, and national academic standards. On the intangible outcomes of self-learning attitude adjustment, the spirit of action research, the assist of essay writing, the potential help of international perspective, the effectiveness and inspiration are unmatched. All of experiences to participants in the process cumbersome procedures login, application, registration and other detailing the process are learn. This information should help graduate students and scholars participated in similar International activities and Conference.


Cobotic workstations in industrial plants involve a new kind of collaborative robots that can interact with operators. These cobots enable more flexibility and they can reduce the cycle time and the floor space of the workstation. However, cobots also introduce new safety concerns with regard to operators, and they may have an impact on the workstation ergonomics. For those reasons, introducing cobots in a workstation always require additional studies on safety and ergonomics before being applied and certified. Certification rules are often complex to understand. We present the SEEROB framework for the Safety and Ergonomics Evaluation of ROBotic workstations. The SEEROB framework simulates a physics-based digital twin of the cobotic workstation and computes a large panel of criteria used for safety and ergonomics. These criteria may be processed for the certification of the workstation. The SEEROB framework also uses extended reality technologies to display the digital twin and its associated data: users can use virtual reality headsets for the design of non-existing workstations, and mixed reality devices to better understand safety and ergonomics constraints on existing workstations. The SEEROB framework was tested on various laboratory and industrial use cases, involving different kinds of robots.


Nonlinear, collective, soliton type excitations in zigzag molecular chains are analyzed. It is shown that the non-linear dynamics of a chain dramatically changes in passing from the one-dimensional linear chain to the more realistic planar zigzag model — due, in particular, to the geometry-dependent anharmonism that comes into the picture. The existence or otherwise of solitons is determined in this case by the interplay between the geometrical anharmonism and the physical anharmonism of the interstitial interaction, of opposite signs. The nonlinear dynamic analysis of the three most typical zigzag models (two-dimensional alpha-spiral, polyethylene transzigzag backbone, and the zigzag chain of hydrogen bonds) shows that the zigzag structure essentially limits the soliton dynamics to finite, relatively narrow, supersonic soliton velocity intervals and may also result in that several acoustic soliton types (such as extension and compression varieties) develop simultaneously in the chain. Accordingly, the inclusion of chain geometry is necessary if physical phenomena are to be described in terms of solitary waves.


"BLACK KNIGHT" EFFECT: THE ROLE OF RUSSIA IN COUNTERING DEMOCRATIZATION IN MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA Danilo Kalezic, MA Department of Political Science Northern Illinois University, 2022 Kheang Un, Director Russia's growing presence in the Balkans represents a rising concern for the region's democratic performance. Recent years witnessed series of events impeded by Kremlin to influence the political dynamics and internal affairs of Montenegro and Serbia. Thus, Russia exhibits all the features of 'black knight' for democracy in the region. The thesis looks at the impact on democracy performance of the Kremlin involvement within the two countries. It presents an analysis of the activities and strategies that are utilized to undermine democratization of the countries and how they relate to each other. Furthermore, the thesis argues that Kremlin influence in these two countries had a detrimental effect on the democratization and overall social stability, making the region prone to ethnic violence and democracy backsliding. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS


Transcription is regulated by the state of phosphorylation of a heptapeptide repeat known as the carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) present in the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII). RNAPII that associates with transcription initiation complexes contains an unphosphorylated CTD, whereas the elongating polymerase has a phosphorylated CTD. Transcription factor IIH has a kinase activity specific for the CTD that is stimulated by the formation of a transcription initiation complex. Here, we report the isolation of a cDNA clone encoding a 150-kD polypeptide, which, together with RNAPII, reconstitutes a highly specific CTD phosphatase activity. Functional analysis demonstrates that the CTD phosphatase allows recycling of RNAPII. The phosphatase dephosphorylates the CTD allowing efficient incorporation of RNAPII into transcription initiation complexes, which results in increased transcription. The CTD phosphatase was found to be active in ternary elongation complexes. Moreover, the phosphatase stimulates elongation by RNAPII; however, this function is independent of its catalytic activity.


Abstract Jamie Tappenden was one of the first authors to entertain the possibility of a common treatment for the Liar and the Sorites paradoxes. In order to deal with these two paradoxes he proposed using the Strong Kleene semantic scheme. This strategy left unexplained our tendency to regard as true certain sentences which, according to this semantic scheme, should lack truth value. Tappenden tried to solve this problem by using a new speech act, articulation. Unlike assertion, which implies truth, articulation only implies non-falsity. In this paper I argue that Tappenden's strategy cannot be successfully applied to truth and the Liar.


Public transport demand forecasting is the fundamental process of transport planning activity. It plays a pivotal role in the decision making, policy formulations and urban transport planning procedures. In this paper, public bus passenger demand forecasting model is developed using a novel approach. The empirical passenger demand for a bus depot is modelled and forecasted using a data-driven method. The big data generated by Electronic Ticketing Machines (ETM) used for issuing tickets and collecting fares is sourced as the data for demand modelling. This big data is time indexed and hence has the potential for use in time-series applications which were not previously explored.

 This paper studies the application of time-series method for forecasting public bus passenger demand using ETM based time-series data. The time-series approach used is the four Holt-Winters' modeling methods. Holt-Winters' additive and multiplicative models with and without damping have been empirically compared in this study using the data from the inter-zonal buses. The data used in the study is a part of the transaction on ticket sales by Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) maintained at the Trivandrum City depot of an Indian state Kerala, for the period between 2010 and 2013. The forecasting performance of four time-series models is compared using Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and the model goodness of fit is determined using information criteria.

 The forecasts indicate that multiplicative models with and without damping, which better account for seasonal variations, outperform the additive models.


Abstract. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) provide a quick and flexible means of developing flood flow simulation models. An important criterion for the wider applicability of the ANNs is the ability to generalise the events outside the range of training data sets. With respect to flood flow simulation, the ability to extrapolate beyond the range of calibrated data sets is of crucial importance. This study explores methods for improving generalisation of the ANNs using three different flood events data sets from the Neckar River in Germany. An ANN-based model is formulated to simulate flows at certain locations in the river reach, based on the flows at upstream locations. Network training data sets consist of time series of flows from observation stations. Simulated flows from a one-dimensional hydrodynamic numerical model are integrated for network training and validation, at a river section where no measurements are available. Network structures with different activation functions are considered for improving generalisation. The training algorithm involved backpropagation with the Levenberg-Marquardt approximation. The ability of the trained networks to extrapolate is assessed using flow data beyond the range of the training data sets. The results of this study indicate that the ANN in a suitable configuration can extend forecasting capability to a certain extent beyond the range of calibrated data sets.


The Handbook of Human-Machine Interaction features 20 original chapters and a conclusion focusing on human-machine interaction (HMI) from analysis, design and evaluation perspectives. It offers a comprehensive range of principles, methods, techniques and tools to provide the reader with a clear knowledge of the current academic and industry practice and debate that define the field. The text considers physical, cognitive, social and emotional aspects and is illustrated by key application domains such as aerospace, automotive, medicine and defence.


The efficiency of the antiresonant voltage transformer (ARVT) in ferroresonance prevention has been studied. Mathematical models for conventional voltage transformer (CVT) and ARVT are presented. The results obtained for the cases of 500 kV ARVT and CVT behavior, as an example, are given. Stability domains of ferroresonance during disconnection of unloaded bus sections are obtained for both ARVT and CVT 500 kV.


Technology innovation hubs (TIHs), an emerging phenomenon in developing countries, offer a combination of business incubation services and open convening spaces, events, and innovation competitions. To understand TIHs' roles and identify pathways for future research, I analyzed data from interview and focus groups with 220 stakeholders of seven TIHs in five countries, using an informed grounded theory approach. Theory from economic geography (on regional advantage, regional innovation systems, and clusters) provided the most useful perspectives, which I related to themes emerging from the data. I found that TIH stakeholders saw themselves and the TIH as part of an "innovation ecosystem," with ecosystems growing and maturing in distinct patterns over time. Ecosystem quality was understood as the completeness of complementary actor groups. TIHs functioned predominantly as linkage builders between ecosystem actors and actor groups. TIHs promoted innovation ecosystems in particular by creating visibility for small enterprise and individual innovators, by leveraging and pooling larger organizations' resources, and by feeding "buzz" in the ecosystem. TIHs had multi-stakeholder governance and engagement models, leading to both advantages and frictions. For future research, I propose a theoretical framework of innovation networking, integrating literature from economic geography and network science. I conclude that future TIH analysis ought to examine TIHs' shaping of innovation networks (as the relational structure of innovation ecosystems) for the largest potential theoretical and empirical contributions.


In an epidemiological study on the respiratory pathology of 1 100 iron miners, the alpha 1 protease inhibitor concentration (alpha 1 Pi) and the elastase inhibitory capacity (EIC) of serum were determined in 97 men with deficient Pi phenotype (73 MS, 24 MZ or S) compared with PiM non deficient men adjusted for age and tobacco consumption. There were differences in alpha 1 Pi concentration and in alpha 1 inhibitory capacity between phenotype groups in agreement with the results of other studies. Smoking produces an increase of serum alpha 1 Pi concentration and EIC in all Pi phenotype groups. This increase is more important (30%) in the MS group than in the others (MZ 20%, M 12%). This effect which appears to be related to smoking intensity does not seem to have a link with an alteration or a modification of the molecular function which is at a rate of 70% in all cases.


Integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing processes have been successful in introducing complex high-speed analog and mixed-signal devices. Testing these devices is becoming increasingly difficult. The paper presents a novel method of analyzing analog IC's using periodic input stimuli and wideband undersampling. In its simplest form, the testing procedure can be implemented in a design by adding an analog switch to sample the response signal at a particular node under test and a buffer to bring the sampled values off-chip. Using a sequential undersampling algorithm to control the switch allows high-frequency signals to be mixed down in frequency and driven off-chip using a low bandwidth buffer. By placing the sampling circuit on-chip, the high-frequency buffering problems associated with a similar system using digital sampling scopes or mixed-signal IC testers can be avoided. The utility of the procedure has been illustrated by measuring the frequency response, slew rate, and transient response characteristics for a unity gain 1.2 /spl mu/m CMOS opamp.


This paper studies the impact of judicial reform in Mexico. It does so using a survey about crime victimization and perceptions of insecurity (Encuesta Nacional Sobre la Inseguridad, ENSI) from 2005, 2008, and 2009 in eleven Mexican cities, three of which implemented the reform in 2007 and 2008. It shows judicial reform reduces victimization but also lowers perceptions of security. These results are robust when considering other subsamples that include only northern cities. In the northern cities, judicial reform is associated with lower trust and lower grades given to the local and preventive federal police. Judicial reform is associated with better grades for the agents of the Public Prosecution Office, although not in Juarez. Judicial reform is also associated with a decrease in bribery of the transit police in northern cities. Using crime level data, it finds a significant increase in crime reporting following judicial reform in Chihuahua but a decrease in Juarez. When considering the full sample, it also finds that judicial reform is associated with an increase in the probability that the Public Prosecution Office will investigate reported crimes. Nonetheless, this result holds when only Juarez is considered as the treatment city for the different subsamples evaluated.


Optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) can significantly reduce the cost of metro optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) ring networks by allowing traffic to bypass intermediate nodes without expensive opto-electro-opto (O-E-O) conversion. Some traditional OADMs, called fixed OADMs (FOADMs), can only add/drop traffic on a specific wavelength. Reconfigurable OADMs (ROADMs) are emerging, which can add/drop traffic onto/from different wavelengths at different time. ROADMs provide desirable flexibility, enable fast provisioning of dynamic traffic, and save capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx). In order to be cost effective, some ROADMs employ architectures that tune the ROADM continuously from one wavelength to another, crossing through all the wavelengths in between, which may cause interference to the connections, if any, on those wavelengths being crossed. In order to prevent existing connections from being interrupted, a constraint needs to be imposed that ROADMs cannot cross working wavelengths when tuning. In this paper, the design and the benefits of metro optical WDM network architectures using ROADMs and the impact of this tuning constraint on the performance of the network are investigated. The dynamic traffic provisioning problem is analyzed and divided into two subproblems: 1) a traditional one on resource allocation; and 2) a new subproblem on tuning-head positioning (TP). Several heuristics for each subproblem are developed to combat the tuning constraint. Results from our simulation experiments show that the tuning constraint can significantly affect the network performance in terms of overall connection blocking probability, and good heuristics for network control and management are needed to overcome this tuning constraint.


Anti-cancer medicine for a particular patient has been a personal medical goal. Many computational models have been proposed by researchers to predict drug response. But predictive accuracy still remains a challenge. Base on this concept which "Similar cells have similar responses to drugs", we developed the basic method of matrix factorization method by adding fines to similarity. So that the distance of latent factors to two cell lines or (drug) should be inversely related to similarity. This means that two similar drugs or similar cell lines should have a short distance, whereas two similar cell lines or non-similar drugs should have a large gap with their latent factors. We proposed a Dual similarity-regularized matrix factorization (DSRMF) model, then generated new data for drug similarity from the two-dimensional three-dimensional chemical structure, which were obtained from the CCLE and GDSC databases. In this research, by using the proposed model, and generating new drug similarity data we achieved the average Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) about 0.96, and average mean square error (RMSE) Root about 0.30, between the observed value and the predicted value for the cell line response to the drug. Our analysis in this research showed, using heterogeneous data, has better results, and can be obtained with the proposed model, using other panels' cancer cell lines, to calculate similarity between cells. Also, by imposing more restrictions on the similarity between cells, we were able to achieve more accurate prediction for the response of the cell line to the anticancer drug.


Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is a common disinfection option for water treatment in the developed world. A sufficient dose of ultraviolet light inactivates most microorganisms. Ultraviolet light is produced by an electric arc struck in mercury, or more recently, xenon vapor much like ordinary florescent bulbs. The UV spectrum runs from 100 and 400 nanometers (nm) with the optimal wavelength for bacterial disinfection occurring between 200 and 280 nm. The most UV-resistant organisms are viruses, specifically Adenoviruses, and bacterial spores. The protozoon Acanthamoeba is also highly UV resistant. Bacteria and cysts of Cryptosporidium and Giardia are more susceptible. As with any disinfectant, the process consists of dose and contact time with different organisms being affected differently. The dose for UV is expressed in millijoules per square centimeter. To increase the dose, you can increase the output of the lamp, decrease the distance to the lamp, increase the transmittance of the water or slow the flow through the reaction chamber. The objective of this study was to review the literature on UV disinfection and extract quantitative information about the relation between the inactivation of micro-organisms and the applied UV fluence. The quality of the available studies was evaluated and only high-quality studies were incorporated in the analysis of water disinfection. The results show that UV is effective against all waterborne pathogens.


The case is based on the company have the implementation to promote Telekom Malaysia Home Prepaid which can attract customer to use the product. TMHP is the core product for consumer category of the product and Telekom Malaysia have created new product for TMHP. TMHP is focus on low ECP which that have more cable to encourage their new customer who not installed the fixed line. Telekom Malaysia had doing their research before they had promoted to the new customer. The purposes are to identify the problem, analysis, exploration the strategic to promote their customer. Telekom Malaysia need to make this project will worked for the successful to accomplish their target market.

According to the cases, Telekom Malaysia has given this project to the trainers doing the promotion from door to door at Kuala Lumpur area such as Maluri, Sentul, Bangsar and Bandar Tun Razak. These cases also have provided the questionnaire for those who have been used TMHP at their home. They have been given for one month to observe the achievement of TMHP product. The questionnaire also had been developed for those who already used and the satisfaction of TMHP for the customer's feedback to meet the customer, observation and also their other information. However, the cased issue that will discussed was about Telekom Malaysia had used their new strategic marketing to influence their new customer had lack of information about TMHP. Therefore, Telekom Malaysia had been developed the factor from the SWOT Analysis such as discussed about the external and the internal. The competitive had been influenced based on the strength of the product. But, Telekom Malaysia also gives the effort to influence of the competitive so they can be complete with other company. For the overall of TMHP based on the promotion that they had been difficult to influence their new customer to use Italk card for reloaded.


Covalent binding of platinum from the anticancer drug cisplatin has been determined in subcellular organelles from kidney and liver of guinea pig strains sensitive and resistant to the systemic toxicity of cisplatin. Organ distribution of platinum was similar between the two strains, but the sensitive animals (pigmented) excreted only half as much platinum in 24 hr as did the resistent animals (albino). Subcellular distribution of platinum in mitochondria, microsomes, and cytosol was approximately equal for both strains, but the sensitive animals had twice as much platinum bound covalently to cytosolic acid-insoluble protein as did the resistant animals. In the albino guinea pigs, concentrations of total platinum and of covalently bound platinum were greater in kidney subcellular organelles than in either liver or lung organelles, which may help explain the sensitivity of the kidney to the toxic effects of cisplatin.


In order to determine technological level and economic balance of castor seed prodution (Ricinus communis) in the State of CearAi, one of the main producers of oil seed of Northeast of Brazil, the present research was coducted to verify economic feasibility and technological level of castor seed production for obtaining biodiesel. The data were collected in Boa Viagem, TauAi and Pedra Branca municipalities. For profit analysis, income and production cost per hectare of castor seed production in selected municipalities were considered. It was observed that on the average, 12,91% of the interviewed farmers are using more than 80% of the recommended techniques. The castor seed production in all the three selected municipalities is economically feasifble (profitable), without considering the cost related to family labor.


The main objective in this thesis is to study how nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) can be used directly for short-term production optimization. Here the objective to maximize the production is directly included in the MPC optimization problem, as opposed to a two-layer RTO approach where a steady-state model is used to find optimal setpoints for the MPC. These setpoints define the maximal production, but this method needs two sets of models and is sub-optimal if a disturbance occurs. The study is based on a nonlinear model of an offshore oil and gas platform modeled in Dymola and Modelica by Cybernetica AS, and the objective is to increase total oil production on a daily basis by controlling well and pipeline chokes. The model has a set of wells ordered in clusters, and includes models for a three-phase flow of gas, oil and water. This makes the model stiff and complex with a large number of equations and states. Modifications on the model and methods for model reduction are studied in order to decrease simulation times, making it possible to run the NMPC application at least in real-time with a sampling time of one minute. The NMPC application used is CENIT, also developed by Cybernetica AS. The sequential optimization algorithm used in CENIT is studied and compared to simultaneous and multiple shooting methods. Two methods for production optimization are used. The first method studied is the unreachable setpoints method where an unreachable setpoint for oil production is used in order to maximize oil production. This method gives a quadratic cost, and the ideas from this method are combined with the exact penalty function for soft constraints, in order to get a linear cost in the objective function. These methods are applied in a series of case studies, where also traditional pressure control using NMPC is studied. The last case study shows that a maximal oil production under gas coning is achieved when the wells are producing with the same marginal gas/oil ratio.


Potato cyst-nematodes were first detected in Portugal in 1956 (Macara, 1962) and subsequently some other infestations were found (Macara, 1963, 1963a; Louro and Raposo, 1975; Louro, 1978). All records are of Clobodera rastochiensis (Woll.) Behrens. Pereira (1979) mentioned that one Portuguese sample tested in The Netherlands contained C. pallida (Stone) Behrens. Since 1979 there has been no further report. Morphological features and morphometrics for the identification of G. rastochiensis have been studied in only one of the populations (Ma,cara, 1962, 1963a). In 1983 Abreu and Martins (personal communication) started a project which included proposals to survey all potato growing areas in Tnis-os-Montes, north Portugal. Until now over 1,000 soil samples have been collected and the cysts have been extracted using the Fenwick can. The objective of our work was to identify the species and contribute to the knowledge of the distribution of these nematodes in Portugal.


Use this guide to identify resources for industry news and data, analysis and reports, company profiles, and career targets for private equity, venture capital, hedge funds and other alternative investments.


Although costimulation plays an important role in activating naive T cells, its role in negative selection is controversial. By following thymocyte deletion induced by endogenous superantigens in mice lacking B7-1 and/or B7-2, we have identified a role for both B7-1 and B7-2 in negative selection. Studies using CD28-deficient and CD28/CTLA-4-double-deficient mice have revealed that either CD28 or another as yet undefined coreceptor can mediate these B7-dependent signals that promote negative selection. Finally, CTLA-4 delivers signals that inhibit selection, suggesting that CTLA-4 and CD28 have opposing functions in thymic development. Combined, the data demonstrate that B7-1/B7-2-dependent signals help shape the T cell repertoire. The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 5421–5428. autoreactive during epithelial (DC) (15, (36).


Democracy and democratic change do not come easy in plural societies and elections can be seen both as a potential hazard and a solution. This paper addresses the question whether electoral system designs with incentives for interethnic voting are able to support cross-ethnic and non-ethnic politics in plural societies. Focusing on the 1990 elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and based on newly available election data, the analysis looks at the electoral system for the seven-member Presidency. By quantitatively correlating measures of ethnic structure to election results on the municipal level, it is possible to find that cross-ethnic and non-ethnic voting in BiH was associated with high ethnic fractionalization, while high ethnic polarization had opposite effects. The interaction of electoral design and ethnic structure had a noticeable effect on the success of incentives for interethnic voting.


BACKGROUND
It is unknown whether European countries differ systematically in their pursuit of health policies, and what the determinants of these differences are. In this article, we assess the extent to which European countries vary in the implementation of health policies in 10 different areas, and we exploit these variations to investigate the role of political, economic and social determinants of health policy.

DATA AND METHODS
We reviewed policies in the field of tobacco; alcohol; food and nutrition; fertility, pregnancy and childbirth; child health; infectious diseases; hypertension detection and treatment; cancer screening; road safety and air pollution. We developed a set of 27 'process' and 'outcome' indicators, as well as a summary score indicating a country's overall success in implementing effective health policies. In exploratory regression analyses, we related these indicators to six background factors: national income, survival/self-expression values, democracy, government effectiveness, left-party participation in government and ethnic fractionalization.

RESULTS
We found striking variations between European countries in process and outcome indicators of health policies. On the whole, Sweden, Norway and Iceland perform best, and Ukraine, Russian Federation and Armenia perform worst. Within Western Europe, some countries, such as Denmark and Belgium, perform significantly worse than their neighbours. Survival/self-expression values and ethnic fractionalization were the main predictors of the health policy performance summary score. National income, survival/self-expression values and government effectiveness were the main predictors of countries' performance in specific areas of health policy.

CONCLUSIONS
Although many new preventive interventions have been developed, their implementation appears to have varied enormously among European countries. Substantial health gains can be achieved if all countries would follow best practice, but this probably requires the removal of barriers related to both the 'will' and the 'means' to implement health policies.


Cactaceae is a native American (North. Central, and South) plant in tropical and temperate, ecologically very important in dry and arid ecosystems. Cereus jamacaru D.C. (Pleated cereus) is considered important because of its potential as an ornamental flower, food, and medicine. The flowering and fruiting phenology of this plant is still not widely known. This study aimed to determine the phenology stages of flowering and fruiting of C. jamacaru, and also to determine the pollinators that play a role in the pollination process. This research was conducted in Bogor Botanical Gardens in March-May 2015. The number of samples observed was seven flower buds (inflorescence). The observations were included the phenology of flower blooming (stage 1) and anthesis (stage 2). The variables observed in stage 1 were the length and diameter of the flower and fruit buds, also the bud tube diameter. The variables observed in stage 2 were the length of the florets, the diameter of perianthium, and the diameter of stamens. The results showed that in stage 1, the length of flower buds was 98.35 mm, diameter of flower buds was 42.95 mm, length of fruit was 47.79 mm, diameter of fruit was 20.83 mm and diameter of flower buds tube was 17.96 mm. In stage 2 after anthesis, the diameter of stamens was 40.26 mm, diameter of perianthium was 80.11 mm, and length of the florets was 176.77 mm. The pollinators are Trigona, Apis indica and ants.


This paper describes a proposed method and technology of safety assessment of projects based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). Safety assessment is based on special invariants, e.g., properties which remain unchanged when a specified transformation is applied. A classification and examples of FPGA project invariants are provided. In the paper, two types of invariants are described. The first type of invariants used for such assessment are those which are versatile since they reflect the unchanged properties of FPGA projects, hardware description languages, etc. These invariants can be replenished as experience gained in project implementation accumulates. The second type of invariants is formed based on an analysis of the specifics of a particular FPGA project and reflects the features of the tasks to be solved, the algorithms that are implemented, the hardware FPGA chips used, and the computer-aided design tools, etc. The paper contains a description of the overall conception and particular stages of FPGA projects invariant-based safety assessment. As examples for solving some tasks (using of invariants and defect injections), the paper contains several algorithms written in the VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL). The paper summarizes the results obtained during several years of practical and theoretical research. It can be of practical use for engineers and researchers in the field of quality, reliability, and security of embedded systems, software and information management systems for critical and business applications.


ABSTRACT Purpose: Pitching machines are widely used for baseball batting practice. However, these machines cannot precisely simulate a live pitcher's pitching motion. To understand if a batter's movement strategy would be altered due to disparate visual information provided by a pitching machine as opposed to a live pitcher, the present study aimed to compare differences in baseball batting movement patterns under the two delivery conditions. Methods: To examine movement variations and different strategies of each high-level athlete rather than obtaining averaged group performance, single-subject analysis was adopted. Four professional baseball players were recruited to bat around 50 pitches under each delivery condition. Vertical ground reaction forces of the participants' batting movements were recorded. Relative timings of key events and values of several kinetic parameters during batting were examined. Results: When batting against the pitching machine, batters initiated forward stepping earlier (relative to ball release), had smaller loading rate at landing the step, and altered the duration from forward bat swing to ball impact. These results might be attributed to lacking visual cues of a live pitcher's whole body kinematics prior to ball release. Without sufficient visual information, greater uncertainty and incomplete weight transfer affected the batter's decision making and movement execution. Conclusion: The batters in this study did adjust their movement strategy in batting against a pitching machine. With dissimilar batting movement patterns under the two delivery conditions, extensive reliance on training with pitching machines is not recommended.


Abstract Scalarization is a frequently used approach for finding efficient solutions that satisfy the preferences of the Decision Maker (DM) in multicriteria optimization. The applicability of a scalarization problem to solve integer multicriteria problems depends on the possibilities it provides for the decrease of the computing complexity in finding optimal solutions of this class of problems. This paper presents a reference-neighbourhood scalarizing problem, possessing properties that make it particularly suitable for solving integer problems. One of the aims set in this development has also been the faster obtaining of desired criteria values, defined by the DM, requiring no additional information by him/her. An illustrative example demonstrates the features of this scalarizing problem.


One particularly successful approach to modeling within cognitive science is computational psychology. Computational psychology explores psychological processes by building and testing computational models with human data. In this paper, it is argued that a specific approach to understanding computation, what is called the 'narrow conception', has problematically limited the kinds of models, theories, and explanations that are offered within computational psychology. After raising two problems for the narrow conception, an alternative, 'wide approach' to computational psychology is proposed.


[First paragraph of Introduction]: Organizations change, sometimes incrementally and sometimes in a discontinuous manner that makes the past an irrelevant predictor of the future. Large, wrenching changes make past behaviour and governance less relevant and call for a new perspective and a new board leadership. Often these changes are brought about by the external environment, which may no longer value the services provided, or economic pressure may reduce the priority of funding. For example, public funding of broadcasting is being reduced across North America and the debate about public funding for broadcasting is beginning. The not-for-profit organization is caught up in the social and economic changes taking place around the world. This phenomenon is not exclusive to any particular country or province, but is part of a much wider change. Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series, TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management


Sundar Singh (1889-1929), an Indian holy man, was raised in a wealthy Sikh family. At sixteen he left his home to live as a sadhu, or wandering holy man. His beggar-like existence, his intense devotion, his mystical encounters with Jesus, and his simple parables became the stuff of legends. His parables and meditations probed the essence of the gospel, calling listeners to awareness and compassion. When he disappeared during a journey to Tibet, millions mourned his passing.


Abstract Arc magmas commonly are mixtures of newly arriving primitive melts, stored magmas at shallow levels, and xenolithic material added on ascent. Almost every eruption has a unique assembly of these components, which may record magmatic processes occurring in the plumbing system prior to an eruption. In this study, we focus on complexly zoned olivines (crustal xenocrysts) to obtain a better understanding of the magmatic processes and the assembly of the 1963–65 erupted magmas of Irazú volcano, one of the most voluminous active volcanoes in Costa Rica. We performed high-precision in situ Fe-Mg isotope analyses by femtosecond-LA-MC-ICP-MS on these olivines, to unravel the origin of their complex chemical zoning (growth, diffusion, or a combination of both processes). This information was used to establish a refined diffusion model to explore magma mixing-to-eruption timescales. Furthermore, trace element analyses using LA-ICP-MS were performed. Chromium displays a chemical zoning in the investigated olivine, which coincides spatially as well as in terms of length scale and geometry with Fe-Mg zoning and that was used to constrain Cr diffusivity in natural olivine. Our findings show that Fe-Mg zoning in Irazú olivine mainly results from Fe-Mg inter-diffusion after two crystal growth episodes as indicated by strongly coupled chemical and isotopic zoning. Simulations of this diffusive process indicate that mixing of these crystals into ascending primitive melts occurred <600 days before their eruption, consistent with a previously reported diffusion study based on Ni zonation in Mg-rich olivines. Trace element characteristics of olivine suggest that the complex-zoned olivine crystals originate from a crystal mush/cumulate in the middle or lower crust and deeper than the shallow magma chamber and were mobilized by mantle-derived magma bearing Mg-rich olivines. Finally, modeling of the observed Cr zoning in the Irazú olivines indicates that the diffusion coefficient for Cr in olivine (DCr) is smaller than DFe-Mg by a factor of 4.9 ± 2.9 at the conditions experienced by these crystals consistent with Cr diffusion experiments at high silica activity in the melt. Our results show that by combining elemental and isotope zoning studies in individual minerals we can refine the timing/assembly of magmatic eruptions and provide independent constraints on element diffusivities. Last, it confirms that primitive arc magmas at Irazú are not aphyric during ascent, but carry primitive phenocrysts from lower crust or Moho depth to the surface.


Intraoperative segmentation and tracking of minimally invasive instruments is a prerequisite for computer- and robotic-assisted surgery. Since additional hardware like tracking systems or the robot encoders are cumbersome and lack accuracy, surgical vision is evolving as promising techniques to segment and track the instruments using only the endoscopic images. However, what is missing so far are common image data sets for consistent evaluation and benchmarking of algorithms against each other. The paper presents a comparative validation study of different vision-based methods for instrument segmentation and tracking in the context of robotic as well as conventional laparoscopic surgery. The contribution of the paper is twofold: we introduce a comprehensive validation data set that was provided to the study participants and present the results of the comparative validation study. Based on the results of the validation study, we arrive at the conclusion that modern deep learning approaches outperform other methods in instrument segmentation tasks, but the results are still not perfect. Furthermore, we show that merging results from different methods actually significantly increases accuracy in comparison to the best stand-alone method. On the other hand, the results of the instrument tracking task show that this is still an open challenge, especially during challenging scenarios in conventional laparoscopic surgery.


Gender and age differences in the cognitive, psychophysiological, and behavioral responses of social anxiety in adolescence. The aim of this study was to analyze gender and age differences in adolescents' social anxiety in the factor scores of the Social Phobia subscale from the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SP-SPAI): Social Interactions, Focus of Attention, Cognitive and Somatic Symptoms and Avoidance and Escape Behaviors. The sample consisted of 2,543 students of Secondary Education between 12 and 17 years. Results are shown for the general sample (N= 2,543) and for the sample of adolescents classifi ed as high social anxiety group (n= 317). Regarding the fi rst group, girls obtained higher total scores on the Social Phobia scale and on all factors except for Avoidance and Escape (d= .32 – .35). Concerning the high anxiety group, the analyses revealed that boys avoid and escape from social situations more frequently than girls (d= .23). No age differences were found in the factor scores for any of the two samples.


In the distributed WWMCCS Information System (WIS) network architecture, the top three layers of the ISO Open System Interconnect (OSI) protocols for network communications are resident in each host and workstation; the bottom four layers are contained in the physically distinct interface unit (IU). Of these four layers, the transport and network protocols have been selected to be DoD standard Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), respectively. To establish smooth, transparent and reliable connections between the Upper Layer Protocols (ULP) in the hosts/workstations and the transport and network layer protocols, especially TCP, in the attached IUs, a WIS Service Access Procedure (SAP) has been developed. The rationale for residency of TCP/IP in the IUs, the concept and design of the WIS SAP, and the reasons for selection of lower layer protocols that consititute the host front-end protocol set are presented in this paper.


[1] The OMEGA visible/near-infrared imaging spectrometer on board Mars Express has observed the southern seasonal cap in late 2004 and 2005 and then in the summer of 2006. These observations extended from the period of maximum extension, close to the southern winter solstice, to the end of the recession at Ls 325°. The spectral range and spectral resolution of OMEGA make it possible to monitor the extent and effective grain size of CO2 ice and H2O ice on the ground, the level of contamination of CO2 ice and H2O ice by dust, and the column density of μm-sized ice grains in the atmosphere. The CO2 seasonal cap is very clean and clear in early southern winter. Contamination by H2O ice spreads eastward from the Hellas basin until the southern spring equinox. During southern spring and summer, there is a very complex evolution in terms of effective grain size of CO2 ice and contamination by dust or H2O ice. H2O ice does not play a significant role close to the southern summer solstice. Contamination of CO2 ice by H2O ice is only observed close to the end of the recession, as well as the few H2O ice patches already reported by Bibring et al. (2004a). These observations have been compared to the results of a general circulation model, with good qualitative agreement on the distribution of H2O ice on the surface and in the atmosphere. Resolving the remaining discrepancies will improve our understanding of the water cycle on Mars.


Transformer-based pretrained language models (LMs) are ubiquitous across natural language understanding, but cannot be applied to long sequences such as stories, scientific articles, and long documents due to their quadratic complexity. While a myriad of efficient transformer variants have been proposed, they are typically based on custom implementations that require expensive pretraining from scratch. In this work, we propose SLED: SLiding-Encoder and Decoder, a simple approach for processing long sequences that re-uses and leverages battle-tested short-text pretrained LMs. Specifically, we partition the input into overlapping chunks, encode each with a short-text LM encoder and use the pretrained decoder to fuse information across chunks (fusion-in-decoder). We illustrate through controlled experiments that SLED offers a viable strategy for long text understanding and evaluate our approach on SCROLLS, a benchmark with seven datasets across a wide range of language understanding tasks. We find that SLED is competitive with specialized models that are up to 50x larger and require a dedicated and expensive pretraining step.


Antitoxic and antibacterial immunity have been clearly differentiated in the experimental mouse infection produced by the diffuse colonial variant of the Smith strain of Staphylococcus aureus. Immunization with crude toxoid protected mice from otherwise lethal doses of alpha hemolysin, but did not alter mortality following intraperitoneal infection with living staphylococci. Conversely, animals immunized with heat killed vaccines were readily killed by culture supernates containing alpha hemolysin, but were strikingly protected from otherwise fatal intraperitoneal infection with viable staphylococci. Protection was directly related to the ability of the immunizing substance to promote early intraperitoneal phagocytosis of the infecting inoculum. In these studies with the Smith diffuse variant, rapid intraperitoneal phagocytosis was induced by vaccination with whole cell bacterial vaccines but not by alpha hemolysin toxoid.


Urbanisation has become one of the strongest drivers of growing challenges in the fields of food security, human health and water resources management. Water management is especially more difficult in rapidly growing cities in non-industrialised countries where local authorities typically have insufficient financial and managerial capacities to respond to the basic needs of its citizens. This PhD thesis addresses the research needs for growing cities in non-industrialised countries and their impact on current and future urban water demand, wastewater generation and reuse. It is argued that demographic growth and investments in water supply and sanitation infrastructure are increasingly influencing upstream and downstream water users and the environment in the water basin. Cross-comparative case study methodology was applied, having quantitative and qualitative research components. The qualitative research involved data collection through semi-structured interviews of local experts while the quantitative research consists of data collection from literature and simple urban water balance modelling. The cities of Accra [Ghana], Hyderabad [India] and Addis Ababa [Ethiopia] were selected as case studies.

The cities share a number of characteristics typical for the current state of the water system and are detrimental factors for future development. A series of water supply expansion projects were carried out in an effort to keep up with fast rising water demands. Similar investments in sanitation and wastewater disposal, however, were not made, due a lack of priority and indistinct governmental responsibilities. Despite considerable expansion of wastewater treatment to be expected in all cities, the untreated wastewater volume will continue to rise in two cases. Depending on the downstream setting, a considerable fraction of this wastewater is reused in urban agriculture (up to 90%). This has not only brought huge benefits to many farmers but also entailed health risks from exposure to pathogens and environmental degradation. Cities have shifted their use from groundwater to surface water and moved away further from the city to exploit new water sources. However, the latter crucially depends on the financial capacity of the water utility to invest in expansion projects.

The presented cases have shown that cities are increasingly influencing the upstream and downstream areas through urban water withdrawal and disposal of wastewater and stormwater. The institutional environment and state of water resources are considered detrimental in the future development of water supply and sanitation in these cities. The combination of tools applied in this research is found to be an appropriate and effective methodology to investigate the urban water balance of fast growing water-stressed cities in developing countries. Urban water balance modelling and scenario development are very suitable tools for local planners and decision makers to adopt and apply in their respective cities.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of death from cancer and is the final stage of chronic liver disease, usually occurring in patients with cirrhosis (CP). Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) leads to progressive liver inflammation and cirrhosis because this virus specifically affects liver tissue. Previously used interferon therapy had a relatively low efficiency and very high risks of side effects. During the period of administration of interferon (IFN) schemes it was proved that elimination of the virus significantly reduced risk of liver cancer development. Discovery of direct-acting antiviral (DAA ) drugs have revolutionized HCV therapy with virus elimination rate of more than 95 % and an excellent safety profile. However, the risk of transformation of liver cirrhosis into hepatocellular carcinoma is still high even after complete eradication of the virus. Numerous studies have shown conflicting results on the possible relationship between the use of new antiviral drugs and the increase in the frequency of newly diagnosed or recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, the long-term prognosis in terms of risk for HCC development among patients with sustained virological response (SVR) remains unclear.The purpose of the study was to analyze the literature on the effect of antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis C with interferon-containing regimens and drugs of direct antiviral action on the risk of developing or recurring hepatocellular carcinoma.Material and Methods. We analyzed publications available from PubMed, S copus, E-library, Web of S cience using the key words "hepatocellular carcinoma", "chronic hepatitis C", "direct-acting antiviral drugs", "liver cirrhosis", "interferons", and "sustained virological response". Of the 99 studies found, 21 were used to write a systematic review.Results. Eradication of the virus reduces the risks of HCC. Despite reports on high risk of occurrence or recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with cirrhosis after treatment with DAA s compared with interferon-containing regimens, there is not enough data confirming the direct link between the use of DAA s and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. No statistically significant difference in the frequency of HCC between patients treated with interferon or DAA s was detected.Conclusion. Eradication of the virus is the most significant factor in the prevention of HCC; therefore, treatment of CHC should not be delayed due to the risk of HCC. Patients with liver cirrhosis require a long period of follow-up, even after successful treatment of chronic hepatitis C with DAA drugs. Stratification of HCC risk requires further research.


The goal of pharmacogenomics research is to discover genetic polymorphisms that underlie variation in drug response. Increasingly, pharmacogenomics research involves large numbers of patients and the application of new technologies and methodologies to enable discovery. The Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN) has become a community‐driven network of investigators spanning scientific and clinical disciplines. Here, we highlight the activities and types of resources that enable PGRN members to enhance and drive basic and translational research in pharmacogenomics.


In this work, an examination of mining wastes of an albite deposit in south Spain was carried out using X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), particle size analysis, thermo-dilatometry and Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) and Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, followed by the determination of the main ceramic properties. The albite content in two selected samples was high (65–40 wt. %), accompanied by quartz (25–40 wt. %) and other minor minerals identified by XRD, mainly kaolinite, in agreement with the high content of silica and alumina determined by XRF. The content of Na2O was in the range 5.44–3.09 wt. %, being associated with albite. The iron content was very low (<0.75 wt. %). The kaolinite content in the waste was estimated from ~8 to 32 wt. %. The particle size analysis indicated values of 11–31 wt. % of particles <63 µm. The ceramic properties of fired samples (1000–1350 °C) showed progressive shrinkage by the thermal effect, with water absorption and open porosity almost at zero at 1200–1250 °C. At 1200 °C, the bulk density reached a maximum value of 2.38 g/cm3. An abrupt change in the phase evolution by XRD was found from 1150 to 1200 °C, with the disappearance of albite by melting in accordance with the predictions of the phase diagram SiO2-Al2O3-Na2O and the system albite-quartz. These fired materials contained as main crystalline phases quartz and mullite. Quartz was present in the raw samples and mullite was formed by decomposition of kaolinite. The observation of mullite forming needle-shape crystals was revealed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The formation of fully densified and vitrified mullite materials by firing treatments was demonstrated.


DNA molecules were used as a model system to investigate fundamental problems in polymer physics; namely, how molecular length, topology and concentration influence the dynamical properties of polymers. A set of DNA molecules suitable for polymer studies was prepared using molecular biology techniques. Video fluorescence microscopy and single-molecule tracking were used to determine self- diffusion coefficients of DNA molecules. Optical tweezers were used to measure the intermolecular forces confining entangled DNA molecules. Scaling of diffusion with molecular length was in agreement with the Zimm model for dilute solutions of linear and circular DNA, indicating that excluded volume effects are appreciable for both topologies. Scaling of diffusion with concentration was also determined for the four possible topological combinations of linear and circular molecules: linear DNA diffusing in a solution of linear DNA, linear DNA in circular DNA, circular in circular, and circular in linear. For lower concentrations molecular topology had little effect and scaling was in agreement with that of the Rouse model. As concentration was increased topology played a much larger role and scaling crossed over to that of the reptation model, predicted to describe the dynamics of entangled polymers. The notable exception was the strongly hindered diffusion observed for a circular molecule diffusing in an entangled linear solution, suggesting the importance of constraint release. Using a new experimental approach with optical tweezers, a tube- like field confining a single entangled molecule was measured, in accord with the key assumption of the reptation model. A time-dependent harmonic potential opposed displacement transverse to the molecular contour, and the force relaxations following displacement were composed of three distinct modes. A characteristic tube radius of the entangled solution was also determined, close to the classically predicted value. The dependence of the above findings on molecular topology and concentration was also investigated. In particular, for an entangled solution of circular DNA of the same length and concentration, the confining tube radius was 25% smaller and the longest relaxation time was 3 times shorter than with linear DNA. For large displacements the confining force for circular DNA was also substantially lower and shorter range than that measured with linear DNA


Abstract Background Effective therapies to combat coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) are urgently needed. Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has in vitro antiviral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but the clinical benefit of HCQ in treating COVID-19 is unclear. Randomized controlled trials are needed to determine the safety and efficacy of HCQ for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Methods We conducted a multicenter, double-blind randomized clinical trial of HCQ among patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19. Subjects were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to HCQ or placebo for 5 days and followed for 30 days. The primary efficacy outcome was a severe disease progression composite end point (death, intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and/or vasopressor use) at day 14. Results A total of 128 patients were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. Baseline demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics were similar between the HCQ (n = 67) and placebo (n = 61) arms. At day 14, 11 (16.4%) subjects assigned to HCQ and 6 (9.8%) subjects assigned to placebo met the severe disease progression end point, but this did not achieve statistical significance (P = .350). There were no significant differences in COVID-19 clinical scores, number of oxygen-free days, SARS-CoV-2 clearance, or adverse events between HCQ and placebo. HCQ was associated with a slight increase in mean corrected QT interval, an increased D-dimer, and a trend toward an increased length of stay. Conclusions In hospitalized patients with COVID-19, our data suggest that HCQ does not prevent severe outcomes or improve clinical scores. However, our conclusions are limited by a relatively small sample size, and larger randomized controlled trials or pooled analyses are needed.


Background and objective: Doppler ultrasound technique has been proposed as a noninvasive means of quantifying diastolic and systolic cardiac function by measuring flow propagation into the left ventricle and ejection blood to the body. The relationship between Doppler-derived parameters and underlying fluid dynamics is still unclear. Methods: The purpose of this study is to deduce effective physical parameters used in measuring the change in the geometrical shapes of the aortic valve leaflets during the vortex formation. These parameters are defined as the "Blockage factor, Strouhal number and Formation number". One hundred fifty subjects were selected; The B-factor was correlated with Strouhal number and Formation number for 100 normal aortic valve subjects, and 50 abnormal subjects divided equally into regurgitate (25), and stenotic aortic valve (25), other physical parameters are also calculated. Doppler Echocardiography technique as a noninvasive technique that provides unique hemodynamic information which can not be achieved by any other means. Results: The accuracy of the results depends, however, on meticulous technique and an understanding of Doppler principles and flow dynamics. This technique recommended through scientific literature. It has been found that the mean values and standard deviation of (ST-No) and (F-No) for normal aortic valve are (l.55 ± 0.55) and (10.12 ± 3.16), regurgitate (2.823± 0.992) and (5.722± 1.68), and for stenotic aortic valve subjects are (0.939± 0.14) and (l5.82± 2.20) respectively. Conclusion: The results show that (St-No) of normal aortic valve is larger than that for stenotic, which may indicate that the inertial effects of normal valve are larger than those of stenotic valve. This because pressure energy is expanded to overcome inertia rather than converted solely to kinetic energy. The results obtained showed significant elevation of (ST -No) with aortic valve dimensions, and the improvement in efficiency decreases with increasing Strouhal number. A significant elevated (F-No) has been also noted to be increased with aortic valve area. The study of the Formation number and Strouhal number' is important to determine the severity of the stenotic and regurgitate aortic valve and gives a good parameters that can be used in medical diagnosis.


IN his note on the significance ofthe Londesborough Ring Brooch (Antiq. Journ. lvii (1977), 95-7) David Brown has called attention to the habit of the pagan AngloSaxons of occasionally burying with their dead small collections of apparently useless objects, sometimes broken and of some age, which were often contained in bags or purses closed with bag-rings of ivory or iron, and frequently so placed as to suggest suspension from a belt or girdle. The objects found in these collections may be of bronze, iron, lead, glass, bone, or antler, and a high proportion of them are either of ring form or include rings, loops, or other open-work features which would make it easy to thread them all together in a bunch and thus minimize the risk of individual pieces being lost. He suggests that these collections of bits and pieces probably served in some way as amulets, since he could not propose any practical purpose for which they might have been used.


Experiments with direct measurements of internal voltages inside an aluminum-stabilized superconductor used for the helical coils of the Large Helical Device have been performed with the specially prepared model coil. The experiments demonstrated the presence of a transverse voltage when a normal zone passes through a measured cross-section. We showed that the measured transverse voltages coincide with the calculated Hall voltages. This is the first experimental proof of the existence of Hall voltages during a quench process inside the helical coils superconductor. These data are important to estimate the magnetoresistivity and analyze the cryogenic stability of superconductors with multi-metal stabilizers.


We rigorously analyze load sharing (LS) in a distributed real-time system, called HARTS (Hexagonal Architecture for Real-Time Systems), while considering LS-related communication activities, such as task transfers and state-change broadcasts. First, we give an overview of the general distributed real-time LS approach described in [I], [2], and then adapt it to HARTS by exploiting the topological properties of HARTS. Second, we model task arrival/completion/transfer activities in HARTS as a continuoustime Markov chain from which we derive the distribution of queue length and the rate of generating LS-related traffic-task transfer-out rate and state-region change broadcast rate. Third, we derive the distribution of packet delivery time as a function of LS-related traffic rates by characterizing the hexagonal mesh topology and the virtual cut-through capability of HARTS. Finally, we derive the distribution of task waiting time (the time a task is queued for execution plus the time it would spend if the task is to be transferred), from which the probability of a task failing to complete in time, called the probability of dynamic faiiure, can be computed. The results obtained from our analytic models are verified through event-driven simulations, and can be used to study the effects of varying various design parameters on the performance of LS while considering the details of LS-related communication activities.


Within Vietnam's system of higher education, its schools of business play a vital role in supporting the country's economic objectives. However, the crucial contribution of soft skills for maximal success within the business sector has to date not been adequately recognized by its business schools. This being so, the development of the business school curriculum in Vietnam has not been able to 'catch up', so to say, with the burgeoning need of students for a comprehensive soft skills program designed to meet the national and global business objectives of their potential employers. The burden of the present paper is first to reveal the results of our survey in Vietnam which make explicit the extent to which major Vietnamese industrial employers' value the potential role that soft skill competencies can play in maximizing business success. Our final task will be to determine which soft skills employers discern as best serving to maximize the economic interests of Vietnam within the global marketplace. Semi-structured telephone interviews have been conducted with the 15 representative Head Employers of Vietnam's reputedly largest and most successful of the diverse business enterprises across Vietnam. The findings of the study indicate that all respondents highly value the increasing importance of soft skills in business success. Our critical analysis of respondent data reveals that 19 essential soft skills are deemed by employers as integral to business workplace efficacy and should thus be integrated into the formal business curriculum. We are confident that our study represents the first comprehensive and specific survey yet undertaken within the business sector in Vietnam which accesses and analyses the opinions of representative employers from major companies across the country in regard to the growing importance of 19 specific soft skills essential for maximizing overall business success. Our research findings also reveal that the integration into business school curriculums nationwide of the soft skills we have identified is of paramount importance to advance the national and global economic interests of Vietnam. Keywords—Business curriculum, business graduates, employers' perception, soft skills.


Given the nationally recognized need to improve engineering students' communication skills, a new engineering communication course was developed by the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering department at Iowa State University and offered in the Fall of 2007. Initial assessment results provide insight into student learning needs related to specific professional communication skills. The course is characterized by a high degree of interaction and formative assessment of students along with a unique core professional communication process consisting of (1) Analysis, (2) Formulation, (3) Creation, (4) Delivery, and (5) Assessment. Students participate in multimodal communication exercises that require ongoing practice and application of this process. This paper describes why the course was developed, the premise of the course, course content and logistics, examples and assessment of student work and perceptions, and future plans for long term impact and course/curriculum assessment.


We address a two-firm booking limit competition game in the airline industry. We assume aggregate common demand, and differentiated ticket fare and capacity, to make this study more realistic. A game theoretic approach is used to analyze the competition game. The optimal booking limits and the best response functions are derived. We show the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium and provide the closed-form equilibrium solution. The location of the Nash equilibrium depends on the relative magnitude of the ratios of the full and discount fares. We also show that the sum of the booking limits of the two firms remains the same regardless of the initial allocation proportion of the demand.


Following the experience of asthma, characterised by the presence of bronchial hyper-responsiveness, the notion has been accepted that the chronic cough of disease occurs as a result of altered sensitivity of the afferent limb of the cough reflex. Methods for testing for the 'threshold' for eliciting the cough reflex have also been borrowed from asthma care. In the main aerosols are inhaled that contain the relevant stimulus.A number of factors influence the cough response to inhaled aerosols. The distribution of the inhaled aerosol is important as certain chemically sensitive receptors are distributed in different regions of the lungs. The larynx and central airways are important but so too are the peripheral airways. The degree of bronchodilatation is also important as airway narrowing can, itself, induce coughing in man.Asthma, oesophageal reflux and rhinitis patients experience increased coughing, that is associated with increased sensitivity to inhaled capsaicin. In syndromes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) increased sensitivity to coughing with capsaicin is common. This appears a specific effect of the pathogenic process of the disease. Modification of the disease process can lessen coughing and the sensitivity to capsaicin.


In visual control of motion the performance of the system is typically tied to the speed at which the visual information can be processed. Visual processing is unusual in that the data is not the information and in some sense the quality of the information can often be improved through extended processing (e.g. the resolution). A visual sensor tracking an object will only provide sporadic observations due to the processing delay, and, computational delay can pose difficulty within the control structure. We explore the trade off between the computational delay, the effective system observability, the accuracy of the visual processing, and implications for visual-guided motions. The task of visually tracking a target in order to localize it with sufficient accuracy to "touch" it provides a demonstration of the trade-off between computational delay and the motion (visual localization) accuracy.


The main contribution of this paper is an algorithm for autonomous search that minimizes the expected time for detecting multiple targets present in a known built environment. The proposed technique makes use of the probability distribution of the target(s) in the environment, thereby making it feasible to incorporate any additional information, known a-priori or acquired while the search is taking place, into the search strategy. The environment is divided into a set of distinct regions and an adjacency matrix is used to describe the connections between them. The costs of searching any of the regions as well as the cost of travel between them can be arbitrarily specified. The search strategy is derived using a dynamic programming algorithm. The effectiveness of the algorithm is illustrated using an example based on the search of an office environment. An analysis of the computational complexity is also presented.


Webster et al. (1) compared "the net number of speciation events to underlying genetic change using 56 published phylogenies inferred from gene-sequence data" and reported a correlation between rates of genetic evolution and speciation. They argued that their findings lend support to the hypothesis that the greater the number of speciation events in a given lineage, the longer the branch lengths associated with that clade. Examination of their source data sets [see Supplementary Online Material in (1)] reveals a number of problems. First, at least three studies from which a data set was drawn do not contain "phylogenies inferred from gene-sequence data." Georgiadis et al. (2) and Weller et al. (3) [see figure 1A in (1)] reported allozyme trees, and Petren et al. (4) presented a microsatellite tree. It is not clear that the units of genetic change from these sources are commensurate with branch lengths based on numbers of nucleotide substitutions in DNA sequences. A second problem is that Webster et al. equate each inferred node of a phylogenetic tree with a speciation event, yet many of the data sets employed examine relationships among terminal taxa that do not represent species-level variation. For example, Liu and Beckenbach (5) examined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from 13 taxa representing 10 orders of insects. Clearly, branch lengths among taxa exemplifying families and orders, which reflect cumulative evolutionary divergence accrued over hundreds or thousands of bifurcations, have little to do with the rate of genetic evolution attending individual speciation events. At the other end of the spectrum, Zamudio (6) examined 37 mtDNA haplotypes among three closely related species of horned lizard. MtDNA often exhibits phylogenetic structure within and among populations below the species level, but demonstration of such intraspecific polymorphism actually undermines the hypothesis of punctuated evolution—which predicts that most evolutionary change is associated with speciation events. Another difficulty is that the phylogenetic trees presented in many of the source studies including (7 ) and (8) are based on parsimony analysis and do not contain any information on branch lengths. However, the Nexus files included in the supplementary material for (1) are presented in a uniform format, with branch lengths for each node that imply these data were extracted from the cited papers. How Webster et al. calculated these numbers [and where tree topology originated from in (9), for example, which presented no phylogenetic analysis] is not described. Since the topology of the tree is fundamental to the calculation of the branch lengths and since both topology and branch length may vary greatly under alternative methodological interpretations, we believe that it is a major shortcoming of the methodology to have neglected to present the means by which these values were derived. Finally, it is well known that denser taxon sampling tends to reveal homoplasy in sequence data, resulting in longer branches. The much-touted phenomenon of "long branch attraction" in phylogenetic inference occurs when representatives of poorly sampled taxa group together due to apparently homologous, but independently derived character states. Thus, a correlation between branch length and number of nodes in "30 to 50% of cases" selected by Webster et al. is not surprising. Since most systematists do not sample taxa at random, it is very difficult to tease apart the effects of sampling from the intrinsic diversity of the clades being sampled—an issue that Webster et al. do not address in their effort to correct for nonrandom sampling. Because the source data sets used in (1) are heterogeneous, it is not obvious how many of them provide appropriate tests of the hypothesis. In my view, insufficient description of the analytical methods used further adds to the difficulty in interpreting or repeating the Webster et al. analyses.


Introduction Childhood obesity in China has increased more rapidly and over a shorter time period than in other countries. However, there is a paucity of rigorously developed and evaluated prevention interventions. We aim to evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness as well as the implementation process of a complex multicomponent intervention developed using the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) framework. This study provides one of the first examples of rigorous development and evaluation of a childhood obesity prevention programme in a non-western population using the MRC methods. Methods and analysis A cluster-randomised controlled trial in 40 primary schools in Guangzhou, China, including children aged 6–7 years at baseline. Schools will be randomly allocated to either the usual practice (n=20) or intervention arm (n=20). The 12-month intervention consists of four components targeting diet and physical activity behaviours in and outside school, with family involvement. The primary objective is to compare the difference in mean body mass index (BMI) z-score between the intervention and control arms at the end of the intervention (starting March/April 2017). A sample size of 1640 pupils recruited from 40 schools is sufficient to detect a difference of 0.17 units in the mean BMI z-score with a power of 80% (ICC=0.01. ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient) and a significance level of 5%. Treatment effects will be tested using a mixed linear model in STATA adjusting for the child baseline BMI z-score and clustering by school. All analyses will be by intention to treat. Secondary analyses will additionally adjust for prespecified school-level and child-level covariates. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for the intervention versus usual practice will be 'cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY)'. Cost per change in BMI z-score will also be assessed. A range of methods will be used to evaluate intervention implementation, mechanisms of impact and contextual factors.


Bioethanol is one of the most promising transportation fuels with economic, environmental, and energy benefits. However, currently, the production methodologies and purification technologies of the biofuel industry are not economical. This review demonstrates an economically viable, energy efficient, and sustainable alternative to the state-of-the-art process for bioethanol production from biomass. We have developed a solar-thermal-energy-driven simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process for single-step conversion of biomass to bioethanol. In the early stages, aqueous solutions of glucose, starch, or cellulose were fed into a specially designed solar reactor containing instant baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and the necessary enzymes. The yeast (biocatalyst) was not supplemented by any other nutrient, and it was demonstrated that the same yeast and enzymes could be used for at least two months without any decrease in enzymatic activity. After obtaining very high yields (up to 91% of the theoretical yield) and excellent separation of ethanol from the fermentation broth, the methodology was successfully extended to a continuous-flow single-step conversion of marine algae Ulva rigida to bioethanol (84% of the theoretical yield). Harnessing solar thermal energy for driving the SSF reaction as well as the special design of the solar reactor that facilitates in situ separation of ethanol from the fermentation broth by an evaporation–condensation process make the current method industrially appealing and adoptable for large-scale production. This review explores new avenues for a decentralized power supply based on solar thermal energy. The bioethanol produced in this study was demonstrated as a potential fuel for direct ethanol fuel cells with high current and power density values, and 65% thermodynamic efficiency. In addition, the secondary metabolite glycerol was fully reduced to the value-added product 1,3-propanediol by S. cerevisiae, which is the first example of a fungal strain converting glycerol in situ to 1,3-propanediol. In this review, we aim to discuss the current methodologies and recent developments for bioethanol production from biomass and demonstrate the future aspects of bioethanol production in solar reactors, and strategies to improve process yields as well as the prospects of using a solar reactor to produce other valuable chemicals.


This research sought to discover the forms of promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom that are used to create occupations among the elderly at Noanmueng Community, Muang Sub-District, Baan Doong District, Udornthani Province. The criteria used to select the research sample group were: having a role involved in the promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly; being an experienced person who the residents of Noanmueng Community find trustworthy; and having lived in Noanmueng Community for a long time so as to be able to see the development and change that occurs. A total of 16 persons were thus selected. Data was gathered through a qualitative study, using semi-structured indepth interviews. The collected data was then summarized and discussed according to the research objectives. Finally, the data was presented in narrative format. Results found that the identifying traditional local wisdom of the community (which grew from the residents' experience and beneficial usage in daily life, passed down from generation to generation) was the weaving of cloth and basketry. As for the manner of promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom, these skills were passed down through teaching by example to family members, relatives and others in the community. This was largely the initiative of the elders or elderly members of the community. In order for the promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly, the traditional local wisdom should be supported in every way through participation of the community members. For example, establish a museum of traditional local wisdom for the collection of traditional local wisdom in various fields, both from the past and present innovations. This would be a source of pride for the community, simultaneously helping traditional local wisdom to become widely known and to create income for the community's elderly. Additional ways include organizing exhibitions of products made by traditional local wisdom, finding both domestic and international markets, as well as building both domestic and international networks aiming to find opportunities to market products made by traditional local wisdom. Keywords—Traditional local wisdom, Occupation, Elderly.


SIR, REM syndrome has been described by Steigleder (Steigleder et al., 1974) as a disease of an unknown cause. Steigleder has been the first to report on virus-like particles in the cytoplasm of the dermal infiltration cells, in a case of plaquelike form of cutaneous mucinosis, by ultrastructural investigations (Steigleder & Kanzow, 1980). Others have reported on the same findings in ultrastructural observations of REM patients (Bleehem et al., 1982; Chavaz, Polia & Saurat, 1982). Recently, we have had the opportunity to observe two further typical REM patients at the Dermatological Department of Cologne University, Eederal Republic of Germany.


This study examines whether petroleum refineries that violate environmental laws in Black, Hispanic, and low-income communities tend to receive smaller fines than those refineries in White and affluent communities. The sample consists of all petroleum refinery facilities fined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) between 1998 and 1999 for violating the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and/or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (N = 60). The mean penalty for noncompliance is much lower in Black than in White census tracts ($108,563 vs. $341,590) and in low-income than in high-income census tracts ($259,784 vs. $334,267). Multivariate analysis suggests that these disparities are not due to factors such as the seriousness of violation, the number of past violations, the facility inspection history, the facility production, or the EPA region in which the violating refinery is situated. It is concluded that the government does a poor job of providing equal protection to racially and economically diverse communities.


Satellite measurements of column‐averaged CO2 dry‐air mole fraction (XCO2) will be used in inversion and data assimilation studies to improve the precision and resolution of current estimates of global fluxes of CO2. Representation errors due to the mismatch in spatial scale between satellite retrievals and atmospheric transport models contribute to the uncertainty associated with flux estimates. This study presents a statistical method for quantifying representation errors as a function of the underlying spatial variability of XCO2 and the spatial distribution of retrieved soundings, without knowledge of the true XCO2 distribution within model gridcells. Representation errors are quantified globally using regional XCO2 spatial variability inferred using the PCTM/GEOS‐4 model and a hypothetical atmospheric transport model with 1° × 1° resolution, 3 km2 retrieval footprints, and two different sounding densities.