MaintainingMaintaining the correct dosage of chromosomes is crucial for a cell to function properly. In sexually reproducing organisms most chromosomes exist in pairs, giving cells two copies of each of their genes, one inherited maternally and the other paternally. This is not always the case for the X/Y sex chromosomes found in many animals, however—although females have an X chromosome from each parent, males inherit a Y from their fathers in place of one X. The Y chromosome is a genetic wasteland that contains only a few functioning genes, meaning males are left with a half dose of an entire chromosome—the X. Such imbalance in gene dosage would be harmful were it not for the evolution of complex compensation mechanisms that restore sexual equality to the X chromosome. In this issue of PLoS Biology, Susan Lott and colleagues use new advances in sequencing to show for the first time that, not only does dosage compensation occur earlier in developing embryos than had previously been thought, but that it does so by a novel mechanism.

Sex-specific time course of early Drosophila development. Embryos at different stages were selected based on the number of nuclei they contain, and then genotyped to determine their sex.

If an organism is to function correctly, the activity of its genes must be kept tightly regulated. This regulation can be compromised if part of a chromosome becomes deleted or duplicated, resulting in cells with either too many or too few copies of genes within that region. Changes to gene dosage can be disastrous for the cell. Indeed, spurious chromosomal rearrangements during fertilization are the cause of many genetic disorders such as such as Down's syndrome, whose sufferers have a duplication of some or all of chromosome 21. Animals have therefore evolved different strategies to prevent the differences in the sexes for X chromosome number being deleterious. In mammalian females, one copy of each X becomes densely packed and shut down, normalizing their X gene expression levels to the half dose of males, while in the nematode worm, both female X chromosomes are turned down half way. Fruit flies take the converse approach and hyper-activate the X genes in males such that they get a double dose. This hyper-activation is achieved by a group of proteins known as the "Male Specific Lethal" (MSL) complex, which bind specifically to the male X chromosome and uncoil the DNA, and in turn allow the genes to be turned up. Early on in developing embryos, however, not all the proteins needed for the MSL complex are present, meaning that there is a period during which the canonical dosage compensation machinery in inactive. Since regulation of gene expression is particularly critical in development, Lott and colleagues hypothesized that dosage compensation should also be crucial and that perhaps current techniques had failed to detect it.

Before they could look for compensation in early fly embryos, the scientists first had to develop new strategies to be able to test the expression levels of genes in a single embryo. During the initial stages of development, the embryo's genes are not yet active and the embryo relies on mRNA inherited from its mother in the egg to make proteins. After approximately ten cell divisions, the maternally inherited mRNAs begin to degrade and the embryo's own genome kicks in. There is a lag time, however, between the activation of embryonic genes and when the MSL dosage compensation complex is turned on. To test if dosage compensation of embryonic genes was occurring during this lag period, the scientists needed to distinguish the maternally inherited mRNAs from those expressed from the embryo's own DNA. They did this by studying offspring of parents from two genetically distinct populations, whose genomes they had first sequenced to identify DNA markers unique to each parent. Armed with these unique tags, the scientists could then determine if genes switched on in the embryos were maternal or embryonic, since maternal mRNA would have markers exclusively from the mother, while embryonic genes would contain a mix of both parental markers. Lott and colleagues adapted current sequencing methods to allow for the very low amounts of starting material available so that they could record all the genes that were active in a single fly embryo, and then categorize them as either maternal or embryonic.

When the researchers compared the expression levels of genes between male and female embryos during development, what they saw was striking—although the majority of genes were expressed at the same levels in males and females, genes on the X chromosome were much more active on the male X chromosome than either of the two female X chromosomes. Moreover, X genes with key roles in developmental showed up-regulation that resulted in perfect dosage compensation, even though males had half the dose of these genes compared to females the total activity level was the same in both sexes.

The finding that dosage compensation is occurring so early in development before the MSL complex is thought to be active raises new questions, as it suggests a novel compensation mechanism is at work. If the MSL complex is not responsible, dosage compensation may instead be controlled by a protein named SXL, which functions as the master regulator of sex determination in fruit flies, directing an embryo to develop into a female when switched on or a male when switched off. Alternatively, dosage control may be linked to the particular way chromosomes align. Just as the early dosage compensation is occurring, chromosomes become tightly associated with each other such that each gene is in close proximity to the second copy of itself. It may be that this association allows just one of each pair to turn on, while the other is inhibited. Since it has no partner to align with, the male X chromosome would remain switched on. Although more work is needed to test which of these hypotheses may be correct, the techniques developed in the current study give new resolution to the inner workings of gene expression in a developing embryo and how male flies compensate for their half dose of the X chromosome.

Lott SE, Villalta JE, Schroth GP, Luo S, Tonkin LA, et al. (2011) Noncanonical Compensation of Zygotic X Transcription in Early Drosophila melanogaster Development Revealed through Single-Embryo RNA-Seq. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000590


Recent applications in the use of light gauge steel members have been concerned with developing large scale systems built entirely from cold-formed steel members. An explicit analysis of such structures is complicated by the different phenomena that the structure may be prone to during loading. In particular, elastic buckling phenomena is an important consideration in the design of such structures since the load at which buckling occurs often provides a close upper bound to the carrying capacity of the structure.

The first part of this two-part thesis (Part I, Chaptersl-8) has been devoted to general methods of analysis of the torsional-flexural buckling of thin-walled structures. A review of previous investigations and the available methods of solution is presented. A general finite element formulation of the torsional-flexural buckling of thin-walled structures has been derived. The resulting elastic geometric matrix can be used to analyse structures with monosymmetrical members. It also includes the effect of sectorial-monosymmetry for cross-sections without any axis of symmetry. A general transformation matrix has been developed to allow for the application of the finite element method to the three-dimensional elastic stability analysis of space and portal frames. The validity and accuracy of the new finite element formulation have been checked by analysing a number of different elastic lateral buckling problems for which exact or highly accurate solutions by other techniques are available.

An experimental program was carried out on simply supported cold-formed steel z-beams. The first part of this program was undertaken to check the validity of the finite element calculations of the bimoments caused by nonuniform torsion. The second part was devoted to elastic lateral buckling of z-beams under combined bending and torsion.

The second part of this thesis (Part II, Chapter 9) deals with the analysis of hipped roof structures with corrugated steel roof sheeting. A simple theoretical model has been suggested. The model has been used to perform an elastic linear analysis of the behaviour of two types of the hipped roof structures. The theoretical results are compared with previous experimental results for these two structures.


This paper identifies a new source of differences in religiosity: the presence of future tense marking in language. We argue that the rewards and punishments that incentivise religious behaviour are less effective for speakers of languages that contain future tense marking. Consistent with this prediction, we show that speakers of future-tensed languages are less likely to be religious and to take up the short-term costs associated with religiosity. What is likely to drive this behaviour, according to our results, is the relatively lower appeal of the religious rewards for these individuals. Our analysis is based on within country regressions comparing individuals with identical observable characteristics who speak a different language. JEL classification: D83, Z12, Z13.


An introduction to the dynamic field of performance design in and beyond the theatre, with analysis and case studies contributed by world experts in the discipline from the UK, USA, Chile, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands. Scenography Expanded is a foundational text offering readers a thorough introduction to contemporary performance design, both in and beyond the theatre. It examines the potential of the visual, spatial, technological, material and environmental aspects of performance to shape performative encounters. It analyses examples of scenography as sites of imaginative exchange and transformative experience and it discusses the social, political and ethical dimensions of performance design. The international range of contributors and case studies provide clear perspectives on why scenographic design has become a central consideration for performance makers today. The extended introduction defines the characteristics of 21st century scenography and examines the scope and potentials of this new field. Across five sections, the volume provides examples and case-studies which richly illustrate the scope of contemporary scenographic practice and which analyse the various ways in which it is used in global cultural contexts. These include mainstream theatre practice, experimental theatre, installation and live art, performance in the city, large-scale events and popular entertainments, and performances by and for specific communities.


Extensive areas of the Congo Basin forest are allocated to timber concessionaires. These forests also harbour and support village populations, including indigenous Baka people, who depend on forest foods obtained directly from trees (fruits, oils and caterpillars). Most food-producing tree species are harvested by concessionaires for timber. We documented the availability and abundance of three food tree species around four villages and in two neighboring timber concessions in Cameroon. Data was used to determine the importance of timber concessions as sources of food for local people to provide a foundation for governance arrangements that consider local needs for foods from timber trees. Discussions with concessionaires revealed that some of them have voluntarily refrained from extracting timber species of interest to villagers for their nontimber products. This is either to avoid conflict with villagers, or because regulations have been promulgated to safeguard these resources. The interplay between internal village dynamics, regulations and their implementation by forest guards, and the actions of timber concessions create a complex arena for addressing rights to forest resources. This paper provides information on the accessibility and availability of multiple use timber species as a foundation for negotiations and governance arrangements between concessionaires and local communities.


Context. RX J1604.3-2130A is a young, dipper-type, variable star in the Upper Scorpius association, suspected to have an inclined inner disk, with respect to its face-on outer disk.
Aims. We aim to study the eclipses to constrain the inner disk properties.
Methods. We used time-resolved photometry from the Rapid Eye Mount telescope and Kepler 2 data to study the multi-wavelength variability, and archival optical and infrared data to track accretion, rotation, and changes in disk structure.
Results. The observations reveal details of the structure and matter transport through the inner disk. The eclipses show 5 d quasi-periodicity, with the phase drifting in time and some periods showing increased/decreased eclipse depth and frequency. Dips are consistent with extinction by slightly processed dust grains in an inclined, irregularly-shaped inner disk locked to the star through two relatively stable accretion structures. The grains are located near the dust sublimation radius (~0.06 au) at the corotation radius, and can explain the shadows observed in the outer disk. The total mass (gas and dust) required to produce the eclipses and shadows is a few % of a Ceres mass. Such an amount of mass is accreted/replenished by accretion in days to weeks, which explains the variability from period to period. Spitzer and WISE infrared variability reveal variations in the dust content in the innermost disk on a timescale of a few years, which is consistent with small imbalances (compared to the stellar accretion rate) in the matter transport from the outer to the inner disk. A decrease in the accretion rate is observed at the times of less eclipsing variability and low mid-IR fluxes, confirming this picture. The v sin i = 16 km s−1 confirms that the star cannot be aligned with the outer disk, but is likely close to equator-on and to be aligned with the inner disk. This anomalous orientation is a challenge for standard theories of protoplanetary disk formation.


Cheminformatics is a field of information technology that focuses on the collection, storage, analysis, and manipulation of chemical data. The chemical data of interest typically includes information on small molecule formulas, structures, properties, spectra, and activities (biological or industrial). Cheminformatics originally emerged as a vehicle to help the drug discovery and development process, however cheminformatics now plays an increasingly important role in many areas of biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. The intent of this unit is to give readers some introduction into the field of cheminformatics and to show how cheminformatics not only shares many similarities with the field of bioinformatics, but also enhances much of what is currently done in bioinformatics, molecular biology, and biochemistry. © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Size reduction is a constant objective in new technologies for which very accurate devices are needed when manipulating submillimetric objects. A new kind of microfabricated microrobot based on the use of bistable modules is designed to perform open-loop controlled micropositioning tasks. The DiMiBot (a specific digital microrobot) opens a new paradigm in the design of microrobots by using mechanical stability instead of complex control strategies. We propose a new architecture of digital microrobot for which forward and inverse kinematics models are easy to use. These kinematic models are validated with finite-element-analysis simulations before the fabrication of a real DiMiBot prototype. Tests and characterization of the prototype are made and compared with the desired behavior. Thanks to its submicrometric resolution and to its small dimensions (~ 400-μm thickness), it is able to manipulate microobjects in confined environments, where no other robot can be used.


Estrogens play important roles in the development and progression of multiple tumor types. Accumulating evidence points to the significance of estrogen action not only in tumors of hormonally regulated tissues such as the breast, endometrium and ovary, but also in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). The effects of estrogens in physiological and pathophysiological conditions are mediated by the nuclear estrogen receptors α and β, as well as the membrane-bound G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). The roles of GPER in CRC development and progression, however, remain poorly understood. Studies on the functions of GPER in the colon have shown that this estrogen receptor regulates colonic motility as well as immune responses in CRC-associated diseases, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. GPER is also involved in cell cycle regulation, endoplasmic reticulum stress, proliferation, apoptosis, vascularization, cell migration, and the regulation of fatty acid and estrogen metabolism in CRC cells. Thus, multiple lines of evidence suggest that GPER may play an important role in colorectal carcinogenesis. In this review, we present the current state of knowledge regarding the contribution of GPER to colon function and CRC.


This paper investigates the possible virtue of the modification of longitudinal and lane-change behaviors of drivers by intelligent cruise control systems that augment individual driver behavior by enforcing minimum separation between vehicles. Such systems would not only reduce collisions but may also improve traffic flow by reducing the frequency of bottlenecks on freeways. This hypothesis is tested using a modified microsimulation of a length of freeway in Los Angeles County. A transit-oriented minimum time headway controller is compared to a traditional minimum separation intelligent cruise controller. The results show that using a fixed distance policy to control the separation tends to keep the flow more stable during peak periods and reduces travel times.


Recent audit and financial reporting quality research suggest that audit committee financial expertise is a crucial ingredient for high quality financial reports. However, Malaysian literature has reported no association between audit committee financial expertise and audit report timeliness. Using audit report lag, we examined whether Malaysian audit committee financial expertise is relevant for financial reporting timeliness. Using data from 2005 to 2011 from the top 100 Malaysian companies and the fixed effects panel data approach, we find that audit committee financial expertise is not significantly associated with audit report lag proxies. We further examined this issue with the basic premise that audit committee independence enhances the role of audit committee financial expertise. However, the interaction between these mechanisms shows an insignificant association. Additional investigation reveals that these results are driven by the lack of independence on Malaysian boards. We also find evidence suggesting that neither a large number of subsidiaries nor the quality of financial reporting sufficiently justify the recent Malaysian reforms relating to the financial reporting timeframe.


We explore how different spatial compositions affect the educational achievement in mathematics of 16 year-old students in Chile, a Latin American country with high income inequality and school segregation. We develop a critical review on the literature on negative "neighbourhood effects" associated with concentrated poverty, complementing it with studies concerning self-segregation preferences by members of the upper-middle class. We combine administrative data about student performance with survey data for the 52 municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile. We cluster the districts based on factors such as unemployment, economic inequality, access to services, experiences of violence and stigmatization. Using longitudinal data, we look at the effect of each of the six spatial clusters on academic performance. Spatial clusters report a significant effect, above and beyond that of individual, household, and school-level characteristics. We conclude that space complements and reinforces the processes of accumulation of socioeconomic (dis)advantages.


The Multi Sector Monopole Yagi–Uda Antenna (MS-MPYA) can be used to realize low profile, multi-sector antennas. The MS-MPYA has an interesting feature; we can sharpen the beams by using the adjacent array effect if we set metallic fins between the arrays so as to hide the excitors. Otherwise, without the fins, undesired radiation from the adjacent arrays causes beam division. This paper shows the radiation mechanism by using transient solutions in the time domain calculated by the FDTD method to examine how electromagnetic waves interact with the directors, adjacent arrays, and fins in real time. We introduce the transient solutions for three types of MS-MPYA: with adjacent array and with fins, without adjacent array but with fins, and with adjacent arrays but without fins. The transient solutions show that the adjacent array's action is changed by the existence of the fins and caused beam division. Without fins, the adjacent arrays act as directors of the active array and cause beam division. With fins, the adjacent arrays reflect the wave coming from the main array and sharpen the beam. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Elections and opinion polls often have many candidates, with the aim to either rank the candidates or identify a small set of winners according to voters' preferences. In practice, voters do not provide a full ranking; instead, each voter provides their favorite K candidates, potentially in ranked order. The election organizer must choose K and an aggregation rule.
We provide a theoretical framework to make these choices. Each K-Approval or K-partial ranking mechanism (with a corresponding positional scoring rule) induces a learning rate for the speed at which the election recovers the asymptotic outcome. Given the voter choice distribution, the election planner can thus identify the rate optimal mechanism. Earlier work in this area provides coarse order-of-magnitude guaranties which are not sufficient to make such choices. Our framework further resolves questions of when randomizing between multiple mechanisms may improve learning for arbitrary voter noise models.
Finally, we use data from 5 large participatory budgeting elections that we organized across several US cities, along with other ranking data, to demonstrate the utility of our methods. In particular, we find that historically such elections have set K too low and that picking the right mechanism can be the difference between identifying the ultimate winner with only a 80% probability or a 99.9% probability after 400 voters.


Abstract This article includes a review of theoretical and empirical models of educational outcomes to identify student attitudes and behaviors that researchers have hypothesized to influence academic achievement. A theoretical model is proposed of the relationships between specific academic enablers (motivation, interpersonal skills, engagement, and study skills) and academic achievement. Structural equation modeling is used to test the fit of this model for two samples of elementary students. The results of these modeling analyses indicate that prior achievement and interpersonal skills influence motivation, which in turn influences study skills and engagement to promote academic achievement. The article concludes with a discussion of practical implications of the tested model as well as necessary directions for future research regarding models of academic enablers and academic achievement.


In the era of new media, every individual and social, cultural, economic and political groups must require themselves to interact actively with new media. This is done not only to express the identity of individuals or groups, but more importantly how then each group uses new media as a means of communication to empower or liberate themselves. Feminism as a liberation movement for women has included new media and their application as important issues in their movements; cyberfeminism is an important outcome of this application. New media in the view of cyberfeminism has provided a large area, a region with an arena of objectives of cyber space, namely a process of technology that is rendered, by empowering women through techno-culture. Cyberfemists argue that women are naturally suitable for using new media. Cyberfemists also make efforts to work towards empowering women through new media by fighting various male-dominated discourses that surround technology use. This paper generally wants to discuss the concept of "cyberfeminism" and how feminists (cyberfeminists) use new media as a vehicle to empower and free themselves from male-dominated discourses. This paper also wants to provide alternatives about how women should be optimally use new media for empowerment. The approach of this research is qualitative-descriptive by conducting library research, this study specifically wants to describe how the concept of cyberfeminism is used by women's groups in the context of liberation and empowerment.


Renewable energy systems are likely to become wide spread in the future due to environmental demands. As a consequence of the dispersed nature of renewable energy systems, this implies that there will be a distributed generation of electric power. Since most of the distributed electrical energy sources do not provide their electric power at line frequency and voltage, a DC bus is a useful common connection for several such sources. Due to the differences in output voltage among the sources, depending on both the type of source and their actual operating point, the sources are connected to the DC power system via power electronic converters. The intention behind the presented work is not to replace the existing AC power system, but to include local DC power systems. The AC and DC power systems are connected at some points in the network. The renewable energy sources are weak compared to the present hydro power and nuclear power plants, resulting in a need of power conditioning before the renewable energy is fed to the transmission lines. The benefit of such an approach is that power conditioning is applied on a central level, i.e. at the interface between the AC and DC power systems. Present DC transmission systems are discussed and investigated in simulations. Then, different methods for load sharing and voltage control are discussed. Especially, the voltage droop control scheme is examined thoroughly. Since the droop control method does not require any high-speed communication between sources and loads, this is considered the most suitable for DC distributed power systems. The voltage feed back design of the controller also results in a specification of the DC bus capacitors (equivalents to DC link capacitors of single converters) needed for filtering. If the converters in the DC distribution system are equipped with capacitors selected from this design criterion and if the DC bus impedance is neglected, the source converters share the total load equally in per unit. The same DC distribution bus configuration is studied in a wind power application. Especially the dynamic properties of load-source interactions are highlighted. They are interesting since the sources are considered weak for a distributed power system. This is illustrated with simulations where the power is fed from wind turbines only and constant power loads are controlled at the same time as the DC bus voltage level. Personal safety and prevention of property damage are important factors of conventional AC power systems. A grounding scheme for the DC distribution system together with algorithms for detection of ground faults, are presented. The proposed method detects ground faults on both the AC and DC sides and is extended to cover short circuit faults with a minor work effort. Experimental verifications follow the theoretical investigations introduced above. First, dynamic properties are studied and the behavior predicted from theoretical analysis and simulations is verified. Then, load sharing is investigated. Also in this investigation, the experimental results agree with the simulated. (Less)


Abstract Exotic plants can make up a major component of the diet for some Desert Tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in the Mojave Desert. If introduced plants differ nutritionally from native plants, they may influence the growth and welfare of young tortoises. Minerals available from a native grass (Achnatherum hymenoides), an introduced grass (Schismus barbatus), a native forb (Malacothrix glabrata), and an introduced forb (Erodium cicutarium) were measured for juvenile Desert Tortoises voluntarily eating single-species diets. We offered tortoises weighed amounts of chopped foods daily for ∼130 days (dry grasses; summer diet) or ∼90 days (green forbs; spring diet). Orts and feces were collected daily and dried to constant mass, and calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium contents of food and feces were measured and used to calculate nutrient digestibilities. Overall, tortoises gained more minerals from forbs than from grasses. Tortoises lost small but significant amounts of phosphorus when eating grasses, which may have contributed to observed decreases in tortoise mass and shell volume on grass diets. There were few nutritional differences between native and exotic forbs or between native and exotic grasses. Comparisons of nutrient availability to estimated requirements for growth by juveniles and for egg production by adult females suggest that phosphorus is more limiting than calcium or magnesium and that calcium may pose a significant osmotic challenge for excretion in this desert species. Management practices that promote availability of forbs could increase growth rates and shell ossification, which would enhance predator resistance of juvenile tortoises.


Linear enamel hypoplasia is a developmental disturbance of enamel resulting in clinically visible horizontal defects in enamel that are present on eruption of the tooth. Nondevelopmental lesions of the hard tissues of the tooth, including carious, abrasion, erosion, attrition, and abfraction lesions, require varying amounts of time after tooth eruption to develop. Because linear enamel hypoplasia lesions are present on eruption and are exposed to the factors responsible for abrasion, erosion, and abfraction, nondevelopmental lesions could occur within them in any combination. This report describes a patient with multiple teeth with linear enamel hypoplasia lesions containing nondevelopmental defects as well as nondevelopmental defects that occurred separately. Severe pain and a unique lesion morphology were associated with the linear enamel hypoplasia defects. Affected teeth were extracted because of advanced periodontitis and were sectioned to determine the nature of the enamel and dentin lesions.


The present study investigated the radiosensitizing effect of placenta specific 8 (PLAC8) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cells. A PLAC8-knockout CNE2 cell line was constructed using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The CCK-8 assay demonstrated knockout of PLAC8 significantly reduced cell proliferation and cell survival after irradiation compared to both control cells and non-irradiated PLAC8-knockout cells. The clonogenic assay showed knockout of PLAC8 enhanced the radiosensitivity of NPC cells. Flow cytometry revealed knockout of PLAC8 increased apoptosis and G2/M phase arrest after irradiation. Western blotting demonstrated knockout of PLAC8 was associated with increased levels of γHA2X, a higher BAX:BCL-2 ratio, and increased levels of phosphorylated-Akt and phosphorylated-GSK-3β. Overall, this study indicates PLAC8 contributes to radioresistance in NPC by inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/GSK3β pathway.


In February 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a "public health emergency of international concern" due to the increased clusters of microcephaly, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and other neurological disorders in areas affected by the Zika virus. That declaration came in the wake of the West Africa Ebola crisis. Back to back declarations by WHO of the highest threat level for an international public health emergency underscores how quickly pathogens can now spread and cause devastation across borders. It also highlights the need to implement lessons learned from each pandemic crisis without delay.
These crises demonstrate that laws to curtail the spread of deadly contagious diseases need to be drafted and implemented in ways to maximize community acceptance. Without prudently crafted laws in place that are as consistent as possible with community mores, threats from deadly diseases may cause anxiety and panic, and governments may react to political and public pressures and mandate rules that may unnecessarily impinge on personal rights and deeply held religious beliefs. Infringing upon ideological or religious beliefs could lead to increased distrust of government and civil disobedience and could also, paradoxically, undermine the goal of preventing the spread of infectious disease. This article focuses on applying to future pandemics a critical lesson from prior crises — the need for public health officials to accommodate religious and cultural practices of the community to more effectively implement emergency measures. Further, the article proposes an interdisciplinary and proactive approach to development of laws and regulations to create a system that is adaptable, acceptable to the community, and scientifically sound.


The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is the most powerful technology in the third generation (3G) mobile communication and it is the base for the 4G technology. The Wide band Code Division Multiple Accessing (WCDMA) is the radio access technique for the UMTS system. The Radio Link Control (RLC) Protocol is apart from layer 2 of WCDMA protocol architecture. In this paper, we present the RLC Protocol and focus on the Acknowledged Mode (AM) of RLC to explain its complicated functionality. The used methodology is the design, implementation, and verification of the functions of the AM RLC mode using SDL language. The AM RLC functions are confirmed and verified via the simulation results.


In early stages of design there are made big decisions under uncertainty. Ship design companies have to respond to a high number of tenders under strict time and resource-constraints in the process of selling designs. During the concept phase many of the most important decisions are made and approximately 80 % of assets have to be fixed. Errors made at this stage are pretty cheap to address before signing contract, but far more expensive when discovered "down-stream" in the process. The Norwegian shipbuilders ability to respond to varying customer requirements is of essence in order to maintain their position in the market, opposed to the lean and low cost designs that are being designed and produced in the East. To manage these strict time- and resource-constraints, robust and quick design procedures are important. The research objective for the thesis is to identify and customize a method that can be used to distinguish how variation in customer preferences a affects the physical division in the arrangement of a basis OSV design. A literature review focusing on theory and methods connecting customer requirements to design qualities identified a QFD-based method, "Kravhandtering - Okt fleksibilitet ved tilpasset produktoppbygging", as fit for the purpose. A case study of a modern PSV is conducted to test the applicability and suggest changes to the method, and to answer the hypothesis: "QFD-based methods can be used to develop ship arrangements that increase the ships flexibility to variation in customer requirements". For the reference vessel the critical systems were defined and the power generation system was analyzed by the proposed method. The analysis of the system follow the methodology and consist of 6 steps: 1.Identifying requirements, 2.Strategies to fulfill requirements, 3.System decomposition, 4.Description of the connections in the system, 5.Description of the interconnectivity of the units by the product chart and 6.Identication of product strategies. The main finding was that in order to increase flexibility of the power generation system the engine foundation should be designed to accommodate different types and sizes of main engines. The method was developed in 1999, and the way of designing, procuring and constructing OSVs have changed since than. Earlier the yard designed, purchased and constructed systems that today are delivered by equipment suppliers. The case study revealed that the identified method is better suited for product design for suppliers than to identify changes in ship arrangement. However, the method generates much information about the systems, and by adopting some extra steps to the method (cataloging interfaces connected to varying customer requirements) the conclusion is that QFD-based methods can be used to develop ship arrangements that increase the flexibility to variation in customer requirements.


Abstract: Habitat degradation affects mixed-species bird flocks (flock hereafter) through two mechanisms – changes in the bird community from which flocks are drawn and changes in the propensities of species to flock. We determined the relative influence of these two mechanisms by examining variation in flocks across nine rain-forest fragments (range 11–2600 ha) in a plantation landscape in the Western Ghats, India. We found differences between fragments in average number of species (range 10.8–15.2) and individuals (range 19.0–37.6) per flock, number of species that participated in flocks (range 34–59), encounter rates (range 0.5–2.4 flocks h−1) and flock composition. Multiple regression and randomization tests revealed that different mechanisms contributed to this variation. Three flock variables (open-forest individuals per flock, total open-forest species that participated in flocks in a fragment, flock composition) mainly reflected changes in the bird communities of fragments. Habitat structure strongly influenced three flock variables (open-forest species per flock, total and rain-forest individuals per flock) and flock composition to a lesser extent. Finally, flock encounter rate was strongly related to fragment area, but not to abundance of flock participants indicating habitat degradation-induced changes in propensities of species to flock.


The goals of treatment of type 2 diabetes are to reduce the risk of diabetic complications and, as a result, improve the quality and, possibly, duration of life. For several decades, authoritative guidelines instructed clinicians to strictly control glucose levels of patients with diabetes to accomplish these goals. In addition, in the 1990s, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to approve drugs for the treatment of diabetes based on hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels as the outcome. The prevailing concept was that risk reduction could be achieved by a clinical focus on reaching target values of HbA1c, agnostic to the strategies used. This concept, analogous to early notions about lipid lowering, persisted despite the failure of trials evaluating tight glycemic targets, as assessed by HbA1c levels, to reduce the risk of heart disease or improve survival.1


Urbanisation is one of the most influential forms of land use change globally and continues to apply increasing pressure on biodiversity. Freshwater turtles are one of the most endangered vertebrate groups with current assessments suggesting 45-50% of all species are under threat. The habitat alteration caused by urbanisation has been identified as one of the main threats to freshwater turtle populations, but there have been relatively few studies that have quantified its impact. The status of Chelodina colliei, a turtle endemic to south-western Australia, in the urban wetlands of the Swan Coastal Plain (SCP) remains largely unknown. However, recent studies that have occurred in a limited number of wetlands on the SCP have suggested the populations may be experiencing declines. The overall aim of this study was to assess the impact of land use modification caused by urbanisation on C. colliei populations. It was predicted that increasing levels of urbanisation around wetlands would result in reduced abundances and modified population structures. Specific aims were to quantify the land use surrounding a sub-set of wetlands on the SCP, determine the abundance and population structure of C. colliei in those wetlands, and determine the association between land use and turtle populations. Thirty-five wetlands were sampled for C. colliei using modified funnel traps between October 2016 and February 2017. Surrounding land use of these wetlands was assessed and classified into different types, within three perimeters (50, 300, and 500 m from the water's edge) using Google Earth Pro. Principal Component Analysis was used to assess if surrounding land use differed between wetlands and to classify wetlands as either natural or modified. ANOSIMs were used to assess if the categories were significantly different in all perimeters. The population structures of C. colliei were compared between wetland types using Mann Whitney U tests. Model averaging was used to identify the most influential land use variables on the relative abundance of C. colliei. The study found that wetlands grouped dichotomously based upon surrounding land use, with natural having over 50% of the surrounding land use as bushland, whereas modified wetlands had less than 50%. Chelodina colliei population abundances and structures differed between those groups, with greater abundances and population viability in natural wetlands. The availability and accessibility of fringing bushland was the most important land use variable associated with the relative abundance of C. colliei. The positive association with bushland was likely due to it providing suitable nesting sites for C. colliei. This study increases our understanding of the status of C. colliei in urban wetlands and demonstrates, for the first time, that surrounding land use has a direct effect. It has important implications for wetland management and suggests protection and restoration of fringing bushland around urban wetlands is crucial for enhancing the viability of remnant C. colliei populations.


The aim of this thesis is to examine children's educational conditions in senior compulsory school. The purpose is to compare girls and boys' conditions on the basis of ethnical background. The thesis includes four articles. The first three are based on questionnaire data from 1,193 children, 13 to 15 years old, at four Swedish municipal schools. The last article includes two studies: A study conducted among the headmasters at the four schools and a study of the compulsory school attendance law. The first article introduces a study concerning parental involvement in their children's education. The aim is to examine the children's experience of their parents' assistance in their homework, participation in school meetings and interest in their education. Finally, these topics are analysed in relation to the children's own involvement in their education. The second article introduces a study concerning schoolchildren's involvement in their own education and factors that correlate, beside parental involvement. The implicit aim is to study the children's experience of teacher support, their situation in school and attitudes towards university education. The third article introduces a study concerning parent's directives regarding their child's participation in social activities. The aim of the study is to examine how many children that are not allowed to participate in social activities and some educational elements at school, for example psychical education and school journeys. The results of the questionnaire show great complexity concerning how the children experience their conditions, where sex/gender and ethnicity correlate. The last article examines the conflicts that may arise between the educational system and the parents regarding specific elements in their child's education. This study examines the attitude of the schools towards allowing children to refrain from compulsory attendance at the family's request. Results show that the attitude towards the families varies between the schools. The compulsory attendance law is indistinct, but legal cases show that it is illegal to allow children to refrain from specific elements within the education to fulfil the parent's wishes.


SETTING
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has emerged as a significant public health threat in South Africa.

OBJECTIVE
To describe treatment outcomes and determine risk factors associated with unfavorable outcomes among MDR-TB patients admitted to the provincial TB referral hospital in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa.

DESIGN
Retrospective observational study of MDR-TB patients admitted from 2000 to 2003.

RESULTS
Of 1209 MDR-TB patients with documented treatment outcomes, 491 (41%) were cured, 35 (3%) completed treatment, 208 (17%) failed treatment, 223 (18%) died and 252 (21%) defaulted. Of the total number of patients with known human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status, 52% were HIV-infected. Treatment failure, death and default each differed in their risk factors. Greater baseline resistance (aOR 2.3-3.0), prior TB (aOR 1.7), and diagnosis in 2001, 2002 or 2003 (aOR 1.9-2.3) were independent risk factors for treatment failure. HIV co-infection was a risk factor for death (aOR 5.6), and both HIV (aOR 2.0) and male sex (aOR 1.9) were risk factors for treatment default.

CONCLUSION
MDR-TB treatment outcomes in KwaZulu-Natal were substantially worse than those published from other MDR-TB cohorts. Interventions such as concurrent antiretroviral therapy and decentralized MDR-TB treatment should be considered to improve MDR-TB outcomes in this high HIV prevalence setting.


Lateral digital flexor tendonitis is a rarely reported cause of hind limb lameness in performance horses. The purpose of this retrospective study was to describe clinical and diagnostic imaging findings for a group of horses with lateral digital flexor tendinitis within the tarsal sheath. Equine cases with a diagnosis of lateral digital flexor tendonitis and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the affected region were retrieved from North Carolina University's medical record database. Recorded data for included horses were signalment; findings from history, physical examination, lameness examination, and all diagnostic imaging studies; treatment administered; and outcome. Four horses met inclusion criteria. Lameness was mild/moderate in severity and insidious in onset in all patients. Responses to flexion tests were variable. All horses showed positive improvement(70–90%) in lameness after tarsal sheath analgesia. Radiographic, scintigraphic, and ultrasonographic findings were inconclusive. For all horses, MRI characteristics included increased T2, PD, and STIR signal intensity within the lateral digital flexor tendon in the area of the tarsal sheath. Tarsal sheath effusion was slight in three horses, and mild/moderate in one horse. With medical treatment, two horses were sound at 6-month follow up, one horse was sound at 1-year followup, and one horse had a slight persistent lameness (grade 1/5) at 9-month followup. Findings supported the use of MRI for diagnosing lateral digital flexor tendonitis within the tarsal sheath in horses. Affected horses may have a good prognosis for return to athletic performance following appropriate medical treatment.


Secession : right or remedy?
Secession, as one of the logical consequences of the right of self-determination, is a contentious issue. Until recently, it was considered illegal for a group to secede from a state. Since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union however, the issue of secession has received renewed attention. The legality of the aspiration to secede in defined situations, as well as the appropriate means by which secessionist aims may be pursued or resisted, are the issues that concerns international lawyers today.
The issue of secession arises whenever a significant proportion of the population of a given territory, being part of a state, expresses the wish by word or by deed to become a sovereign state in itself or to join with and become part of another sovereign state. Secession is considered the ultimate possibility for a group caught in total failure of the intended balance between self-determination of all the peoples, and minority rights of some of the people.
Self-determination is normally to be exercised within the borders of existing states, that is with due regard to the principle of territorial integrity. There is no inherent right on the part of a people within a state to secede. While secession is not contrary to international law, there is a presumption in favour of territorial integrity and against secession. Secession should be recognized where it is agreed to by all the component parts of the state to be dissolved. Where there is no agreement on the component parts of a state to secession, the international community will not recognize the secession, unless the people of the seceding territory constitute a distinct people, having regard to their language, culture and historical experience; the people have a clear historical claim to the territory in question; the territory occupied by the secessionist group came under the control of the existing state by some unjustifiable historical event; the will of the people of the territory has been expressed by means of a referendum or election and shows very clear support for secession; the human rights of the people have been seriously violated and they have been denied proper participation in the government of the state from which they wish to secede.
Recognition will not be accorded to a seceding territory unless it complies fully with the traditional requirements of statehood expounded in the Montevideo Convention, particularly effective government and it provides adequate national and international guarantees for the protection of its minorities.
Secession is therefore a justified "remedy" and a "ground of justification" for a group suffering some unjustifiable act, the result which can be full statehood for the secessionist group.


The RecSys Challenge is a yearly recurring competition focusing on creating the best performing recommendation approach for a specific scenario. Over the years, the competition has drawn many participants from industry and academia, and has become an key part of the ACM Conference on Recommender Systems series. This article presents a brief historical overview of the RecSys Challenge from its inception in 2010 until the seventh iteration in 2016.


This paper analytically demonstrates the use of multiple piezoelectric actuators bonded to the surface and point force actuators applied directly to a plate to reduce sound transmission through the plate. A harmonic plane wave incident on a simply supported, thin rectangular plate mounted in an infinite baffle was considered as the primary source. Both multiple piezoelectric and point force actuators are separately used as secondary (control) sources to attenuate the sound transmission through the plate. An optimal process was applied to obtain the input voltages of the piezoelectric actuators and the magnitude of the point forces, so that the radiated acoustic power can be minimized. Results show that a reduction of sound transmission through the plate is successfully achieved, if the proper size, number, and position of the piezoelectric or point force actuators are selected. Additionally, a comparison showed that point force actuators provide more effective control of the sound transmission than piezoelectric actuators; however, piezoelectric patches have more practical implementation than point force shakers, because of their low cost and light weight.


Acute lung inflammation has severe morbidity, as seen in COVID-19 patients. Lung inflammation is accompanied or led by massive accumulation of neutrophils in pulmonary capillaries ("margination"). We sought to identify nanostructural properties that predispose nanoparticles to accumulate in pulmonary marginated neutrophils, and therefore to target severely inflamed lungs. We designed a library of nanoparticles and conducted an in vivo screen of biodistributions in naive mice and mice treated with lipopolysaccharides. We found that supramolecular organization of protein in nanoparticles predicts uptake in inflamed lungs. Specifically, nanoparticles with agglutinated protein (NAPs) efficiently home to pulmonary neutrophils, while protein nanoparticles with symmetric structure (e.g. viral capsids) are ignored by pulmonary neutrophils. We validated this finding by engineering protein-conjugated liposomes that recapitulate NAP targeting to neutrophils in inflamed lungs. We show that NAPs can diagnose acute lung injury in SPECT imaging and that NAP-like liposomes can mitigate neutrophil extravasation and pulmonary edema arising in lung inflammation. Finally, we demonstrate that ischemic ex vivo human lungs selectively take up NAPs, illustrating translational potential. This work demonstrates that structure-dependent interactions with neutrophils can dramatically alter the biodistribution of nanoparticles, and NAPs have significant potential in detecting and treating respiratory conditions arising from injury or infections.


Åkersvika is one of the largest and best-developed freshwater deltas in Norway, where the unregulated Svartelva and Flakstadelva rivers join in the adjacent shallow basin, which feeds into Lake Mjøsa. Following the Ramsar Advisory Mission (no.64) in 2010, new areas were added to compensate for areas excluded due to a road enlargement. The Site is a freshwater embayment of an artificially regulated lake and lower river reaches composed of open water, exposed mudflats, wet grassland, and Alnus/Salix scrub, with shoreline vegetation dominated by moss. The vegetation is composed of various bog, meadow, scrub and woodland communities supporting a number of rare and nationally red-listed habitats and plant species. The reserve is one of the most important staging sites for wetland birds following inland migration routes in Norway; and a total of 226 bird species have been recorded. Large numbers of ducks and waders rest in Åkersvika, both in spring and in autumn, which also supports 1 % of the biogeographic population of the pink footed goose Anser brachyrhynchus. 16 species of fish have been registered in Åkersvika and the Site is considered as the main spawning ground in the Mjøsa Lake. The area functions as a barrier or trap for sediments and has an important function for sedimentation and nutrient fixing as well as flood control. Human activities include sport fishing, nature observation and environmental education. The main threats to the ecological character of the Site relate to housing and urban areas, roads and railways, and invasive species. Large areas of sedge meadow are being taken over by meadow communities and Salix scrub, following the cessation of burning and grazing in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Regulation of Lake Mjøsa has also accelerated this process. Management measures are now being implemented to stop the overgrowth.


Given an image, the goal of this work is to recognise objects of certain categories despite intra-class appearance variations and small inter-class differences. The appearance of objects in photographs is influenced by lighting, scale, different poses, viewpoints, articulation of objects, clutter and occlusion. Two different aspects of object recognition are investigated in this thesis. The first part develops models for semantic object segmentation of natural images and relies on groundtruth labelling for training. The second part uses the implicit supervision that is available on web-pages to learn visual object-class models automatically. It can then provide training data for object detection or segmentation algorithms. The goal in the first part is to label connected regions in an image as belonging to specific object classes, such as grass or cow. We introduce a compact model, where each class is modelled by a single histogram of visual-words, this is in contrast to common nearest-neighbour approaches which model each class by storing exemplar histograms. After introducing segmentation algorithms based on these histogram models we extend the Random Forest classifier and evaluate its feature selection properties for the semantic object segmentation task. Most object recognition methods rely on labelled training images. For each object category to be recognised, the system is trained on a set of images containing instances of these categories. The second part of this thesis focuses on the automatic creation of sets of images that contain a certain object class. The idea is to download an initial set of images from the Internet based on a search query (e.g. penguin). Given the images a text based ranking that exploits the information on the web-pages is performed. This ranking is then used to automatically learn visual models for object categories. We compare the performance of our system to previous work and show that it performs equally well without the need of explicit manual supervision. This thesis is submitted to the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This thesis is entirely my own work, and except where otherwise stated, describes my own research. Florian Schroff, St. Anne's College Copyright c ©2009 Florian Schroff All Rights Reserved


Urban runoff from five storms during the 2003–2004 and 2004–2005 rainy seasons was sampled at the exit point of runoff diversion forebays leading to engineered retention ponds to protect a drinking water reservoir. Samples were collected from three different drainage areas both years and were analysed for water quality parameters including total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity (EC), dissolved organic carbon, bacterial count and nutrients in the water phase. In the second year of the study, samples were also taken at the entry point into the forebays and analysed to determine if the forebays contributed to removal of analytes prior to diversion in the retention ponds. EC, which had been used as the determining factor of whether runoff is used to recharge or diverted to holding ponds, did not relate to nutrient levels. This indicated that EC is insufficient to determine water quality because runoff with low EC may contain high levels of nutrients that can support eutrophication. Monitoring of nutrients themselves is essential for decisions.


The Toxic Organic Micro Pollutants (TOMPs) Network, which has operated since 1991, currently collects ambient air samples at six sites across England and Scotland, using high-volume active air samplers. Lancaster University has been operating this UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded network from its inception, delivering long-term ambient air trend data for a range of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) at both urban and rural locations. Data from the network provides Defra with valuable information on emission/source controls and on the effectiveness of international chemicals regulation. It is also used to demonstrate UK compliance with its obligations under the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the 1998 UN/ECE Long-Range Atmospheric Transport Protocol. Moreover, long-term analysis of air pollutants at trace levels allows detailed studies on atmospheric fate and behaviour processes of persistent chemicals and is the inevitable basis of their successful modelling. The target chemicals of TOMPs have been polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), and, since 2010, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PCBs, PCDDs, PCDFs, and selected PBDEs are all listed under the Stockholm Convention. The continuous monitoring of these compounds has demonstrated the constant decline in their UK air concentrations over the last decades. The concentrations of all compounds are generally significantly higher at urban compared to semi-rural and rural sites, with estimated clearance rates between 2 and 9 years for PCBs at all sites, 2 to 4 years for PBDEs at urban and semi-rural sites, and 4 to 5 years for PCDDs and PCDFs at urban sites. All these data are in good agreement with emission estimates. Additionally, an archive is maintained, which can be used for analysing emerging chemicals, such as alternative flame retardants, pesticides, and further substances of interest as soon as they have been identified.


Mongolia is a Lower Middle Income Country (LMIC), landlocked between Russia and China. Mongolia has historically relied on mining. Recently the Government is working to diversify the economy by developing the livestock sector. Almost half of Mongolia's population is engaged in the livestock sector, which represents 15% of the GDP. Mongolian meat is considered to be of good quality by virtue of coming from mainly grass fed animals. Yet, many challenges persist, such as lack of trained veterinarians, inadequate animal health care, disease outbreaks (including Food and Mouth Disease) and unsustainable pastureland management. The absence of a reliable and functional animal identification and registration system is a major challenge to expand livestock exports.


This paper investigates the relationship between weather events and agricultural risks. Specific event risks are defined by outcomes related to a specific event such as low temperature and rainfall. Using Ontario data this paper describes specific events and shows how these specific events can be insured using weather derivatives and insurance.


Grounded language learning bridges words like 'red' and 'square' with robot perception. The vast majority of existing work in this space limits robot perception to vision. In this paper, we build perceptual models that use haptic, auditory, and proprioceptive data acquired through robot exploratory behaviors to go beyond vision. Our system learns to ground natural language words describing objects using supervision from an interactive humanrobot "I Spy" game. In this game, the human and robot take turns describing one object among several, then trying to guess which object the other has described. All supervision labels were gathered from human participants physically present to play this game with a robot. We demonstrate that our multi-modal system for grounding natural language outperforms a traditional, vision-only grounding framework by comparing the two on the "I Spy" task. We also provide a qualitative analysis of the groundings learned in the game, visualizing what words are understood better with multimodal sensory information as well as identifying learned word meanings that correlate with physical object properties (e.g. 'small' negatively correlates with object weight).


Internal and scattered time-dependent intensities are calculated for a dielectric sphere illuminated with a pulsed Gaussian beam. The center frequency of the pulse spectrum is chosen to be on, near, or far from a morphology-dependent resonance of the sphere. The center of the beam is positioned inside, on the edge, or outside the sphere. The transfer function at a point, i.e., the electric field at each frequency of the pulse spectrum, is calculated with the plane-wave spectrum technique and the T-matrix method. The frequency spectrum of the field at a point is calculated by means of the incident field spectrum and the transfer function at that point. The time dependence of the electric field at a point inside or outside the sphere is obtained by inverse Fourier transforming the frequency spectrum. Two different decay rates in the internal and the scattered time-dependent intensity are observed: a decay rate that depends on the incident pulse spectrum and a rate that depends on the line shape of the resonant mode of the sphere.


This paper examines an example of the influence of the Soviet space program on the cultural imagination beyond Russia: the Swedish novel Tredje flykthastigheten The Third Flight Speed, 2004; ?????? ??????????? ????????) by Lotta Lotass. The novel depicts scenes from the life of Yuri Gagarin up through the launch of Vostok 1 in 1961, as well as other events from the early history of Soviet space exploration. This paper will analyse the depiction of Gagarin and the space program in the novel, focusing on narrative style. I will argue that the polyphonic character of the novel serves to both undermine and supplement official Soviet accounts of the space program.


Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-associated mortality in males and females globally. Widespread research is currently focused on the development of novel approaches for targeting non small cell lung cancer with different therapeutic nanotechnologies. In this study, a sensitive and selective HPLC method was developed for the quantification of afatinib (AFT) in formulations. Novel drug delivery systems based on cationic (CL) and pH-sensitive liposomes (PSL) for AFT were developed, with different ratios of lipid to AFT, using a film hydration method. The obtained liposomes had a small particle size of less than 50 nm with a low polydispersibilty index and acceptable zeta potential. The highest Encapsulation Efficiency (EE%) of AFT reached 43.20%, 50.20%, and 52.01% for NL (Non targeting liposomes), PSL, CL, respectively at the 1:0.5 ratio of AFT: lipids. The in vitro release study confirmed that all formulations had sustained release profiles in pH 7.4. However, in acidic pH values, PSL exhibited fast release. The stability study, conducted at 4°C and 25°C for 1 month, showed that the characteristics of liposomes in liquid form did not change significantly over this period. In vitro cytotoxicity studies revealed high antitumor activity of PSL on all cell lines at 0.75 µM concentration after 24 h exposure, based on using the Annexin V assay. A proteomics study identified 12 proteins which can be used as biomarkers capable of prediction of treatment response and choice of therapy for two different types of human NSCLC cells (H-1975 and H-1650). Spray drying was used to produce nanocomposite microparticles (NCMPs) using L-leucine and coated using different ratios of chitosan for the optimized PSL NPs. The particles had a corrugated surface except at high CH ratios, where more homogenous and smooth particles with some small indentations were obtained. The powder properties showed good flow properties and reproducible size. Coated NCMPs showed a delayed drug release profile compared to PSL NPs and the best correlation with the Higuchi model. A stability study at 40°C/ 75% ± 5% relative humidity (RH) showed large changes in the drug content for all coated NCMPs powders. Analysis of the in vitro aerosolization performance demonstrated a mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) of 3.24 – 5.85 µm and fine particle fraction (FPF%) of 54.20-33.66%. The particle size of the reconstituted powders was ˂ 100 nm, which is within the size range to be effectively taken up by tumor cells. Assessment of the stability of spray dried liposomes after 3 months of storage at 40 °C/75% RH, showed that fusion and aggregation of the liposomes occurred in all samples tested. The C1NCMPs (lipid: LEU: CH ratio of 1:1.5:0.5) exhibited the highest FPF (51.2%) and fine particle dose (FPD) (40.0 µg of AFT) indicating deep lung deposition. Further cell viability studies of C1 NCMP, at a concentration of 0.75 μM on H-1975 NSCLC cell line showed a good toxicity profile comparable to PSL nanoparticles (NPs). The obtained data indicates that pulmonary delivery of PSL NCMPs is a potential new clinical strategy for better targetability and delivery of AFT for the treatment of lung cancer


While elaborating the unsorted Berlese samples collected in Portugal at the Hungarian Natural History Museum , two Prozercon Sellnick, 1943 species were found. One of them, Prozercon mahunkaiana n. sp., is new to science. The other species, Prozercon aristatus Athias-Henriot, 1961 is redescribed, and a description of the unknown male species is provided.


Global brain ischemia causes cell death in the CA1 region of the hippocampus 3–5 days after reperfusion. The biological pathway leading to such delayed neuronal damage has not been established. By using differential display analysis, we examined expression levels of poly(A) RNAs isolated from hippocampal extracts prepared from rats exposed to global ischemia and found an up-regulated transcript, clone 17a. Northern blot analysis of clone 17a showed an approximately 35-fold increase in the ischemic brain at 24 h after four-vessel occlusion. Rapid amplification of cDNA ends of clone 17a revealed a family of genes (160–540 base pairs) that had the characteristics of rodent B2 sequences. In situ hybridization demonstrated that the elevated expression of this gene was localized predominantly in the CA1 pyramidal neurons. The level of expression in the CA1 region decreased dramatically between 24 and 72 h after ischemia. The elevated expression of clone 17a was not observed in four-vessel occlusion rats treated with the compound LY231617, an antioxidant known to exert neuroprotection in rats subjected to global ischemia. Since delayed neuronal death has the characteristics of apoptosis, we speculate that clone 17a may be involved in apoptosis. We examined the expression level of clone 17a inin vitro models of apoptosis using cerebellar granule neurons that were subjected to potassium removal, glutamate toxicity, or 6-hydroxydopamine treatment and found that clone 17a transcripts were induced in cerebellar granule neurons by glutamate or 6-hydroxydopamine stimulation but not potassium withdrawal.


Neutron and X-ray tomography are imaging techniques for getting information about the interior of objects in a non-destructive way. They reconstruct cross-sections from projection images of the object being investigated. Due to the properties of the image acquisition system, the projection images are distorted by several artifacts, and these reduce the quality of the reconstruction. In order to eliminate these harmful effects the projection images should be corrected before reconstruction. Taking projections is usually an expensive and time consuming procedure. One of our main goals has been to try to minimize the number of projections - for example, by exploiting more a priori information. A possible way of reducing the number of projections is by the application of discrete tomographic methods. In this case a special class of objects can be reconstructed, consisting of only a few homogenous materials that can be characterized by known discrete absorption values. To this end we have implemented two reconstruction methods. One is able to reconstruct objects consisting of cylinders and spheres made of homogeneous materials only. The other method is a general one in the sense that it can be used for reconstructing any shape. Simulations on phantoms and physical measurements were carried out and the results are presented here.


Mobile Mapping Technology (MMT) is one of the most important 3D spatial data acquisition technologies. The state-of-the-art mobile mapping systems, equipped with laser scanners and named Mobile LiDAR Scanning (MLS) systems, have been widely used in a variety of areas, especially in road mapping and road inventory. With the commercialization of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADASs) and self-driving technology, there will be a great demand for lane-level detailed 3D maps, and MLS is the most promising technology to generate such lane-level detailed 3D maps. Road markings and road edges are necessary information in creating such lane-level detailed 3D maps. This paper proposes a scan line based method to extract road markings from mobile LiDAR point clouds in three steps: (1) preprocessing; (2) road points extraction; (3) road markings extraction and refinement. In preprocessing step, the isolated LiDAR points in the air are removed from the LiDAR point clouds and the point clouds are organized into scan lines. In the road points extraction step, seed road points are first extracted by Height Difference (HD) between trajectory data and road surface, then full road points are extracted from the point clouds by moving least squares line fitting. In the road markings extraction and refinement step, the intensity values of road points in a scan line are first smoothed by a dynamic window median filter to suppress intensity noises, then road markings are extracted by Edge Detection and Edge Constraint (EDEC) method, and the Fake Road Marking Points (FRMPs) are eliminated from the detected road markings by segment and dimensionality feature-based refinement. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by three data samples and the experiment results indicate that road points are well extracted from MLS data and road markings are well extracted from road points by the applied method. A quantitative study shows that the proposed method achieves an average completeness, correctness, and F-measure of 0.96, 0.93, and 0.94, respectively. The time complexity analysis shows that the scan line based road markings extraction method proposed in this paper provides a promising alternative for offline road markings extraction from MLS data.


Most organizations consist of multiple business and support units, each populated by highly trained, experienced executives. But often the efforts of individual units are not coordinated, resulting in conflicts, lost opportunities, and diminished performance. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton argue that the responsibility for this critical alignment lies with corporate headquarters. In this book, the authors apply their revolutionary Balanced Scorecard management system to corporate-level strategy, revealing how highly successful enterprises achieve powerful synergies by explicitly defining corporate headquarters' role in setting, coordinating, and overseeing organizational strategy. Based on extensive field research in organizations worldwide, Alignment shows how companies can build an enterprise-level Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard that clearly articulate the "enterprise value proposition": how the enterprise creates value above that achieved by individual business units operating alone. The book provides case studies, actionable frameworks, and sample scorecards that show how to align business and support units, boards of directors, and external partners with the corporate strategy and create a governance process that will ensure that alignment is sustained. The next breakthrough in strategy execution from the field's premier thinkers, Alignment shows how today's companies can unlock unrealized value from enterprise synergies.


We propose and analyze a finite element method for a semi– stationary Stokes system modeling compressible fluid flow subject to a Navier– slip boundary condition. The velocity (momentum) equation is approximated by a mixed finite element method using the lowest order Nedelec spaces of the first kind. The continuity equation is approximated by a standard piecewise constant upwind discontinuous Galerkin scheme. Our main result states that the numerical method converges to a weak solution. The convergence proof consists of two main steps: (i) To establish strong spatial compactness of the velocity field, which is intricate since the element spaces are only div or curl conforming. (ii) To prove that the discontinuous Galerkin approximations converge strongly, which is required in view of the nonlinear pressure function. Tools involved in the analysis include a higher integrability estimate for the discontinuous Galerkin approximations, a discrete equation for the effective viscous flux, and various renormalized formulations of the discontinuous Galerkin scheme.


This preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100024). The existence of persistent genetic variation within natural populations presents an evolutionary problem as natural selection and genetic drift tend to erode genetic diversity. Models of balancing selection were developed to account for the high and sometimes extreme levels of polymorphism found in many natural populations. Negative frequency-dependent selection may be the most powerful selective force maintaining balanced natural polymorphisms but it is also commonly misinterpreted. The aim of this review is to clarify the processes underlying negative frequency-dependent selection, describe classes of natural polymorphisms that can and cannot result from these processes, and discuss observational and experimental data that can aid in accurately identifying the processes that generated or are maintain diversity in nature. Finally, I consider the importance of accurately describing the processes affecting genetic diversity within populations as it relates to research progress.


Abstract BACKGROUND Aneurysm recurrence after coiling has been associated with aneurysm growth, (re)hemorrhage, and a greater need for follow-up. The second-generation HydroCoil Embolic System (HES; MicroVention, Inc) consists of a platinum core with integrated hydrogel and was developed to reduce recurrence through enhancing packing density and healing within the aneurysm. OBJECTIVE To compare recurrence between the second-generation HES and bare platinum coil (BPC) in the new-generation Hydrogel Endovascular Aneurysm Treatment Trial (HEAT). METHODS HEAT is a randomized, controlled trial that enrolled subjects with ruptured or unruptured 3- to 14-mm intracranial aneurysms amenable to coiling. The primary endpoint was aneurysm recurrence using the Raymond-Roy scale. Secondary endpoints included minor and major recurrence, packing density, adverse events related to the procedure and/or device, mortality, initial complete occlusion, aneurysm retreatment, hemorrhage from target aneurysm during follow-up, aneurysm occlusion stability, and clinical outcome at final follow-up. RESULTS A total of 600 patients were randomized (HES, n = 297 and BPC, n = 303), including 28% with ruptured aneurysms. Recurrence occurred in 11 (4.4%) subjects in the HES arm and 44 (15.4%) subjects in the BPC arm (P = .002). While the initial occlusion rate was higher with BPC, the packing density and both major and minor recurrence rates were in favor of HES. Secondary endpoints including adverse events, retreatment, hemorrhage, mortality, and clinical outcome did not differ between arms. CONCLUSION Coiling of small-to-medium aneurysms with second-generation HES resulted in less recurrence when compared to BPC, without increased harm. These data further support the use of the second-generation HES for the embolization of intracranial aneurysms.


Background and Objectives Studies of gum or periodontal disease have focused mainly on bacterial pathogens. However, information related to fungal species in the saliva and subgingival mileu is particularly lacking in smokers with periodontitis. This cross-sectional study compared the prevalence of various Candida species in saliva and subgingival plaque samples of smokers and non-smokers with periodontal disease. Methodology Study subjects were recruited into three group—Group 1: Smokers with chronic periodontitis (N = 30), Group 2: Non-smokers with chronic periodontitis (N = 30) and Group 3: Healthy controls (N = 30). Clinical parameters recorded included plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), periodontal probing depth (PPD) and clinical attachment loss (CAL). Saliva and subgingival plaque samples were collected from subjects from the above groups. The collected samples were processed for isolation and identification of various Candida species using CHROMagar chromogenic media. Additionally, antifungal susceptibility tests were performed for the isolated Candida species in order to assess antifungal drug resistance to fluconazole and voriconazole. Results Prevalence of Candida species in saliva samples was quantified as 76.6% in Group 1, 73.3% in Group 2 and 36.6% in Group 3 and statistically significant differences were observed between groups 1 & 3. Prevalence of Candida species in subgingival plaque samples was quantified as 73.3% in Group 1, 66.6% in Group 2 and 60% in Group 3 and no statistically significant differences were observed between groups. Candida albicans was the most frequently isolated species followed by Candida krusei and Candida tropicalis. A positive correlation was observed for smoking exposure, pack years and Candida colonization. A marginally significant positive correlation was observed between Candida colonization and increasing pocket depth and attachment loss. Antifungal drug resistance was mainly observed for Candida krusei in both saliva and subgingival plaque samples. Conclusion Based on the results we can conclude that oral candidal carriage is significantly increased in smokers with periodontal disease. Mechanistic studies are needed to understand the importance of Candida species in periodontal disease.


Stream processing engines (SPEs) are widely used for large scale streaming analytics over unbounded time-ordered data streams. Modern day streaming analytics applications exhibit diverse compute characteristics and demand strict latency and throughput requirements. Over the years, there has been significant attention in building hardware-efficient stream processing engines (SPEs) that support several query optimization, parallelization, and execution strategies to meet the performance requirements of large scale streaming analytics applications. However, in this work, we observe that these strategies often fail to generalize well on many real-world streaming analytics applications due to several inherent design limitations of current SPEs. We further argue that these limitations stem from the shortcomings of the fundamental design choices and the query representation model followed in modern SPEs. To address these challenges, we first propose TiLT, a novel intermediate representation (IR) that offers a highly expressive temporal query language amenable to effective query optimization and parallelization strategies. We subsequently build a compiler backend for TiLT that applies such optimizations on streaming queries and generates hardware-efficient code to achieve high performance on multi-core stream query executions. We demonstrate that TiLT achieves up to 326× (20.49× on average) higher throughput compared to state-of-the-art SPEs (e.g., Trill) across eight real-world streaming analytics applications. TiLT source code is available at https://github.com/ampersand-projects/tilt.git.


Searching for alternatives to lead-containing metal halide perovskites, we explored the properties of indium-based inorganic double perovskites Cs2InMX6 with M = Cu, Ag, Au and X = Cl, Br, I, and of its organic-inorganic hybrid derivative MA2InCuCl6 (MA = CH3NH3+) using computation within Kohn-Sham density functional theory. Among these compounds, Cs2InCuCl6 and MA2InCuCl6 were found to be potentially promising candidates for solar cells. Calculations with different functionals provided the direct band gap of Cs2InCuCl6 between 1.05 and 1.73 eV. In contrast, MA2InCuCl6 exhibits an indirect band gap between 1.31 and 2.09 eV depending on the choice of exchange-correlation functional. Cs2InCuCl6 exhibits a much higher absorption coefficient than that calculated for c-Si and CdTe, common semiconductors for solar cells. Even MA2InCuCl6 is predicted to have a higher absorption coefficient than c-Si and CdTe across the visible spectrum despite the fact that it is an indirect band gap material. The intrinsic charge carrier mobilities for Cs2InCuCl6 along the L-Γ path are predicted to be comparable to those for MAPbI3. Finally, we carried out calculations of the band edge positions for MA2InCuCl6 and Cs2InCuCl6 to offer guidance for solar cell heterojunction design and optimization. We conclude that Cs2InCuCl6 and MA2InCuCl6 are promising semiconductors for photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications.


This paper was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission) and the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA). It does not necessarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, Cal/EPA, their employees, or the State of California. The Energy Commission, Cal/EPA, the State of California, their employees, contractors, and subcontractors make no warrant, express or implied, and assume no legal liability for the information in this paper; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This paper has not been approved or disapproved by the California Energy Commission or Cal/EPA, nor has the California Energy Commission or Cal/EPA passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the information in this paper. F IN A L P A P E R


This contribution brings together the more partial analyses of the panoply of Belgian gender quotas. By putting the different gender quotas in a comparative perspective, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of eventual broader patterns underlying the Belgian gender-quotas landscape. More precisely, this contribution focuses on: i) a comparative analysis of the quota rules set for the different sectors; ii) the domestic factors playing a role in the putting on the agenda and adoption of gender quotas; and iii) inter-, supra-, and transnational factors and the interplay of different political levels in the adoption of gender quotas. The analysis shows that Belgium, a traditional laggard when it comes to gender equality, imposes gender quotas by law on a broad range of sectors (elected political office, advisory committees, boards of listed and state-owned companies, and decision-making bodies in universities), turning Belgium into a world leader in gender quotas. This top-down process would not have been possible without the persistent agency of the women's movement, especially actors embedded within the women's branches of a certain number of political parties, and the underlying concept of citizenship – because it echoes it. While inter-, supra-, and transnational influences cannot be denied, it is mainly domestic factors that played a role in this success story – at least when compared to a number of other cases. The gender quotas for the various sectors tend to build on each other, clearly showing evidence of a contagion effect.


Tools available for measuring the modifiability or impact of change of a system through its architecture typically use structural metrics. These metrics take into account dependencies among the different elements of a system. However, they fail to capture the semantics of an architectural transformation necessary to control the complexity and cost of making changes. To highlight such limitations, this paper presents a study where we applied a representative structural metric, called 'propagation cost', to archetypical architectural transformations known to affect system modifiability such as rearchitecting a tightly coupled system to a layered pattern. We observe that in its original form the propagation cost metric does not provide consistent indications of architecture health. Enhancing this metric based on the semantics of the architectural pattern and tactics used in the transformation show improvements. Our results demonstrate that these enhancements detect modifiability properties that are not detectable by the propagation cost metric.


Context: Respiratory diseases are a common problem in our country and these are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Aims: The aim of the paper was to analyze the pattern of diagnostic tests used and treatment prescribed for common respiratory diseases. Settings and Design: A total of 1028 pulmonologists, either member of Indian Chest Society or delegate attending the National Conference of Pulmonary Diseases (NAPCON) 2015, participated in the online survey. Subjects and Methods: The survey included questions pertinent to common respiratory diseases such as pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB), bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and pneumonia. Results: Investigation used for severity assessment and diagnosis of PTB, was sputum for acid-fast bacilli (83.5%), for IPF was high-resolution computed tomography chest (85.6%), for severe pneumonia was arterial blood gas analysis (69.3%), for asthma was spirometery and peak flow (96.8%) and for COPDs was spirometry (87.2%). The most popular choice of treatment for PTB was directly observed treatment short course (55.7%), for bronchial asthma, it was long-acting beta agonist with inhaled corticosteroids (LABA + ICSs) (41.1%), for COPD, it was LABA, ICS, and long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LABA + ICS + long-acting muscarinic antagonist) (32.4%) and for IPF, it was pirfenidone and N acetyl cysteine (38.3%). About 67.5% of doctors preferred hospitalization for patients with severe pneumonia. About 84.5% pulmonologists ordered diagnostic tests and 55.5% prescribed treatment as per current guidelines. Conclusions: The majority of doctors (70.1%) in our survey followed recommended guidelines for respiratory disease diagnosis and treatment. However, there is a need for upgradation of treatment strategies currently used by doctors.


The objective of this article is to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) versus the more conventional continuous flow reactor (CFR) setup for pilot plant studies. The SBR process can offer many superior features for research applications. The control of operational conditions is more reliable, precise and versatile. Data collection by sampling and on-line sensors is made easier, and results are more representative. Kinetic and settling tests that need to be conducted in a separate bench-scale reactor for a CFR can be carried out directly within an SBR pilot plant. Even routine data contains more information than obtained from a CFR, since each SBR cycle is equivalent to a batch treatment experiment. The drawbacks of an SBR pilot plant mainly concern the transferability of certain kinetic and settling results to (full scale) completely mixed flow-through reactors, and some experimental limitations due to the cyclic operation. It is expected that this comparison will support the decision of research teams intending to design a wastewater treatment pilot plant. If an SBR process is selected, some specific design recommendations are given at the end of this paper to make sure that its potential advantages are realized.


We elaborate in this thesis the numerical simulation of the fluid-structure interaction by the spectral element method. To this end we consider the Navier-Stokes equations for a viscous Newtonian incompressible fluid with an elastic solid the movement of which being described by the equations of the dynamics. The arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation is introduced in the fluid governing equations to deal with the structure movement that is described in Lagrangian representation. The geometrical motion in each domain is built up by the mesh deformation. The space-time discretization of the full mathematical model rests upon the spectral element method. The solid is discretized in the space of polynomials of degree N, PN, while the fluid uses the PN - PN-2 approach. The efficiency of the ALE formulation is tested and validated through various applications. The full algorithm is based on a particular case of the staggered method. The simplified case of a solid immersed in a plane channel closes the thesis. It is then possible to draw the conclusions about the pros and cons of the proposed methodology.


Malaysia has a long history of experience in rice irrigation which spans from when the first scheme was built in 1892. The Kerian-Sungai Manik Irrigation Scheme which is located at Bagan Serai, Perak has a total acreage of 24000ha and the scheme is still in operation today. With the setting up of the Department of Irrigation and Drainage in 1932, there was more land for rice tilled under irrigation. In the 1960s the MADA Irrigation scheme in Kedah and Perlis, encompassing approximately 97000ha, was
completed. With the inclusion of other later schemes such as the Besut Irrigation scheme in Terengganu, KETARA (5200ha,), KADA Scheme in Kelantan (26000ha), the Projek Barat Laut Scheme in Selangor (18000ha), the Seberang Perak Scheme (8500ha), PPPB Scheme in Pulau Pinang (9500ha) and the Kemasin-Semarak scheme (6500ha), make up the eight rice granaries existing today (194700ha, almost 390000ha under double cropping). Irrigation in
Malaysia is almost entirely devoted to rice cultivation. Most of the irrigated rice areas in Peninsular Malaysia are located in the eight designed granaries. With recent rice supply being a bit chaotic with the sharp rise in price in the ASEAN region in early 2008, due in part to the calamities faced by some regions in the area, the Malaysian
government has decided to increase its rice stockpile as well as place more lands under rice cultivation in Sabah and Sarawak. Of the available total surface water resources of Malaysia, around 75% (10 billion cubic meters per year) is for use in agriculture. Irrigation is not only the largest consumer of fresh water in terms of volume, it is also associated with comparatively low economic value, low efficiency of use (< 50%) as well as being a highly subsidized natural commodity. However, it is a must-have venture in order to give a guarantee of at least 70% of the staple food of Malaysia some figure of security. Thus, dams have to be built and maintained, water conveyance channels laid, control structures put in place for irrigation and drainage and pumps operated. All of this is just a part of the larger scheme of things, which incidentally includes the whole range of agricultural practices required in getting
the grains to the markets. With the above mentioned scenario and the associated costs incurred, it is thus necessary to seek ways to better engineer and manage the water resources aspect of rice production so as to reduce the total cost of production of per unit tonne of rice
grains produced in Malaysia. The total unit cost would invariably include a host of costs, but suffice to say that reducing the cost of water used in its production would help in a long way. Many have ventured to say that if the water is not used, then we still have to build dams to store it lest it just flows to the sea. These words are true in every aspect but then again, it is during times of
water stresses that these dams would be a real blessing to have. So where possible dams will have to be built if not for irrigation then for the sake of domestic supplies when a real emergency crops up like the infamous 1998 El Nino phenomenon. The present climate change agenda around the globe has made all governments more aware of the need to be safe rather than to be sorry.


Exploitation of more than one host species may increase fitness of parasites, but it also shapes their life cycle and evolution. During its post-metamorphic stages, the pea crab Dissodactylus primitivus parasitizes the echinoids Meoma ventricosa and Plagiobrissus grandis with high preva- lence. However, the present study provides evidence that P. grandis is infected by adult crabs only, attesting to an unusual asymmetry in host exploitation. Because of its low population densities, P. grandis could be a secondarily acquired host, and its addition to the crab life cycle could be adap- tive. The latter hypothesis is tested in this study. Choice experiments revealed that adult and juvenile crabs were equally attracted to and able to settle on the 2 hosts. Most adult crab characteristics were not significantly different between the host species, but females living on P. grandis had higher fe- cundity. This asymmetric life cycle, where adult parasites infecting the 2 hosts show different relative fitnesses, looks like a transitory stage as predicted in models which predict the evolution of parasitic complex life cycles. However, this parasite asymmetric exploitation may also be a stable state, which occurs due to insufficient differences in crab fitness between the 2 hosts and the absence of host preference.