Experimental spaces for learning about and nurturing processes of social-ecological transformation are of increasing interest; a reflection, in part, of a more interventionist approach to sustainability research and funding. We reflect on our experience in Argentina facilitating a multistakeholder transformative space to identify and discuss agricultural sustainability challenges associated with seed market concentration, and to explore social innovations in the seed sector that can help foster more sustainable pathways of change in agricultural systems. We argue that in facilitating such a process, it is important to understand the diversity of perspectives on the meanings and functions of seed systems, the agricultural sustainability challenges those systems give rise to and of potential solutions, and to work with and from those divergent perspectives to identify areas of actionable consensus or potential affinities between actors who otherwise understand or prioritize agricultural sustainability in different ways. We suggest that ideas for intervention that are able to exploit common ground are more likely to be politically and practically viable. We illustrate this claim with a proposal for an open source seed licensing system, which potentially addresses distinctive concerns about strict intellectual property rules on the part of domestic seed breeders, farmers, rural social movements, and parts of government, who otherwise adopt different perspectives on desired agricultural futures. We suggest that this kind of bridging innovation may help to reconfigure social relations around seed systems in ways that can open up space for more sustainable pathways of agricultural change.


This guidebook offers the ideal introduction to one of the most enduringly popular works of the nineteenth century. Richard J. Dunn first places David Copperfield in its social, biographical and literary contexts, touching upon such fascinating issues as autobiography and Victorian social conditions, before offering a handy chronology and reprinted documents from the period. In a second section, 'Interpretations', he traces responses to the novel from the first reviews to modern criticism and reprints extracts from key critical works. The overview and extracts together offer insight into a remarkable range of issues, from the novel's humour to its reflections of class and gender structures. The section also considers the long history of stage and screen interpretations of Dickens's highly dramatic text. The third major section pulls together text and context by reprinting key passages of the novel, carefully cross-referenced to materials in the previous sections. The links between text, context and criticism enable original readings of the novel and detailed, accessible headnotes to the extracts further enrich our understanding of the work. A final section suggests targeted further reading. Read from beginning to end or used as a reference tool, this sourcebook reveals the varied life of David Copperfield in the hands of generations of readers, critics and adaptors, and ensures that it will continue to thrive. An ideal introduction to one of Dicken's most popular novels, this text includes autobiography, text interpretations, period illustrations, stage and screen history, and key passages carefully cross-referenced to earlier material.


We studied the composition and structural properties of amorphous, uncrystallized, fullerene analogous carbon containing natural mineral shungite from Zazhoginskoe deposit in Karelia (Russian Federation) and microporous crystalline aluminosilicate mineral zeolite (Most, Bulgaria). There are submitted data about the nanostructure, obtained with using of transmission electron microscopy (TEM-method), IR-spectroscopy (NES and DNES-method), as well as composition and physical chemical properties of these minerals. The average energy (∆EH... O) of hydrogen Н…O-bonds among individual molecules H2O after treatment of shungite and zeolite with water is measured at -0,1137 eV for shungite and -0,1174 eV for zeolite. The calculation of ∆EH... O for shungite with using DNES method compiles 0,0025±0,0011 eV and for zeolite - 1,2±0,0011 eV. This result suggests the restructuring of ∆EH...O values among H2O molecules with a statistically reliable increase of local maximums in DNES-spectra. Also are demonstrated the prospects of using shungite, possessing high absorption, catalytic and bactericidal activity, as an adsorbent in water-treatment, water purification, and other industries.


We investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the cross-Kerr nonlinearity generated in a four-level tripod system in the 87Rb D1 line. The system exhibits simultaneous electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) windows for two weak (probe and trigger) fields and the enhanced cross-Kerr nonlinearity by EIT. The cross-Kerr nonlinear phase shifts for probe (trigger) field are measured at several different intensities of trigger (probe) field. The results show that large cross-phase modulation (XPM) coefficients can be achieved at low light intensities.


In the last three years, a wire-based robot called the NeReBot (neurorehabilitation robot) was developed at the Robotics Laboratory of the Department of Innovation in Mechanics and Management, University of Padua, Italy. NeReBot is a 3 degrees-of-freedom (d.o.f.) wire-based robot, designed for the treatment of patients with stroke-related paralyzed or paretic upper limb during the acute phase. Although first clinical tests showed encouraging results in terms of motor recovery and functional outcome, the robot presented some limitations. Hence a new wire-based robot, called the MariBot (Marisa robot), was designed. The wire-drive philosophy, which makes the robot intrinsically safe, was maintained. Nevertheless, by changing the mechanical structure and adding two more d.o.f. the working space was enlarged significantly. Moreover, thanks to the improved mechanical design, MariBot results much lighter and less cumbersome than NeReBot. Finally, electronic hardware and control software were changed in order to improve man-machine interaction. In this paper, starting from the NeReBot experience, the design of MariBot is presented.


India produces only five percent of the total quantity of milk produced this amount is too inadequate to meet the country's demand. As a result, many dairy cooperatives have been formed to meet local demand and to develop dairy industry. It has been noticed that for small farmers, livestock production is a family operation and most of the livestock management is carried out by women. Nevertheless, little research has been conducted on the role of dairy cooperatives on women's empowerment or the role of women in dairy farming in rural areas. This paper examines how dairy activities can empower rural women by analyzing dairy activities of KISHAN cooperative in India. Focusing on the three dimensions of women's empowerment, this paper measures the extent of women's empowerment. This paper also analyses the factors contribute to women empowerment. Key Words: Dairy Cooperative; Women Empowerment; India DOI: 10.4038/suslj.v7i1.1844 Sabaragamuwa University Journal vol. 07 no.1, 2007 pp 64-77


Introduction: The burden of uncontrolled asthma is high and caregivers can offer support in the management of asthma. Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in children. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and quality of life (QoL) of caregivers toward asthma in their children.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Paediatric Respiratory Unit of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State (July 2017-September 2017). We utilized a 46-item questionnaire comprising knowledge and attitude domains and the 13-item Pediatric Asthma Caregiver's QoL Questionnaire (PACQLQ). Data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Version 25.0. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.
Results: Fifty-one caregivers participated in the study. More than half (n = 36, 70.6%) of the caregivers were 40 years old and above, female (n = 37, 72.5%), graduates from higher institutions (n = 33, 64.7%), and self-employed (n = 27, 52.9%). About a quarter (n = 13, 25.5%) had a family history of asthma and a similar proportion (n = 14, 27.5%) knew the three main symptoms of asthma.
Conclusion: Less than half (n = 24, 47.1%) of the caregivers had good asthma knowledge. Dust (n = 35, 68.6%) and smoke (n = 31, 60.8%) were identified as the most common asthma triggers in their children. The majority of the caregivers (n = 41, 80.3%) agreed that most people can have well-controlled asthma without seeing a doctor regularly. Overall, less than half of the caregivers (n = 24, 47.1%) showed positive attitudes toward their children's asthma. The overall score for the PACQLQ was 3.91 (0.98) which implied a poor QoL. The caregivers had both impaired activity and emotional function from managing asthma in their children. More female caregivers had better knowledge about asthma than their male counterparts (t = −3.178; df = 49; p = 0.003). Less than half of the caregivers had good asthma knowledge and positive attitudes toward asthma in their children. They had an impaired QoL from managing asthma in their children.


This is the first text book to offer a comprehensive approach to Old Frisian. Part One begins with a succinct survey of the history of the Frisians during the Middle Ages, their society and literary culture. Next follow chapters on the phonology, morphology, word formation and syntax of Old Frisian. This part is concluded by a chapter on the Old Frisian dialects and one on problems regarding the periodization of Frisian and the close relationship between (Old) Frisian and (Old) English. Part Two consists of a reader with a representative selection of twenty-one texts with explanatory notes and a full glossary. A bibliography and a select index complete the book. Written by an experienced teacher and researcher in the field, An Introduction to Old Frisian is an essential resource for students and researchers of Frisian, Old English and other 'Old' Germanic languages and cultures, and for medievalists working in this area. The second unrevised 2011 reprint of the original edition contains several corrections .


"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own Government to save our environment." (Ansel Adams)
The road to sustainability for the planet's people and natural ecosystems does not include rampant extractivism. A recent study suggests that more than 80 percent of the world's known hydrocarbon reserves must remain in the ground to avoid runaway climate change. This article challenges the dominant paradigm as to why the "no action" alternative provision of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is used more as a tool of assessment to move a project forward than instead as a tool of prohibition to halt a project and its deleterious environmental impacts. To strengthen the "no action" alternative, this article recommends a more detailed analysis to conserve delicate environmental spaces and alleviate the phenomenon of environmental racism. Increased detail and specificity would establish what I refer to as "the baseline bar," the point at which environmental, social, and economic metrics for a proposed federal agency action lead to a recommendation of "no action." The baseline bar can be achieved through NEPA's "no action" alternative as well as through other environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, inter alia. The baseline bar would operate to halt project development once specific metrics are not satisfied or delay them so they become economically unfeasible. Manifestations of the baseline bar have led up to the earlier rejection of extractive industry projects, such as Alaska's Pebble Mine and TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline. Yet these projects and many other hydrocarbon and mining enterprises now face rebirth. Adherence to NEPA's procedural requirements could delay or inhibit such projects. The lack of a baseline bar is evident in the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the armed standoff over grazing rights in Oregon. Further, this analysis of the baseline bar will work toward understanding the next wave of environmental lawsuits and dispute resolution.


On Earth, carbon sequestration in geologic units plays an important role in the carbon cycle, scrubbing CO_2 from the atmosphere for long-term storage. While carbonate is identified in low abundances within the dust and soils of Mars, at <1 wt% in select meteorites, and in limited outcrops, no massive carbonate rock reservoir on Mars has been identified to date. Here, we investigate the largest exposed carbonate-bearing rock unit, the Nili Fossae plains, combining spectral, thermophysical, and morphological analyses to evaluate the timing and carbon sequestration potential of rocks on Mars. We find that the olivine-enriched (∼20%–25%) basalts have been altered, by low-temperature in situ carbonation processes, to at most ∼20% Fe-Mg carbonate, thus limiting carbon sequestration in the Nili Fossae region to ∼0.25–12 mbar of CO_2 during the late Noachian–early Hesperian, before or concurrent with valley network formation. While this is large compared to modern-day CO_2 reservoirs, the lack of additional, comparably sized post–late Noachian carbonate-bearing deposits on Mars indicates ineffective carbon sequestration in rock units over the past ∼3.7 b.y. This implies a thin atmosphere (≲500 mbar) during valley network formation, extensive post-Noachian atmospheric loss to space, or diffuse, deep sequestration by a yet-to-be understood process. In stark contrast to Earth's biologically mediated crust:atmosphere carbon reservoir ratio of ∼10^4–10^5, Mars' ratio is a mere ∼10–10^3, even if buried pre-Noachian crust holds multiple bars.


Recent research has found that financial development reduces poverty in developing countries. This paper shows that it also improves education, gender equality, and health. Specifically it has 3 key findings. First, financial development helps achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for education, gender equality, and health by increasing the amount of private credit, money, and deposits in the economy. Second, increasing opportunities to deposit savings is the most significant way that financial development affects the MDGs. Third, the least financially developed countries benefit the most from financial development. These results are robust to omitted variable and reverse causation biases.


This paper discusses work currently being undertaken to develop an integrity based strategy for fracture control during the re-design process for the conversion of oil/gas pipelines to transport CO2. The paper reviews the requirements that need to be fulfilled to ensure that any potential running fractures (from different defect types manufacturing, construction, corrosion, etc) are adequately arrested to avoid catastrophic failure following the change of service of the pipeline. The available decompression models for CO2 are discussed to evaluate their applicability to the transportation of "captured" CO2. In order to ensure the suitability of the pipeline for the "change of use" a methodology for the fracture control evaluation from the relevant information derived from the asdesign, as-built and as-found condition is discussed. Once the integrity condition of the pipeline has been determined, a comparative risk assessment to define the main threats under the new operating conditions is described. Both the risks of long running brittle fracture and ductile fractures are important and have been considered. The influence of material properties such as the embrittlement behaviour under low temperatures, and also the influence of the composition of the transported liquid on the fracture of the pipes need to be analysed. The decompression at the location of any opening/defect would result in local changes in pipe temperature which would affect the integrity of the pipe. Key operating parameters such as corrosion control strategy, control of water content, flow assurance, control risk of hydrate formation and the effect of impurities in the gas decompression behaviour have been outlined.


Introduction: Participatory music making for older people has tended to focus on singing and performance. In a community music project undertaken by Manchester Camerata (a chamber orchestra), Blacon Community Trust and a small group of older adults, participants were given the opportunity to compose individual pieces of music interactively with professional musicians. This paper reports the findings of the research project. Method: An arts-based research method was adopted and incorporated action research and interpretive interactionism to articulate the experiences and perceptions of participants. Participants and Manchester Camerata musicians also worked together to represent the thematic findings of the research in a group composition. Findings: The findings demonstrate that individual and group music composition contributed to a sense of wellbeing through control over musical materials, opportunities for creativity and identity making, validation of life experience and social engagement with other participants and professional musicians. Conclusion: The results emphasised occupation as essential to health and wellbeing in the later stages of life. The findings also highlight the particularly innovative aspects of this research: (i) the use of music composition as a viable arts-in-health occupation for older people and (ii) the arts-based research method of group composition.


Mariculture encompasses the cultivation of many varieties of plants and animal
species in a wide range of habitats.The scale of mariculture can range from
small-scale, familyrun operations to large-scale, industrial projects.Guidelines that direct
mariculture development procedures and related environmental and financial aspects are
essential for promoting development of mariculture while ensuring sustainability. Key
management tools to be further developed as part of the guidelines and integrated into
the approval process are: environmental impact assessment (EIA) requirements, monitoring,
licensing, siting criteria, and environmental quality standards. Integration and use of these
tools in mariculture development should be specified in the guidelines and supported by policy. Sustainable
development of small-scale mariculture can be facilitated by increased coordination between national and local
authorities, and increased support to local governments by central government. These actions will help to
ensure that mariculture activities are appropriate and sustainable. Development can be promoted by
strengthening the ability of R & D institutions to act in a concerted fashion guided by governmental policy, as
clear regulations and procedures are yet to be formulated. Integration of policy, development of mariculture
guidelines and a mariculture development plan are strategies that can help resolve the most fundamental issues
that now constrain sustainable mariculture development in India.Though India is not a leading producer in true
mariculture we are second in aquaculture production next to China. To date, the Indian experience with
mariculture is limited to shrimp, lobsters, mollusc (oysters and mussels), seaweed and finfish (cobia, pompano,
sea bass, mullets etc.).The biological feasibility of culturing these species has been demonstrated locally and
internationally. In other Asian countries with similar climate and natural endowments, revenues from mariculture
production make significant contributions to national economies. Because mariculture development has been
slow in India, there is an opportunity to develop sustainable forms of mariculture by learning from experiences
in other parts of the world. Even though there is vast scope, recently only India has taken up mariculture
technologies to the stake holder level. Due to the success achieved in mariculture, it has been identified as a
potential source of production enhancement for high valued species like lobster, seabass, cobia and pompano
for which the capture fishery is negligible.


While it is known that the occurrence of flutter is dominated by aerodynamics, it also depends on such parameters as inlet distortion and acoustics, aerodynamic and mechanical mistuning, and structural damping. It is shown in this paper that recent developments in predictive methods are showing considerable promise and leading to an improved understanding of the controlling parameters. A non-linear coupled structural-fluid approach is described and applied at engine representative conditions. This involves 3D unsteady CFD calculations of the fan and intake flows. Particular emphasis is placed on the influence of intake acoustics. Earlier work on flutter prediction has focused on either the fan assembly without a proper representation of the intake, or the calculation of the acoustic properties of the intake without properly representing the interaction with the fan. The present study includes a combined fan plus intake calculation, the latter being represented via an axisymmetric approximation. With an initial prescribed velocity disturbance of the blades in a 2 nodal diameter mode, the calculations showed a strong response in a 4 nodal diameter mode. Considerable acoustic activity within the duct was also noted. This result was compared with CFD calculations for the full 3D intake geometry. It was concluded that a realistic representation of intake acoustics is required for a full description of the problem.Copyright © 1998 by ASME


This paper investigates the interplay of trade and terrorism externalities under free trade between a developed nation that exports a manufactured good to and imports a primary product from a developing nation. A terrorist organization targets both nations and reduces its attacks in response to a nation's defensive counterterrorism efforts, while transferring some of its attacks abroad. Terms-of-trade considerations lead the developed nation to raise its counterterrorism level beyond the "small-country" level, thus compounding its overprovision of these measures. By contrast, the developing nation limits its defensive countermeasures below that of the small-country level. This asymmetry is a novel finding. The analysis is extended to include proactive countermeasures to weaken the terrorist group. Again, the developed country raises its efforts owing to the terms-oftrade externality, which now opposes the underprovision associated with proactive efforts. A second extension allows for several developing-country exporters of the primary product. JEL Codes: D62, F11, F51


Turning 80 is not so bad when the occasion is marked by a sweeping retrospective of your life's work. An exhibition of 300 works by Helmut Newton, curated by June Newton and Taschen editor Manfred Heiting, opens on October 30th 2001 at the Berliner Nationalgalerie. This is the catalogue of the exhibition, and features works carefully selected for the exhibition from Newton's entire career, including many images not appearing in "Sumo". The catalogue presents an overview of the provocative, groundbreaking photography that has inspired an entire genre.


Policies that support the unemployed, while reducing employment barriers and benefit dependency, are of particular interest in the current economic climate. This paper examines alternative policy approaches for combining adequate income support for the jobless with incentives to keep out-of-work spells short. After summarising the main parameters of existing income support measures for the unemployed in EU and OECD countries, I review evidence on the economic relevance of work incentives and discuss their significance when labour markets are weak during and after an economic downturn. Based on the available evidence, I propose a set of policy priorities to strengthen both the "protection" and the "promotion" functions of unemployment support.


Abstract Background The main objective of this project is to develop a mobile application (APP) for monitoring and controlling the management of the therapeutic regime in this group of people, with a view to strengthening communication among patients and health professionals, favoring adherence to therapeutic indications and responding, in a timely manner and in a proactive manner, to the symptoms or complications that may arise associated with the disease, thereby improving the efficacy of the therapy, preventing complications and improving its perception of health and quality of life. In fact, health interventions must transform behavior towards the desired improvement and empowerment of the person, thus facilitating self-management. Its final presentation will be on the form of an APP, which will improve the well-being and quality of life of people with cancer, bringing gains in efficiency and health outcomes, broadening the sense of the adequacy of policies of health. The expected results with the implementation of this APP are: improve and monitor patient adherence to oral and supportive therapies; to prevent, the appearance of complications or symptoms associated with the treatment, through preventive indications of self-care (green alert level); improve patients responses, through self-care uncontrolled complications (yellow alert level); signaling to the patient and health services, uncontrolled symptoms with high severity (red alert level); improve the efficiency of health teams with regard to self-management of the disease and produce and disseminate knowledge in oncology. At this time the project is already at an advanced stage of development. Systematic reviews of the literature were developed to support the interventions included in the APP. The interventions were categorized by the two levels of self-care and were submitted to expert evaluation using the Delphi technique. Trial design Systematic reviews of the literature were developed to support the interventions included in the APP. The interventions were categorized by the two levels of self-care and were submitted to expert evaluation using the Delphi technique. The project has already been tested on an initial sample of 40 patients. Legal entity responsible for the study The authors. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


This essay examines the history of Brown I, Brown II, and Bolling in the Supreme Court of the United States. Enduring precedents, the analysis suggests, go through three stages. In the first stage, they fight for survival. This describes Brown during the first decade after that decision was handed down. No Supreme Court Justice asserted, "Brown should be overruled," but many citations to Brown came in the context of political efforts to reverse or marginalize that decision. In the second stage, precedents fight for extension. This describes Brown in the later Warren and Burger years. Civil rights activists insisted that Brown be read broadly. Nixon Justices maintained that Brown authorized only a narrow range of practices. In the third stage, precedents become celebrities. This describes Brown at present. Americans agree that Brown is a landmark decision, agree that decision should be broadly interpreted, but insist that the 1954 ruling provides precedential support for their particular and divergent constitutional visions. Celebrity precedents are not entirely meaningless. The present celebrity status of Brown renders impossible political or legal efforts to return to the status quo before, say, 1966. The crucial point is that Brown has no more capacity to inspire continued progress on American race relationships. Just as Americans are likely to need an entirely new political era to make greater racial progress, so the next successful generation of civil rights advocates will likely march under a different banner.


The stable bonding of gold wire is becoming more and more important with the development of high integration and miniaturization of semiconductor. At the beginning of the thermosonic wire bonding cycle, the auto wire bonder uses an Electronic Flame-Off (EFO) unit to create a Free Air Ball(FAB). As FAB affects the quality of the first bond directly, consistency of FAB formation is very important for the stable wire bonding. In this study, a high-speed camera system was used to record the EFO and FAB formation process under different EFO currents. Continuous image sequences of FAB formation were processed by using matlab software. Finally, the influence law of EFO current on FAB fomation was obtained.


After the Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion, an estimated 172.2 million gallons of gas-saturated oil was discharged uncontrollably into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest deep-sea blowout in history. In an attempt to keep the oil submerged, massive quantities of the chemical dispersant Corexit® 9500 were deployed 1522m deep at the gushing riser pipe of the Macondo prospect's wellhead. Understanding the effectiveness of this unprecedented Sub-Sea Dispersant Injection (SSDI) is critical because deep-water drilling is increasing worldwide. Here we use the comprehensive BP Gulf Science Data (GSD) to quantify petroleum dynamics throughout the 87-day long blowout. The spatio-temporal distribution of petroleum hydrocarbons revealed consistent higher concentrations at the sea surface and in a deep intrusion below 1000 m. The relative importance of these two layers depended on the hydrocarbon mass fractions as expected from their partitioning along temperature and pressure changes. Further, analyses of water column Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) of GSD extensively sampled within a 10-km radius of the blowout source demonstrated that substantial amounts of oil continued to surface near the response site, with no significant effect of SSDI volume on PAH vertical distribution and concentration. The turbulent energy associated with the spewing of gas-saturated oil at the deep-sea blowout may have minimized the effectiveness of the SSDI response approach. Given the potential for toxic chemical dispersants to cause environmental damage by increasing oil bioavailability and toxicity while suppressing its biodegradation, unrestricted SSDI application in response to deep-sea blowout is highly questionable. More efforts are required to inform response plans in future oil spills.


Consumer behavior is perceived as an investment which does not yield results in the short run. The traditional economic theory of customer preferences is based on four main elements: customer income, the market price of goods, customer preferences, and behavioral assumption about the maximum of achievable benefits. Even though it sometimes might seem that equalizing energy consumption with behavior is not possible, it can often be described as consequences of behavior, such as turning off the lights or thermostat level reduction for saving power. Our paper demonstrates how the psychological concept of consumer behavior effects energy consumption. It provides recommendations about the incorporation of the idea of uncomplicated information availability for consumers taking into consideration their long-term habits. The novelty of this study is that psychological concept of consumer behavior effects energy consumption in each of the region, therefore, it is recommended to incorporate the idea of uncomplicated information availability for consumers taking into consideration long-term habits. The problem analyzed in the article is how consumer behavior influences energy consumption. The aim of the article is to analyze the consumer behavior in energy consumption. The objectives of the study are two-fold: i) to analyze the element of consumer behavior from the theoretical point of view, and ii) to investigate the patterns of energy consumption. The methods of the study are a logical and comparative analysis of literature, graphics, synthesis, and deduction. Our results and findings can be used by the stakeholders and policy-makers in preparing regional development economic policies and in designing the energy consumption strategies in the framework of the regional development.


It is currently unknown how mucosal adjuvants cause induction of secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA), and how T cell-dependent (TD) or -independent (TI) pathways might be involved. Mucosal dendritic cells (DCs) are the primary antigen presenting cells driving TI IgA synthesis, by producing a proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL), B cell activating factor (BAFF), Retinoic Acid (RA), TGF-β or nitric oxide (NO). We hypothesized that the mucosal adjuvant Cholera Toxin subunit B (CTB) could imprint non-mucosal DCs to induce IgA synthesis, and studied the mechanism of its induction. In vitro, CTB-treated bone marrow derived DCs primed for IgA production by B cells without the help of T cells, yet required co-signaling by different Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands acting via the MyD88 pathway. CTB-DC induced IgA production was blocked in vitro or in vivo when RA receptor antagonist, TGF-β signaling inhibitor or neutralizing anti-TGF-β was added, demonstrating the involvement of RA and TGF-β in promoting IgA responses. There was no major involvement for BAFF, APRIL or NO. This study highlights that synergism between CTB and MyD88-dependent TLR signals selectively imprints a TI IgA-inducing capacity in non-mucosal DCs, explaining how CTB acts as an IgA promoting adjuvant.


A systematic review and meta‐analysis were carried out to study the effects of low‐carbohydrate diet (LCD) on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors (search performed on PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Scopus databases). A total of 23 reports, corresponding to 17 clinical investigations, were identified as meeting the pre‐specified criteria. Meta‐analysis carried out on data obtained in 1,141 obese patients, showed the LCD to be associated with significant decreases in body weight (−7.04 kg [95% CI −7.20/−6.88]), body mass index (−2.09 kg m−2[95% CI −2.15/−2.04]), abdominal circumference (−5.74 cm [95% CI −6.07/−5.41]), systolic blood pressure (−4.81 mm Hg [95% CI −5.33/−4.29]), diastolic blood pressure (−3.10 mm Hg [95% CI −3.45/−2.74]), plasma triglycerides (−29.71 mg dL−1[95% CI −31.99/−27.44]), fasting plasma glucose (−1.05 mg dL−1[95% CI −1.67/−0.44]), glycated haemoglobin (−0.21% [95% CI −0.24/−0.18]), plasma insulin (−2.24 micro IU mL−1[95% CI −2.65/−1.82]) and plasma C‐reactive protein, as well as an increase in high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.73 mg dL−1[95%CI 1.44/2.01]). Low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol and creatinine did not change significantly, whereas limited data exist concerning plasma uric acid.


This study has been applied on broilers which were given vaccine prepared from sporulated oocyst of E. tenella that attenuated by X-ray (10, 15, and 20) K rad, in its 1 day with dose 1×10oocyt/bird orally; Levamisole was used as an immunomodulator with 15mg/kgbody weight gains during 4 days after vaccination. Broilers were divided to 8 groups challenging was performed in 22 days of the immunized groups and 7thgroup by sporulated oocyst 6×104oocyst/bird. After challenge recording the quantity of the consumed feed, weight gains, and some immune examinations were also applied like: Phagocytes, delayed hypersensitivity test and organ index.


Computer generation of cloze tasks still falls short of full automation; most current systems are used by teachers as authoring aids. Improved methods to estimate cloze quality are needed for full automation. We investigated lexical reading difficulty as a novel automatic estimator of cloze quality, to which co-occurrence frequency of words was compared as an alternate estimator. Rather than relying on expert evaluation of cloze quality, we submitted open cloze tasks to workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) and discuss ways to measure of the results of these tasks. Results show one statistically significant correlation between the above measures and estimators, which was lexical co-occurrence and Cloze Easiness. Reading difficulty was not found to correlate significantly. We gave subsets of cloze sentences to an English teacher as a gold standard. Sentences selected by co-occurrence and Cloze Easiness were ranked most highly, corroborating the evidence from AMT.


Distributed generators (DGs) such as fuel cells and solar cells etc. are going to be installed in demand side of distribution systems. The distributed generators can reduce distribution loss by appropriate allocation. However, there are several problems to install DGs such as service restoration of distribution system with DGs and so on. When one bank fault of distribution substation occurs in distribution system, since DGs are simultaneously disconnected from the system, it is not easy to restore isolated load by one bank switching in distribution substation. Therefore, a service restoration method to determine restoration configuration and restoration procedures (switching procedure from normal configuration to restoration configuration) taking into account simultaneous disconnection of DGs is needed. In this paper, the authors propose a computation method to determine the optimal restoration configuration and the restoration procedure considering simultaneous disconnection of DGs by one bank fault of distribution system. In the proposed algorithm, after all of restoration configuration candidates are effectively enumerated under the operational constraints, the optimal configuration to restore the isolated load is selected among enumerated configuration candidates. After determining the optimal restoration configuration, the optimal restoration procedures are obtained by greedy algorithm. Numerical simulations are carried out for a real scale system model with 237 sectionalizing switches (configuration candidates are 2237) and 21DGs (total output is 5250kW which is 3% of total load) in order to examine the validity of the proposed algorithm.


Attentional modulation is needed when a decision maker is faced with too much information to process. In this paper we discuss the use of attention in control applications where usually higher order system dynamics are involved as typical benchmarks considered in cognitive experiments. Previous works have implemented various forms of attention and active perception for selecting the necessary data, reducing the dimensionality of the input space, tuning the sensors, etc. However, decision making can depend not only on objective sensory data, but also upon mental states or subjective inputs. Specifically, we examine attention for the evaluation of selected action by various critics, as well as sensory inputs. The complexity of each situation and consequent variety of evaluation indices or local goals, which could be compatible or contrary to each other, can confuse the agent. Therefore, the agent needs to attend to the dependable critics which can be altered regarding the state. The attention to different critics or goals can be established by forming different architecture in the agent's mind, which can assess the domination of a critic or an aggregation of them. Also, the ascendancy of critics can be judged by the rate of failure. In other words, the agent who feels unsatisfied while being unsuccessful to satisfy the particular goal, attends to that goal. In cases where there are no adequate knowledge about the ascendancy of different critics, and only the desired behavior is known, the attention can be learned by feedbacks of a super critic which evaluates the agent's behavior. For instance, in real world applications human experts can play the role of super critic.


Histone mRNA synthesis is tightly regulated to S phase of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell cycle as a result of transcriptional and posttranscriptional controls. Moreover, histone gene transcription decreases rapidly if DNA replication is inhibited by hydroxyurea or if cells are arrested in G1 by the mating pheromone alpha-factor. To identify the transcriptional controls responsible for cycle-specific histone mRNA synthesis, we have developed a selection for mutations which disrupt this process. Using this approach, we have isolated five mutants (hpc1, hpc2, hpc3, hpc4, and hpc5) in which cell cycle regulation of histone gene transcription is altered. All of these mutations are recessive and belong to separate complementation groups. Of these, only one (hpc1) falls in one of the three complementation groups identified previously by other means (M. A. Osley and D. Lycan, Mol. Cell. Biol. 7:4204-4210, 1987), indicating that at least seven different genes are involved in the cell cycle-specific regulation of histone gene transcription. hpc4 is unique in that derepression occurs only in the presence of hydroxyurea but not alpha-factor, suggesting that at least one of the regulatory factors is specific to histone gene transcription after DNA replication is blocked. One of the hpc mutations (hpc2) suppresses delta insertion mutations in the HIS4 and LYS2 loci. This effect allowed the cloning and sequence analysis of HPC2, which encodes a 67.5-kDa, highly charged basic protein.


A large body of empirical evidence demonstrates that judicial review of agency action is highly politicized, in the sense that Republican appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate liberal agency decisions than conservative ones, while Democratic appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate conservative agency decisions than liberal ones. These results hold for both (a) judicial review of agency interpretations of law and (b) judicial review of agency decisions for "arbitrariness" on questions of policy and fact. On the federal courts of appeals, the most highly politicized voting patterns are found on unified panels, that is, on panels consisting solely of either Democratic or Republican appointees. On the Supreme Court, politicized administrative law is also unmistakable, as the more conservative justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate liberal agency decisions, and the more liberal justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate conservative agency decisions. Indeed, it is possible to "rank" justices in terms of the extent to which their voting patterns are politicized. The empirical results raise an obvious question: What might be done to depoliticize administrative law? Three sets of imaginable solutions have promise: (1) self-correction without formal doctrinal change, produced by a form of "debiasing" that might follow from a clearer judicial understanding of the current situation; (2) doctrinal innovations, as, for example, through rethinking existing deference principles and giving agencies more room to maneuver; and (3) institutional change, through novel voting rules and requirements of mixed panels. An investigation of these solutions has implications for other domains in which judges are divided along political lines, and indeed in which nonjudicial officials show some kind of politicized division or bias. tendencies, and is key For purposes, not necessary to on a final explanation.


Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage remains an important cause of stroke mortality and morbidity. Hemodynamic factors are considered to be a major factor in the progression and rupture of intracranial aneurysms. Flow diverting stent (FDS) is an emerging paradigm for treating traditionally difficult intracranial aneurysms. It is placed in the parent artery to divert the blood flow from the aneurysm sac and promote the progressive thrombosis. In the field of medical FDS, numerical simulation is a tool of high importance for the investigation and development of new flow diverters. It is also used to assist patient-specific decision making, for example during a medical stent placement procedure for the consolidation of an arterial aneurysm. However, fully resolved simulations of the stent are often prohibitively expensive, opening the path for approximate but more efficient simulations framework which model the effect of the FDS through a coarse-grained, macroscopic approach. Porous media model was proposed for this purpose, assuming that FDS can be described as a porous media, obeying Forchheimer's law. However, FDS are not 3D porous media and a solution based on screen model are more adapted. In this thesis, we develop a screen based flow diverter model (SFDM) which circumvents deficiencies of some aspects of the porous media model. Our framework is developed from the existing screen models which, as opposed to porous media models, are explicitly built to reflect the physics of thin porous structures, like a flow diverter stent. We first reviewed the hydraulic equations of screen in the literatures, then proposed a 2D framework which are able to predict the pressure drop and flow deflection across a stent. The deflection part determined by the drag coefficient, is different from the homogeneous porous media prototype. The 2D SFDM is tested by several ideal aneurysms under various conditions, such as different stent placements, varying homogeneous porosities and pulsatile inlet velocities. The model can effectively reduce the velocity and wall shear stress in the aneurysm sac as a fully resolved stent. Afterwards, the framework of SFDM is extended to 3D and is applied for actual medical flow diverters in patient-specific aneurysms. The numerical tests show that the 3D SFDM can reproduce the results of direct numerical simulation both qualitatively and quantitatively, and are capable of reducing the simulation time by an order of magnitude or more. Additionally to the theoretical framework of the SFDM, the thesis discusses in detail the procedure required to deploy the model for a given stent and artery. In summary, we developed, validated and deployed a screen based flow diverter model which can greatly reduce the computational time for the blood flow in stented aneurysm with reasonable accuracy.


BACKGROUND
Yoga may provide a strategy for healthy weight management in young adults. This study examined prevalence and characteristics of young adults' yoga practice and associations with changes in body mass index.

METHODS
Surveys were completed by 1830 young adults (31.1 ± 1.6 y) participating in Project EAT-IV. Cross-sectional and 5-year longitudinal analyses were conducted stratified by initial weight status.

RESULTS
Two-thirds (66.5%) of nonoverweight women and 48.9% of overweight women reported ever doing yoga, while 27.2% of nonoverweight women and 16.4% of overweight women practiced regularly (≥30 min/wk). Fewer men practiced yoga. Among young adults practicing regularly (n = 294), differences were identified in intensity, type, and location of yoga practice across weight status. Young adults who were overweight and practiced yoga regularly showed a nonsignificant 5-year decrease in their body mass index (-0.60 kg/m2; P = .49), whereas those not practicing regularly had significant increases in their body mass index (+1.37 kg/m2; P < .01). Frequency of yoga was inversely associated with weight gain among both overweight and nonoverweight young adults practicing yoga regularly.

CONCLUSIONS
Young adults of different body sizes practice yoga. Yoga was associated with less weight gain over time, particularly in overweight young adults. Practicing yoga on a regular basis may help with weight gain prevention.


Between 1994 and 1999 Venezuela's entire oil and natural gas sector underwent the largest transformation in its contemporary history. Everything from gas and oil production to transportation, processing, refining and marketing was reformed to face the challenges of a more decentralized, competitive energy sector. This transformation included an important redefinition of the role of oil in the economy and within Venezuelan society, as well as a complete overhaul of the national oil corporation, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). PDVSA's journey from an entirely state-owned enterprise to a partially privatized one is in many ways unique. The 1975 law that created the company clearly established it as a commercial entity, meaning that it should operate solely by corporate principles and not, for example, undertake the social employment programs that had fared so poorly at other state-owned oil companies. While initially adequate, this concept alone was not enough to allow PDVSA to be competitive in today's globalized economy. A new strategy was necessary to strengthen PDVSA's position in the global arena, and in 1995 such a strategy was implemented: the opening up, or apertura, of both the "upstream" and "downstream" segments of the oil industry.(1) This groundbreaking shift deepened PDVSA's presence in international markets while transforming the corporation from within. The 1997 apertura called for the partial privatization of PDVSA's activities, allowing private individuals and firms to form strategic associations (equivalent to joint ventures but requiring congressional approval) and undertake operational agreements with PDVSA. In addition, reforms included the outsourcing of non-core activities and the first steps toward privatization of the domestic distribution and retailing of oil products. As a result of these changes, PDVSA has experienced an increase in upstream joint ventures--especially profit sharing agreements (PSAs) and operational agreements--and an expansion of new markets, primarily in the United States. Most importantly, PDVSA's modernization process has required an overhaul of the company itself, with the objectives of increasing productivity, reducing costs, improving technology, increasing efficiency and, most significantly, putting in place a new internal compensation system that would demand and reward performance. Internal reforms have included eliminating an obsolete and burdensome system of severance payments and instituting performance-related pay schemes. This article will examine PDVSA's transformation in the context of Venezuela's changing political economy and the globalization of the world economy. OIL AND ITS EVOLVING ROLE IN THE VENEZUELAN ECONOMY Oil plays a significnat economic and social role in Venezuela. The country earns $15 to $20 billion per year in oil revenues, constituting between 75 and 80 percent of Venezuela's total exports. Taxes, royalties and dividends from PDVSA represent roughly 50 percent of all government revenues. In all, oil activity directly and indirectly generates around 40 percent of national economic activity. The breakdown of oil's impact on Venezuela can be shown by three concentric circles, each representing a less direct relationship between the industry and the country. The inner circle consists of PDVSA's expenditures on operations such as production, transport, refining, marine shipment and petrochemicals, as well as the company's various project investments. These activities represent 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The second circle includes the activities of other companies and contractors working for PDVSA, including construction, engineering and the purchase and supply of goods and materials. This represents another 14 percent of GDP. Finally, the third circle corresponds to the economic activities stemming from government expenditures financed with revenues from PDVSA--equivalent to 12 percent of GDP. …


In wireless sensor networks, various applications involve learning one or multiple functions of the measurements observed by sensors, rather than the measurements themselves. This paper focuses on the class of type-threshold functions, e.g., the maximum and the indicator functions. A simple network model capturing both the broadcast and superposition properties of wireless channels is considered: the collocated Gaussian network. A general multiround coding scheme exploiting superposition and interaction (through broadcast) is developed. Through careful scheduling of concurrent transmissions to reduce redundancy, it is shown that given any independent measurement distribution, all type-threshold functions can be computed reliably with a nonvanishing rate in the collocated Gaussian network, even if the number of sensors tends to infinity.


Yeast extract powder (YE powder) is particularly used in culture media for the cultivation of microorganisms found in milk or other dairy products. The present study was intended to explore the influence of biofield energy treatment on the physicochemical and spectral properties of YE powder. The study was accomplished in two groups; first group was remained as control, while another was subjected to Mr. Trivedi's biofield energy treatment and termed as the treated group. Afterward, both the samples were evaluated using several analytical techniques. The X-ray diffractometry (XRD) study showed the halo patterns of XRD peaks in both the samples. This indicated the amorphous nature of the samples. The particle size study revealed the 4.77% and 26.28% increase d50 (in the average particle size) and d99 (particle size below that 99% particles are present), respectively of treated YE powder with respect to the control. The surface area analysis showed the 14.06% increase in the specific surface area of treated sample with respect to the control. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis exhibited the 41.64% increase in the melting temperature of treated YE powder sample as compared to the control. The TGA/DTG analysis exhibited the increase in Tonset (onset temperature of thermal degradation) by 7.51% and 12.45% in first and second step of thermal degradation, respectively in the treated sample as compared to the control. Furthermore, the Tmax (maximum thermal degradation temperature) was increased by 4.16% and 24.79% in first and second step of thermal degradation, respectively in the treated sample with respect to the control. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) study revealed the changes in the wavenumber of functional groups such as C-H (stretching) from 2895→2883 cm-1 and 2815→2831 cm-1, respectively; C-N from 1230→1242 cm-1; and C-O stretching from 1062-1147 cm-1→1072-1149 cm-1 of treated YE powder sample as compared to the control. The UV-vis spectroscopy showed the similar patterns of absorbance maxima (λmax) in both the control and treated samples. Therefore, the analytical results suggested the considerable impact of Mr. Trivedi's biofield energy treatment on physicochemical and spectral properties of YE powder. The increase in Tonset and Tmax after the biofield treatment suggests that the treated YE powder might be more effective in culture medium than the control YE powder.


Thermodynamic, Sulfide, Redox Potential, and pH Effects on Syngas Fermentation Peng Hu Department of Chemical Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Recently, work in ethanol production is exploring the fermentation of syngas (primarily CO, CO2, and H2) following gasification of cellulosic biomass. The syngas fermentation by clostridium microbes utilizes the Wood-Ljungdahl metabolic pathway. Along this pathway, the intermediate Acetyl-CoA typically diverges to produce ethanol, acetic acid, and/or cell mass. To develop strategies for process optimization, a thermodynamic analysis was conducted that provided a detailed understanding of the favorability of the reactions. Thermodynamic analysis provided identification of potentially limiting steps. Once these limiting reactions were identified, further thermodynamic analysis provided additional insights into the ways in which reaction conditions could be adjusted to improve product yield as well as minimize the effect of such bottlenecks. In this way, strategies to enhance product formation were effectively formed. A thermodynamic analysis regarding electron utilization suggested that it would be unlikely that H2 is utilized in favor of CO for electron production when both species are present. Therefore, CO conversion efficiency to products will be sacrificed during syngas fermentation since some of the CO will make electrons at the expense of product and cell mass formation. Furthermore, the analysis showed the thermodynamic difference of ethanol production, acetate production, and acetate to ethanol conversion, at varying reaction conditions, such as at different pH and redox potential levels. These differences were then incorporated into a strategy to optimize production of desired product, improve bioreactor design, and decrease the amount of by-product formed. Based on the thermodynamics analysis, experiments with varying experimental conditions were performed. The results showed that sulfide concentration in the media changed. In order to assess the effects of experimental conditions on syngas fermentation and decrease the experimental variability, experiments with controlled sulfide, redox potential, and pH were designed and the results indicated that these factors play key roles on cell growth, product formation and product distribution. Furthermore, experimental conditions had different effects on fermentation during different phases. For example, cell growth is much better at pH=5.8 than pH=4.5. However, the ethanol production rate at pH=4.5 is better than pH=5.8. A strategy involving controlling the pH and redox potential at different phases was effectively applied to improve ethanol production. This work provided significant insights on how varying experimental conditions can affect the syngas fermentation process.


The need for infrastructure development, its catalytic effect on economic growth and the importance of the application of project finance to fund development, cannot be underestimated. According to literature, the involvement of the private sector in infrastructure development is recommended to improve service delivery efficiency and in the case of project finance ensure profitability. This is central to the principal-agent, property rights and public-choice theories. Seeing that, water supply has been highlighted by the World Economic Forum as one of the top ten risks that faces the world; the key focus of this study was the application of project finance to the water sector in South Africa. This study aimed to identify the key success factors of the financing and procurement of water infrastructure in South Africa, using the Rustenburg Water Services Trust as a case. It was a qualitative study inclusive of the coding of data collected through semi-structured interviews and a desktop study. It was found that the success of the upgrade of the Rustenburg WWTW, Boitekong WWTW and the recommissioning of the Bospoort Water Treatment System, was based primarily on the adequate mitigation of risk. One of the major risks mitigated was the market risk usually covered by the public sector in this case, local municipalities. This risk was mitigated by having "take-or-pay" agreements signed by the mining companies (including Anglo-American Mines) within the area. Other success factors are: political will and collaboration between the private and public sector; the proper allocation of risk to the project participants that are best positioned to manage them; educating public officials about the use of project finance and establishing a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV); and the effective monitoring of progress made by the private sector. Finally, it was realised that when public and private sector partners take a seat at a round table, infrastructure development can be tackled successfully for the promotion of economic growth.


In Renaissance Florence, certain paintings and sculptures of the Virgin Mary and Christ were believed to have extraordinary efficacy in activating potent sacred intercession. Cults sprung up around these "miraculous images" in the city and surrounding countryside beginning in the late 13th century. In The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence, Megan Holmes questions what distinguished these paintings and sculptures from other similar sacred images, looking closely at their material and formal properties, the process of enshrinement, and the foundation legends and miracles associated with specific images. Whereas some of the images presented in this fascinating book are well known, such as Bernardo Daddi's Madonna of Orsanmichele, many others have been little studied until now. Holmes's efforts center on the recovery and contextualization of these revered images, reintegrating them and their related cults into an art-historical account of the period. By challenging prevailing views and offering a reassessment of the Renaissance, this generously illustrated and comprehensive survey makes a significant contribution to the field.


Waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) textiles were effectively chemical recycling into flame-retardant rigid polyurethane foams (PUFs). The PET textile wastes were glycolytically depolymerized to bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) by excess ethylene glycol as depolymerizing agent and zinc acetate dihydrate as catalyst. The PUFs were produced from BHET and polymeric methane diphenyl diisocyanate. The structures of BHET and PUFs were identified by FTIR spectra. The limiting oxygen index (LOI) of the PUFs (≥23.27%) was higher than that of common PUFs (16–18%), because the aromatic substituent in the depolymerized products improved the flame retardance. To improve the LOI of the PUFs, dimethyl methylphosphonate doped PUFs (DMMP-PUFs) were produced. The LOI of DMMP-PUFs was approached to 27.69% with the increasing of the doped DMMP. The influences of the flame retardant on the foams density, porosity, and compression properties were studied. Furthermore, the influences of foaming agent, catalyst, and flame retardant on the flame retardation were also investigated. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40857.


We propose an equilibrium model for defaultable bonds that are subject to contagion risk. Contagion arises because agents with "fragile beliefs" are uncertain about the underlying economic state and its probability. Estimation on sovereign European credit default swaps (CDS) data shows that agents require a time-varying risk premium for bearing state uncertainty. The model outperforms affine specifications with the same number of state variables, suggesting that there are important nonlinearities in credit spreads that are captured by our model. Contagion drives most of the variation in CDS spreads, especially before the crisis. However, economic fundamentals account for a significant fraction during the crisis.


In 1990 Namibia gained its independence after a decades-long struggle against South African rule--and, before that, against German colonialism. This book, the first new scholarly general history of Namibia in two decades, provides a fresh synthesis of these events, and of the much longer pre-colonial period. A History of Namibia opens with a chapter by John Kinahan covering the evidence of human activity in Namibia from the earliest times to the nineteenth century, and for the first time making a synthesis of current archaeological research widely available to non-specialists. In subsequent chapters, Marion Wallace weaves together the most up-to-date academic research (in English and German) on Namibian history, from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. She explores histories of migration, production and power in the pre-colonial period, the changes triggered by European expansion, and the dynamics of the period of formal colonialism. The coverage of German rule includes a full chapter on the genocide of 1904-8. Here, Wallace outlines the history and historiography of the wars fought in central and southern Namibia, and the subsequent mass imprisonment of defeated Africans in concentration camps. The final two chapters analyse the period of African nationalism, apartheid and war between 1946 and 1990. The book's conclusion looks briefly at the development of Namibia in the two decades since independence. A History of Namibia provides an invaluable introduction and reference source to the past of a country that is often neglected, despite its significance in the history of the region and, indeed, for that of European colonialism and international relations. It makes accessible the latest research on the country, illuminates current controversies, puts forward new insights, and suggests future directions for research. The book's extensive bibliography adds to its usefulness for scholar and general reader alike.


Molecular diphosphate tweezers are able to bind to lysine and arginine residues on protein surfaces and are used as new enzyme inhibitors, blockers of pathological protein aggregation and for the disruption of membranes in enveloped viruses. Nevertheless, these powerful receptors still lack selectivity. Previous attempts to solve this problem in our group resulted in replacing one phosphate group by a neutral linker unit for the introduction of additional recognition elements. Since the neutral linkers generally lowered the tweezers` affinities towards basic amino acids and peptides, a new strategy which keeps both phosphate anions and allows installation of one recognition unit by "click" chemistry was established in this thesis. The introduction of the phosphate moiety containing the alkyne unit was easily achieved by following a classic phosphoramidite approach. After overcoming several difficulties in attaching the second phosphate moiety to the tweezers, the monobutynyl diphosphate tweezers 9 was obtained by first attaching a phosphoramidate to the monobutynyl cyanoethyl monophosphate tweezers 53, which was hydrolyzed under mild conditions afterwards. Binding studies with this new derivative 9 and peptide fragments derived from IAPP und PSMα3 showed moderate binging affinity if peptide aggregation and precipitation could be excluded, proving the new derivative as potent as the classic diphosphate tweezers. Based on this success story, the tweezers 9 was modified for biological applications. In cooperation with the Meyer group a lead structure for an inhibitor for the interaction between the p97 protein and its cofactor UBXD1 was designed by molecular modelling, based on the knowledge of the tweezers´ best binding position on the p97 N-domain surface determined in cooperation by the Bayer and Sanchez group. The resulting additional recognition unit was determined to be an α-helical peptide consisting of 15 amino acids with an azide connected to the peptide´s C-terminus. After establishing a successful synthesis strategy, the final peptide could not be obtained in sufficient quantities due to solubility problems. Even though the final inhibitor could not be synthesized, the small peptide already showed a competitive effect on the binding of UBXD1 to p97 at higher concentrations, which was shown in pulldown experiments by the Mayer group, giving a proof of concept. In another biological project in cooperation with the Ottmann group the lead structures for inhibitors of the protein-protein-interaction of 14-3-3 with ExoS and C-raf were determined resulting in the successful synthesis of a tweezer-ExoS hybrid molecule, which is currently crystalized and examined in the Ottmann group.


Children who find themselves on the wrong side of the law must bear the legal consequences to ensure that they obey societal norms. The question is: what theory forms the legal basis for legal action against these troubled young offenders? Will the courts apply the deterrence theory by sentencing them to harsher punishments, or will they apply the rehabilitation theory by passing lighter orders? The objective of this article is to debate one of the theories applied by the Court for Children in their adjudicating process-the rehabilitation theory, and its application. This article will also discuss two legal provisions in the Child Act 2001 Malaysia (Act 611) which are based on the rehabilitation theory. This study finds that the rehabilitation theory is the best and most suitable theory to be applied to child offenders because it focuses on individual rehabilitation by taking into consideration the aspects of education, societal integration and rehabilitating them of their criminal mentality. The two aforementioned provisions, namely, on 'approved school' and 'community services', are orders founded on the rehabilitation theory and can potentially prevent child offenders from involving themselves in criminal activities in the future. The importance of this study is paramount as it shows that Malaysia is clearly behind in assimilating rehabilitative values and theory into Act 611. Ultimately, the placement of specific legislative provisions regarding community service within Act 611 is an initiative that must be expedited.


Project Persevere examined teacher efficacy and burnout within Comprehensive, Integrated, Three-tiered (CI3T) models of prevention, as implemented in two middle schools in a southern state. Participating schools completed a year-long training series to design their CI3T plans and were in their first year of implementation as part of regular school practices. Participating teachers completed the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale 24-item Long Form (TSES; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996) at the end of the school year. Teacher self-ratings were examined to describe how teachers in schools with prevention models were faring. Three sets of variables were examined: (a) teacher efficacy and burnout, (b) treatment integrity and social validity ratings of the CI3T model of prevention, and (c) student behavioral risk. Findings indicated both schools implemented the CI3T model with high integrity and teachers rated their plans with high social validity. Limitations and future directions are provided.


This paper investigated the influence that proportional feedback programmed into haptic interface (HI) can have in the development of motor skills. The haptic interface design, adapted to the task to be performed, plays a key role inside motor learning processes as the kinesthetic and proprioceptive are the information pathway in the perception of incoming stimuli. Subjects learned to draw a shape using two kinds of training methods: visual, visual and haptic. The error position distance was measured and a statistical analysis was done in order to identify user's motion improvement when training trials were alternated with practice trials. In order to constraint the user to draw a predefined path, a control law is presented.


Standard RL algorithms assume fixed environment dynamics and require a significant amount of interaction to adapt to new environments. We introduce Policy-Dynamics Value Functions (PD-VF), a novel approach for rapidly adapting to dynamics different from those previously seen in training. PD-VF explicitly estimates the cumulative reward in a space of policies and environments. An ensemble of conventional RL policies is used to gather experience on training environments, from which embeddings of both policies and environments can be learned. Then, a value function conditioned on both embeddings is trained. At test time, a few actions are sufficient to infer the environment embedding, enabling a policy to be selected by maximizing the learned value function (which requires no additional environment interaction). We show that our method can rapidly adapt to new dynamics on a set of MuJoCo domains. Code available at this https URL.


OBJECTIVES
To determine and explore the potential use of uHear as a screening test for determining hearing disability by evaluating its accuracy in a clinical setting and a soundproof booth when compared to the gold standard conventional audiometry.  .

METHODS
Seventy Sultan Qaboos University students above the age of 17 years who had normal hearing were recruited for the study. They underwent a hearing test using conventional audiometry in a soundproof room, a self-administered uHear evaluation in a side room resembling a clinic setting, and a self-administered uHear test in a soundproof booth. The mean pure tone average (PTA) of thresholds at 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz for all the three test modalities was calculated, compared, and analyzed statistically.  .

RESULTS
There were 36 male and 34 female students in the study. The PTA with conventional audiometry ranged from 1 to 21 dB across left and right ears. The PTA using uHear in the side room for the same participants was 25 dB in the right ear and 28 dB in the left ear (3-54 dB across all ears). The PTA for uHear in the soundproof booth was 18 dB and 17 dB (1-43 dB) in the right and left ears, respectively. Twenty-three percent of participants were reported to have a mild hearing impairment (PTA > 25 dB) using the soundproof uHear test, and this number was 64% for the same test in the side room. For the same group, only 3% of participants were reported to have a moderate hearing impairment (PTA > 40 dB) using the uHear test in a soundproof booth, and 13% in the side room.  .

CONCLUSION
uHear in any setting lacks specificity in the range of normal hearing and is highly unreliable in giving the exact hearing threshold in clinical settings. However, there is a potential for the use of uHear if it is used to rule out moderate hearing loss, even in a clinical setting, as exemplified by our study. This method needs standardization through further research.


When the German High Command encircled Leningrad it was a deliberate policy to eradicate the city's civilian population by starving them to death. As winter set in and food supplies dwindled, starvation and panic set in. A specialist in battle psychology and the vital role of morale in desperate circumstances, Michael Jones tells the human story of Leningrad. Drawing on newly available eyewitness accounts and diaries, he shows Leningrad in its every dimension including taboo truths, long-suppressed by the Soviets, such as looting, criminal gangs and cannibalism. But, for many ordinary citizens, Leningrad marked the triumph of the human spirit. They drew deeply on their inner resources to inspire, comfort and help one another. At the height of the siege an extraordinary live performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony profoundly strengthened the city's will to resist. When German troops heard it in their trenches one remarked: 'We began to understand we would never take Leningrad. Yet, Leningrad's self-defence came at a huge price. When the 900-day siege ended in 1944 almost a million people had died and those who survived would be permanently marked by what they had endured, as this superbly insightful and moving history shows.


This paper identifies the major drawbacks of a very computationally efficient and state-of-the-art-tracker known as the Kernelized Correlation Filter (KCF) tracker. These drawbacks include an assumed fixed scale of the target in every frame, as well as, a heuristic update strategy of the filter taps to incorporate historical tracking information (i.e. simple linear combination of taps from the previous frame). In our approach, we update the scale of the tracker by maximizing over the posterior distribution of a grid of scales. As for the filter update, we prove and show that it is possible to use all previous training examples to update the filter taps very efficiently using fixed-point optimization. We validate the efficacy of our approach on two tracking datasets, VOT2014 and VOT2015.


The perpetual search for solutions to societal conflicts, particularly those tagged intractable, that is, irresolvable, took a dramatic turn when South Africa, one of such age-long conflicts, bowed to mediation after about 48 years of fierce existence. Until now, no rigorously deep insight that is capable of accurately and adequately accounting for the dialectics of history that brought apartheid to such an abrupt end. South Africa became a new model of a democratic society in a transition that did not involve an external third-party and bloodshed. A rigorous study of the South African conflict, using critical discourse analysis and navigating through the political theory of nation-building, reveals that a set of theoretical paradoxes may have underlain the peace process as teased out in this paper.

 Key words: Apartheid, de-escalation, intractable conflict, transition, sustainability, deconstruction, societal peace.


Background Hexokinases (HKs) catalyze the first step in glucose metabolism. Of the three mammalian 100-kDa HK isoforms, HKI and II can bind to mitochondria and protect against cell death. HKIII does not bind mitochondria, and little is known about its regulation or cytoprotective effects. We studied the regulation of HKIII at the transcriptional and protein levels and investigated its role in cellular protection. Methodology/Principal Findings We show that like HKII, HKIII expression is regulated by hypoxia, but other factors that regulate HKII expression have no effect on HKIII levels. This transcriptional regulation is partially dependent on hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) signaling. We also demonstrate regulation at the protein level, as mutations in putative N-terminal substrate binding residues altered C-terminal catalytic activity, suggesting that HKIII activity is governed, in part, by interactions between these two domains. Overexpression of HKIII reduced oxidant-induced cell death, increased ATP levels, decreased the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and preserved mitochondrial membrane potential. HKIII overexpression was also associated with higher levels of transcription factors that regulate mitochondrial biogenesis, and greater total mitochondrial DNA content. Attempts to target HKIII to the mitochondria by replacing its N-terminal 32-amino-acid sequence with the mitochondrial-targeting sequence of HKII led to protein aggregation, suggesting that this region is necessary to maintain proper protein folding and solubility. Conclusions/Significance These results suggest that HKIII is regulated by hypoxia and there are functional interactions between its two halves. Furthermore, HKIII exerts protective effects against oxidative stress, perhaps by increasing ATP levels, reducing oxidant-induced ROS production, preserving mitochondrial membrane potential, and increasing mitochondrial biogenesis.


Medicines have an important role in the treatment and prevention of disease in both humans and animals. But it is because of the very nature of medicines that they may also have unintended effects on animals and microorganisms in the environment. Although the side effects on human and animal health are usually investigated in thorough safety and toxicology studies, the potential environmental impacts of the manufacture and use of medicines are less well understood and have only recently become a topic of research interest. This is further complicated by the fact that some pharmaceuticals can cast effects on bacteria and animals well below the concentrations that are usually used in safety and efficacy tests. In addition, breakdown products and the combination of different biologically active compounds may have unanticipated effects on the environment. Although it may be safe to assume that these substances do not substantially harm humans, we have only recently begun to research whether and how they affect a wide range of organisms in the environment and what this means for environmental health. The aim of this work is to predict the possible adverse effects of some tetracyclines on the human health and the environment. Persistent, bioaccumulative, acute and chronic toxic were predicted for ten tetracyclines by baseline models and a software of PBT Profiler. Possible metabolic activation (observed and predicted) of some tetracyclines was applied by a software of (Q)SAR Application Toolbox. Results show that some of them are persistent, do not bioaccumalate in the food chain and are with moderate to low toxicity. The tetracyclines were metabolically activated in the liver and their protein and DNA binding was estimated. Observed metabolic pathways weren't observed. Predicted metabolites have different mechanisms of protein and DNA binding.


Handout with supplementary information to accompany the poster "Implementation of a New Date/Time Standard in Digital Library Metadata." In includes examples of dates that meet Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) standards, examples of problems encountered when normalizing date displays for users, additional statistics related to already-valid dates in the digital collections at the time that the standards were formally adopted, and links to online materials.


OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA load for the diagnosis and prediction of persistent vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (VAIN).

METHODS
A retrospective review of the medical records of patients with a pathological diagnosis of VAIN was performed. Eligible women (N=48) were followed for cytology and HPV DNA test, and colposcopic biopsies were taken at 3- to 6-month intervals. Thirty-seven patients were followed for more than 6 months; their HPV DNA test results were compared to the cytology results for the prediction of disease prognosis.

RESULTS
The degree of VAIN was more severe in patients with a high initial HPV DNA load (p=0.009). Patients with VAIN 2 and VAIN 3 were older than those with VAIN 1 (p=0.005 and 0.008, respectively). In 26 out of 37 patients (70.3%), the VAIN resolved. The other patients had persistent lesions with no progression to invasive vaginal carcinoma. The last follow-up HPV DNA load was significantly higher in the group with persistent VAIN compared to the group with resolved VAIN (p<0.0001). Negative cytology was observed in 25 out of 26 patients in the VAIN resolved group and in nine out of 11 patients in the VAIN persistent group (p=0.205).

CONCLUSION
These results suggest that the HPV DNA test, especially for viral load, was more effective for the diagnosis and prediction of persistent VAIN than cytology.


In the semantics of programming languages one can view programs as state
transformers, or as predicate transformers. Recently the author has introduced
state-and-effect triangles which capture this situation categorically,
involving an adjunction between state- and predicate-transformers. The current
paper exploits a classical result in category theory, part of Jon Beck's
monadicity theorem, to systematically construct such a state-and-effect
triangle from an adjunction. The power of this construction is illustrated in
many examples, covering many monads occurring in program semantics, including
(probabilistic) power domains.


The Mie formulation for homogeneous spheres is generalized to handle core–shell systems and multiple concentric layers in a manner that exploits an analogy with stratified planar systems, thereby allowing concentric multilayered structures to be treated as photonic bandgap materials. Representative results from a Mie code employing this analogy demonstrate that photonic bands are present for periodic concentric spheres, though not readily apparent in extinction spectra. Rather, the periodicity simply alters the scattering profile, which enhances the ratio of backscattering to forward scattering inside the bandgap, whereas modification of the interference structure is evident in extinction spectra in accordance with the optical theorem.


Plastic electronics has made great commercial and scientific progress over the past decade, predominantly driven by the potential of applications such as organic field effect transistors (OFETs) for flexible backplanes and e-paper, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) for large area lighting and displays and organic solar cells (OPV) for large area energy generation.1,2 Much of this work has been motivated by the fact that organic semiconductors can combine the superb mechanical and processing characteristics of plastics with a variety of printing techniques, enabling large-area, low-cost manufacturing. There has been an intensive worldwide research effort on the development of stable, conjugated organic semiconducting polymers as potential replacements for conventional silicon, the benchmark large area amorphous semiconductor. ID TechEx, the UK-based market research company, "estimates that over the last two decades global investments into plastic electronics technologies exceed US $10 billion, and predict that this will grow to almost US $25 billion by 2020".3 The ecological and commercial motivation to implement the use of plastic electronics is compelling. Recently, such efforts have facilitated the development of thin film transistors for backplane applications such as e-paper. The ability to operate in ambient atmosphere without costly and rigorous encapsulation barriers to avoid water and/or oxygen is an important step towards commercialization. Research for cleaner alternatives of energy generation and advanced energy permitting devices has journeyed down an interesting path. The exploration of conjugated organic materials within the context of energy has led to the development of devices with great potential for utilization and exploitation within the near future, where perhaps the emergence of hybrid materials or the utilization of nano-architectonics will be of paramount importance to aid in the development of state of the art nanotechnology and its utilization within energy related themes. Meanwhile, further reducing of the cost is expected in the next decade as a result of designing next generation of energy devices (e.g. supercapacitors, solar cells, Li-ion batteries, fuel cells). Organic PV active layers (especially polymer based materials) have the latent potential of solution based processing of the active layers, offering the attraction of low-cost, continuous roll-to-roll or printing processing of large area devices upon flexible substrates. These deposition techniques of the active layers may allow devices to meet the $15/m2 target; for comparison paint costs about $1/m2. Furthermore, organic active layers offer infinite design space by virtue of the polymer architectures, providing potential for layers design and tunability to suit specific energy supply criteria.4 The development of more efficient energy-producing devices and cleaner energy generation alternatives continue to advance. The investigation of polymeric materials within the context of solar energy has thus far yielded devices with great potential. Through systematic chemical modification, the performance of OPV cells has advanced impressively over the last three years, with power conversion efficiency (PCE) now routinely surpassing 8%, and attracting industrial interest in commercializing this technology.5 The synthesis of well-defined conjugated molecules/polymers is a considerable synthetic challenge that many excellent research groups have addressed over the last decade or so. A particularly promising class of potential donor/acceptor materials for use in BHJ solar cells and organic electronics are the aromatic donor-acceptor amido pigments diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) and isoindigo and the electron deficient bis-Thiazole (Figure 1). Here, an electron-rich aromatic segment is positioned adjacent to a highly electron-deficient amide link typically known as a push-pull chromophore.6 When incorporated into small molecules or polymers, this structure affords very narrow band-gaps capable of harvesting a large percentage of the solar flux. Both DPP and isoindigo units have recently been used to construct some of the most efficient organic solar cells to date, and the present work capitalizes on these advances, and goes beyond. Figure 1- Chemical structures of DPP, Isoindigo and bis-thiazole. Here we will present our synthetic efforts on developing the novel polymeric materials containing the three structures shown in Figure 1, particular emphasis on a suit of carefully selected sidechains, which has provide access to a wide range of monomers with tuneable solubility (with either short or long, branched or linear alkyl chains). Moreover, the initial synthetic targets will specifically be the introduction of branched ocytyl-decyl chains as well as linear hexadecyl alkyl chains since they have both been used in other high efficiency conjugated polymers-the latter are known to enhance interchain interdigitation and close π-π stacking. References: (1) Kim, Y.; Cook, S.; Tuladhar, S. M.; Choulis, S. A.; Nelson, J.; Durrant, J. R.; Bradley, D. D. C.; Giles, M.; Mcculloch, I.; Ha, C. S.; Ree, M. Nat Mater 2006, 5, 197. (2) Chen, H. Y.; Hou, J. H.; Zhang, S. Q.; Liang, Y. Y.; Yang, G. W.; Yang, Y.; Yu, L. P.; Wu, Y.; Li, G. Nat Photonics 2009, 3, 649. (3) http://ukplaticelectronics.com, C. G.-U. P. E. (4) Krebs, F. C.; Gevorgyan, S. A.; Alstrup, J., J. Mater. Chem. 2009, 19 (30), 5442–5451. (5) Guo, X.; Zhou, N.; Lou, S. J.; Smith, J.; Tice, D. B.; Hennek, J. W.; Ortiz, R. P.; Navarrete, J. T. L.; Li, S.; Strzalka, J.; Chen, L. X.; Chang, R. P. H.; Facchetti, A.; Marks, T. J., Nat. Photon 2013, 7 (10), 825–833. (6) Li, Y.; Sonar, P.; Murphy, L.; Hong, W., Energy Environ. Sci. 2013, 6 (6), 1684–1710. (7) Cates, N. C.; Gysel, R.; Beiley, Z.; Miller, C. E.; Toney, M. F.; Heeney, M.; McCulloch, I.; McGehee, M. D., Nano Lett. 2009, 9 (12), 4153–4157.


Alpha-synuclein is a highly conserved, ubiquitously expressed protein in the
vertebrate brain. It was discovered in 1988 and was purported to play a role in song
learning, implicating a role in synaptic plasticity. Alpha-synuclein came under
increased scrutiny shortly thereafter as the non-amyloid component isolated from
plaques from Alzheimer's disease brains. Following this discovery, alpha-synuclein
was further characterised as the main component in numerous additional inclusion
bodies found in several neurodegenerative disease leading to speculation that alphasynuclein
was involved in disease pathogenesis.
Two decades later little is known about the normal function of alpha-synuclein in
neuronal cells, however numerous studies have determined alpha-synuclein is able to
form fibrils and aggregates, and that these may provide the neurotoxic mechanism by
which alpha-synuclein exerts its effect in disease states. Other studies have
demonstrated the formation of fibrillar aggregates of alpha-synuclein is a
neuroprotective mechanism. The issues of the cellular role and neurotoxicity of
alpha-synuclein remain contentious. This thesis provides evidence indicating a
developmentally regulated role for alpha-synuclein in neurons and oligodendrocytes,
as well as roles in neuroprotection, plasticity and regeneration. This thesis has
demonstrated synuclein isoforms have a distinct pattern of localisation during
neuronal development, indicating alpha-, beta- and gamma-synuclein also have
distinct functionality within neuronal development, and that these functions may
alter as neurons develop.
Alpha-synuclein immunoreactive neuritic abnormalities were shown to be caused by
physical insult to the axon, leading to the accumulation of alpha-synuclein protein in
neuronal processes, and were associated with neurofilament pathology mirroring that
seen in some disease states containing aggregated forms of alpha-synuclein. It was
demonstrated alpha-synuclein is involved in regenerative sprouting following axonal
injury, further implying a role for alpha-synuclein in aspects of growth cone
development and/or maturation as well as neuronal plasticity.
Additionally, synuclein isoforms were shown to have a distinct pattern of localisation
during oligodendroglial development, indicating alpha-, beta- and gamma-synuclein
also have distinct functionality within oligodendrocytes, and these functions may
alter throughout development. In this case exogenous alpha-synuclein was
demonstrated to be taken up by oligodendrocytes, and incorporated into cytoplasmic
inclusions, along with endogenous alpha-synuclein, implying a mechanism by which
alpha-synuclein interacts with oligodendrocytes in disease states leading to the
formation of glial cytoplasmic inclusions. Finally, and importantly this thesis
demonstrated an increase in alpha-synuclein in response to stressful stimuli is
beneficial to neuronal survival as part of a normal neuronal response in a
subpopulation of neurons. This finding is somewhat contentious as many of the
studies into the role and mechanism of alpha-synuclein in disease states support its
neurotoxicity, yet this thesis contradicts this, providing evidence for a
neuroprotective affect of alpha-synuclein.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To present a comprehensive summary of the existing research literature related to prevalence and correlates of depression in adult patients with head and neck cancer to establish a knowledge base for future research.

DATA SOURCES
Quantitative studies in English measuring depression or mood in adults with head and neck cancer published from 1986-2008.

DATA SYNTHESIS
A substantial body of knowledge exists regarding prevalence, correlates, and predictors of depression in patients with head and neck cancer. Prevalence rates of depression are high at diagnosis, during treatment, and in the first six months following treatment, and mild to moderate depression may continue for three to six years after diagnosis. Certain patient demographic characteristics (e.g., marital status, education), symptoms, and specific time points in the illness trajectory (e.g., time of treatment) are correlated with depression. Specific patient variables at diagnosis, such as depression, can predict depression at later time points.

CONCLUSIONS
Additional research should assess symptoms using consistent depression instruments or clinical interviews based on specific criteria in patients with head and neck cancer. Specifically, multisite studies should be conducted to increase sample sizes. Research related to symptom clusters and the effect of clusters on patients is needed. Longitudinal studies that examine depression and patient characteristics, symptoms, type of treatments, and the correlates of depression across the trajectory of illness are important. Replication of existing research using multiple patient and clinical characteristics to explore predictors of depression may reveal profiles for patients most at risk.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
This comprehensive summary of existing research literature related to the prevalence and correlates of depression among adult patients with head and neck cancer provides evidence-based information that can be used by oncology nurses in their practice.


Neuro-musculoskeletal impairments are a substantial burden on our health care system as a consequence of disease, injury or aging. A better understanding of how such impairments influence the skeletal system through muscle force production is needed. Clinical gait analysis lacks in a sufficient estimation of individual muscle forces. To date, joint moments and EMG measurements are used to deduce on the characteristics of muscle forces, however, known limitations restrain a satisfying analysis of muscle force production. Recent developed musculoskeletal models make it possible to estimate individual muscle forces using experimental kinematic and kinetic data as input, however, are not yet implemented into a clinical gait analysis due to a wide range of different methods and models and a lack of standardised protocols which could be easily applied by clinicians in a routine processing.
This PhD thesis assessed the state of the art of mathematical modelling which enables the estimation of muscle force production during walking. This led into devising a standardised protocol which could be used to incorporate muscle force estimation into routine clinical practice. Especially the input of clinical science knowledge led to an improvement of the protocol. Static optimisation and computed muscle control, two mathematical models to estimate muscle forces, have been found to be the most suitable models for clinical purposes. OpenSim, a free available simulation tool, has been chosen as its musculoskeletal models have been already frequently used and tested. Furthermore, OpenSim provides a straight forward pipeline called SimTrack including both mathematical models. Minor and major adjustments were needed to adapt the standard pipeline for the purposes of a clinical gait analysis to be able to create a standardised protocol for gait analyses.
The developed protocol was tested on ten healthy participants walking at five different walking speeds and captured by a standard motion capture system. Muscle forces were estimated and compared to surface EMG measurements regarding activation and shape as well as their dependence on walking speed. The results showed a general agreement between static optimisation, computed muscle control and the EMG excitations. Compared to the literature, these results show a good consistency between the modelling methods and surface EMG. However, some differences were shown between mathematical models and between models and EMG, especially fast walking speeds.
Additionally, high estimated activation peaks and uncertainties within the estimation process point out that more research needs to be undertaken to understand the mechanisms of mathematical models and the influence of different modelling parameters better (e.g. characteristics of muscle-tendon units, uncertainties of dynamic inconsistency). In conclusion, muscle force estimation with mathematical models is not yet robust enough to be able to include the protocol into a clinical gait analysis routine. It is, however, on a good way, especially slow walking speeds showed reasonable good results. Understanding the limitations and influencing factors of these models, however, may make this possible. Further steps may be the inclusion of patients to see the influence of health conditions.