Objective: To determine the occurrence of L. pneumophila among pneumonia patients at Kenyatta National Hospital and any association with possible risk factors. Design: A cross- sectional descriptive study. Setting: The study was conducted from March to June 2007, at the medical ward of Kenyatta National Hospital. Analysis of samples was done at the University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID) serology laboratories. Subjects: All adult patients who were admitted to the medical ward of the hospital with a provisional diagnosis of pneumonia. Results: The study indicated that up to 9.2% (11 out of 120) of the pneumonia patients admitted at the hospital were infected with L.pneumophila . At a confidence limit of 0.05, there was statistical significance in the number of pneumonia patients infected with L. pneumophila and exposure to air conditioners (p= 0.003). Twenty two point five eight per cent of patients who were exposed to air conditioners were positive for L. pneumophila urinary antigen. There was a statistical significance between exposure to air conditioners and location of work area (p= 0.001)). Thirty eight point four six per cent of those who worked indoors were exposed to air conditioners at their places of work. There was also statistical significance in the number of pneumonia patients infected with L. pneumophila and a history of a past or concurrent respiratory illness (p= 0.021). Conclusion: Exposure to air conditioners and a history of past or concurrent respiratory illness were found to predispose one to infection. This should raise the index of suspicion among clinicians as they obtain a patient's medical history. Most of those exposed to air conditioners are exposed at their places of work in urban centres, hence the need for health education and public awareness on routine inspection and maintenance of such facilities. There is need for a larger multi-centre study on the prevalence of infection by L. pneumophila in pneumonia patients (both community acquired and nosocomial), existence of co- infection and the antibiotic susceptibility of isolated organisms.


The challenging problem in the design of digital receivers of today's and future high-speed, high data-rate wireless communication systems is to implement the optimal decoding and channel estimation processes jointly in a computationally feasible way. Without realising such a critical function perfectly at receiver, the whole system will not work properly within the desired performance limits. Unfortunately, direct implementation of such optimal algorithms is not possible mainly due to their mathematically intractable and computationally prohibitive nature. A novel algorithm that reaches the performance of the optimal maximum a posteriori (MAP) algorithm with a feasible computational complexity is proposed. The algorithm makes use of a powerful statistical signal processing tool called the expectation-maximisation (EM) technique. It iteratively executes the MAP joint channel estimation and decoding for space-time block-coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems with turbo channel coding in the presence of unknown wireless dispersive channels. The main novelty of the work comes from the facts that the proposed algorithm estimates the channel in a non-data-aided fashion and therefore except a small number of pilot symbols required for initialisation, no training sequence is necessary. Also the approach employs a convenient representation of the discrete multipath fading channel based on the Karhunen-Loeve (KL) orthogonal expansion and finds MAP estimates of the uncorrelated KL series expansion coefficients. Based on such an expansion, no matrix inversion is required in the proposed MAP estimator. Moreover, optimal rank reduction is achieved by exploiting the optimal truncation property of the KL expansion resulting in a smaller computational load on the iterative estimation approach.


This paper presents a comparative geochemical study of Early Cretaceous mafic dike swarms along the rifted volcanic margin of southern Africa from northwestern Namibia to the Cape Peninsula. These dikes are under study to provide a record of magma compositions and conditions of mantle melting at margin segments with high and low magma flux. Our focus is on localities representing the two ends of the spectrum: the Henties Bay-Outjo dike swarm (HOD) in the high magma-flux Etendeka Province of Namibia, and the False Bay dike swarm from the low-flux margin segment in the Western Cape Province, RSA. At False Bay and other localities examined in the south, dikes are low-Ti, tholeiitic dolerites representing a single magma type. Whole-rock MgO contents and olivine compositions in these dikes reach a maximum of 8 weight % and Fo 70 , respectively. Differentiated dikes (MgO = 6 to 2 weight %) show correlations of trace element and isotopic ratios indicating crustal assimilation, but the least-evolved dikes have uniform incompatible trace element ratios and initial Sr-Nd-Pb isotope compositions ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr= 0.7056 to 0.7064, eNd = −1.9 to −2.3 and 206 Pb/ 204 Pb = 18.53 to 18.59) suggesting a lithospheric mantle source or a mixture of enriched lithosphere and asthenospheric sources. The dolerites from the HOD swarm in Namibia are mainly low-Ti tholeiites like their counterparts in the south but with much higher Mg-contents (up to 16 weight % MgO in whole rock and Fo 86–90 in olivine). The compositional diversity is also greater in the HOD dikes and at least three magma types are recognized: (1) qz- or ol-normative Tafelberg type, with "spiky" mantle-normalized trace element patterns and initial isotope ratios consistent with a lithospheric mantle source and minor crustal input ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr= 0.7101 to 0.7122, eNd = −2 to −7, and 206 Pb/ 204 Pb = 18.74 to 19.10); (2) ol-normative Horingbaai-type with trace element patterns and initial isotope ratios similar to E-MORB ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr= 0.7037 to 0.7050, eNd = +2 to +6, and 206 Pb/ 204 Pb = 18.00 to 18.83); and (3) ne-normative magmas, with moderate to high incompatible trace element abundances and intermediate initial isotope ratios ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr= 0.7055 to 0.7059, eNd = 0 to −2, and 206 Pb/ 204 Pb = 18.30 to 18.61). The contrast in magmatic intensity between the low- and high-flux margin segments corresponds with systematic compositional differences in contemporary dike swarms. This is supported by geophysical evidence for a change in both the thickness and the average seismic velocity of intruded lower crust at the continent-ocean boundary in the two regions. The greater diversity of magma types and the sharp rise in MgO contents of dikes in northwestern Namibia (maximum 8 weight % MgO for False Bay versus 16 weight % MgO for HOD) suggest that elevated temperatures and active upwelling of a mantle plume caused the enhanced melt production in the north. Dolerite compositions from the False Bay swarm and other localities south of the Orange River are consistent with a passive upwelling model without plume enhancement.


This paper describes a new qualitative-quantitative simulator to help buyers learn how to make decisions when they purchase goods. In this paper, we propose an e-learning support system (LSDM) for assisting user decision making by applying artificial intelligence technology. When buyers purchase expensive items, they must carefully select these items from many alternatives. The learning support system provides useful information that assists consumers in purchasing goods. We employ qualitative simulations because the output simulation results are useful. Our system consists of a qualitative processing system and a quantitative calculation system. When users use the system, they first input information on the goods they want to purchase. The information input by users is used in the qualitative simulation. Next, they supply the details of their budgets, the rate of loans, and several other factors, on a form. The system then integrates the results of simulation and the user's input data and proposes plans to aid in their decision process. The system has several advantages: it can be used by simple input, the process of simulation is easy to understand, users can learn how to make decisions by trial and error, and the users can base their decision making on synthetic results.


Scalability analysis of the Internet has resulted in two main concerns: rapid growth of the forwarding table and BGP's poor convergence properties when distributing hundreds of thousands of routes. HIDRA [5], a backward-compatible architecture designed with feasibility-of-implementation in mind, has been proposed as one solution to reduce the size of the default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table. This work extends HIDRA, greatly reducing the number of routes maintained by BGP, yet preserves a practical, incremental deployment strategy. The proposed protocol also provides end networks direct, finer-grained control over the distribution of packets flowing into their network and provides for efficient mobility support. The new mapping protocol is prototyped on a small network testbed and shown to work in all tested circumstances, including normal network operation, link failures, and transitional routing environments. Additionally, IP Mobility is discussed and shown to work in this environment without triangle routing and only minimal additional overhead.


Background. Obesity in adolescence is common, and eating habits are a key determinant. Eating habits in adolescence often differ substantially from those in any other phase of life. Objective. To assess the weight status and eating habits of adolescent urban secondary school girls in Benin City, Nigeria. Methods. In this school-based cross-sectional study, data were obtained on the subjects' eating habits via a structured anonymous self-administered questionnaire, while their weights and heights were obtained by direct measurements. The body mass index (BMI), calculated as weight/height (kg/m 2 ), was used in assessing the weight status of the participants. The study sample was 2 097 adolescent urban public school girls, aged 12 - 19 years. Information was obtained on frequencies of skipping meals, reasons for skipping meals and food choices, as well as the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. All the students at the two study schools were invited to participate. Results. The mean age of the participants (± standard deviation) was 14.8±1.9 years (95% confidence interval (CI) 14.7 - 14.9). Slightly over half (52.6%) were from families of middle socio-economic status, and 84.7% of them lived with their parents. Of the 2 097 participants, 1 009 (48.1%) admitted to skipping at least one meal a fortnight. Of the three main meals, breakfast was the most frequently skipped (46.3%) and dinner the least frequently skipped (21.5%). With regard to age, the frequency of skipping meals was 30.1%, 50.4% and 58.5% among participants aged <14 years, 14 - 16 years and ≥17 years, respectively ( p <0.001). The two leading reasons cited by participants for skipping breakfast were lack of appetite and time. Only 15.2% of the participants reported daily consumption of fruits and vegetables. Over half of the participants (60.2%) ate fast food at least once a week, with more than three-quarters of them (76.4%) consuming fast food along with soft drinks. The prevalences of both overweight (24.5% v. 13.2%) and obesity (2.5% v. 1.1%) were higher among girls who skipped meals compared with their peers who did not skip meals (odds ratio 0.4, 95% CI 0.32 - 0.50). Conclusion. Meal skipping was associated with an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescent schoolgirls.


Uncertainty has been widely recognized as a primary barrier in online C2C transaction processes. This research explores the effectiveness of strategies typically employed to reduce uncertainty in C2C electronic commerce based upon the uncertainty reduction theory and Kelley's attribution theory. We inspect the effects of the information from four information seeking strategies on online consumers' perception of uncertainty when initially transacting with an unknown seller in an online marketplace in China; we also integrate the two most prominent contextual factors, information consistency and seller reputation, to explore their direct effects, as well as their interactive effects with information from the four strategies on uncertainty. An online survey is used to collect data from the three most prestigious online store marketplaces in China. The results specify the exact effects of these factors on uncertainty in different contextual conditions. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.


This study examined how computer technology had an effect on a Year 9 visual arts education class with regard to the Western Australian four Arts Learning Outcomes (WA 4ALO). The research was administered concurrently with a learning approach called Cross-Linked Learning ( CLL) (Zervos, 1997), which consisted of three components: (1) the subject (e.g., visual arts education in relation to the WA 4ALO); (2) the learner (i.e., a target group and how they learn); and (3) the tool (e.g., computer technology). This study addressed the problem of how to promote learning in visual arts education, especially with visual arts theory. Historically, students have preferred to make art than to study art theory subjects such as art history and art criticism/response. Furthermore, many students may have found traditional ways of learning theory to be less engaging and stimulating than making art. For this study, a sample consisted of 19 female students from an independent secondary school in Perth for one school term. The students were divided into three groups for the three data collections methods: (1) the whole class completed preand post-questionnaires; (2) five pairs of students participated in preand post-interviews; and, (3) nine students' art portfolios representative of different levels of achievement, that were analysed at the end of the school term. The methodology was action research. Data was collected and interpreted to answer the primary research question through four sub-questions as follows: (1.0) What was the effect of CLL on students; (1.1) What were students' attitudes towards CLL; (1.2) What skills did students require for CLL; (1.3) What knowledge did students exercise with CLL; and (1.4) What were students' preferences for learning with CLL? The results showed that the three components of CLL had a predominately positive effect upon most students' in terms of their attitudes, skills, knowledge, and preferences. Furthermore, the students showed a first preference for learning visual arts theory in a CLL framework reflecting a social constructivist and student-centered way of learning that included using computers 75% of the time for visual arts theory instruction. This thesis demonstrates that CLL is an effective framework for the Year 9 visual arts students who participated in this study.


Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II combined immunodeficiency (CID), also known as type II bare lymphocyte syndrome, is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized by the complete lack of expression of MHC class II antigens. The defect results from a coordinated lack of transcription of all class II genes. Cell fusion studies using many patient- and experimentally derived class II-negative cell lines have identified four distinct genetic complementation groups. In this report, we present genetic evidence that cell lines derived from two newly described MHC class II-deficient patients, KER and KEN, represent a fifth complementation group. In addition, the KER and KEN cell lines display a unique pattern of dyscoordinate regulation of their MHC class II genes, which is reflected in a new phenotype of in vivo promoter occupancy as revealed by in vivo genomic footprinting. These data point to a new defect that can result in the MHC class II-deficient phenotype.


In many fine-grained object recognition datasets, image orientation (left/right) might vary from sample to sample. Since handcrafted descriptors such as SIFT are not reversal invariant, the stability of image representation based on them is consequently limited. A popular solution is to augment the datasets by adding a left-right reversed copy for each original image. This strategy improves recognition accuracy to some extent, but also brings the price of almost doubled time and memory consumptions. In this paper, we present RIDE (Reversal Invariant Descriptor Enhancement) for fine-grained object recognition. RIDE is a generalized algorithm which cancels out the impact of image reversal by estimating the orientation of local descriptors, and guarantees to produce the identical representation for an image and its left-right reversed copy. Experimental results reveal the consistent accuracy gain of RIDE with various types of descriptors. We also provide insightful discussions on the working mechanism of RIDE and its generalization to other applications.


This study examines cross-national variation in the labour force participation of married women in Australi a, Canada and the United States of America (USA), three countries ofsimilar socio-economic development, in orderto assess the observed differences in their labour market behaviour. 'While cross-national variation in labour force participation may be explained by a number of factors, a decomposition of the variation in cross-national labour market participation rates is explored in this study. Initially, a basic model of female labour force participation is presented using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), The results of the basic model show that the probability of married women participating in the labour market in all three countries is inversely associated with the number of children under the age of 18 years, while higher education and age at younger ages are associated with a higher probability. Two applications of the estimates are presented in the study: a simulation and a decomposition of the variation in cross-national labour force participation. The simulation exercise indicates that variation in cross-national labour force participation rates for married women can be explained by both country-specific characteristics and the measured differences in the responses to those characteristics. The decomposition of the differential in labour force participation into the effect of country-specific characteristics and the effect of responses shows that if the responses of married women in Canada are imposed on the characteristics of Australian women, then participation is higher, On the otherhand, ifthe characteristics for either Canada or the USA are applied to the behavioural responses in Australia, then the labour market participation of married women is also higher. This confirms that differences in country-specific characteristics and responses both contribute to explaining cross-national variation.


The analysis of incommensurate structures is computationally more difficult than that of normal ones. This is mainly a result of the structure-factor expression, which involves numerical integrations or infinite series of Bessel functions. Both approaches have been implemented in existing computer programs. Compact analytical expressions are known for special cases only. Recently, a new theory of generalized Bessel functions has been developed. The number of theoretical results and applications is increasing rapidly. Numerical properties and algorithms are being studied. A possible application of the generalized Bessel functions for incommensurate structure analysis is proposed. These functions can be used to derive analytical expressions for structure factors and all partial derivatives for a wide class of incommensurate crystals. The existing programs can be improved by taking into account some interesting numerical and analytical properties of these new functions, like recurrence relations, analytical expressions for derivatives, generating functions and integral representations. A new class of special functions, suitable for dealing with incommensurate structures in a more analv:ical way, is emerging.


Autophagy, which literally translates into "eating one's own self," is an evolutionarily conserved cellular recycling program that maintains "in-house" quality control by turning over cytoplasmic components within lysosomes (1). Although the discovery of lysosomes dates back to the 1950s through the electron microscopic work of Christian De Duve, recent years have seen a growing interest in autophagy research, and reports now link compromised autophagy to a wide array of common human pathologies, for instance, neurodegenerative disorders, metabolic alterations, microbial pathogenesis, and cancers, to mention just a few (2). These studies support the idea that the "housekeeping" role of autophagy, in fact, translates to key physiological functions. For instance, recycling of oxidized proteins and aged organelles through autophagic degradation protects against cellular toxicity and death (3). Recent findings now highlight roles for autophagy in mobilization of diverse cellular energy stores (4) and in adipocyte differentiation (5,6), thus presenting autophagy as an emerging player in the metabolic arena. As novel functions for autophagy continue to unfold, it becomes critical to be able to precisely monitor autophagy in diverse physiological systems. This article comments on the fundamental developments on roles for autophagy in metabolic regulation and discusses currently available methods to monitor autophagy.

Mammalian cells exhibit three distinct forms of autophagy to deliver cytosolic cargo to the lysosomes, namely, macroautophagy, chaperone-mediated autophagy, and microautophagy (1). Traditionally, autophagy was considered a one-lane system for protein turnover and a mechanism for replenishing the intracellular amino acid pool during starvation. However, it is now becoming increasingly clear that autophagy, in particular macroautophagy, exhibits significant versatility in its ability to degrade mitochondria (mitophagy), endoplasmic reticulum (reticulophagy), ribosomes (ribophagy), and peroxisomes (pexophagy) (1). The second form of autophagy, chaperone-mediated autophagy, displays functional selectivity for the lysosomal targeting of specific soluble cytosolic proteins with the KFERQ signature …


Automatic intracranial hemorrhage segmentation in 3D non-contrast head CT (NCCT) scans is significant in clinical practice. Existing hemorrhage segmentation methods usually ignores the anisotropic nature of the NCCT, and are evaluated on different in-house datasets with distinct metrics, making it highly challenging to improve segmentation performance and perform objective comparisons among different methods. The INSTANCE 2022 was a grand challenge held in conjunction with the 2022 International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI). It is intended to resolve the above-mentioned problems and promote the development of both intracranial hemorrhage segmentation and anisotropic data processing. The INSTANCE released a training set of 100 cases with ground-truth and a validation set with 30 cases without ground-truth labels that were available to the participants. A held-out testing set with 70 cases is utilized for the final evaluation and ranking. The methods from different participants are ranked based on four metrics, including Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), Hausdorff Distance (HD), Relative Volume Difference (RVD) and Normalized Surface Dice (NSD). A total of 13 teams submitted distinct solutions to resolve the challenges, making several baseline models, pre-processing strategies and anisotropic data processing techniques available to future researchers. The winner method achieved an average DSC of 0.6925, demonstrating a significant growth over our proposed baseline method. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed INSTANCE challenge releases the first intracranial hemorrhage segmentation benchmark, and is also the first challenge that intended to resolve the anisotropic problem in 3D medical image segmentation, which provides new alternatives in these research fields.


The problem of efficiently representing and approximating digital data is an open challenge and it is of paramount importance for many applications. This dissertation focuses on the approximation of natural signals as an organized combination of mutually connected elements, preserving and at the same time benefiting from their inherent structure. This is done by decomposing a signal onto a multi-component, redundant collection of functions (dictionary), built by the union of several subdictionaries, each of which is designed to capture a specific behavior of the signal. In this way, instead of representing signals as a superposition of sinusoids or wavelets many alternatives are available. In addition, since dictionaries we are interested in are overcomplete, the decomposition is non-unique. This gives us the possibility of adaptation, choosing among many possible representations the one which best fits our purposes. On the other hand, it also requires more complex approximation techniques whose theoretical decomposition capacity and computational load have to be carefully studied. In general, we aim at representing a signal with few and meaningful components. If we are able to represent a piece of information by using only few elements, it means that such elements can capture its main characteristics, allowing to compact the energy carried by a signal into the smallest number of terms. In such a framework, this work also proposes analysis methods which deal with the goal of considering the a priori information available when decomposing a structured signal. Indeed, a natural signal is not only an array of numbers, but an expression of a physical event about which we usually have a deep knowledge. Therefore, we claim that it is worth exploiting its structure, since it can be advantageous not only in helping the analysis process, but also in making the representation of such information more accessible and meaningful. The study of an adaptive image representation inspired and gave birth to this work. We often refer to images and visual information throughout the course of the dissertation. However, the proposed approximation setting extends to many different kinds of structured data and examples are given involving videos and electrocardiogram signals. An important part of this work is constituted by practical applications: first of all we provide very interesting results for image and video compression. Then, we also face the problem of signal denoising and, finally, promising achievements in the field of source separation are presented.


Several scholars have recently suggested that under one plausible measure of harm — the happiness of the victim — severe disabilities cause little or no long-term harm. This is because victims adapt and recover much, if not all, of their pre-injury happiness. Yet most people have a powerful and enduring intuition that severe injuries, like paraplegia, cause substantial harm. Legal scholars have tried to salvage this intuitive notion of harm, and they have turned to a single philosophical tradition to do so: the capabilities approach. Unfortunately, this approach is likely to introduce contested questions of value and can provide only an incomplete account of harm. This Article offers an alternative defense that has substantial descriptive support in psychological studies and disability research. The core of the argument is simple: the process of adapting to severe injuries increases happiness, but does so at a cost. That cost is self-alteration. Adaptation often requires substantial adjustments to the victim's goals and ideals. These goals and ideals are a central aspect of self-identity; in an important way, they constitute who we are. What happiness research misses, then, is that the source of one's happiness matters. And it matters because some sources of happiness shape our self-identity in such a way that changing them changes us.


We report the first bis-cyclometalated cationic iridium(III) complex with N-aryl-substituted 1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline. The complex emits yellow-orange phosphorescence with a maximum at 583 nm, a quantum yield of 43%, and an excited-state lifetime of 910 ns in argon-saturated dichloromethane. Optimized orange light-emitting electrochemical cells with the new Ir(III) complex exhibit fast turn-on, a peak luminance of 684 cd m−2 and a peak efficacy of 6.5 cd A−1; in 850 h of continuous operation their luminance and efficacy decrease only by 20%.


Most studies focusing on plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) have considered direct interactions between plants, abiotic conditions (e. g., soil nutrients) and rhizosphere communities (e.g., pathogens, mutualists). However, few studies have addressed the role of indirect interactions mediated by plant litter inputs. This is problematic because it has left a major gap in our understanding of PSFs in natural ecosystems, where plant litter is a key component of feedback effects. Here, we propose a new conceptual framework that integrates rhizosphere- and litter-mediated PSF effects. Our framework provides insights into the relative contribution of direct effects mediated by interactions between plants and soil rhizosphere organisms, and indirect effects between plants and decomposer organisms mediated by plant root and shoot litter. We distinguish between three pathways through which senesced root and shoot litter may influence PSFs. Specifically, we examine: (1) physical effects of litter (layer) traits on seed germination, soil structure, and plant growth; (2) chemical effects of litter on concentrations of soil nutrients and secondary metabolites (e.g., allelopathic chemicals); and (3) biotic effects of saprotrophic soil communities that can perform different functional roles in the soil food web, or that may have specialized interactions with litter types, thereby altering soil nutrient cycling. We assess the role of litter in PSF effects via physical, chemical and biotic pathways to address how litter-mediated feedbacks may play out relative to, and in interaction with, feedbacks mediated through the plant rhizosphere. We also present one of the first experimental studies to show the occurrence and species-specificity of litter-mediated feedbacks and we identify critical research gaps. By formally incorporating the plant-litter feedback pathway into PSF experiments, we will further our understanding of PSFs under natural conditions.


Why do regional organizations share a number of key institutions and policies? Why do regional organizations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or the Carribean Community (CARICOM) look like the European Union? And why do we find the norms of the Helsinki Final Act in treaties of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? The simple answer is that policy solutions developed in the context of regional integration diffuse. The paper contends that regional integration efforts in Europe have had a decisive but often unacknowledged influence on regional cooperation outside of Europe. The influence of European integration on regional organizations beyond Europe will be illustrated with a case that is unsuspicious of having emulated the European integration experience: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Since 1957, Southeast Asian states have selectively taken over policies and institutions from the European context. The most recent adoption, it will be argued, is the ASEAN Charter, in effect since November 2008. In accounting for this adoption, the paper argues that ASEAN members' decision is only partially driven by genuine regional or functional demands. Members borrowed from abroad expecting the Charter to provide a policy solution to the cooperation problems members faced. Thus, the paper makes an original general contribution to the existing literature on regional integration: It argues that a full account of regional integration processes needs to take diffusion processes into consideration.


Rhizoma peanut (Arachis glabrata Benth.) is a warm-season perennial forage legume adapted to the southern USA. The objectives of this study were to evaluate harvest technique and timing on dry matter (DM) yield, crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF), and acid detergent lignin (ADL) concentrations of rhizoma peanut. Two experiments (one without irrigation and one with irrigation) each with four replications were conducted during the 2004-2006 growing seasons (April-October) in north-central Texas on a Windthorst fine sandy loam. Treatments consisted of manually clipping all plant material three times throughout the growing season at 5-cm height with a July rest (5-JR) or a September rest (5-SR), four times throughout the season (June, July, September, October) at 10-cm height, or manual harvesting (hand-plucking) all leaves and growing tips to ground level four times throughout the season. Annual rhizoma peanut DM yield for the irrigated experiment (4710 to 10870 kg DM ha -1 ) was greater than the nonirrigated experiment (2750 to 9300 kg ha -1 ). In both experiments, the 5-JR treatment reduced rhizoma peanut DM yield in the third year by 29 to 37% compared with the hand-plucked and the 5-SR treatments. Harvest timing or technique did affect nutritive value although these differences were small, ranging from 186 to 204 g CP kg -1 , 280 to 313 g ADF kg -1 , and 57 to 65 g ADL kg -1 . These data indicate that rhizoma peanut had high nutritive value regardless of treatment and maintained greater DM yield if harvested by hand-plucking or at a 5-cm height with a September rest.


Abstract: Governing for nearly a decade, President Rafael Correa took Ecuador down a path of gradual regime change that stripped away horizontal and vertical accountability. The 2009 constitution served as point a departure for an unprecedented centralization of power in the executive branch. In a pattern similar to Venezuela under Chávez, Correa crafted organic laws and executive decrees that eroded civil liberties and extended state regulation over civil society. The project to extend Correa's rule through indefinite reelection ran aground in 2015 as the government grappled with a collapse in public finances when revenues from petroleum exports rapidly declined. Uncertainty about the future of the regime reigns as Ecuadorans prepare for the 2017 national elections.


In this article, the author provides an extended analysis of the constitutional claims against legislative history, arguing that, under textualists' own preference for constitutional text, the use of legislative history should be constitutional to the extent it is supported by Congress's rulemaking power, a constitutionally enumerated power.This article has five parts. In part I, the author explains the importance of this question, considering the vast range of cases to which this claim of unconstitutionality could possibly apply — after all, statutory interpretation cases are the vast bulk of the work of the federal courts. She also explains why these claims should be of greater concern to a variety of constitutional theorists, particularly those who embrace theories of popular and common law constitutionalism, but as well to originalists.In part II, the author considers the textualist arguments against the constitutionality of legislative history. Article I, Section 7 provides that any bill must pass the House and the Senate and be presented to the President for veto or signature. As a number of textualists have argued, legislative history is not passed by both houses or signed by the President. Call this the "bicameralism argument." Her answer to the bicameralism argument lies in a constitutional text that statutory textualists seem to have forgotten: Article I, Section 5 gives explicit power to Congress to set its own procedures, a power that gives legitimacy to legislative history created pursuant to those procedures. In fact, new developments in statutory interpretation theory (decision process theory) suggest that, in some cases, the only way to resolve textual conflict is to consider legislative procedure.In part III, the author considers a second prominent argument against the constitutionality of legislative history: non-delegation. Critics argue that Congress may not delegate the "legislative power" granted under the Constitution to members or committees, as only the entire Congress may constitutionally exercise that power. Call this the "non-delegation" argument. Again, her response is based on constitutional text: Article I, Section 5 specifically sanctions delegation to less than the whole of Congress; more importantly, there is no general norm against self-delegation stated explicitly or even implicitly in the Constitution. Finally, the author suggests that there is a certain inconsistency in the assertion of these claims: the non-self-delegation and bicameralism arguments can both be used to indict canons of construction, which textualists offer as the leading alternative to legislative history, but which have no supporting text comparable to Article I section 5 in the Constitution.In part IV, she considers arguments that judges' use of legislative history violates the separation of powers because it allows the legislature to exceed the bounds of the "judicial power." This argument can rather easily be turned on its head: in the quotations offered at the beginning of this article, members of Congress argue that judges are exercising the "legislative power" when they rewrite statutes without considering legislative history. As has been argued at length elsewhere, the use of "adjectival" argument in structural controversies — relying upon the terms "legislative, executive, and judicial" — perpetuates a weak understanding of the separation of powers, and one that the Constitution's own text belies. The separation of powers does not prevent recourse to legislative history; in fact, as the article explains, blindness to legislative history may create different kinds of structural risks — risks to federalism, rather than risks to the separation of powers.Finally, in part V, the author concludes by suggesting that we should retire the strong form of the legislative history unconstitutionality argument, by which she means the claim that the constitution bars any and all legislative history. Instead, we should far more actively interrogate serious questions about the use of legislative history in particular cases. Can it really be wise — or even constitutional — for a judge to impose a meaning on an ambiguous statute with reference to the statements of a filibustering minority, or privilege some texts in ways that violate Congress's rules? Fidelity to Congress, and the importance of Congress's constitutional rules — what Francis Lieber once called the "common law" of the Congress — has yet to be theorized within this more pressing, but particular, sphere.


An emulsion (SR-EM) was prepared from vitamin E and aqueous sericin solution obtained from cocoons of Bombyx mori. Properties such as emulsifying degree, heat stability and radical scavenging activity of SR-EM were compared with those of CS-EM and AL-EM, vitamin E emulsions prepared from casein and bovine serum albumin, respectively. The degree of emulsifying for SR-EM was three times higher than that for CS-EM. CS-EM and AL-EM were a heat-stable emulsion, whereas SR-EM was a heat-labile emulsion because absorbance spectra changed exclusively in SR-EM after treated from 115 to 127deg. These results indicated that the oil-water interface of SR-EM was unstable under the high pressure-high temperature treatments compared to those of CS-EM and AL-EM. Each emulsion showed lower radical scavenging activity than a vitamin E solution,suggesting that the interaction of vitamin E and a radical molecule may be interfered by a protective protein colloid. SR-EM and CS-EM were more stable in 60% ethanol solution at ambient temperature than AL-EM because the radical scavenging activity of SR-EM and CS-EM was some 50% lower than that of AL-EM.


Marine algae are of high importance in their natural habitats and even more now in the world of green technology. The sprouting interest of the scientific community and industries in these organisms is driven by the fast-growing world of modern biotech‐ nology. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and their integration collectively termed here as 'marine algal-omics' have broadened the research horizon in view of enhancing human's life by addressing environmental problems and encouraging novelty in the field of pharmaceuticals among so many more. Their use in the human society dates back to 500 B. C. in China and later across the globe; they are still being used for similar purposes and more today. There is a hiking interest in marine algae and their derivatives—from phycoremediation, food supplements, pharmaceut‐ icals to dyes. Marine algae are currently considered as an emerging panacea for the society. They are being studied in a multitude of arenas. The multi-use of marine algae is enticing and promises to be a boon for industrial applications. Yet, most marine algae face challenges that might variably constrain their commercialisation. This chapter gives an overview of marine algae including all the 'omics' technologies involved in studying marine algae and it explores their multitude applications. It also draws the various successful industries budded around them and presents some of the challenges and opportunities along with future directions.


Applying machine learning methods in scenarios involving smart homes is a complex task. The many possible variations of sensors, feature representations, machine learning algorithms, middle-ware architectures, reasoning/decision schemes, and interactive strategies make research and development tasks non-trivial to solve. In this paper, the use of a portable, flexible and holistic smart home demonstrator is proposed to facilitate iterative development and the acquisition of feedback when testing in regard to the above-mentioned issues. Specifically, the focus in this paper is on scenarios involving anomaly detection and response. First a model for anomaly detection is trained with simulated data representing a priori knowledge pertaining to a person living in an apartment. Then a reasoning mechanism uses the trained model to infer and plan a reaction to deviating activities. Reactions are carried out by a mobile interactive robot to investigate if a detected anomaly constitutes a true emergency. The implemented demonstrator was able to detect and respond properly in 18 of 20 trials featuring normal and deviating activity patterns, suggesting the feasibility of the proposed approach for such scenarios.


Neurosurgical interventions date back to ancient civilization, 5100 BC through a practice known as trephination. Due to past abuse and ethical considerations, neurosurgical interventions in psychiatry remain a controversial issue. This article aims to review the different surgical techniques and their current application in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave its approval for vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) for the management of treatment-resistant depression in 2005 and deep brain stimulation (DBS) for refractory obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) in 2009. These invasive but non destructive techniques represent the future of neurosurgery for mental disorder.


The Einstein crystal method was used to determine free energy differences between some crystalline structures of hard, homonuclear tetramers. The tetramers, each built of four identical hard spheres centered on vertices of a regular tetrahedron of sides equal to the sphere diameter, were arranged in such a way that the spheres formed the fcc lattice at close packing. Various sample sizes were studied and the results were extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit. It was found that the simplest structure of the tetramers, a simple cubic lattice of molecular mass centres with all the molecules having the same orientation, shows the highest free energy amongst the studied ones. The most stable structure of the studied ones was also found.


Floorplanning is the process of partitioning an area on any surface such 1 tllat the partitions guarantee minimum wasted area. The technique used to partition a ~ven are depends on the requirements of the application. In an integrated circuit design the floorplan is done on one piece of silicon and the partitions depend on other information such as the electrical wiring which must be minimized. This requires a study of the functions (area and wiring) and the relations between all functions. The technique to solve the problem is not trivial since area and wiring functions are both considered. Another example where good floorplanning is required is any material cutting process. Glass sheets come in different sizes and the requirements for any application not necessarily require the same size. So it is important to cut the required sheets from the available ones. This process will require an expert to deal with the cutting however it is not necessary to guarantee the minimization in wastages. This paper investigates a technique to minimize wastage areas and to give the best solution for multi-project with multi-sheets of different sizes. The algorithm is based on the breadth first which expand a tree based on the number of nods given. Two examples are given to demonstrate the results of the algorithm.


Three types of quasi-stadium laser diodes, which have confocal, concentric, and geometrically unstable end mirrors, were fabricated by a reactive-ion-etching technique. It is shown that the experimental results on the lasing characteristics of these lasers excellently correspond to the theoretical results by the extended Fox–Li mode calculation method. The morphological effects on lasing modes are discussed from the viewpoint of ray-wave correspondence.


Most of the time, the mathematical formula is directly used in the Scilab source code. But, in many algorithms, some additional work is performed, which takes into account the fact that the computer does not process mathematical real values, but performs computations with their floating point representation. The goal of this article is to show that, in many situations, Scilab is not naive and use algorithms which have been specifically tailored for floating point computers. We analyze in this article the particular case of the quadratic equation, the complex division and the numerical derivatives. In each example, we show that the naive algorithm is not sufficiently accurate, while Scilab implementation is much more robust.


Guibert of Nogent, in a famous phrase, described the First Crusade as a new path of salvation which allowed laymen to earn redemption without changing their status and becoming monks.1 This theme was taken up by later apologists and recruiters of further military expeditions to the Holy Land, notably St Bernard in his praise of the Templars in the late 1120s and his preaching of the Second Crusade in the 1140s, where the new opportunity was restyled as a unique bargain which God was offering his faithful. This identification of a fresh means of Grace, a new form of Holy War, has been generally accepted by modern historians. Carl Erdmann, after his painstaking excavation of the roots of crusading, insisted on the novelty of the First Crusade. The events of should be 1095–99 have been commonly regarded as marking an epoch in the Church's acceptance of secular militarism; in the development of theories of Holy War; and in opportunities for the legitimate expression of lay military and chivalric ambitions. Yet the evidence from the eighty years after the capture of Jerusalem hardly supports such categorical assumptions.


The aims of this report are to sketch the theoretical basis of a series of safety action projects in three diverse North Queensland cities (Cairns, Townsville and Mackay), and to report some results. These projects, which aimed to improve the safety of licensed environments in the central city entertainment areas, are replications of the safety action model developed in Surfers Paradise. Key features of the approach include creating a steering committee and community forum; forming task groups to address safety of public spaces, management of venues, and security and policing; encouraging venue managers to introduce a Code of Practice; and regulating managers through informal community processes as well as formal enforcement. The model is based on: prior experience with community interventions; the theory of situational crime prevention; and regulatory theory. The results are based on police data and on unobtrusive direct observations by patron-observers of aggression, drinking, and serving practices in licensed venues in the three cities in September 1994 and October 1996. The interventions took place in each city during 1995 and early 1996. From the observational data, there was a decline of 56.5% in all aggressive and violent incidents, and a decline of at least 75% in physical assaults, although conclusions concerning direct causality cannot be drawn. These declines, which did not differ significantly between cities, coincided with reductions in the levels of perceived "permissiveness" in venues, increases in sociability, cheerfulness and friendliness, and a range of significant improvements in host responsibility practices and a marked decline in levels of male drunkenness. Patronage (and crowding) increased and prices stayed the same, suggesting no decline in levels of profitability. Police data for Cairns and Townsville, but not Mackay, showed reductions in many types of street offences corresponding to the periods when the project officer was active or the Code of Practice was implemented, but there are difficulties in interpreting the police data (especially in Townsville). There are also good reasons for not expecting a close correlation between police data on street offences and observations of behaviours within venues, since many incidents within venues are not reported or recorded. Overall, the police data for Cairns and Townsville, but not Mackay, are consistent with the reductions in aggression observed within venues. Assuming some causal impact of the interventions, identification of "critical" components is problematic, one conclusion being that there are many paths to the same destination. However, whatever intervention techniques are employed, a reduction in male drunkenness seems important to reduce physical violence.


A Keratoprosthesis (KPro) which incorporates all of the features required for long-term retention within the cornea has yet to be developed. Integration is dependent on the induction of an adequate response to corneal injury with limited inflammation and a return to relative quiescence. The keratocyte repair response is central to corneal remodelling and may be disrupted by corneal ageing and the
accumulation of senescent keratocytes. Since senescence associated disruption of keratocyte activity has the potential to inhibit KPro biointegration within the cornea, the following study sought to investigate aspects of the EKl.BR keratocyte repair response and changes occurring with senescence of cells in culture. The limitations of using cultured senescent EKl .BRs to make inferences about changes in keratocyte responsiveness in the ageing cornea were assessed by comparing migratory responsiveness with that of keratocytes derived from an elderly donor. A preliminary investigation of suitable KPro skirt materials, capable of enhancing keratocyte adhesion, was also carried out since keratocyte adhesion to the KPro periphery enhances integration within the cornea and may limit cellular downgrowth.


We address a learning-to-normalize problem by proposing Switchable Normalization (SN), which learns to select different normalizers for different normalization layers of a deep neural network. SN employs three distinct scopes to compute statistics (means and variances) including a channel, a layer, and a minibatch. SN switches between them by learning their importance weights in an end-to-end manner. It has several good properties. First, it adapts to various network architectures and tasks (see Fig.1). Second, it is robust to a wide range of batch sizes, maintaining high performance even when small minibatch is presented (e.g. 2 images/GPU). Third, SN does not have sensitive hyper-parameter, unlike group normalization that searches the number of groups as a hyper-parameter. Without bells and whistles, SN outperforms its counterparts on various challenging benchmarks, such as ImageNet, COCO, CityScapes, ADE20K, and Kinetics. Analyses of SN are also presented. We hope SN will help ease the usage and understand the normalization techniques in deep learning. The code of SN has been made available in this https URL.


The ecology and biogeographic affinities of fossil bivalve faunas from the late Holocene of the Galapagos Islands and the Triassic of the Wallowa accreted terrane are markedly similar. These similarities provide further evidence that the Wallowa terrane originated as an oceanic island arc and that it lay in the eastern proto-Pacific during the Late Triassic, and they corroborate leomagnetic and lithologic evidence for the allochthonous, low-latitude origin of the Wallowa terrane and define the limits of its Triassic longitude relative to North America. Similarity between Galapagos and Wallowa bivalve faunas is based on (1) comparisons of living and fossil Galapagos bivalve faunas and (2) faunal comparisons between a Galapagos fossil locality and a Wallowa one. The first indicates that fossilization has not significantly biased the ecologic and biogeographic signature of the Galapagos "parent" community. This supports the validity of comparisons of fossil faunas from accreted terranes with counterparts on modern oceanic islands. The second shows that Galapagos and Wallowa fossil localities both exhibit the "hybrid" biogeographic pattern characteristic of oceanic islands. This pattern comprises a variable endemic component, coupled with an array of species from diverse faunal provinces. Quantitative ecologic comparisons of Galapagos and Wallowa faunas show that their species are generally similar in feeding habits and substrate preferences. Differences can be explained by the post-Triassic adaptive radiation of infaunal bivalves.


Of the past 5 to 10 years the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has been investing heavily in new hardware in order to revamp the older fleet of aircraft that has been in stock for almost do decades. As the organisation invest in new hardware there has been a noticeably slow movement in the application of quality management systems (QMS) that could guarantee the measurement of the performance of aircraft maintenance crews at various workshops locally and internationally. As a result the overall quality assurance from the aircraft maintenance exercises within the RSAF has been under in doubt. In order to improve the quality of the aircraft maintenance programs the government, through the RSAF, has been training officers in order to equip them with the required aircraft maintenance skills necessary for the new fleet of aircraft.
This research therefore assessed how the current provisions of the quality assurance mechanisms have been implemented in the RSAF with the arrival of the new fleet of aircraft. Using a questionnaire survey the research found out that the current mechanism of quality assurance can be adequate to accommodate the new fleet of aircraft; but there is no confidence in the systems from the workshops. The research recommends a process of harmonisation of the application of quality assurance measures so as to reduce any forms of performance disparity between workshops and teams.


In recent years, a popular way of photo-modulating flow control in microfluidic channels has been through the use of acidified spiropyran (SP) hydrogels that needed to be externally protonated with HCl solutions.1,2 In the swollen protonated merocyanine (MCH+) form, the hydrogel blocks the channels and prevents flow. When exposed to white light, the positively charged MCH+ is converted to the uncharged SP form, triggering shrinking of the hydrogel, and the channel opens. The addition of acrylic acid copolymerised within the hydrogel provides an internal source of protons that allows repeatable photo- actuation in neutral pH environments. Here we report the effect of the polymerization solvent on the shrinking and swelling kinetics of the photo-responsive hydrogel. Using this approach, reversible fast photo-actuated hydrogels have been obtained and have been successfully used for micro-valves applications in micro-fluidic channels.


Trap Ball Pool Edition - Play Trap Ball challenge and test your skills.
In Trap Ball you will go through stages filled with traps: You must escape from lasers, spikes, other balls chasing you, and many more things while you try to make it to the goal. Accept the challenge and test your skills!

Every once in a while new and free stages will be added.

Trap Ball will have more editions, with new balls, traps, objects and stages.

Languages available : Galician, Spanish and English. - Kawagames


Several useful modeling techniques have been developed for the numerical solution of the vertically integrated Reynolds equations on unstructured grids in wetland environments. The objectives of this research are (1) to develop accurate and efficient techniques for simulating surface flows in tidal wetlands, (2) to demonstrate the application of a two-dimensional, vertically averaged hydrodynamic simulation model for flows in tidal wetlands, and (3) to initiate research that supports the development of sediment transport and water quality modeling tools for coastal wetlands. Useful modeling techniques that are described include gridding to contours, planning for logical shoreline advance and retreat, using a graphical grid editor, maintaining a contiguous solution domain, and planning for an adequate model spin-up period when specifying the initial conditions. The case studies described include the Saugus River Estuary in Massachusetts, the Galilee Bird Sanctuary in Rhode Island, and the Bodkin Island Restoration Plan in Maryland.


We study light beam propagation in periodic metallic nanostructures—metallic photonic crystals (MPhCs). In particular, we consider a two-dimensional rhombic array of metallic cylinders embedded in air and explore its ability to tailor spatial propagation of light beams. We show that the structure supports self-collimated propagation and negative (anomalous) diffraction. In this later case, flat lensing is observed, leading to the focusing of beams behind the MPhCs. Moreover, the anisotropic attenuation of light provided by the structure enables spatial filtering of noisy beams.


Purpose: This study was designed to evaluate the effect of a home-based progressive resistance strength-training program on the self-concept of children with cerebral palsy. Methods: A randomized, controlled trial was used to evaluate the effects of a six-week strength-training program on self-concept immediately after completion of the program (week six) and at a follow-up session held 18 weeks after the initial assessment. Seventeen children [eight boys, nine girls; mean age 12.1 years (SD 2.5)] with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy were recruited. Participants in the experimental group completed a home-based progressive resistance strength-training program using three exercises to strengthen the major support muscles of the lower limb. Participants in the control group undertook their normal daily activities. Self-concept was measured by the Self-Perception Profile for Children. Results: Overall, the self-concept of both groups was positive at baseline and at six and 18 weeks. However, compared with controls, the experimental group showed decreased self-concept in the domain of scholastic competence and a trend for a decrease in social acceptance at six weeks. At follow-up, the experimental group had reduced self-concept in the domains of scholastic competence and social acceptance compared with the control group. Conclusion: These unexpected results suggest that participation in a relatively short home-based strength-training program may have an inhibitory effect on the self-concept of children with cerebral palsy. Despite the inhibitory effect, self-concept in the experimental group remained positive after strength training, suggesting that clinicians should not be overly concerned about the psychological effects of the intervention.


Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an important effective treatment for pharmacoresistant epilepsy, but its mechanism is still not clear. In clinical application, the possible effects and mechanisms DBS in treatment of epilepsy are different according to different stimulation parameters. We reviewed the mechanisms of DBS in different frequencies including high frequency and low frequency in the treatment of epilepsy, covering the inhibition or excitation of synaptic, pathological neuronal and network activity, pathological rhythms or oscillation and neurotransmitter systems. As the onset and progression of seizure, it's more frequent accompanied with cognitive and psychiatric comorbidities in patients with epilepsy. We review the possible mechanism of DBS in treating epilepsy associated comorbidities including cognitive and memory disorders. With the further development of clinical application and basic research of DBS, the processing of clinical individualized therapy of DBS in epilepsy and evaluation of effects of DBS in associated comorbidities may contribute to extend the understanding of the mechanisms of DBS for epilepsy and associated comorbidities.


Watermarks and paper evidence are useful tools for researching manuscripts as well as printed books on paper, and not only for dating and identifying authenticity, but for studying the history of documents and printed books as material objects themselves. The present paper is based on the publications printed in Tartu in 1632, the first year of operation of the Swedish-era University of Tartu print shop, and the paper used in them. The purpose is to study the watermarks gathered from all survived copies of publications deposited in Estonia, to discuss the possible origins of the paper and the principles for its acquisition and use, and to draw some conclusions concerning general conditions of printing and the printer' personal contacts and preferences during the early days of the print shop.

Keywords: 17th century, Livonia, University of Tartu, printing history, handmade rag paper, watermarks


Glacio-marine fjords occur widely at high latitudes and have been extensively studied in the Arctic, where heavy meltwater inputs and sedimentation yield low benthic faunal abundance and biodiversity in inner-middle fjords. Fjord benthic ecosystems remain poorly studied in the subpolar Antarctic, including those in extensive fjords along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Here we test ecosystem predictions from Arctic fjords on three subpolar, glacio-marine fjords along the WAP. With seafloor photographic surveys we evaluate benthic megafaunal abundance, community structure, and species diversity, as well as the abundance of demersal nekton and macroalgal detritus, in soft-sediment basins of Andvord, Flandres and Barilari Bays at depths of 436–725 m. We then contrast these fjord sites with three open shelf stations of similar depths. Contrary to Arctic predictions, WAP fjord basins exhibited 3 to 38-fold greater benthic megafaunal abundance than the open shelf, and local species diversity and trophic complexity remained high from outer to inner fjord basins. Furthermore, WAP fjords contained distinct species composition, substantially contributing to beta and gamma diversity at 400–700 m depths along the WAP. The abundance of demersal nekton and macroalgal detritus was also substantially higher in WAP fjords compared to the open shelf. We conclude that WAP fjords are important hotspots of benthic abundance and biodiversity as a consequence of weak meltwater influences, low sedimentation disturbance, and high, varied food inputs. We postulate that WAP fjords differ markedly from their Arctic counterparts because they are in earlier stages of climate warming, and that rapid warming along the WAP will increase meltwater and sediment inputs, deleteriously impacting these biodiversity hotspots. Because WAP fjords also provide important habitat and foraging areas for Antarctic krill and baleen whales, there is an urgent need to develop better understanding of the structure, dynamics and climate-sensitivity of WAP subpolar fjord ecosystems.


In 2007, 38% of Medicare decedents with heart failure enrolled in hospice, along with an informal caregiver. Caregiver satisfaction with hospice care influences both patient and caregiver outcomes. Caregiver satisfaction with hospice has not been explored in the heart failure population and it is unknown whether caregiver satisfaction differs between the cancer and heart failure populations. This dissertation study had three major aims: 1) identify predictors of caregiver satisfaction separately in heart failure and cancer hospice caregivers; 2) test a model of the relationship between identified predictors and caregiver satisfaction; and 3) compare caregiver satisfaction between matched cohorts of heart failure and cancer hospice caregivers. This was a retrospective cohort study of national data collected in 2011 by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) using the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care (FEHC). FEHC responses of caregivers of adult cancer (n=70,782) and heart failure (n=19,818) patients were available for analysis, of which a stratified random sample of 1,000 each was selected for aims 1 and 2. Multiple linear regression and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the two cohorts separately, with burden measured by caregiver report of patient symptoms and satisfaction measured by the FEHC's four satisfaction domains and a question on overall satisfaction with hospice care. Propensity scoring was then used to match 7,370 individuals from each diagnosis group prior to comparing satisfaction outcomes via t-tests. Both cohorts of caregivers were predominantly White females. Cancer patients were more likely to be male (52%) spouses (50%), while heart failure patients were primarily female (55%) adult children (56%). Caregiver age, race, education and relationship to the patient predicted satisfaction, along with place of care, length of stay and reported patient symptoms (p<0.004). Structural equation modeling performed revealed that caregiving demand mediates the relationship between most caregiver and patient characteristics and caregiver satisfaction, but that race moderates the relationship between demand and satisfaction. After propensity-score matching, there was no difference in satisfaction between heart failure and cancer caregivers. Hospices should assess the needs of vulnerable caregivers and plan for additional supports. Further research is needed on factors influencing caregiver satisfaction. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Nursing First Advisor Barbara J. Riegel This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1355


Clinical pharmacology in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s was an exciting profession. Many important new drugs were developed and brought to market and a more systematic knowledge of drug effects in humans was needed, as well as ensuring the safety and efficacy of new and existing drugs, especially following the unexpected problems arising from the use of thalidomide. This Witness Seminar followed an earlier meeting on the history of the general development of clinical pharmacology and focuses on the development of clinical pharmacology in pharmaceutical companies and drug regulation. Professor Rod Flower chaired the meeting of clinical pharmacologists and others who shaped the discipline, which discussed the main centres of influence; the attraction to clinical pharmacologists of working in industry; whether the decline in the number of academic clinical pharmacologists was paralleled in drug companies; what drove drug regulation; and the relationships between companies and regulatory authorities.

Participants included Dr Jeffrey Aronson, Professor Nigel Baber, Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, Sir Iain Chalmers, Professor Joe Collier, Professor Donald Davies, Dr Peter Fletcher, Dr Arthur Fowle, Professor Sir Charles George, Professor David Grahame-Smith, Professor John Griffin, Dr Andrew Herxheimer, Professor Ray Hill, Dr Peter Lewis, Dr Tim Mant, Professor Denis McDevitt, Professor Michael Orme, Dr Anthony Peck, Professor Brian Prichard, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, Professor John Reid, Professor Philip Routledge, Dr Julian Shelley, Dr Robert Smith, Professor Cameron Swift, Professor Tilli Tansey, Dr Duncan Vere, and the late Professor Owen Wade.


Abstract Black Americans suffer disproportionate incidences of severe complications associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Psychosocial factors and subsequent coping responses have been implicated in the etiology of disease. Perceived racism has been identified as a source of stress for Blacks and is related to anger, hostility, paranoia, and greater blood pressure reactivity. The impact of coping responses to perceived racism on blood pressure levels in 52 Black adults was examined in this study. Twenty-four hour ambulatory blood pressure, self-reported perceived racism, and coping responses to racism measures were assessed. Regression analyses indicated that (a) passive coping (i.e., avoidance) predicted higher blood pressure levels and (b) active coping (i.e., trying to change things) predicted lower blood pressure levels. Additionally, blood pressure levels were significantly higher in those reporting greater exposure to racism. Introduction During the last two decades, research has examined the impact of racial discrimination on the health of Black Americans in the United States. Within the last decade, the research has begun to focus on the relationship between coping with racial discrimination and health outcomes (Clark, 2000; Combs, Perm, Cassisi, Michael, Wood, Wanner, & Adams, 2006; Harrell, Hall, & Taliaferro, 2003; Jones, Cross, & Defour, 2007; Tuli, Sheu, Butler, & Cornelious, 2005; Utsey, 1998; Williams, Neighbors, & Jackson, 2003). Racism and discrimination have been identified as a significant source of stress (Krieger & Sidney, 1996; McNeilly, Anderson, Robinson, McManus, Armstead, Clark, et al., 1996). Perceived racism is described as a source of stress (Lepore, Revenson, Weinberger, Weston, Frisina, Robertson, et al. , 2006) and has been related to hostility and paranoia (Combs, Perm, Cassisi, Michael, Wood, Wanner, et al., 2006), depression (Jones, Cross, & Defour, 2007), high blood pressure variability (Clark & Adams, 2004; Clark & Anderson, 2001 ; Clark & Gochett, 2006; Guyll, Matthews, & Bromberger, 2001 ; Knox, Hausdorff, & Markovitz, 2002; Mays, Cochran, & Barnes, 2007), and internalized anger (Steffen, McNeilly, Anderson, & Sherwood, 2003). A wide range of health issues have been associated with prolonged stress, including heart disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, depression, insomnia, migraine headaches, and skin disorders. Further, stress is known to exacerbate pre-existing health conditions (Everson-Rose & Lewis, 2005; Myers, 2005; Kolb & Whishaw, 2001). Though debated, racism and discrimination still occur frequently today (Akbar, 2004; Harrell, 1999; Jones et al., 2007; Kambon, 2003, 2006). Real or imagined, experiencing racism and discrimination can produce extreme mental and physical stress reactions. In addition to the exposure to racial discrimination, often Blacks must defend their thoughts and interpretations of the perceived racial discrimination to those who challenge the existence of racial discrimination or to those who have accepted the acts as "normal" intergroup dynamics (Kambon, 2003). Research has indicated that Blacks are at a substantially greater risk for developing hypertension than Whites (Dimsdale, 2000; Douglas, Bakris, Epstein, Ferdinand, Ferrario, Hack, et al., 2003; Wilson, Kli ewer, Plybon, & Sica, 2000). Additionally, they have been shown to develop earlier and more severe complications from hypertension when compared to other racial groups. (Douglas et al., 2003; Martins & Norris, 2004). For example, Blacks tend to experience greater cardiovascular and renal damage from hypertension at any level of blood pressure (Dimsdale, 2000; Martins & Norris, 2004). Blood Pressure and Racism Some researchers propose that the cardiovascular differences in health outcomes may be attributed to socioeconomic status (Schmeelk-Cone, Zimmerman, & Abelson, 2003; Tuli, Sheu, Butler, & Cornelious, 2005; Wilson et al. …


The purpose of this study was to investigate if it was possible to strengthen a tooth for autologous tooth crown transplant by using the resin impregnation method already used for industrial purposes. Eightyfour upper first premolar tooth crowns were divided into three groups (n=28 each) to be kept either wet, dry for one day, or dry for one week. In addition, within each group, the teeth were allocated to resin impregnation (RE, n=14) or no resin impregnation (NRE, n=14). A compression test was carried out on all teeth in the three groups, broken the specimens were flat-polished in cross-section with #400,1000 gritstone and observed using Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM). The area of bonding resin was measured using ImageJ software. The mean maximum compressive strength in the RE group was significantly higher than that in the NRE group in the all tooth condition. In CLSM observation, the deepest penetration of bonding resin into the tubules was observed in crowns that had been dried for one week. Based on the findings of this study, we conclude that impregnation with bonding resin can strengthen teeth.


Lilith is a general purpose tool to provide highly scalable, easy distribution of user code across a heterogeneous computing platform. Lilith's principal task is to span a heterogeneous tree of machines executing user-defined code in a scalable and secure fashion. Lilith will be used for controlling user processes as well as general system administrative tasks. Lilith is written in Java, taking advantage of Java's platform independence and intent to move code across networks. The design of Lilith provides hooks for experimenting with tree-spanning algorithms and security schemes. We present the Lilith Object model, security scheme, and implementation, and present timing results demonstrating Lilith's scalable behavior.


Peats and organic soils in general pose significant problems to geotechnical engineers due to their low strength, high compressibility and elevated creep. The research performed addressed one soil improving technique, deep soil mixing, that has been widely used for treating soft clays, but that especially in the US has found limited use in presence of organic soils. The work performed made use primarily of one soil sampled on Lindberg Road (LR) in West Lafayette, Indiana characterized by LOI= 45-52%, LL= 327%, PL= 162%, LLoven dried/LLnon-dried = 0.31, Gs = 2.05-2.12, fiber content ~2.29%, clay fraction = 40.6%. In addition, a limited number of tests were performed making use of soils with LOI of 10-20%, manufactured in the lab from LR soil and an illitic clay. A procedure was developed for preparing samples of reconstituted LR soil both untreated and mixed with a binder and which included a "curing" stage under a surcharge to simulate treatment at depth. Specimens obtained from these samples were used for the engineering tests which included constant rate of strain (CRS) consolidation tests, end-of-primary incremental loading (EOP-IL) consolidation tests with one long term creep stage, and unconfined compression tests. A battery of characterization tests and an in depth review of the literature complemented this work. Unconfined compression tests provided a preliminary evaluation of the effects of treatment on the strength of the soil; highlighted the effects of curing under a surcharge; and allowed to identify in Portland cement (PC) the most promising binder, which was subsequently used for all other engineering tests, at dosages ranging from 8% (~25 kg/m3) to 100% (~320 kg/m3)by dry mass of the soil. The results of the consolidation tests highlighted how the accurate characterization of the primary consolidation behavior of soils characterized by high tendency to creep must rely on either CRS or EOP-IL loading tests and demonstrated the effects of treatment with cement on the stiffness, the hydraulic conductivity, the rate of consolidation and the rate of creep of the soil. Specifically, the tests showed how the addition of cement is associated with the development of a preconsolidation pressure and the shift of the compression curve towards higher effective stresses. Once this yield stress is exceeded the compressibility in the virgin compression range is found not to vary significantly with cement content. Also associated with the addition of cement is an increase in the hydraulic conductivity, an increase in the coefficient of consolidation, and a reduction in the creep coefficient at any given stress level. Moreover, the Cα/Cc ratio decreases markedly with cement addition indicating a decreased susceptibility of the soil to creep. All these effects are more marked with increasing cement content and the treatment appear especially effective once the PC% exceeds 50% (~160 kg/m3).


OBJECTIVE
The flute is a highly popular instrument, yet little is known about the potential injury association with playing this instrument.

PARTICIPANTS
Twenty flautists from a major music training institution volunteered to participate in this project, and had played the flute for a minimum of ten years.

METHODS
A specifically designed musicians' health questionnaire was used to determine injury rates in a group of skilled collegiate flute players majoring in music to examine self-reported perceptions of performance-related musculoskeletal disorder causation and approaches to managing these conditions.

RESULTS
All except one player reported suffering from a performance-related musculoskeletal disorder, with pain present for longer than 3 months in two thirds of this group. The most common approach by the flautists was to take Alexander lessons rather than seeking health professional advice. Most attributed their symptoms to long hours of practice, poor posture and the presence of performance anxiety.

CONCLUSIONS
Flautists in this sample reported high rates of performance-related musculoskeletal disorders with the majority having been present for longer than 3 months. The approach to management often did not involve consultation with a health professional qualified to diagnose musculoskeletal conditions.


Coal is the prime fossil fuel in India and continues to play a vital role in the energy sector. Coal accounts for 60% of the commercial energy needs and 70% of electrical power in India comes from coal. Indian coals being of drift origin, contains large quantities of impurities which are intimately mixed, and poses serious challenges during utilization in industries. Coal is the least clean fossil fuel with respect to both local and global environment issues. The environmental impacts include those of the mining industry and coal transportation – on the landscape, rivers, water tables and other environmental media. Beneficiation of coal helps in not only improving the performance of power plants, but also reduces the transportation cost besides reducing the adverse effect on environment. In the present work, an attempt has been made to study the washability characteristics of different Indian coals by carrying out float-and-sink analysis. A total of 10 number of coal samples were collected from different coalfields using the channel sampling procedure. In addition, the proximate analysis, calorific value and hardgrove grindability index has also been determined in the laboratory by following standard procedures. It was found that Most of the coal samples contain high percentage of ash except the coal samples from NEC., which has the lowest ash content. The calorific value of the coal was increased after carrying out the float-and-sink method of coal washing. The MCL-2 and MCL-5 coal sample may be used without cleaning. At low specific gravities the yield of clean coals for most of the coal samples are very low. The amount of near gravity material present for most of the coals except NEC Coal sample is also very high, which makes the washing problem difficult to extremely difficult. The NEC coal sample is simple to moderate to wash compared to other coal samples used in this study. The CCL-2 coal sample may be washed with moderate difficulty.


The flow of air in the central and lower generations of the human airways results in complex secondary flows, which heavily affect the deposition of aerosol such as PM2.5 in the human airways. To figure out the flow dynamics in healthy airways and airways with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the flow distributions were predicted numerically. In a bronchial tube geometry (G5-G8), COPD was represented by an axisymmetric constriction in G6-2 of a four-generation airway. Real and unsteady breathing inhalation curves under rest, light activity, and moderate exercise were applied in the simulations. The velocity distribution, recirculation, and stagnation zones in the generation G6-2 affected by COPD together with the effects of sudden pressure drop in the constriction were investigated. Two symmetrical vortices (Dean vortices) were formed at the cross-sections of the geometry affected by COPD and their intensities were dependent on the Reynolds number. The mas flow rates in the healthy generation (G6-1) went to as high as 3.10 times the mass flow rate in the generation affected by COPD (G6-2). The simulations showed that inflammation of the bronchus greatly affected pressure distribution and the rates of mass flow in the human airway during inhalation. The overall pressure drop in the bifurcation affected by COPD was 3.38 Pa for rest, 10.91 Pa for light activity and 21.39 Pa for moderate exercise. A combination of these factors make COPD patients very susceptible to adverse health effects caused by inhalation of PM2.5.


Accuracy of stress production in derived words improves during the primary school years; however, little is known about the error patterns in production of derived words, particularly in children with known phonologically-based reading problems. In this chapter, theoretical accounts of lexical stress (i.e., metrical phonology) and derivation (lexical phonology) are discussed. Next, a descriptive study of derived word errors in stress placement, syllabification, and segments in 3rd and 5th grade typically developing children and a group of children with dyslexia is presented. Stress accuracy in derived words by the children with dyslexia was similar to younger children. Error profiles revealed that children with dyslexia made proportionally more errors in syllabification than did either typically developing group. Inaccurate syllabification might negatively affect both stress assignment and lexical access.


Carbon-carbon bond formation reactions are among the most important processes in chemistry, as they represent key steps in the synthesis of more complex molecules from simple precursors. This thesis describes mainly the development of novel regioselective applications of the mild and versatile palladium-catalyzed carbon-carbon coupling method, commonly known as the Heck reaction. In addition, this thesis will focus on environmentally friendly developments of the Heck reaction.Novel ligand-controlled internal Heck vinylations of vinyl ethers and enamides to form branched electron-rich dienes were performed with high regioselectivity. The vinylation of 2-hydroxyethyl vinyl ether permits a chemoselective transformation of a vinylic triflate or bromide into a blocked α,β-unsaturated methyl ketone. Furthermore, a simple separation of the palladium catalyst was achieved with new fluorous-tagged bidentate ligands in combination with fluorous solid phase extraction. The reaction times could be reduced up to 1000 times with controlled microwave heating in the palladium-catalyzed reactions with, in the majority of cases, retained, high selectivity. The development of a "green" regioselective arylation and vinylation method relying on an aqueous DMF-potassium carbonate system and excluding the toxic thallium salt has been accomplished. Ionic liquids as the versatile and environmentally friendly class of solvents have been used in rapid phosphine-free terminal Heck arylations with controlled microwave heating. Recycling of the catalytic medium was achieved after a simple product purification.


The objective of this thesis is to develop efficient numerical schemes to successfully tackle problems arising from the study of groundwater flows in a porous saturated medium; we deal therefore with partial differential equations(PDE) having random coefficients and we are interested in computing statistics related to specific quantities of interest (QoI), e.g. a linear functional of the solution of the PDE or the solution itself. We mainly consider the approximation of the pressure in the medium through a stochastic Darcy problem with random lognormally distributed permeability relying on Matern-type covariance functions to take into account a wide range of possible smoothness of the permeability field. Once the problem has been reformulated in terms of a countable number of random variables, we analyze sparse grid polynomial approximations of the QoI. We propose different strategies to exploit the anisotropicity of the QoI with respect to the different random entries; to this end we consider ``a priori'' and ``a posteriori'' strategies to drive the exploration of the multi-index set that defines the sparse grid, associating a profit to each multi-index either by using explicit theoretical estimates or by actually solving the PDE and computing on the fly the corresponding sparse grid interpolant. We show on several numerical examples the effectiveness of this strategy in treating the case of smooth permeability fields. In order to cover also the case of rough input permeabilities we consider, instead, Multi Level Monte Carlo techniques based on the use of a suitable control variate. Such a control variate is obtained from the solution of an auxiliary Darcy problem with a regularized input permeability which leads to pressure distributions that are smoother and less oscillatory than the original ones, but still highly correlated with them. We use then a sparse grid approximation to compute effectively the mean of the control variate and provide explicit bounds for the corresponding estimator as well as a complexity result. We also consider groundwater transport problems and focus, in particular, on arrival times properly defined starting from particle trajectories driven by the stochastic Darcy velocity and subject to molecular diffusion taking place at porous level. In this case, by using suitable PDEs whose solution can be linked to specific expectations (with respect to all Brownian motions) thanks to the famous Feynman-Kac formula, we compute statistics of such arrival times, e.g. their expected value or the probability of exiting the physical domain in a given time horizon. We discuss several scenarios and readapt the methodologies previously developed involving adaptive sparse grid stochastic collocation and Monte Carlo type schemes to this case.


SUMMARY. The purpose of the present study was to prepare glycyrrhizic acid-phospholipid complex (GL-PLC) as to improve the oral bioavailability of glycyrrhizic acid (GL), enhance the drug efficacy and reduce the side effects. The uniform experimental design approach was utilized for the process optimization in order to obtain the satisfactory complex. The results of comparison between GL-PLC and free GL indicated that the anti-inflammatory activity of the phospholipid complex was significantly higher than that of free GL at the same dose. The results of pharmacokinetic study displayed that the plasma concentration of glycyrrhetic acid, the metabolite of GL in vivo, increased after oral administration of GL-PLC. The Cmax of GL-PLC was 2.14 times higher than that of free glycyrrhizic acid, while the AUC of GL-PLC was 1.74 times higher than that of free GL. The results proved that GL-PLC improved the lipophilic property of GL, increased the bioavailability and anti-inflammatory activity.


Roller derby is an emergent women's sport; self-organized on a not-for-profit, do-it-yourself
model it initially developed outside existing sports institutions and remains
un-professionalized. Roller derby thus occupies an ambivalent position of gendered
alterity in relation to a broader cultural field of sport, where women's struggles for
sporting legitimacy are well rehearsed in the literature. Existing research interprets
roller derby as a unique context, particularly conducive to re-configurations of both
gender and sport. Despite such uniqueness, research participants increasingly claim
roller derby's similarity to other sports practices, become concerned with its
recognition as a 'real, legitimate sport' and orientate their practice towards getting
taken seriously.
I develop an 'insider' ethnographic account from analysis of five years of participant
observation with one roller derby league of approximately 100 members, including
26 in-depth interviews and a collaborative film-making project. The thesis responds
to a broad question, 'how is getting taken seriously negotiated in practice?' and
analyses shifts in participants' gendered self-representations, the bureaucratization of
a 'by the skaters, for the skaters' organizational ethos, and the institution of
competition. As participants work to diminish distinctions between roller derby and
'sport', they enact a set of related distinctions between; what the league used to be
like and what it became; who roller derby is and is not by and for; and practices that
are and are not condusive to serious recognition. As participants' definitions of roller
derby move away from 'a sport for women who don't like sport' towards 'a sport for
people who really, really like sport' a second over-arching question arises; in seeking
serious recognition did the league eventually become what it once defined itself in
opposition to? Concentrating on moments when participants' claims for serious
recognition refuse and rework the gendered terms of such intelligibility, I argue that
a sociological analysis of seriousness is crucial to understanding such fateful
dilemmas. Enactments of non-/seriousness enable skaters to create new
organizational and representational praxis, identities, meanings and relations, as they
negotiate the possibilities and limits of working together to make something
relatively new. Non-/seriousness is how participants move between roller derby,
sport and gender as inevitable, singular, certain and beyond their influence and yet
malleable, contingent, multiple, ambivalent and created in their own actions. Four
interludes, between chapters, reflect on non-/seriousness in 'insider' research. The
interludes interrupt and expand upon the thesis' central analytical contentions; that
analyzing non-/seriousness both enhances and unsettles our understanding of familiar
sociological preoccupations with gender, organization and mid-ranges of agency
between dichotomies of voluntarism and determinism.


Background Colon cancer constitutes one of the most frequent malignancies. Previous studies showed that Salmonella manipulates host cell signaling pathways and that Salmonella Typhimurium infection facilitates colon cancer development in genetically predisposed mice. This epidemiological study examined whether severe Salmonella infection, usually acquired from contaminated food, is associated with increased colon cancer risk in humans. Methods and findings We performed a nationwide registry-based study to assess colon cancer risk after diagnosed Salmonella infection. National infectious disease surveillance records (1999–2015) for Dutch residents aged ≥20 years when diagnosed with salmonellosis (n = 14,264) were linked to the Netherlands Cancer Registry. Salmonella-infected patients were laboratory-confirmed under medical consultation after 1–2 weeks of illness. These datasets also contained information on Salmonella serovar and type of infection. Colon cancer risk (overall and per colon subsite) among patients with a diagnosed Salmonella infection was compared with expected colon cancer risk in the general population. Data from the nationwide registry of histo- and cytopathology (PALGA) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) allowed assessing potential effects of age, gender, latency, socioeconomic status, genetic predisposition, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and tumor features. We found that compared to the general population, colon cancer risk was significantly increased (standardized incidence ratio [SIR] 1.54; 95%CI 1.09–2.10) among patients with Salmonella infection diagnosed <60 years of age. Such increased risk concerned specifically the ascending/transverse colon (SIR 2.12; 95%CI 1.38–3.09) after S. Enteritidis infection (SIR 2.97; 95%CI 1.73–4.76). Salmonellosis occurred more frequently among colon cancer patients with pre-infectious IBD, a known risk factor for colon cancer. Colon tumors of patients with a history of Salmonella infection were mostly of low grade. Conclusions Patients diagnosed with severe salmonellosis have an increased risk of developing cancer in the ascending/transverse parts of the colon. This risk concerns particularly S. Enteritidis infection, suggesting a contribution of this major foodborne pathogen to colon cancer development.


The developers of the Paharpur Business Center (PBC) and Software Technology Incubator Park in New Delhi, India offer an environmentally sustainable building with a strong emphasis on energy conservation, waste minimization and superior indoor air quality (IAQ). To achieve the IAQ goal, the building utilizes a series of air cleaning technologies for treating the air entering the building. These technologies include an initial water wash followed by ultraviolet light treatment and biolfiltration using a greenhouse located on the roof and numerous plants distributed throughout the building. Even with the extensive treatment of makeup air and room air in the PBC, a recent study found that the concentrations of common volatile organic compounds and aldehydes appear to rise incrementally as the air passes through the building from the supply to the exhaust. This finding highlights the need to consider the minimization of chemical sources in buildings in combination with the use of advanced air cleaning technologies when seeking to achieve superior IAQ. The goal of this project was to identify potential source materials for indoor chemicals in the PBC. Samples of building materials, including wood paneling (polished and unpolished), drywall, and plastic from a hydroponic drum that was part of the air cleaning system, were collected from the building for testing. All materials were collected from the PBC building and shipped to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for testing. The materials were pre-conditioned for two different time periods before measuring material and chemical specific emission factors for a range of VOCs and Aldehydes. Of the six materials tested, we found that the highest emitter of formaldehyde was new plywood paneling. Although polish and paint contribute to some VOC emissions, the main influence of the polish was in altering the capacity of the surface to accumulate formaldehyde. Neither the new nor aged polish contributed significantly to formaldehyde emissions. The VOC emission stream (excluding formaldehyde) was composed of up to 18 different chemicals and the total VOC emissions ranged in magnitude from 7 mu g/m2/h (old wood with old polish) to >500 mu g/m2/h (painted drywall). The formaldehyde emissions from drywall and old wood with either new or old polish were ~;;15 mu g/m2/h while the new wood material emitted >100 mu g/m2/h. However, when the projected surface area of each material in the building was considered, the new wood, old wood and painted drywall material all contributed substantially to the indoor formaldehyde loading while the coatings contributed primarily to the VOCs.


Chemical and thermal stability of rice husks against alkali treatment with 2 to 8% w/v NaOH are presented and discussed in this paper. The thermal stability of the rice husks was examined by using a thermal gravimetric analysis instrument. Chemical stability was evaluated by examining the organic components of rice husks using proximate analysis. The results indicated that the proportion of lignin and hemicellulose in rice husks treated with NaOH ranging from 4 to 8% decreased significantly by 96% and 74%, respectively. The thermal stability and final degradation temperatures of the alkali-treated rice husks were also lowered by 24-26°C due to degradation of hemicellulose and lignin during alkali treatment. Absence of the onset degradation zones in the alkali-treated rice husks was a further indication that hemicellulose and other volatile substances degraded during alkali treatment. This leads to a conclusion that alkali treatment of rice husks with more than 4% NaOH causes a substantial chemical degradation of rice husks, which subsequently decreases their thermal stability.