In the new video coding standard H.264/AVC, motion estimation (ME) is allowed to search multiple reference frames. Therefore, the required computation is highly increased, and it is in proportion to the number of searched reference frames. However, the reduction in prediction residues is mostly dependent on the nature of sequences, not on the number of searched frames. Sometimes the prediction residues can be greatly reduced, but frequently a lot of computation is wasted without achieving any better coding performance. In this paper, we propose a context-based adaptive method to speed up the multiple reference frames ME. Statistical analysis is first applied to the available information for each macroblock (MB) after intra-prediction and inter-prediction from the previous frame. Context-based adaptive criteria are then derived to determine whether it is necessary to search more reference frames. The reference frame selection criteria are related to selected MB modes, inter-prediction residues, intra-prediction residues, motion vectors of subpartitioned blocks, and quantization parameters. Many available standard video sequences are tested as examples. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can maintain competitively the same video quality as exhaustive search of multiple reference frames. Meanwhile, 76 %-96 % of computation for searching unnecessary reference frames can be avoided. Moreover, our fast reference frame selection is orthogonal to conventional fast block matching algorithms, and they can be easily combined to achieve further efficient implementations.


OBJECTIVE
To provide an updated state of the art about the role of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with 11C-Choline and 18F-fluorocholine in the localized and locally advanced Prostate Cancer (PCa) in the staging and restaging setting.

METHODS
We performed a non-systematic review of the literature based on a free-text search in the National Library of Medicine Database (MEDLINE) to select English-language published papers evaluating PET and PET/CT imaging with radiolabelled choline in initial diagnosis and in post-treatment phase in PCa patients.

RESULTS
PET and PET/CT with 11C-choline and 18F-fluorocholine have been largely investigated as non-invasive diagnostic tools in PCa. Actually, the relatively high rate of false negative findings due to the small dimension of neoplastic lesions and the available spatial resolution of PET tracers limits the routine use of choline PET and PET/CT in staging setting; moreover, it cannot reliably replace the lymph node (LN) dissection for detecting LN involvement. On restaging setting, Choline PET/CT showed a higher accuracy than conventional imaging modalities, especially in the detection of LN and systemic metastases, while it is less accurate than magnetic resonance imaging in the detection of local relapse.

CONCLUSION
In the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) era with a large number of localized disease, the diagnostic performance of choline PET and PET/CT lack of reliability in initial diagnosis of PCa. The major clinical role of choline PET/CT is the re-staging of patients with a biochemical relapse after radical treatment; the promising performance of choline PET/CT scan in patients with low levels of PSA could also lead the clinicians for to perform PET-guided adjuvant curative therapies or palliative treatments in patients already treated radically for PCa.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To describe eating-related experiences and informational needs of people following total laryngectomies.

DESIGN
Descriptive study.

SETTING
Internet-based laryngectomy support group in the United States.

SAMPLE
34 people with a laryngectomy (68% total laryngectomy, 29% with total plus radical neck dissection, and 3% with partial laryngectomy with radical neck dissection): 29 males, 5 females; mean age of 62 years.

METHODS
Members of a laryngectomy support group completed a Food Eating Experiences and Diet Questionnaire designed by the investigators. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Effect of laryngectomy on food choice, eating habits, and overall enjoyment of eating: perceptions of teaching received from healthcare professionals regarding potential eating difficulties as a result of laryngectomy.

FINDINGS
90% of the participants experienced a change in one or more aspects of eating. The most prominent changes were decreased sense of smell, decreased taste, decreased enjoyment of eating, and an increase in the length of time required to eat meals. Most participants were not satisfied with the information they received from healthcare professionals. Topics requiring emphasis during patient teaching were identified from participants' comments.

CONCLUSIONS
Total laryngectomy produced significant changes in factors related to eating that can affect nutritional intake and quality of life. Participants reported that most healthcare providers did not adequately prepare them for potential alterations in eating that can occur following a total laryngectomy.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE
Data from this study can be used to raise awareness of incidence and severity of changes in eating that occur after total laryngectomy and to improve patient preparation to cope with these changes.


We investigated the gas flow sequence to realize a short-period and lattice-matched InAs/GaAsSb superlattice on an InAs substrate by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth for applications in mid-infrared photonic devices. The arsenic composition of GaAsSb for lattice matching was adjusted by adding AsH3 flow to residual arsenic incorporation. The growth conditions for lattice-matched superlattices at a period of 5 nm were found. The superlattices with period thicknesses of 1 to 9 nm were successfully confirmed by the photoluminescence (PL) peak in the range from 2.4 to 5 µm depending on layer thickness at 20 K. The emission wavelength can be controlled by changing the layer thickness of superlattices. The results led to the improvement of InAs/GaAsSb type II superlattice growth.


The upper Cenozoic stratigraphy in the northern North Sea (Sleipner area) have been investigated, using high quality 3D seismic data and five exploration wells. Interpretation of the seismic data, have indicated six distinct sequences (S1-S6). These sequences have been classified according to reflection configuration, and well log characteristics. Based on the seismic data, a simple model have been constructed for the upper Cenozoic succession. The model form the basis for co-kriging interpolation, which have been used to interpolate the petrophysical data from the well logs in each sequence. This gives the possibility to predicate how the petrophysical properties change laterally within the study area. The upper most sequences (S1 – S3) is deposited from Pliocene to Holocene. These sequences have continuous reflections, with a parallel to subparallel reflection geometry. This configuration is often seen in sediments derived from glacio-marine processes. The well logs indicate that these sequences consist of shale, and the co-kriging interpolation, indicate that this lithology is dominant in the entire Sleipner area. Sequence S4 correspond to the Utsira formation, which is currently used as a Costorage. The Utsira formation consist of well-sorted sands, from Upper Miocene to Lower Pliocene. The seismic response, is characterized by low amplitudes, discontinuous reflections. This reflection configuration can be seen in relation to the shelf dominated, shallow marine environment, which the sequence was deposited in. The well logs clearly indicate a sand interval, and can be strongly correlated between the five wells. The co-kriging interpolation technique, indicated that the Utsira formation is present in the whole study area. Sequence S5 was deposited during Middle Miocene. The sequence comprises several discontinuous reflections, with a disrupted configuration. Numerous anticlinal features have been observed at the base of the sequence, possibly caused by mobilized sediments, injecting into the sequence. The reflection configuration is highly affected by these features. The well logs indicate a shale dominated interval, with a few thin-layers of sand. The co-kriging interpolation, confirms a shale dominated lithology with localized sands in the study area. Sequence S6 is deposited during Lower Miocene, and show a shale dominated lithology. The sequence comprise several high amplitude, discontinuous reflections. This configuration is related to extensive polygonal faulting of the sequence. The co-kriging results, suggest that sequence S6 consist of shale in major parts of the study area.


The cerebellar cortex integrates multimodal information from mossy fibre (MF) and climbing fibre inputs to perform a variety of computations relating to movement, motor learning and balance. Before MF information can be combined with climbing fibre input in Purkinje cells (PCs) it must pass through the granule cell (GrC) layer wherein it is transformed by the anatomical connectivity and local inhibitory circuit. GrCs receive both tonic and phasic inhibition, the latter arising from the release of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) from Golgi cell (GoC) axons. However, the properties of GoC mediated inhibition and its computational significance are not well understood.

I have characterised the GoC–GrC synaptic connection using paired whole-cell patch-clamp recordings. My results show that unitary GoC inputs are smaller than previously realised and are frequently mediated purely by spillover from synapses onto adjacent GrCs. I have used the dynamic clamp method to investigate how changes in the frequency and synchrony of spiking in the GoC network can affect GrC computation. I found that changes in GoC firing rate strongly modulate the gain of the GrC input–output (I–O) function, while GoC synchrony can create permissive and non-permissive windows resulting in a patternation of GrC firing that may convey a temporal signal to downstream PCs.

GoCs are subject to regulation through the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). I have investigated how these modulatory inputs to GoCs might affect their inhibitory output and show that mGluR activation dramatically reduces GABA release while nAChR activation dramatically increases GABA release from GoCs.

My results show that GoCs can exert potent inhibitory control over GrCs that could be relevant to the processing of both temporally coded and rate coded information.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationship between access to health care and undiagnosed diabetes among the high-risk, vulnerable population in the border region between the United States of America and Mexico.

METHODS
Using survey and fasting plasma glucose data from Phase I of the U.S.-Mexico Border Diabetes Prevention and Control Project (February 2001 to October 2002), this epidemiological study identified 178 adults 18-64 years old with undiagnosed diabetes, 326 with diagnosed diabetes, and 2 966 without diabetes. Access to health care among that sample (n = 3,470), was assessed by type of health insurance coverage (including "none"), number of health care visits over the past year, routine pattern of health care utilization, and country of residence.

RESULTS
People with diabetes who had no insurance and no place to go for routine health care were more likely to be undiagnosed than those with insurance and a place for routine health care (odds ratio [OR] 2.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0-6.6, and OR 4.5, 95% CI 1.4-14.1, respectively). When stratified by country, the survey data showed that on the U.S. side of the border there were more people with undiagnosed diabetes if they were 1) uninsured versus the insured (28.9%, 95% CI 11.5%-46.3%, versus 9.1%, 95% CI 1.5%-16.7%, respectively) and if they 2) had made no visits or 1-3 visits to a health care facility in the past year versus had made ≥ 4 visits (40.8%, 95% CI 19.6%-62.0%, and 23.4%, 95% CI 9.9%-36.9%, respectively, versus 2.4%, 95% CI -0.9%-5.7%) (all, P < 0.05). No similar pattern was found in Mexico.

CONCLUSIONS
Limited access to health care--especially not having health insurance and/or not having a place to receive routine health services--was significantly associated with undiagnosed diabetes in the U.S.-Mexico border region.


Open Quantum Random Walks (OQRW) were introduced as completely positive maps on an appropriate Hilbert space. The OQRW on the line is shown to give raise to a non-classical Pascal triangle, that stresses the rich dynamical behavior of these walks. Implications and further applications of the OQRW are discussed.


Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess whether a multicomponent cognitive behavioral group intervention is preferable to usual care in terms of (healthcare) costs and effects on fear of falling and activity avoidance. Methods: This economic evaluation was embedded in a randomized controlled trial among 540 community-living adults in the Netherlands, aged 70 years and older who reported fear of falling and fear-induced activity avoidance. The participants allocated to the intervention group received a multicomponent cognitive behavioral group intervention consisting of eight weekly sessions and a booster session. The sessions were aimed at instilling realistic views of falls, reducing fall risk, and increasing activity and safe behavior. Participants in the control group received usual care. Cost outcome measures were healthcare costs, and patient and family costs. Clinical outcomes were fear of falling and activity avoidance. All outcomes were assessed at baseline and at 2, 8, and 14 months by means of registration forms, self-administered questionnaires, and interviews by telephone. Results: Participants were randomly allocated to intervention (n = 280) and control groups (n = 260). Costs for the intervention program were on average €276 per person. Total costs per person were comparable (€4,925 in intervention group and €4,828 in control group). Furthermore, favorable effects of the program were observed for fear of falling and activity avoidance. Conclusions: This study showed that the intervention program is preferable to usual care in terms of costs and effects. The program had comparable costs and significantly reduced fear of falling and associated activity avoidance among older community-living persons.


Multi-agent interaction is a fundamental aspect of autonomous driving in the real world. Despite more than a decade of research and development, the problem of how to competently interact with diverse road users in diverse scenarios remains largely unsolved. Learning methods have much to offer towards solving this problem. But they require a realistic multi-agent simulator that generates diverse and competent driving interactions. To meet this need, we develop a dedicated simulation platform called SMARTS (Scalable Multi-Agent RL Training School). SMARTS supports the training, accumulation, and use of diverse behavior models of road users. These are in turn used to create increasingly more realistic and diverse interactions that enable deeper and broader research on multi-agent interaction. In this paper, we describe the design goals of SMARTS, explain its basic architecture and its key features, and illustrate its use through concrete multi-agent experiments on interactive scenarios. We open-source the SMARTS platform and the associated benchmark tasks and evaluation metrics to encourage and empower research on multi-agent learning for autonomous driving. Our code is available at this https URL.


Background: Northern peatlands are known for having significant stocks of terrestrial soil carbon (C). However, little is known about how peatlands function under various land uses and what impacts land-use change has on their functioning in central Europe. Aim: The objective of our study was to quantify the variability and controls of typical plant communities in terms of C gas dynamics on bogs and fens affected by a changed hydrological regime in the Bohemian Forest, Czech Republic. Methods: Carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange and methane emissions (CH4) were measured in bogs (pristine, drained, restored) and in fens (pristine, drained) during the 2009 growing season. We applied cluster analysis to define plant communities and non-linear response models to quantify the variation in CO2 dynamics among the communities. Results : Drainage had a strong impact on vegetation; forest and meadows species were dominant on drained peatland sites and the vascular green area was higher than on pristine sites. The net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) varied from –27 to 241 g CO2–C m−2 per growing season on the bogs and from 27 to 153 g m−2 on the fens. The most-drained parts of the bog and fen with the most changed vegetation structure acted as both net C sources and very weak C sinks; however, areas dominated by Molinia caerulea acted as a strong C sink. Plant communities on the wetter parts of drained sites had a positive seasonal NEE, comparable with NEE on pristine sites. Seasonal CH4 emissions were relatively low (0–9 g CH4–C m−2) at all sites and did not influence net C balance, with the exception of pristine fen where CH4 emissions with average 90 g C m−2 led to a negative total growing season C balance. Water regime restoration caused neither a significant change in plant composition nor any major changes, such as plant die-back or increased CH4 emissions during the first season after restoration. Conclusions: Our results showed that C gas fluxes, and in turn the C balance of the whole ecosystem, were largely determined by plant community type. Drainage did not necessarily lead to a negative ecosystem C balance; however, a significant change of species composition occurred on most drained areas. The less-drained parts on drained sites, where original peatland species and original functions are preserved, could facilitate future ecosystem restoration.


This bachelor degree study will deal with strategic measurements within sales. It undertakes an empirical evaluation of the two measurement strategy concepts "Sales Pipeline" and "Strike Zone". Firstly, the study will explain key advantages of implementing the strategic measurements. Secondly and finally, the potential challenges as well as possible ways to overcome them will shape the structure of the study with the purpose to develop a sales process. The foundation of the study is based on modern market trends, which is influenced on characteristics such as globalization, increased demands from customers and similarities of products and services being offered among suppliers acting on the market. These aspects among others pressures organizations to establish superior strategies in order to create a competitive advantage. The set up of successful strategies commonly entails the process of converting strategic intent into actionable activities as well as being able to measure them. Therefore the concept of measuring is an important key in developing a superior competitive advantage. The authors worked hand in hand with the organization Saab throughout this study. Therefore, the thesis is a qualitative single case study of the organization. It will specifically investigate Saabs sales process in the market of global defense security, and evaluate key measurable strategies that can be related to their organization. According to the study findings and the analytical results, the conclusion is that both of the theories "Sales Pipeline" and "Strike Zone" will develop the sales process of Saab if the challenges of the theories can be addressed. This would be in terms of composing complements to reach a number of benefits such as an increased close rate, higher efficiency, reduced bottlenecks in the sales process, higher awareness of what types of business cases the organization should select etc.


The imaging properties of an optical system can be in many cases completely specified by a function of a single variable. A convenient function is the response to a sine wave test pattern as a function of "frequency," i.e., lines/mm. The difficulty of experimentally providing such a test pattern can be avoided by measuring the response to a square wave (bar pattern) and calculating by a simple formula the corresponding sine wave response factor. The convenience of the sine wave response factor in calculating system performance is illustrated by application to a fluoroscopic imaging system.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify work-to-family profiles in working mothers, test whether profiles differ between sole and partnered mothers, and examine whether the work-to-family profiles are associated with burnout.

Design/methodology/approach

Data on work-to-family conflict (WFC), work-to-family enrichment (WFE), burnout, and relevant socio-demographic covariates were collected via a self-report online survey. Latent profile analysis on WFC and WFE items was used to identify profiles in 179-sole and 857-partnered mothers in paid employment. Regression analyses were performed to examine whether profiles were associated with burnout.

Findings

Five distinct work-to-family profiles were identified: Harmful, Negative Active, Active, Beneficial, and Fulfilled. Profile membership differed significantly between sole and partnered mothers, with sole mothers more likely to be in the harmful profile. The five profiles had differing implications for burnout.

Practical implications

WFC and WFE can co-occur, and have differing implications for health and well-being. It is important to consider both WFC and WFE when addressing employee burnout. Furthermore, sole mothers may need greater assistance in reducing WFC and increasing WFE in order to minimize burnout.

Originality/value

This study contributes to existing research by demonstrating differences in work-to-family profiles between sole and partnered mothers, and highlights the need for future research on diverse family types.


Practice-based research in art and design is the focus of postgraduate programmes at many universities. The term is useful when practice constitutes a critical part of the research methodology resulting in a form of research through practice. This study uses one such postgraduate programme to examine student researchers' understanding of their practice-based research methods, organisation of their studio processes and awareness of learning. A structured interview was used to investigate: 1) how artists and designers use documentation as part of their creative practice; 2) what forms and processes constitute this activity; 3) what the artist's or designer's perception is of the role documentation plays in their practicebased research and 4) the perceived positive or negative impacts resulting from the practice of active documentation of creative work. The context of the work is the wider debate around defining the role of the artefact as part the research process in art and design and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic components in the articulation of practice-based research. The results reveal some of the ways in which new researchers begin to understand and ultimately take control of their working methods, including the generation of new artefacts, the implementation of acquired knowledge and communication about significant processes. The results add to our understanding of the way in which artists and designers perceive the transition from professional practice to research practice.


Throughout the paper, the issues of individual differences in web-based learning, also known as online instruction, online training or distance education were examined and implications for designing distance education were discussed. Although the main purpose was to identify differences in learners' characteristics such as cognitive, affective, physiological and social factors that affect learning in a web-enhanced environment, the questions of how the web could be used to reinforce learning, what kinds of development ideas, theories and models are currently being used to design and deliver online instruction, and finally what evidence for the effectiveness of using World Wide Web (WWW) for learning and instruction has been reported, were also analyzed to extend theoretical and epistemogical understanding of web-based learning.


We propose an approach to generate images of people given a desired appearance and pose. Disentangled representations of pose and appearance are necessary to handle the compound variability in the resulting generated images. Hence, we develop an approach based on intermediate representations of poses and appearance: our pose-guided appearance rendering network firstly encodes the targets' poses using an encoder-decoder neural network. Then the targets' appearances are encoded by learning adaptive appearance filters using a fully convolutional network. Finally, these filters are placed in the encoder-decoder neural networks to complete the rendering. We demonstrate that our model can generate images and videos that are superior to state-of-the-art methods, and can handle pose guided appearance rendering in both image and video generation.


This paper presents the experimental results for compact (20- and 40-/spl mu/m-long) electrooptically tuned deeply etched Fabry-Perot (F-P) filters in InP-based material. Both the quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE) and carrier-injection (C-I) effects were implemented to achieve tunability of these microcavity filters. Red and blue shifts of the transmission peaks in the order of 1 to 2 nm were observed for both effects, and the limitations on C-I due to thermal effect are clearly demonstrated and discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of both tuning mechanisms are highlighted.


Courtroom dynamics literature has studied the interactions within the 'courtroom workgroup' - prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, attributing legal practices in the courtroom to the effects of power struggles and professional interest conflicts between the actors. This paper reintroduces into the picture the important factor of formal law and legal indoctrination, claiming that much of the actors' opinions and behaviors can be attributed to their inability to introduce external perceptions of the problems they address into the legal framework within which they operate. The paper is based on 40 in-depth interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys and ex-judges in the Israeli military justice system about cases involving disobedience to military service - desertion, unauthorized absences and conscientious objection. The interviews reveal the overpowering effect of legal indoctrination on the perception of these problems and their solutions. Almost all interviewees use the doctrinal legal categorization as the main definition of the problems they deal with, despite their understanding of the political and socio-economic dimensions of the problems. Their policy suggestions are equally limited. Almost all interviewees perceive a tension between their perception and the broader, social definitions of the problem, and have different ways of resolving it: loyalism, bureaucratic thinking, idealism, cynicism and limited innovation. The findings shed light on the impact of legal communications and disciplinary discourse on individual perceptions, and support the usage of discursive theory - focusing on Luhmann and Teubner's autopoiesis - as a strong explanation of professional behavior and interaction, even at the individual level.


Abstract The structure of barotropically unstable disturbances in the Tropics is studied with a two-level quasi-geostrophic model. An Ekman layer is attached to the lower boundary. The equations are linearized and the most unstable mode is found numerically by using the initial value technique. Computations are made for a shear-zone wind profile and a jet profile; these fields are independent of height. The disturbance structure is found to be critically dependent on the absolute vorticity gradient in the mean flow. The predicted disturbance structures contain a number of features that are observed in tropical wave disturbances.


Received: 17 Jun 2018 Accepted: 18 Aug 2018 Introduction: Influenza is a viral disease which is self-limited in immunocompetent patients but it can be dangerous in immunocompromised patients. In these patients, it may lead to sever viral and/or bacterial infection that may often lead to death. Therefore, prevention of influenza in immunocompromised patients is very important; consequently health care workers' belief is also important. This study aimed to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practices of health care workers in oncology, hemodialysis and transplantation towards influenza vaccination in hospitals of Isfahan in 2017. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study selected health care workers filled a questionnaire. In the first section of the questionnaire the subjects were asked about their demographic characterization and in the second section about their knowledge, attitude and practices. At the end, data were evaluated and analyzed using SPSS software. Results: This study evaluated 110 units, among which 72 were (65.5%) female and 38 (34.5%) were male. Mean age of individuals was 32.7±7 years and mean time of their working acquaintance was 8.49±6.8 years. Attitude of the health care workers was good but only 58 units from 110 (52.7%) had been vaccinated. Conclusion: Considering the knowledge and attitude of the participants and their low proportion of vaccination, it seems that there should be programs for improving the vaccination in health care workers in Iran Moreover, Iran should model on the countries that have better vaccination coverage in their health care workers.


Diels-Alder reaction of 2-, 3- and 4-(phenylethynyl)quinolines and tetraphenylcyclopentadienone gave three regioisomeric 2,3,4,5,6-pentaphenyl-1-(quinolin-2-yl, -3-yl, and -4-yl)benzenes. Restricted rotation of the 3-yl and 4-yl substituted derivatives is observed between the central core and the substituents, resulting in propeller-shaped molecules. Likewise, 1,2-diquinolinyl-3,4,5,6-tetraphenylbenzenes with 3-yl,3-yl and 3-yl,4-yl connectivity were prepared. As evidenced by NMR spectroscopy, they form two diasteromers due to their restricted rotation. A cobalt-catalyzed [2 + 2 + 2]-cyclotrimerization of 2-(phenylethynyl)quinoline resulted in the formation of triphenyl-2,4,6- and -3,5,6-tri(quinolin-2-yl)benzenes. The same reaction was applied to 3,3'-ethyne-1,2-diyldiquinoline which formed hexa(quinolin-3-yl)benzene. N-Methylation gave the title compounds. Among those, the hexacationic hexa(N-methylquinolinio-3-yl)benzene is described. Stereochemical aspects are predominantly discussed by means of results of NMR experiments. DFT-calculations on the most stable conformations and the frontier orbital profiles of the hexacation as well as of its neutral precursor have been carried out.


Accurate age and growth information is essential in successful management of fish populations and for understanding early life history. We validated daily increment deposition, including the timing of first ring formation, for spotted gar (Lepisosteus oculatus) through 127 days post hatch. Fry were produced from hatchery-spawned specimens, and up to 10 individuals per week were sacrificed and their otoliths (sagitta, lapillus, and asteriscus) removed for daily age estimation. Daily age estimates for all three otolith pairs were significantly related to known age. The strongest relationships existed for measurements from the sagitta (r 2 = 0.98) and the lapillus (r 2 = 0.99) with asteriscus (r 2 = 0.95) the lowest. All age prediction models resulted in a slope near unity, indicating that ring deposition occurred approximately daily. Initiation of ring formation varied among otolith types, with deposition beginning 3, 7, and 9 days for the sagitta, lapillus, and asteriscus, respectively. Results of this study suggested that otoliths are useful to estimate daily age of spotted gar juveniles; these data may be used to back calculate hatch dates, estimate early growth rates, and correlate with environmental factor that influence spawning in wild populations. This early life history information will be valuable in better understanding the ecology of this species.


The empirical focus of this book-length work is the contentious political and legal battle over California welfare reform in the early 1970s. It is an extended, multifaceted case study of a kind not much found in the literature on social cause lawyering. The narrative highlights the forceful presence of Ronald Reagan and the pivotal role in representing the welfare poor carried out by Ralph Santiago Abascal, a government-funded legal aid attorney. To counter Reagan's welfare policy ambitions, Abascal with other legal services lawyers, and in joint cause with recipient-led welfare rights organizations, relied on court litigation not in isolation but as part of an overall strategy that also involved legislative and administrative actions. Within the context of American pluralism and constitutionalism and from an analytical perspective, this study examines the professional and institutional character of group legal representation for the poor as a strategy for political empowerment and social change. While grounded in political and legal history, the study's conceptual approaches primarily draw on ideas from political science and political theory about representation and from writings in legal ethics and legal education on professional role responsibilities. The principal thematic points are: (1) Social cause lawyering is a systemic necessity for the democratic and equitable functioning of our governing institutions; (2) the client constraints on the role of lawyers for groups or causes have more to do conceptually with understandings about the nature of representation than the applicability of ethical or procedural rules; and (3) the political consequences of such legal advocacy are variable and potentially contradictory.


European legislation is an often studied topic of research into decision rules, since it provides for a large number of different rules and the interaction of different voting bodies. However, research on European Integration concentrates on the choice rather within than of rules. Relative voting power analyses stress the distributional consequences of different voting weights within the Council of Ministers, while spatial models emphasize the inter-institutional interaction among the Commission, the Council of Ministers and - sometimes - the European Parliament. They both fail to give a satisfactory account for the constitutional choice of different procedural settings. Whereas relative voting power analysis disregards the important distinction between strong and weak decision rules, spatial models are not able to explain the un-equalness of rules. In this paper, we clarify the differences between both approaches by providing an analytical tool to measure absolute and relative power. We introduce our inclusiveness concept which outlines the notion of absolute power. Moreover, we argue that the combination of both aspects, absolute and relative power, gives an insight into the choice of rules. To generalize our findings we present the concept of entities and inter-institutional sets of winning coalitions which are the cornerstones of the game-theoretical measurement of absolute and relative power in political systems. We then present two appropriate indices measuring both aspects of power. Finally we apply both indices to the variety of European legislative settings with regard to different policy domains


Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder, yet current antidepressants are inadequate as they require weeks of treatment to alleviate symptoms. The mechanism by which the immediate effects of antidepressants cause later behavioral improvements remains unknown, focusing research on downstream signaling events triggered by antidepressant administration. Expression and activity of the transcription factor CREB are increased by antidepressant drugs, and CREB targets include genes known to be involved in antidepressant response. However, the effects of manipulating CREB depend on the brain region examined, with initial studies showing an antidepressant role for CREB in the hippocampus. To investigate the hippocampal-specific importance of CREB in depression-related behaviors and response to antidepressant drugs, we used CrebloxP/loxP mice, in which CREB deletion could be induced by injection of an adenoassociated virus expressing Cre recombinase. Robust and specific deletion of CREB protein throughout the hippocampus was achieved via viral injection to this region in adult mice. Acute response to antidepressants in the forced swim test, a common behavioral assay for antidepressant efficacy, was unaffected by hippocampal CREB deletion. In an assay sensitive to chronic antidepressant response, the novelty-induced hypophagia (NIH) paradigm, hippocampal CREB deletion did not alter response to chronic antidepressant treatment. However, mice with hippocampal deletion of CREB also responded to acute antidepressant treatment in the NIH, an accelerated response to antidepressants, as control mice responded only to chronic, but not acute, treatment in this paradigm. Additionally, loss of CREB from the hippocampus increased hippocampal neurogenesis, which may be related to the accelerated response to antidepressants in the NIH in these mice. These results mimic the phenotype of a constitutive knockout of CREB, suggesting that the phenotype does not result from developmental loss of CREB. The CREB-family protein CREM was upregulated following deletion of CREB, demonstrating that regulation within this family is highly dynamic. CREM may functionally compensate for the lack of CREB by maintaining or increasing expression of CREB target genes, including Bdnf and Bcl-2. These genes are known to regulate cell survival and differentiation, and may contribute to the observed increase in hippocampal neurogenesis, although further study is necessary to confirm this hypothesis. This work indicates that CREB family proteins are important regulators of hippocampal neurogenesis and behaviors associated with antidepressant response. However, behavioral results suggest that CREB in the hippocampus may not be necessary for the behavioral response to antidepressants, challenging a previous study that suggested increased CREB activity was sufficient to produce an antidepressant behavioral response. This mouse model of specific loss of CREB function will be useful in dissecting the role of CREB in specific brain regions, potentially resolving this discrepancy. Overall, future study of the role of CREB and its targets in the downstream mechanisms of antidepressant response may contribute to the development of novel therapeutics. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1554 Graduate Group Neuroscience First Advisor Julie A. Blendy, PhD


Most practitioners of translation agree that translation is at best an ersatz, able to get across only part of the source text's meaning, which is meaning on two levels: the semantic and the phonological. Even in translating an apparently simple lexical item, to say nothing of long stretches of discourse, they are keenly aware of what is being left out. On the semantic level, for example, the denotation of a lexical item may sometimes be preserved almost intact. However, its connotations, associations, or nuances, which can elicit subtle responses from readers of the original, often defy the process of carrying over or across, which is what transferre, the Latin word from which translate is derived, means. Yet, compared with musicality, a feature on the phonological level, all features on the semantic level will become relatively easy. With reference to translations of Dante's Divine Comedy in Spanish, French, Latin, English, German, and Chinese, as well as translations of Shakespeare's Macbeth in Italian, this paper discusses musicality as the most recalcitrant of all features in a source-language text, and attempts to show how, depending on factors to be examined in detail, intrafamily translation, that is, translation between languages of the same family, can capture the original music with varying degrees of success.


By adopting Gaussian process priors a fully Bayesian solution to the problem of integrating possibly heterogeneous data sets within a classification setting is presented. Approximate inference schemes employing Variational & Expectation Propagation based methods are developed and rigorously assessed. We demonstrate our approach to integrating multiple data sets on a large scale protein fold prediction problem where we infer the optimal combinations of covariance functions and achieve state-of-the-art performance without resorting to any ad hoc parameter tuning and classifier combination.


Aerosol optical properties were retrieved from direct and diffuse spectral irradiance measurements made by a multi-filter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR) at the island of Lampedusa (35.5° N, 12.6° E), in the Central Mediterranean, in the period July 2001–September 2003. In a companion paper (Pace et al., 2006) the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Angstrom exponent were used together with airmass backward trajectories to identify and classify different aerosol types. The MFRSR diffuse-to-direct ratio (DDR) at 415.6 nm and 868.7 nm for aerosol classified as "biomass burning-urban/industrial", originating primarily from the European continent, and desert dust, originating from the Sahara, is used in this study to estimate the aerosol single scattering albedo (SSA). A detailed radiative transfer model is initialised with the measured aerosol optical depth; calculations are performed at the two wavelengths varying the SSA values until the modelled DDR matches the MFRSR observations. Sensitivity studies are performed to estimate how uncertainties on AOD, DDR, asymmetry factor ( g ), and surface albedo influence the retrieved SSA values. The results show that a 3% variation of AOD or DDR produce a change of about 0.02 in the retrieved SSA value at 415.6 and 868.7 nm; a ±0.06 variation of the asymmetry factor g produces a change of the estimated SSA of <0.04 at 415.6 nm, and <0.06 at 868.7 nm; finally, an increase of the assumed surface albedo of 0.05 causes very small changes (0.01–0.02) in the retrieved SSA. The calculations show that the SSA of desert dust (DD) increases with wavelength, from 0.81±0.05 at 415.6 nm to 0.94±0.05 at 868.7 nm; on the contrary, the SSA of urban/industrial (UN) aerosols decreases from 0.96±0.02 at 415.6 nm to 0.87±0.07 at 868.7 nm; the SSA of biomass burning (BB) particles is 0.82±0.04 at 415.6 nm and 0.80±0.05 at 868.7 nm. Episodes of UN aerosols occur usually in June and July; long lasting BB aerosol episodes with large AOD are observed mainly in July and August, the driest months of the year, when the development of fires is frequent.


Drivers' behaviors and decision making on the road directly affect the safety of themselves, other drivers, and pedestrians. However, as distinct entities, people cannot predict the motions of surrounding vehicles and they have difficulty in performing safe reactionary driving maneuvers in a short time period. To overcome the limitations of making an immediate prediction, in this work, we propose a two-stage data-driven approach: classifying driving patterns of on-road surrounding vehicles using the Gaussian mixture models (GMM); and predicting vehicles' short-term lateral motions (i.e., left/right turn and left/right lane change) based on real-world vehicle mobility data, provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation, with different ensemble decision trees. We considered several important kinetic features and higher order kinematic variables. The research results of our proposed approach demonstrate the effectiveness of pattern classification and on-road lateral motion prediction. This methodology framework has the potential to be incorporated into current data-driven collision warning systems, to enable more practical on-road preprocessing in intelligent vehicles, and to be applied in autopilot-driving scenarios.


The agitation of the Black Lives Matter movement has dominated the public discourse in the United States. Mobilized against the killing of unarmed black people, the movement and their sympathizers have made a series of demands for justice and dignity for the black people. However, many critics have raised concern over the legitimacy of the phrase, black lives matter since all lives irrespective of race, should matter. This article does not intend to pursue the ongoing debate over the semantic use of black lives or all lives. Instead, the paper seeks to study, through the lenses of the African American critical theories (Tyson, 2015) and other relevant social conflict theories, the often neglected but important shift that has occurred in race relations in America, a shift from overt structural racism to its covert form - encrypted racism. It is the contention of this article that just as the Civil Rights Movement was instrumental in ending overt structural racism, open discrimination and segregation, the Black Lives Matter movement has been bravely instrumental in decrypting encrypted racism in the United States.


Nigerian textile and clothing industries is face with crisis under the pressure of influx of smuggled second-hand clothing and cheap and poor quality of Chinese textiles. The situation has resulted to closure of many textile industries and massive unemployment with inability of the few existing industries to compete favourably base on price. The study was carried out in Abeokuta among tie-dye/batik practitioners and consumers of tie-dye/batik products with the aim to examine the challenges facing the resist dyeing industries. The research method is divided into three: Theoretical- this involves using secondary data from books, journal, newspaper, and the web to gather background information; Statistical- this involves the use of questionnaire to gather primary data. The data collected was analysed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Scientist); and Visual- this entails the use of images to establish facts and make judgement on the basis of the facts discovered. The findings revealed that the challenges facing the practitioners are multi-facet ranging from poor educational status, lack of adequate training/re-training programmes, poor financial status, low customers' patronage, poor management and marketing skill, lack of adequate and functional social amenities, low purchasing power of consumers who often buy on credit and pay on instalment (some don't bother to pay their debt), increased competition from smugglers of second-hand clothing and imported Chinese textiles, poor/ no knowledge of information technology, low access to international/ overseas markets and minimal willingness to take risk. Consumers of tie-dye/batik are pertinent to the study. The findings from the consumers shows that about half of the consumers interviewed cannot afford to buy clothes monthly while slightly more than half buy clothes on credit and pay on instalment. The industry has being affected with change in taste of consumers, consequently one third of the consumers do not patronise tie-dye/batik fabrics. Consumers pointed out that tie-dye/batik fabrics are not colourfast and the designs are too common (frequently seen). Consumers also complained of poor customers services of the practitioners. Base on the findings, the study proposes holistic approach to the challenges. A sustainable model of five major pillars (Continuous innovation, Customer Relationship Management, Government Policy Support, Networking and Practitioners Personal Capacity Development) is proposed. Absence of any of the pillar will result to sustainability collapse of tie-dye/batik industry. Other model being proposed include establishment of an Export Centre with an effective and efficient two way communication model; EVIPI an acronym of English words to stimulate innovative entrepreneurial drive in niche marketing, a model for internal secondhand clothing to revisit the pass me down clothing culture among the Yoruba and a networking model to complement each other for development.


The effects of varying periods of open-circuit on the performance (operating potential, corrosion rate, scale and mud generation) of lead-silver alloy anodes in electrolytes containing 170 g/L sulfuric acid in the absence and presence of manganese ions were evaluated in a series of long term (56 days) tests. Anodes were initially supplied with current for three days and then open circuited for periods of three, six or twelve hours. Current was then re-applied for three days and the process repeated. These on-off cycles were repeated up to five times. After the last on-off cycle, cells were supplied continuously with current for the remaining period. Operation of anodes in acid only under these conditions resulted in decreased anode potentials compared to normal continuous current operation. However, addition of 5g/L manganese to the electrolyte produced results which showed no effect of periodic interruption on the operating potential, increased the corrosion rate slightly, reduced the rate of production of cell mud and reduced the rate of formation of anode scale. A possible correlation between the degree of adherence of anode scale, corrosion rate and mud generation rate are discussed as is the practical implications of reapplication of current after an interruption.


This paper generalizes the Ericksen-Leslie continuum model of liquid crystals to allow for dynamically evolving line defect distributions. In analogy with recent mesoscale models of dislocations, we introduce fields that represent defects in orientational and positional order through the incompatibility of the director and deformation 'gradient' fields. These fields have several practical implications: first, they enable a clear separation between energetics and kinetics; second, they bypass the need to explicitly track defect motion; third, they allow easy prescription of complex defect kinetics in contrast to usual regularization approaches; and finally, the conservation form of the dynamics of the defect fields has advantages for numerical schemes. We present a dynamics of the defect fields, motivating the choice physically and geometrically. This dynamics is shown to satisfy the constraints, in this case quite restrictive, imposed by material-frame indifference. The phenomenon of permeation appears as a natural consequence of our kinematic approach. We outline the specialization of the theory to specific material classes such as nematics, cholesterics, smectics and liquid crystal elastomers. We use our approach to derive new, non-singular, finite-energy planar solutions for a family of axial wedge disclinations.


This book describes the design and implementation of the BSD operating system--previously known as the Berkeley version of UNIX. Today, BSD is found in nearly every variant of UNIX, and is widely used for Internet services and firewalls, timesharing, and multiprocessing systems. Readers involved in technical and sales support can learn the capabilities and limitations of the system; applications developers can learn effectively and efficiently how to interface to the system; systems programmers can learn how to maintain, tune, and extend the system. Written from the unique perspective of the system's architects, this book delivers the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and authoritative technical information on the internal structure of the latest BSD system.As in the previous book on 4.3BSD (with Samuel Leffler), the authors first update the history and goals of the BSD system. Next they provide a coherent overview of its design and implementation. Then, while explaining key design decisions, they detail the concepts, data structures, and algorithms used in implementing the system's facilities. As an in-depth study of a contemporary, portable operating system, or as a practical reference, readers will appreciate the wealth of insight and guidance contained in this book.Highlights of the book: Details major changes in process and memory management Describes the new extensible and stackable filesystem interface Includes an invaluable chapter on the new network filesystem Updates information on networking and interprocess communication


Contextual bandit algorithms have become popular for online recommendation systems such as Digg, Yahoo! Buzz, and news recommendation in general. Offline evaluation of the effectiveness of new algorithms in these applications is critical for protecting online user experiences but very challenging due to their "partial-label" nature. Common practice is to create a simulator which simulates the online environment for the problem at hand and then run an algorithm against this simulator. However, creating simulator itself is often difficult and modeling bias is usually unavoidably introduced. In this paper, we introduce a replay methodology for contextual bandit algorithm evaluation. Different from simulator-based approaches, our method is completely data-driven and very easy to adapt to different applications. More importantly, our method can provide provably unbiased evaluations. Our empirical results on a large-scale news article recommendation dataset collected from Yahoo! Front Page conform well with our theoretical results. Furthermore, comparisons between our offline replay and online bucket evaluation of several contextual bandit algorithms show accuracy and effectiveness of our offline evaluation method.


A surprising analysis with varying implications for society, caregivers, and the person with dementia. Old age is a period of the human life cycle that is generally devalued in American society, and the image of Alzheimer's disease contributes to the fear of aging and stigmatization of elders that is prevalent (Beard and Fox, 2008). Indeed, partly as a result of advocacy efforts that have emphasized the substantial cost of Alzheimer's disease to society as a way of garnering support for policy development, dominant societal images of the disease are generally of an illness that dehumanizes its victims and wreaks havoc financially as well as emotionally on their families. This overwhelmingly negative portrayal is reinforced by messages in the media and public policy discourse bemoaning the increasing numbers of elders who will develop Alzheimer's disease and the associated rise in the costs to society as a result (Fox, Kelly, and Tobin, 1999). It is clear that Alzheimer's disease imposes both emotional and economic burdens on those who are afflicted, their families, the professionals who care for them, and society. In the United States today, it is estimated that over 5 million people have the disease, and this number is projected to increase to anywhere from 11 million to 16 million by 2050 (Alzheimer's Association, 2008, 2009). Thus, costs associated with the disease are likely to increase as well. The economic cost of Alzheimer's disease to society includes the value of all goods and services that are used to prevent, diagnose, treat, and care for people with the illness. Direct costs, those that result in dollar expenditures, include physician services, hospital care, nursing home care, medications, adult daycare, homemaker services, respite care, transportation services, and many additional social and other services. People living with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are more likely to use inpatient hospital services and are more likely to see a physician than are Medicare beneficiaries without Alzheimer's disease. As such, the average Medicare cost per beneficiary is three times higher for someone with Alzheimer's disease than for someone without it. People with dementia represent approximately one-quarter of older users of paid homecare services, and about one-half of users of adult daycare, residential care, and skilled nursing facility care (Alzheimer's Association, 2008). Alzheimer's disease also leads to indirect costs, which do not involve expenditures but do result in use of resources. Values must be imputed, for example, by estimating wages that would have been paid if caregivers who provide unpaid services had not been available. The indirect costs of Alzheimer's disease include the value of days of productive activity that the person with the disease has lost, the value of unpaid informal caregiver services provided by family members and friends, and the costs in physical and emo- tional suffering experienced by people living with Alzheimer's disease and their families- although the latter costs are rarely, if ever, estimated. The cost of research relating to the diagnosis, treatment, causes, and course of Alzheimer's disease and the cost of educating people about it are also costs to society. As a general indication of those types of costs, the National Institutes of Health spends roughly two-thirds of a billion dollars annually on Alzheimer's-related research (estimated for the years 2004-08) (www.nih.gov/news/fixnding researchareas.htm [accessed October 20, 2008]). Further, it has been estimated that the research and development costs to bring a drug to market are approximately $800 million and that a drug needs to generate $500 million in annual sales to be considered profitable (Rawlins, 2004). It is challenging to estimate the cost of Alzheimer's disease for a number of reasons. These include the difficulty diagnosing the disease and distinguishing it from other forms of dementia; the difficulty identifying people with Alzheimer's disease in administrative- claims databases (Newcomer et al, 1999); the multiple settings in which people living with Alzheimer's disease may be cared for; the different types of services used by those with mild, moderate, and severe dementia; and the myriad of payers who differ in terms of the services they cover and the settings in which they will cover them. …


This paper presents the findings of an original research project commissioned by BookTrust, a respected UK charity that gifts books to children, young people (CYP) and their families. It explored the impact and modus of pleasurable engagement with books among CYP with severe and profound learning disabilities and applied a critical, phenomenological stance on what it means to read through drawing on "inclusive literacy" as a conceptual framework. Data were collected from four local areas in England and included 43 CYP aged 4–14. In keeping with a phenomenological stance, it employed interpretivist methods involving 13 deep‐level interviews with families to include observations and structured play; 13 observations of CYP sharing books with others in home, play or school settings, and interviews with 27 practitioners working in a range of organisations (e.g., Portage service and advisory teams). Findings were that books had a positive impact on well‐being, social inclusion and development. CYP were engaged in enjoying the content of books through personalisation, sensory stimulation, social stimulation and repetition. This affirmed the theoretical and practical approaches espoused by "inclusive literacy" but made a critical and original contribution to our understanding of the special place that books occupy as ordinary artefacts of literary citizenship among this cohort. The benefits of volitional reading among CYP who do not have learning disabilities are well known, but the authors urge publishers and policymakers to recognise CYP with severe and profound learning disabilities as equally important, active consumers of books who have much to gain from reading for pleasure.


Analysis of motor skill and performance variability in task with retention affords insight about synergies underlying central nervous system control. Preferential distribution of variability in way that minimally affected the task performance suggests sophisticated neural control. In around 1990, it was adopted monocycle exercise as an educational program in all over the Japanese elementary school. Unfortunately, it was not used the monocycle in daily life. This research assesses the influence of coordinate in motor skills retention. It was measured Electromyography and accelerometer during monocycle motor tasks for ten or more year break interval. It was rapidly activated monocycle performance in all subjects. An analysis of variability in execution using motor retention to quantify performance at results offers substantially more sensitivity to coordinated variables in motor tasks.


Reconstructed changes in seawater calcium and magnesium concentration ([Ca2+], [Mg2+]) predictably affect the ocean's acid/base and carbon chemistry. Yet inaccurate formulations of chemical equilibrium "constants" are currently in use to account for these changes. Here we develop an efficient implementation of the MIAMI Ionic Interaction Model to predict all chemical equilibrium constants required for carbon chemistry calculations under variable [Ca2+] and [Mg2+]. We investigate the impact of [Ca2+] and [Mg2+] on the relationships among the ocean's pH, CO2, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), saturation state of CaCO3 (Ω), and buffer capacity. Increasing [Ca2+] and/or [Mg2+] enhances "ion pairing," which increases seawater buffering by increasing the concentration ratio of total to "free" (uncomplexed) carbonate ion. An increase in [Ca2+], however, also causes a decline in carbonate ion to maintain a given Ω, thereby overwhelming the ion pairing effect and decreasing seawater buffering. Given the reconstructions of Eocene [Ca2+] and [Mg2+] ([Ca2+]~20 mM; [Mg2+]~30 mM), Eocene seawater would have required essentially the same DIC as today to simultaneously explain a similar‐to‐modern Ω and the estimated Eocene atmospheric CO2 of ~1000 ppm. During the Cretaceous, at ~4 times modern [Ca2+], ocean buffering would have been at a minimum. Overall, during times of high seawater [Ca2+], CaCO3 saturation, pH, and atmospheric CO2 were more susceptible to perturbations of the global carbon cycle. For example, given both Eocene and Cretaceous seawater [Ca2+] and [Mg2+], a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would require less carbon addition to the ocean/atmosphere system than under modern seawater composition. Moreover, increasing seawater buffering since the Cretaceous may have been a driver of evolution by raising energetic demands of biologically controlled calcification and CO2 concentration mechanisms that aid photosynthesis.


Simulation traditionally computes individual trajectories, which severely limits the assessment of overall system behaviour. To address this fundamental shortcoming, we rely on computing enclosures to determine bounds on system behaviour instead of individual traces. In the present case study, we investigate the enclosures of a generic Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system and demonstrate how this creates a direct link between requirement specification and standardized safety criteria as put forward by ISO 26262. The case study strongly supports that a methodology based on enclosures can provide a missing link across the engineering process, from design to compliance testing. This result is highly relevant for ongoing efforts to virtualize testing and create a unified tool-chain for the development of next generation Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.


This paper describes the performances of 1.3-μm-band single-mode optical cables, of a single-mode fiber splicing apparatus, and of a cable installation machine. It also discusses optical loss characteristics in a 20-km long repeater section of a 400-Mbit/sec optical transmission system. An average cable loss of 0.48 dB/km and an average splice loss of 0.11 dB were achieved at 1.3 μm in the field. Optical loss distribution in the 20-km long repeater section was investigated experimentally. Optical losses between 10.2 and 13.9 dB were attained for the 20-km section at 1.3 μm.


For more than 20 years, moderately raised concentrations of total homocysteine have been associated with an increased risk of atherothrombotic vascular events but only recently has evidence mounted to suggest that the association may be causal. The association is independent of other factors, it is fairly consistent across many studies, it is strong and dose-related, and it is biologically plausible. However, the evidence needs to be strengthened by a systematic review of all comparable studies and the demonstration, in randomised trials, that lowering total homocysteine is followed by a significant reduction in atherothrombotic vascular disease. In addition, the measurement of total homocysteine needs to be standardised. If these can be achieved then total homocysteine measurement will become another useful marker of vascular risk, multivitamin therapy will be another therapeutic option for people at risk of atherothrombotic vascular disease, and fortification of food with folic acid will rise high on the political and public health agenda.


Abstract. Thanks to the recent worldwide spread of drones and to the development of structure from motion photogrammetric software, UAV photogrammetry is becoming a convenient and reliable way for the 3D documentation of built heritage. Hence, nowadays, UAV photogrammetric surveying is a common and quite standard tool for producing 3D models of relatively large areas. However, when such areas are large, then a significant part of the generated point cloud is often of minor interest. Given the necessity of efficiently dealing with storing, processing and analyzing the produced point cloud, some optimization step should be considered in order to reduce the amount of redundancy, in particular in the parts of the model that are of minor interest. Despite this can be done by means of a manual selection of such parts, an automatic selection is clearly much more viable way to speed up the final model generation. Motivated by the recent development of many semantic classification techniques, the aim of this work is investigating the use of point cloud optimization based on semantic recognition of different components in the photogrammetric 3D model. The Girifalco Fortress (Cortona, Italy) is used as case study for such investigation. The rationale of the proposed methodology is clearly that of preserving high point density in the model in the areas that describe the fortress, whereas point cloud density is dramatically reduced in vegetated and soil areas. Thanks to the implemented automatic procedure, in the considered case study, the size of the point cloud has been reduced by a factor five, approximately. It is worth to notice that such result has been obtained preserving the original point density on the fortress surfaces, hence ensuring the same capabilities of geometric analysis of the original photogrammetric model.


Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change. Location: Tropical and subtropical moist forests. Time period: Current. Major taxa studied: Palms (Arecaceae). Methods: We assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co-occurring non-palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure. Results: On average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long-term climate stability. Life-form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non-tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above-ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work. Conclusions: Tree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests.


Various types of hybrid drives are increasingly being applied in transportation. Wing sails can provide additional propulsion to a motor-driven ship, thereby decreasing fossil fuel consumption. This article contributes to the selection and consideration of the influencing parameters for applying wing sails for ship propulsion. Basic developmental factors and application of wing sails are described. In addition, influential parameters and their relations are discussed. These parameters are connected to the physical and mechanical properties of wing sails and their impact on propulsion. It is important to recognize certain contributions of every influential parameter in relation to the final achievement. Parameters are ranked and described for several common types of sails, to find the best solution. Changing values of the influencing parameters on wing sails can significantly increase converted wind energy. The aim of this study was to note the parameters that influence the wing sail to drive ships more efficiently. Their importance is explained in an example based on the two most important sail types. This article evaluates the main parameters for a pointed semi-rigid wing with additional circulation for hybrid propulsion. All further research should be focused on this wing. Finally, guidelines for structural and operational changes in future wing sails are provided, which may assist developers in directing their efforts to discover a better solution for ship propulsion.


As the Financial Reporting Foundation (FRF) and Malaysian Accounting Standard Board (MASB) announced their plan to bring Malaysia to full International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) convergence by 1 January 2012, it is envisaged that Malaysian public listed companies will be prepared for the IFRS convergence. Our study was carried out during the peak of the convergence preparation in Malaysia. We aim to identify external drivers that influence the preparedness of companies for IFRS convergence by applying institutional theory perspectives as well as examine internal barriers that may impede the implementation of IFRS through the lens of a resource-based view. Of 859 questionnaires sent out, a total of the 150 responses were used in the data analysis of this study contributing a usable response rate of 17.46%. The general results show that respondents are prepared for the IFRS convergence. Our findings specifically reveal that the majority of respondents agree that coercive forces from stakeholders, especially regulatory forces influence their preparedness to implement IFRS. Additionally, this study points to the important roles of national accounting regulators and external auditors in influencing the degree of preparedness for IFRS convergence. The findings further demonstrate that it is not an easy task to implement IFRS and hence proper preparatory actions taken by companies are necessary in the convergence process. Overall, this study contributes to the research study's gap of limited exploration study on the IFRS adoption at organisation field from institutional theory perspectives, as previous institutional research focused on isomorphism influence on the IFRS adoption at the national level perspectives. Further, this study uses Phang Soon Yeow and Nurmazilah Mahzan Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013 96 a resource-based view to explore the responses of companies for full convergence with IFRS. Hence, this study contributes to literature on IFRS adoption by offering insights into the internal barriers faced by companies in the IFRS convergence process. From a practical standpoint, this study provides several implications for accounting regulators, standard setters, external auditors and Malaysian public listed companies.


With the recent globalization movement and decline in foreign student enrollment in universities in developed countries like the U.S., universities are looking for ways to bring education to the student rather than waiting for students to come for education. Therefore, opening a branch campus abroad and bringing education to the student became an alternative for U.S. universities to bringing students to their campuses. This qualitative study explored the political, economic, socio-cultural, and educational challenges of administering a Sino-U.S. joint-venture campus in the People's Republic of China. China American University (CAU) is an educational joint venture between China Investment Company (CIC) and American University (AU) in the U.S. that resulted in naming CAU a branch campus of AU. Data were acquired through semi-structured interviews, surveys, and participant observations. The researcher interviewed, surveyed and observed U.S. administrators and executives, American teachers, Chinese students, and Chinese staff. The Internationalization concept of Knight and de Wit (1999) and National Culture: Four Dimensions concept of Hofstede (1980) were utilized for the analysis. Human Capital Theory helped explain the rationale behind the Chinese' acceptance of an American education in China. This study concluded that there are many challenges of administering such a Sino-U.S. joint venture campus in China. As the literature review, research data, and analysis in this study suggested, administering a Sino-U.S. joint venture campus in China requires a broad understanding of the host country and a significant amount of flexibility. The researcher also found that the Chinese are concerned about the quality of such programs. Therefore, more research


In 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" to help raise funds for a pedestal upon which would stand the Statue of Liberty. The poem depicts the "Mother of Exiles" offering a "world-wide welcome" (7) to the weary, hungry, and downtrodden. The work's final line is spoken by the hospitable "Lady Liberty" figure: "I lift my lamp beside the golden door" (14). The poem was saluted twenty years later, when it was engraved in bronze and affixed to the very pedestal it had helped construct. Just five years after that, though, Lazarus's golden door metaphor would come to share its status as a national icon with another metaphor. Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot opened in Washington, DC, in 1908, crystallizing and celebrating a view of American ethnicity with origins in the eighteenth century) In the finale, the lead character points to New York harbor during a blazing sunset and proclaims it to be "the great Melting Pot." He continues, "Ah, what a stirring and seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,--black and yellow.... [H]ow the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God" (184-85). Clearly, the golden door and melting pot images glowed with connotations of wide acceptance and mutual ascension. However, by 1924 these two metaphors came together in a way that showed they had lost their radiance and reverence. That year, Senator Ellison DuRant Smith argued before Congress for a proposal to significantly toughen immigration restriction laws. Smith opened his speech by declaring that "the time has arrived when we should shut the door. We have been called the melting pot of the world. We had an experience just a few years ago, during the Great World War, when it looked as though we had allowed influences to enter our borders that were about to melt the pot in place of us being the melting pot" (80). (2) Coupling the melting pot with the words "shut the door" (and repeating the latter phrase five more times during the speech), Smith reveals how a perceived failure of the melting pot metaphorically stripped the glitter off the golden door, leaving it a door that needed shutting. The immigrants blamed for this dramatic transformation came from countries such as Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Like the Chinese who had evoked apprehension before them, these newcomers had little previous representation in the US and stood in stark contrast to most immigrants who had come since the start of European colonization, especially those from Britain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. The "old immigrants," as they came to be called, were being eclipsed by the "new immigrants" from Europe's southern and eastern regions. A book from the period uses this old versus new classification to explain that 563,175 old immigrants arrived in 1882, comprising 86.9 percent of that year's overall figures. By 1907, however, 971,608 new immigrants arrived, making up 81 percent of the total (Jenks and Lauck 26). This swing evoked widespread anxiety because of the alleged degradation that would result from admitting so many new immigrants. As early as 1891, The Nation warned that the new immigrants threatened to unbalance the country by introducing too many lower-class workers, too many males, and too many hard-to-assimilate elderly people. The article concludes by saying that the southern and eastern European influx "is not related to us in race or language, but has habits of thought and behavior radically foreign to those which have so far prevailed in the United States" ("The New Immigration" 210). Such sentiments became more pervasive as percentages continued to grow in favor of the new immigrants. (3) Opposition to new immigrants reached a peak in the early 1920s, resulting in far-reaching restriction laws. While about 900,000 newcomers entered annually from 1900-1910, only a third of that were admitted for all of 1925 through 1930. …


A spectroscopic technique based on a full four port modeling and measurement is developed and utilized to study a tapered- fiber photonic crystal waveguide coupler. The coupler is made by directly situating the tapered fiber on the defect region of a silicon membrane photonic crystal waveguide. The waveguide is lithographically terminated resulting a Fabry- Perot cavity. It turns out that the line-shape of the resonances is not merely a Lorentzian but can be constructed from that of the unloaded waveguide resonator. By knowing how the resonances broaden the experimental data is then fit and the coupling efficiency is extracted for the entire spectrum.


Previous research on the relationship between investment in information and communication technology (ICT) and bank performance (BP) have been obviously disagreeing. This is because some posit a positive relationship and some argue to the contrary.Thus, this research contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the contribution of ICT to BP by looking at the impact of ICT investments on the performance of a sample of 50 Lebanese banks for the period 2009-2016.Secondary data were collected from the annual report for each bank. CAMELS model is chosen as the dependent variable, while ICT investments (adoption of automated teller machines (ATM), mobile banking (MB), internet banking (IB), telephone banking (TB), debit and credit cards (BC) and point of sale (POS) terminals) is the independent variable.Using multivariate OLS model, the results demonstrate that the application ATM, IB, TB and POS terminals does not significantly affect banks performance. However, the application of MB and offering BC to customers significantly and directly affects performance of banks in Lebanon. Thus, banks in Lebanon are recommended to find a way to increase interest of Lebanese consumers in MB applications and attract more customers by offering them a range of BC tailored to fit their preferences.


"It is with no desire or hope to promote a correct or superior form of textuality, with no desire to correct a so-called interpretive or editorial textual abuse, nor any attempt to prevent anyone from doing anything imaginable with texts or books that I have undertaken this book. . . ." So writes Peter Shillingsburg in his introduction to this series of meditations on the possibilities of deriving "meaning" from the texts we read.Shillingsburg argues that as humans we are and always will be interested in the past, in what was meant, in what was revealed inadvertently by a text--and that is all to the good. But we learn more and can compare notes better when we understand the principles that govern the ways we read. "Resisting Texts" approaches crucial questions about the practice of textual editing and literary criticism by posing questions in the form "If we take such and such to be the goal of our reading, then what will follow from that assumption?"With humor and a lively imagination, Shillingsburg takes the reader on a fresh theoretical investigation of communication, understanding and misunderstanding, and textual satisfactions, drawing examples from Thackeray, Wordsworth, Melville, and others."Resisting Texts" will appeal to all who enjoy the varieties of critical approaches to the written word.Peter L. Shillingsburg is Professor of English, University of North Texas.


This paper studies energy bias in technical change. For this purpose, we develop a computable general equilibrium model that builds on endogenous growth models. The model explicitly captures links between energy, the rate and direction of technical change, and the economy. We derive the equilibrium determinants of biased technical change and show the importance of feedback in technical change, substitution possibilities between final goods, and general-equilibrium effects for the equilibrium bias. If the feedback effect is strong, or the substitution elasticity large, or both, our model tends to a corner solution in which only technologies are developed that are appropriate for production of non-energy intensive goods.


The tetravalent dengue vaccine CYD-TDV (Dengvaxia®) is the first licensed vaccine against dengue, but recent findings indicate an elevated risk of severe disease among vaccinees without prior dengue virus (DENV) exposure. The World Health Organization currently recommends CYD-TDV only for individuals with serological confirmation of past DENV exposure. Our objective was to evaluate the potential impact and cost-effectiveness of vaccination following serological screening. To do so, we used an agent-based model to simulate DENV transmission with and without vaccination over a 30-year timeframe. Under a range of values for the proportion of vaccinees with prior DENV exposure, we projected the proportion of symptomatic and hospitalized cases averted as a function of the sensitivity and specificity of serological screening. Scenarios about the cost-effectiveness of screening and vaccination were chosen to be representative of Brazil and the Philippines. We found that public health impact depended primarily on the sensitivity of serological screening in high-transmission settings and on a combination of sensitivity and specificity in low-transmission settings. Reducing risk from an individual perspective required high specificity, no less than 0.8. Cost-effectiveness could be achievable from the perspective of a public payer provided that screening sensitivity for prior DENV exposure and the value of a disability-adjusted life-year were both high. Cost-effectiveness was also achievable from an individual perspective, particularly with high screening specificity and low coverage. Whereas the results of this analysis offer general guidelines about CYD-TDV vaccination, decisions in specific contexts would benefit from additional, more context-specific modeling analyses. In conclusion, vaccination with CYD-TDV following serological screening could have a positive impact in certain epidemiological settings, provided that screening is highly specific, at least moderately sensitive, and inexpensive.


Background: Oxidative stress occurs due to an imbalance of the number of free radicals by the number of endogenous antioxidant produced by the body i.e. Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Gluthathione Peroxidase (GPx), and Catalase. The imbalance between the number of free radicals and antioxida nts can be overcome with the end ogenous antioxidant intake that exogenous oxidative stress can be reduced. O ne of exogenous antioxidants is natural Gaharu leaf water extract. Objective: This research focus on the effect of Gaharu leaf water extract in reducing MDA and 8- OHdG and increase the activity of SOD and Catalase. Methods: This study was an experimental with post only controls group design. Experiment was divided into 5 groups of w istar rats, each consisting of 5 animals, i.e. negative control group without extract [K (-)], treatment 1 treated 50 mg/ kg BW/day of the extract (T1), treatment 2 treated 10 0 mg/ kg BW/day of the extract (T2), treatment 3 treated 200 mg/ kg BW/day of the extract (T3), and positive control group [K (+)] treated with vitamin Cat a dose 50 mg/ kg BW/day. All groups treated for 10 weeks. Every day, before treatment, each group was given a maximum swimming activity for 1.5 hours for 10 weeks. ELISA was used to measure MDA, 8-OHdG, SOD , and C atalase activities . Result: The research results showed that treatment of extract of leaves of Gaharu with an higher dose from 50 mg/kg BW up to 200 mg/ kg BW significantly decline (p <0.05) levels of MDA with the average ranging from 6.37±0.23, 5,56±0.27 and 4.32±0.27, 8-OHdG with a mean of 1.64±0.11, 1.26±0.46 , and 1.09±0.17. On the other hand the treatment also increase SOD activity with less ranging from 12.15±1.04, 15.70±2.02 , and 18.84±1.51, and Catalase ranging from 6,68±0.63, 8.20±1.14 and 9.29±0,79 in the blood of Wistar rats were given a maximum activity compared to the negative control group. This is probably higher phenol compounds (bioflavonoids) quantity content of the extract. These compounds synergistically affect their activity through capture and neutralize the free radicals that oxidized the lipid to less that automatically MDA production as the end result of oxidation lipid levels down, 8-OHdG down, the activity of SOD and Catalase ride. C onclusion: Gaharu leaf water extract reduced oxidative stress of Wistar rats through reduction of MDA and 8-O h dG mechanism. On the other hand, the extract increases SOD and Catalase activity.


Summary

Designing agroecological cropping systems, which have enhanced biodiversity and that improve agroecosystem services, is recognized as the most likely method of improving the environmental sustainability of agriculture. However, tools and methods for designing such systems are lacking.

To help fill this gap, we propose a revised trait-based response/effect framework as applied to agroecosystems, which takes into account farmers' decision rules.

The framework consists of a "Biophysical module", which describes the biophysical functioning of the agroecosystem on a response/effect traits basis and a "Decision module", which encompasses the farmer's choices that follow decision rules, to account for the high degree of human control of filters and community structure operating in cultivated systems.

The introduction of the Decision module and its interactions with the Biophysical module opens new research priorities related to trade-offs between services, to species choice and to the relationships between the community composition, functional structure and the functions.

Synthesis and applications. We proposed a revised trait-based response/effect framework as applied to agroecosystems, which incorporates farmers' decisions. This framework has great potential to address questions related to the strategic choices associated with multispecies cropping system design, from plant (species choices) to community (optimization of community composition) scales. It also contributes to improving the rationale to manage multifunctional agroecosystems, which extend beyond yield alone, by enabling the exploration of trade-offs between ecosystem services.


Ionizing radiation activates a large variety of intracellular mechanisms responsible for maintaining appropriate cell functionality or activation of apoptosis which eliminates damaged cells from the population. The mechanism of such induced cellular death is widely used in radiotherapy in order to eliminate cancer cells, although in some cases it is highly limited by increased cellular radio-resistance due to aberrations in molecular regulation mechanisms of malignant cells. Despite the positive correlation between the radiation dose and the number of apoptotic cancer cells, radiation has to be limited because of extensive side effects. Therefore, additional control signals whose role will be to maximize the cancer cells death-ratio while minimizing the radiation dose and by that the potential side effects are worth considering. In this work we present the results of simulation studies showing possibilities of single gene regulation by small interfering RNA (siRNA) that can increase radio-sensitivity of malignant cells showing aberrations in the p53 signaling pathway, responsible for DNA damage-dependant apoptosis. By blocking the production of the p53 inhibitor Mdm2, radiation treated cancer cells are pushed into the apoptotic state on a level normally achievable only with high radiation doses. The presented approach, based on a simulation study originating from experimentally validated regulatory events, concerns one of the basic problems of radiotherapy dosage limitations, which, as will be shown, can be partially avoided by using the appropriate siRNA based control mechanism.


Macroalgae are the major habitat-forming organisms in many coastal temperate and subtropical marine systems. Although climate change has been identified as a major threat to the persistence of macroalgal beds, the combined effects of ocean warming and ocean acidification on algal performance are poorly understood. Here we investigate the effects of increased temperature and acidification on the growth, calcification and nutritional content of 6 common subtropical macroalgae; Sargassum linearifolium, Ulva sp., Amphiroa anceps, Corallina officinalis, Delisea pulchra and Laurencia decussata. Algae were reared in a factorial cross of 3 temperatures (23°C [ambient], 26°C and 28°C) and 3 pH levels (8.1 [ambient], 7.8 and 7.6) for 2 wk. The highest (28°C) temperature decreased the growth of all 6 macroalgal species, irrespective of the pH levels. In contrast, the effect of decreased pH on growth was variable. The growth of Ulva sp. and C. officinalis increased, L. decussata decreased, while the remaining 3 species were unaffected. Interestingly, the differential responses of macroalgae to ocean acidification were unrelated to whether or not a species was a calcifying alga, or their carbon-uptake mechanism—2 processes that are predicted to be sensitive to decreased pH. The growth of the calcifying algae (C. officinalis and A. anceps) was not affected by reduced pH but calcification of these 2 algae was reduced when exposed to a combination of reduced pH and elevated temperature. The 3 species capable of uptake of bicarbonate, S. linearifolium, L. decussata and Ulva sp., displayed positive, negative and neutral changes in growth, respectively, in response to reduced pH. The C:N ratio for 5 of the 6 species was unaffected by either pH or temperature. The consistent and predictable negative effects of temperature on the growth and calcification of subtropical macroalgae suggests that this stressor poses a greater threat to the persistence of subtropical macroalgal populations than ocean acidification under ongoing and future climate change.


This research paper studies the factors that influence recruiters' decision making about potential employees due to brand-images of business school brands. It employs a descriptive literature design to list the impact of brand image on recruiters' decision-making processes, the impact of alumni on the perception of recruiters, and the impact university ranking has on the recruitment and selection of business school students as employees during recruitment drives by recruiters. As such, it evaluates the factors that recruiters look for in a business school brands, the weight of these factors and then how the institutions' alumni affect the recruiters' decisions. The paper synthesized some of the factors through an extensive literature review that affects recruiters' decision-making. it has become essential for all organizations to brand themselves in the spat of competition being experienced globally; thus, becoming a need for business schools too to create brand-images. The research paper briefly describes some of the literature; from the impact of brand image on recruiters' decision-making process, the impact of alumni on the perception of recruiters, and the impact of university rankings on recruitment and selection processes. It employs inductive and deductive research approaches to evaluate the data from the literature and draw conclusions from it. The major limitation of the study is its heavy reliance on the conduced literature review. The credibility of the study could have been enhanced by adding data obtained during the interviews.


Organisms exist within complex landscapes, and landscape features may influence multiple aspects of a species' distribution within the landscape, including patch occupancy, abundance within patches, and population genetic diversity at a local or regional scale. We took two approaches to identify the relative importance of landscape context for populations of the Eastern Collared Lizard (Crotaphytus collaris collaris) in the northern Flint Hills of Kansas. First, we conducted surveys at limestone outcrops in experimental watersheds managed under different burning and grazing practices. Habitat occupancy and lizard abundance were estimated by constructing models that incorporated aspects of the environment at multiple scales. Both abundance and occupancy were higher on rock ledges that had more crevices, greater complexity in vegetation, covered a larger area, and were more prominent than available habitat. Abundance and occupancy were also higher in watersheds that were burned frequently (1–2 year intervals), but grazing only had a significant effect in less frequently burned (four–year burn interval) watersheds. Our second approach was to measure genetic diversity and population genetic differentiation and relate these measures to differences in landscape context. We sampled collared lizard DNA at four locations (sample sites < 45 km apart) and analyzed trends in 10 polymorphic microsatellite loci. We found evidence for low genetic variability and moderate population differentiation among our sample sites relative to estimates reported in the literature at the core of the species' range. Differences in migration rates and ancestry among sampling locations also appear to correspond to differences in landscape resistance based on land cover and rock availability. Thus, it appears that habitat management may influence the suitability of habitat patches at the local scale, and that differences in land cover and rock availability may influence the connectivity of populations at the landscape scale.


The optical constants of rapidly grown silver sulfide films approximately 400 A thick have been determined in the wavelength range 0.28–2.5 μ using three independent methods. A fourth method was used to obtain values of n and k for thin (40 A), naturally grown silver sulfide films on opaque silver in the wavelength range 0.34–0.60 μ. Although these results are probably not representative of bulk silver sulfide, they should be approximately correct for tarnish films on silver. Thus, they can be used to calculate the reflectance as a function of wavelength for silver covered with tarnish films of various thicknesses. The measured reflectances of two such films were in reasonable agreement with the calculations, and the reflectance of heavily tarnished silver was essentially the same as that of fresh silver in the infrared. The measured optical constants of silver sulfide can also be used to calculate the thickness of thin tarnish films from ellipsometric measurements, and to calculate the shift in the surface plasma-resonance frequency when silver is covered with a thin tarnish film.


To study the in vivo dynamics of hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha (HIF-1alpha), master regulator of O(2)-dependent gene expression, and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in the hypoxic myocardium, Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 4 to 6 per group) were exposed to 1-hr hypoxia (10% O(2)), 23-hr hypoxia, and 23-hr hypoxia, followed by reoxygenation. HIF-1alpha increased 15-fold after 1-hr hypoxia, remained constant for 23 hrs, and returned to baseline on reoxygenation. Extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2) were unchanged throughout. Phosphorylated p38 increased 4-fold after 1-hr hypoxia and returned to baseline within 23-hr hypoxia. The activity of stress-activated protein kinases/c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinases (JNKs), measured as phosphorylated c-Jun, increased 3-fold after 1-hr hypoxia and remained sustained afterward. Furthermore, HIF-1alpha was halved in rats that were administered with the p38 inhibitor SB202190 and made hypoxic for 1 hr. In conclusion, although very sensitive to the reoxygenation, HIF-1alpha is overexpressed in vivo in the hypoxic myocardium, and its acute induction by hypoxia is correlated with that of p38.