The genus Eudicella White comprises horned cetoniines widespread in the sub-Saharan Africa. Two subgenera, Eudicella (Eudicella) White and Eudicella (Cyprolais) Thomson, compose the genus. Here, the remarkably uniform subgenus Eudicella (Eudicella) is revised based on the study of the aedeagal parameres and the re-analysis of type material. It is found that several misidentifications have been propagated in the literature over the past two centuries up to the present day. Furthermore, a number of new synonymies have emerged at the species level. The most important taxonomical changes proposed in this revision are summarized below: - A neotype is designated for E. (E.) daphnis (Buquet, 1835) and the species re-described and illustrated; - E. (E.) schultzeorum Kolbe, 1906; E. (E.) darandi Bourgoin, 1923; and E. (E.) opdebeeki Allard, 1991, are synonymised with E. (E.) daphnis; - E. (E.) bertherandi Fairmaire, 1891; E. (E.) hereroensis Kraatz, 1900; E. (E.) nyassica Kolbe, 1901; E. (E.) immaculata Heath, 1904; and the taxa previously ranked under E. (E.) "smithii" sensu Allard (nec MacLeay) are synonymised with E. (E.) euthalia (Bates, 1881); - E. (E.) euthalia is ranked to the subspecific level under E. (E.) tetraspilota Harold, 1879; - E. (E.) woermanni Kraatz, 1890 (nec Allard); E. (E.) challemeli Allard, 1985; and E. (E.) pseudowoermanni Allard, 1991, are synonymised with E. (E.) morgani (White, 1839); - E. (E.) poggei Kolbe, 1884 (nec Allard), and E. (E.) viridana Kolbe, 1884, are synonymised with E. (E.) gralli (Buquet, 1836); - E. (E.) pauperata Kolbe, 1884 (nec Allard), is re-established to designate E. (E.) woermanni sensu Allard (nec Kraatz); E. (E.) congoensis Schurhoff, 1942, is synonymised with E. (E.) pauperata. - E. (E.) smithii (MacLeay, 1838; nec Allard) is confirmed a good species; E. (E.) trilineata Quedenfeldt, 1880, is synonymised with E. (E.) smithii. Of the 22 species and ca. 50 subspecies currently included in Eudicella (Eudicella), only 14 species and 2 subspecies remain valid following this study: E. (E.) daphnis; E. (E.) tetraspilota (with ssp. tetraspilota and ssp. euthalia); E. (E.) trimeni Janson, 1884; E. (E.) morgani; E. (E.) darwiniana Kraatz, 1880; E. (E.) gralli; E. (E.) chloe Raffray, 1885; E. (E.) aethiopica Muller, 1941; E. (E.) pauperata; E. (E.) inexpectata Antoine, 1984; E. (E.) ducalis Kolbe, 1914; E. (E.) smithii; E. (E.) frontalis Westwood, 1843; and E. (E.) colmanti Braem, 1907. The known species and colour varieties of Eudicella (Eudicella) are re-described and illustrated. The aedeagal parameres of the former and current taxa are photographed and described systematically for the first time.


At high temperatures and in harsh environments ceramic springs are often superior to metallic springs and allow for innovative solutions. A recently proposed application involves ceramic springs with metallized surfaces as capacitive force sensor. A strictly linear stress-strain characteristic of the spring is a precondition for such a sensor.
Helical ceramic springs with rectangular cross-section have been produced from sintered hollow cylinders. Alumina, ATZ, Y-TZP, and Ce-TZP springs with identical dimensions were characterized and compared regarding deformation behavior.
Spring deformation was investigated under various load scenarios.
Dynamic compression was performed with deformation speeds from 0.3 to 30 mm/min. Spring constants of alumina springs are strain rate independent. By contrast, Y-TZP spring constant increases by approximately 3 % within the experimental framework.
A high-precision test facility was developed to characterize spring displacement in nm range under static tensile load over long periods of time. Spring elongation with asymptotic course was observed for zirconia containing materials at room temperature. This effect is particularly strong in the case of Y-TZP. Up to 0.3 % time-dependent elongation was measured after 24 h under constant load. Deformation is completely reversible after unloading. Alumina springs do not show any time-dependent deformation under identical test conditions.
Contrary to alumina springs, a non-linear stress-strain behavior of TZP springs at room temperature was proved in both test series. It is supposed, that pseudo-elasticity caused by stress-induced phase transformation from tetragonal to monoclinic is responsible for this special behavior of TZP springs.


The studies on the storage of any ritual site, are not that numerous; in fact, the only paper on the topic briefly attempts to demonstrate that there is storage associated with some Minoan 'religious' buildings and interprets the data accordingly. This view will be firmly supported here. It has to be noted that for the purposes of this article, the term storage refers only to food storage as indicator of subsistence potential and by extension, for a non-monetary society, of relative wealth. The much-neglected coarse ceramics, especially pithoi and large vessels can give us a reasonable idea on storage. Storage, no doubt, could also be achieved by bags or baskets, which unfortunately leave no trace. Cists or boxes that were specifically made for storage are very rare and are not normally found outside large buildings. Indeed it seems to be the case that Minoan ritual sites to have large storage capacity, and therefore to be able to store and manage wealth – one of the conditions of institution building. The same picture is drawn during the ensuing Mycenaean period, since the linear b tablets provide enough evidence for the existence of Religious institutions that manage and store wealth.


ObjectiveTo prove the role of partnerships in Disease Surveillance and Response to emerging public health threats in Kerala state, India.IntroductionKerala is a small state in India, having a population of only 34 million (2011 census) but with excellent health indices, human development index and a worthy model of decentralised governance. Integrated Disease Surveillance Program, a centrally supported surveillance program, in place since 2006 and have carved its own niche among the best performing states,in India. Laboratory confirmation of health related events/disease outbreaks is the key to successful and timely containement of such events, which need support from a wide range of Laboratories-from Primary care centers to advanced research laboratories, including private sector. In a resource constraint setting, an effective model of Partnership have helped this state in achieving great heights. Networking with laboratores of Medical Education Department, and Premier Private sector laboratories, Financing equipments and reagents through decentralised governance program, resource sharing with other National programs, Laboraotries of Food Safety, Fisheries and Water authorities have resulted in laboratory confirmation of public health events to the extend of 75-80% in the past 5 years in the state. Etiological confirmation accelerated response measures, often multidsciplinary, involving Human health sector, Animal Health, Agriculture, wild life and even environemntal sectors, all relevant in One Health context.MethodsDuring 2013-14,state launhced a laboratory networking initiative, with aid and guidance from central government,through a mutually beneficial MoU, linking all the 5 Govt Medical College Microbiology Laboratories with the State Health surveillance system. A State Laboratory Cordinator was designated, and these teaching Hospital were requested to assist the state in testing of outbreak samples from adjoining 3-4 districts.Additional funds were provided for these institutions after a team assessment and periodic monitoring.All the 14 disricts of state gained remarkably in laboratory confirmation of various outbreaks.During 2013, when one of the remote districts in the state detected an unusual fever cluster among the indigenous community, investigation by a multidisciplinary team, supported by a reputed private sector virology laboratory of an academic institution of the neighbouring state, confirmed Lyme disease, first time in the state. In 2014 and 2015, the same laboratory confirmed another hitherto unreported disease, Kyasanur Forest disease, in the same district. These two events lead to the establishing of a Private Public Partnership model in disease surveillance in the state. This model shared physical infrastructure in the govt hospital premises with technological support from the virology center. Since then, this laboratory has contributed to >90% of laboratory confirmation of health events in the district. Eventually, the same laboratory became the pioneer in confirmation of the first Nipah Virus outbreak in the state in 2018. This laboratory is also the Reference laboratory for H1N1 and Avian Influenza for whole of South India. This surveillance network, has since then, established additional units in other parts of the state through special government order.From the response perspective also, the state adopted similar partnership approach. The strategy for control of Kyasanur Forest Disease(KFD) is a classical example. Monkey deaths were autopsied by Wildlife experts, domestic animals were treated for tick infestation by the veterinary officers, research work done at Veterinary university, human cases treated and vulnerable population vaccinated by Human Health officers, Tribal and Revenue department addressed the welfare aspects of the affected indigenous communities, and the district collector cordinated all related activities. It was a pathbreaking experience, and since 2015, till date, no new case is reported from the district, unlike hotspots in other parts of India.In 2014, the state gained from Fisheries department laboratory, by confirmation of a fish toxin from an event of food borne infection outbreak. In the same year, Veterinary Univerisity laboratory isolated Vibrio Cholera from water samples from a Cholera outbreak.In 2018, the state surveillance unit, engaged with Veterinary University of the state to undertake MAT testing of Human Leptospirosis cases for facilitating the identification of serovars, another landmark effort, approved by Govt of India. The state surveillance system also receives tremendous support from laboratories of research centers like Rajeev Gandhi center for Biotechnology and Vector Control Research Center of ICMR (Indian council of Medical Research center). The state is now, preparing a draft action plan for constituing a One Health Governance Secretariate in Kerala, to bring together all the stakeholders in disease surveillance, for optimizing their contribution.ResultsState Health surveillance system detected 135,130,140,130,disease outbreaks during the years 2014,15,16,17,and 93, till date in 2018. The laboratory confirmation of 65%,75%,80%,82.5% and 65.5% in respective years facilitated prompt response by the state. This was made possible with an extensive laboratory collaboration with partners ranging from Institutional labs of state government as well as decentralised local self governments,(12.3%) Regional Public Health labs(13.8%), Referral Network Labs of Govt Medical College Hospitals (16.2%), Manipal Center for Viral Research Lab(11.5%) Kerala Water Authority Labs (6.2%), Food Security and Safety department (2.3%) and a small contribution by Private Laboratories (1.5%) during 2017. In 2018, 324 human samples were tested and 16 samples confirmed for Nipah virus disease,from MCVR Manipal. The same laboratory confirmed Lyme disease (2013) and Kyasanur Forest Disease (2014 and 2015) from human sampels. 3 environemntal samples were tested positive for Legionnaires bacteria from cooling system of 2 Tourist Hotels, following notification of Legionnaires Pneumonia among 2 foreign tourists.(2016 and 17). Fish toxin "Ciguaterin" was confrimed from an incident of food borne outbreak by a laboratory attached to Fisheries department ( 2015) - a unique example of One Health application in disease surveillance and outbreak response. Laboratories attached to Kerala Water Authority supports testing of water sampels during water borne infections and Food Safety department facilitates analysis of food items during food borne infections. 7 water samples tested positive for Vibrio Cholerae during a Cholera outbreak, done through Reserch wing of Veterinary Univerisity Micobiology Lab in 2016. An instance of Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis was confirmed through a premier private tertiary center laboraotry.Leptospira serovars are being identified through a collaborative project with a Veterinary University(2018).ConclusionsKerala state in India has shown many successful models in development sector. Partnership in Laboratory surveillance is the most recent one in the segment. Besides interdepartmental collaboration, a unique model of Private Public Partnership is also tried by this state, resulting in historic achievements like high eteological confirmation of outbreks including the mos recent and first ever Nipah virus disease,ample evidence for state's commitment to IHR compliance as well.This model, I feel is replicable in similar situations in resource poor countries across the globe.


The implementation of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) at the state level has the potential to allow transportation agencies to proactively address safety concerns. However, the widespread utilization of HSM faces significant barriers as many state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) do not have sufficient HSM-required highway inventory data. Many techniques have been utilized by state DOTs and local agencies to collect highway inventory data for other purposes. Nevertheless, it is unknown which of these methods or any combination of them is capable of efficiently collecting the required dataset while minimizing cost and safety concerns. The focus of this study is to characterize the capability of existing methods for collecting highway inventory data vital to the implementation of the recently published HSM. More specifically, this study evaluates existing highway inventory methods through a nationwide survey and a field trial of the identified-promising highway inventory data collection (HIDC) methods for various types of highway segments. A comparative analysis was conducted to present an example on how to incorporate weights provided by state DOT stakeholders to select the most suitable HIDC method for the specific purpose.


Abstract. Bangladesh is a country of 14.4 million ha geographical area and has a population density of more than 1100 persons per sq. km. Rice is the staple food crop, growing on about 72 % of the total cultivated land and continues to be the most important crop for food security of the country. A project "Sustainable Rice Seed Production and Delivery Systems for Southern Bangladesh" has been executed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in twenty southern districts of Bangladesh. These districts grow rice in about 2.9 million ha out of the country's total rice area of 11.3 million ha. The project aims at contributing to the Government of Bangladesh's efforts in improving national and household food security through enhanced and sustained productivity by using salinity-, submergence- and drought- tolerant and high yielding rice varieties. Out of the 20 project districts, 12 coastal districts are affected by the problem of soil salinity. The salt-affected area in Bangladesh has increased from about 0.83 million ha in 1973 to 1.02 million ha in 2000, and 1.05 million ha in 2009 due to the influence of cyclonic storms like "Sidr", "Laila" and others, leading to salt water intrusion in croplands. Three salinity-tolerant rice varieties have recently been bred by IRRI and field tested and released by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA). These varieties are BRRI dhan- 47 and Bina dhan-8 and - 10. However, they can tolerate soil salinity level up to EC 8−10 dSm−1, whereas the EC of soils in several areas are much higher. Therefore, a large scale dissemination of these varieties can be done only when a site suitability analysis of the area is carried out. The present study was taken up with the objective of preparing the site suitability of the salt-tolerant varieties for the salinity-affected districts of southern Bangladesh. Soil salinity map prepared by Soil Resources Development Institute of Bangladesh shows five classes of salinity. viz., non-saline with some very slight saline soil, very slightly saline with some slight saline soil, slightly saline with some moderately saline soil, strongly saline with some moderately saline soil, and very strongly saline with some strongly saline soil. The soil EC level of different classes range from 2 dSm−1 to >16 dSm−1. The soil map was geo-referenced and digitized using Arc GIS. Salinity tolerance characteristics of the rice varieties were matched with the soil characteristics shown on the map. Three suitability classes were made; soils suitable for salt-tolerant varieties, not suitable for salt-tolerant varieties due to high soil salinity, and suitable for other high yielding varieties due to slight salinity. The mauza (smallest revenue unit) boundary provided by the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council was also geo-referenced and digitized in the same projection. Overlaying and intersecting the mauza boundary on the soil suitability map provided the suitable and not suitable mauza. A total of 4070 mauzas in the 12 salinity-affected districts were listed and maps showing suitability of mauza prepared. About 0.6 million ha out of total 0.87 million ha salinity affected area were found suitable for growing the salinity-tolerant BRRI dhan-47, Bina dhan-8 and -10 in these districts. The maps and other generated information have helped the Dept. of Agriculture Extension (DAE) of Bangladesh in large scale dissemination of seeds of the salinity-tolerant rice varieties in different districts during the past two years.


Abstract Corporate governance plays an important role in shaping the behaviour of modern international businesses and has matured significantly since Friedman first advocated that corporate governance should solely be about serving shareholders. In the Indonesian business sector, belief in corporate governance, though growing, still has some way to go. This is particularly the case in the Indonesian oil palm industry, which currently finds itself in the international spotlight because of environmental and social concerns. Such attention reaffirms the need for sound corporate governance procedures to underpin a plantation's stakeholder relations because an oil palm plantation now needs to deal with a greater number of stakeholders than ever before. However, many Indonesian plantations have not yet embraced the potential for using a focus on corporate governance as a way to drive business improvements. This article argues that a judicious response to the increased attention on Indonesian plantations would be to implement plantation-wide business improvements based on improved corporate governance processes. It argues that plantations that fail to move beyond legal compliance ("beyond legalism") in their relationship with local smallholders will continually need to grapple with the resulting tensions generated by the smallholders' endemic feelings of injustice towards the plantation companies' distribution of benefits.


The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Growth and Development is a comprehensive but accessible account of the current understanding of the factors affecting human growth and development. Over 120 internationally renowned experts have contributed to the book, covering topics such as fetal and postnatal growth, the relative impact of genetic and environmental factors, behavioral development, growth abnormalities, the human lifespan, and the prospects for future generations. Extensively illustrated with photographs, graphs, and diagrams, it offers a great breadth of topic coverage, providing insights into the subject for those not familiar with the area.


This paper studies the price-setting problem of a monopoly that in each time period has the option of failing to deliver its good after receiving payment. The monopoly may be induced to deliver the good if consumers expect that the monopoly will not deliver in the future if it does not deliver today. If the good is non-durable and consumers are anonymous, the monopoly's optimal strategy is to set price equal to the static monopoly price each period if the discount factor is high enough, and otherwise to set the lowest price at which it can credibly promise to deliver the good. If the good is durable, we derive an intuitive lower bound on the monopoly's optimal profit for any discount factor and show that it converges to the optimal static monopoly profit as the discount factor converges to one, in contrast to the Coase conjecture. We also show that rationing the good is never optimal for the monopoly if there is an efficient resale market and that the best equilibrium in which the monopoly always delivers involves a strictly decreasing price path that asymptotes to a level weakly above the ratio of the monopoly's marginal cost to the discount factor.


PURPOSE
It has been hypothesized that the macular carotenoids protect against age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In this study, the association between serum concentrations of carotenoids and the presence of AMD was evaluated in a case-control sample of elderly Chinese subjects.

METHODS
Two hundred sixty-three individuals aged between 50 and 88 years enrolled in the study. Subjects included 82 cases with exudative AMD, 92 cases with early AMD, and 89 control individuals. Serum carotenoids (lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, α- and β-carotenes, and β-cryptoxanthin) and retinol were measured with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

RESULTS
Serum levels of carotenoids and retinol were significantly lower in the cases with exudative AMD than in the controls. Median levels of lutein and zeaxanthin were 0.538 and 0.101 μM, respectively, in the control subjects, and 0.488 and 0.076 μM, respectively, in cases with exudative AMD. After adjustment for age, sex, smoking status, and body mass index (BMI), a significant inverse association was observed for exudative AMD with serum zeaxanthin (relative risk ratio [RRR], 0.04; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0-0.35), lycopene (RRR, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.1-0.48), and α-carotene (RRR, 0.24; 95% CI, 0.12-0.51). Early AMD was inversely associated only with lycopene (RRR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.28-0.86) but was positively associated with α-carotene (RRR, 2.22; 95% CI, 1.37-3.58). No significant associations were observed between serum lutein and cases with early or exudative AMD.

CONCLUSIONS
The data suggest that higher levels of serum carotenoids, in particular zeaxanthin and lycopene, are associated with a lower likelihood of having exudative AMD. Serum levels of carotenoids were relatively higher in this Chinese cohort than in samples of other ethnicities in previous reports.


In this research, the effect of advertising content on purchase intention through the consumers' attitudes towards behavior depend on their environmental concern have questioned. For this purpose, two experiments were carried out using manipulated printed advertising banners. Three basic findings have been reached. First, results were support for the moderator role of environmental concern between advertising content and attitude toward behavior. Second, consumers' attitudes toward behavior were determined to have a mediating role between advertising content and intent to purchase. The third finding is that the relationship between ad content and purchase intention, through the consumers' attitude toward behavior were affected by the level of environmental concern. The research is based on the Planned Behavior Theory, which has a widespread use rate in consumer behavior studies. The research carried out in this framework has two important contributions. The first is that, within the conceptual model proposed, it has been determined when the consumer's environmental concern affects green consumption behavior. Secondly, the research is carried out through the experimental design method through advertisements.


This paper describes an emotion-based approach to acquire sentiment similarity of word pairs with respect to their senses. Sentiment similarity indicates the similarity between two words from their underlying sentiments. Our approach is built on a model which maps from senses of words to vectors of twelve basic emotions. The emotional vectors are used to measure the sentiment similarity of word pairs. We show the utility of measuring sentiment similarity in two main natural language processing tasks, namely, indirect yes/no question answer pairs (IQAP) Inference and sentiment orientation (SO) prediction. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach can effectively capture the sentiment similarity of word pairs and utilize this information to address the above mentioned tasks.


Problem addressed?
An average of 14 bikes stolen every day in Dublin (Dublin Cycling Campaign) this is a real issue for cyclists. More often than not the bike is never seen again.

When a person has their bike stolen they will most likely report it to the police, An officer will file a report and for the majority of cases that is where the issue will end.

Police are too busy with what they deem to be more serious crime to invest much time in a bike theft.

Therefore, broader thinking is required to address this issue. My solution is to leverage the growing trends of crowd sourcing and mobile applications. Crowd sourcing the bike riding community to help one another find stolen bikes.

Initially this project will be focused on bikes but further iterations of the application could easily be expanded to include other high value items such as cars.

Three key feature of the application will be
1. Notifying a user if there is unauthorized movement of their bike. This will take place through an external sensor placed on the bike which will communicate with the user's phone
2. Being able to browse a shared database of bikes listed as stolen by users and having the ability to report a suspected sighting of a stolen bike, which will notify the original owner and relevant authority's.
3. Being able to scan the immediate area for bikes that have been registered as stolen and are using the sensors. Should bikes listed as stolen be found by the system all relevant information will be displayed to the user along with an approximate distance to the stolen bike. This is triangulated via the signal strength of the Bluetooth sensor on the bike. The user can then contact the original owner through the app and let them know they have a legitimate sighting of their stolen bike confirmed through the sensor technology.

The technology used to implement this solution will include an application built on the android platform, using googles cloud hosted firebase database, google maps API integration and remote sensors.

These sensors contain a micro-computer powered by an ARM chip. The sensors include motion and temperature scanners along with NFC compatibility. The sensors transmit signals through a 2.4GHz frequency of Bluetooth with a range of up to 70m.

The application will facilitate users to help one another locate their stolen bikes. Also provide a means to prevent theft occurring via the remote sensors.


Adenovirus has emerged as an important pathogen in immunocompromised patients, in whom disseminated disease occurs frequently and is associated with a high mortality rate. In a retrospective review of 1,847 consecutive autopsies, we identified 84 cases where adenovirus infection was suspected clinically. Adenovirus infection was confirmed at autopsy in 8 (10%) of 84 cases; all were immunocompromised patients. Six (75%) of these cases had disseminated adenovirus infection that contributed to death. Pathologic findings attributed to adenovirus infection included pneumonia with or without intra-alveolar hemorrhage, hepatic necrosis, enterocolitis with or without mucosal hemorrhage, epicardial hemorrhage, and ulcerations of the larynx, trachea, and ileum. This work shows that severe and fatal adenovirus infections are not infrequent, particularly in the immunocompromised population. Both clinicians and pathologists must become aware of the pathogenicity of adenovirus in this patient population, including its potential for causing life-threatening hemorrhage.


How fashion is being presented today? A retrospective research into the history of the fashion shows in order to observe and examine the metamorphosis of the runway presentations of the present time. Fashion designers from the Swedish School of Textiles have participated in the thesis' interview as to express their point of view and elaborate on the issue.


Medievalism, the continuing reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times, has existed as an amphibolous term since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was employed as a synonym for the medieval period. Following the foundational theoretical work by conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck, this essay investigates the history of the concept, 'medievalism,' as a linguistic performance responding to particular pressures inside and outside the academy. The concept can be shown specifically to be the product of what Koselleck calls the process of 'temporalization' (Verzeitlichung) which marks the transition from early modern mentalities to modernity and the modern university. Rejected as the dilettante 'Other' of academic medieval studies in the late nineteenth century, the English term survived probably due to the unique continuity postmedieval British subjects have felt with their medieval past. 'medievalism' has since transmuted into a scholarly practice ('medievalism studies'), spawned a subfield ('Neomedievalism'), competed with coeval movements ('New medievalism'), and become, most recently, the linguistic and epistemological weapon of scholars who would like to bridge the rigid alterity toward medieval culture with the assistance of presentist empathy, memory, subjectivity, resonance, affection, desire, passion, speculation, fiction, imagination, and positionality. Based on its historical priority and conceptual inclusiveness, 'medievalism' is apt to encompass and reconfigure the various ways in which we will continue to receive medieval culture inside and outside the academy.


We demonstrate the use of photonic-crystal fiber for dispersion compensation in a soliton fiber laser. The anomalous dispersion provided by the photonic-crystal fiber enables us to construct a femtosecond .ber laser at 1 microm wavelength without prisms or diffraction gratings. The laser produces ~100-fs pulses with 1 nJ energy, and is a major step toward environmentally-stable all-fiber devices at 1 microm.


Volume visualization, which is a relatively new branch in scientific visualization, not only displays surface features of a model, but enables an intuitive presentation of the internal information of the object. Its comprehensive visualization algorithms developed in the last decade have brought in challenges such as complex data processing, real-time operations, and application-specific system performances. These challenges were elaborated in the manner of research objectives in the thesis.

By devising a novel volume deformation pipeline, this thesis managed to explore volume-model related operations applied for complicated applications through illustrating the feasibility of the designed system that was verified by experimental results. The contribution of the programme was demonstrated via testifying the effectivities of the four system design characteristics. Firstly, the clustering-based segmentation methods were adopted by the volumetric data processing module within the proposed volume deformation system for managing the complicated structures often existing in large volume data sets. Secondly, a novel mesh construction method was formulated in terms of optimizing the control lattices for the following deformation process. Thirdly, the volume deformation approach devised in the research has taken advantages of the parameterization process of the entire shape-change process. Finally, the GPU-based parallel process architecture was utilized to accelerate the calculation of Gaussian sampling in the lattice construction process; the progressive locations of the removed points in the simplification scheme; and the integration of kinetic energy for determining the deformation behaviours.


3D mesostructures with a height of up to 1 mm and micrometer feature size are fabricated employing a writing speed of 1 cm s−1 via direct laser writing utilizing a novel functional photoresist based on the radical coupling reaction of thiols and alkynes. The refractive index of the resist—consisting of a tetrafunctional thiol, a tetrafunctional alkyne and a photoinitiator—is tailored to be compatible with the employed high numerical aperture (NA) objective lens, thus enabling a Dip‐in configuration. Mesostructures are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, optical photography, and nondestructive 3D time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. Woodpile photonic crystals are fabricated as benchmark structures in order to investigate the axial resolution. Verification of the chemical fabrication mechanism is achieved via transmission Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of fabricated cuboid structures by monitoring the decrease of corresponding thiol and alkyne absorption peaks. Postmodification reactions, namely the thiol‐Michael addition and the copper‐catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition, are conducted employing residual thiols and alkynes throughout the cuboid structures. Successful dual and orthogonal modification throughout the structure and on the surface is achieved and verified utilizing transmission FTIR spectroscopy and time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry.


In the post-9/11 world, new and improved surveillance and information-gathering technologies have become a high-priority problem to be solved. Surveillance systems are often needed in areas too hostile or dangerous for a direct human presence. The field of robotics is being looked to for an autonomous mobile surveillance system. One major problem is the control and coordination of multiple cooperating robots. Researchers have looked to the distributed control strategies found in nature in the form of social insects as an inspiration for new control schemes. Swarm intelligence research centers around the interactions of such systems and how they can be applied to contemporary problems. In this thesis, a surveillance system of mobile autonomous robots based on the principles of swarm intelligence is presented.


Objective To validate the comprehensive features of adverse outcomes after surgery for patients with myasthenia gravis. Methods Using reimbursement claims from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, we analyzed 2290 patients who received major surgery between 2004 and 2010 and were diagnosed with myasthenia gravis preoperatively. Surgical patients without myasthenia gravis (n = 22,900) were randomly selected by matching procedure with propensity score for comparison. The adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of postoperative adverse events associated with preoperative myasthenia gravis were calculated under the multiple logistic regressions. Results Compared with surgical patients without myasthenia gravis, surgical patients with myasthenia gravis had higher risks of postoperative pneumonia (OR = 2.09; 95% CI: 1.65–2.65), septicemia (OR = 1.31; 95% CI: 1.05–1.64), postoperative bleeding (OR = 1.71; 95% CI: 1.07–2.72), and overall complications (OR = 1.70; 95% CI: 1.44–2.00). The ORs of postoperative adverse events for patients with myasthenia gravis who had symptomatic therapy, chronic immunotherapy, and short-term immunotherapy were 1.76 (95% CI 1.50–2.08), 1.70 (95% CI 1.36–2.11), and 4.36 (95% CI 2.11–9.04), respectively. Conclusions Patients with myasthenia gravis had increased risks of postoperative adverse events, particularly those experiencing emergency care, hospitalization, and thymectomy for care of myasthenia gravis. Our findings suggest the urgency of revising protocols for perioperative care for these populations.


This paper presents a new technique for optical image encryption based on chaotic Baker map and Double Random Phase Encoding (DRPE). This technique is implemented in two layers to enhance the security level of the classical DRPE. The first layer is a pre-processing layer, which is performed with the chaotic Baker map on the original image. In the second layer, the classical DRPE is utilized. Matlab simulation experiments show that the proposed technique enhances the security level of the DRPE, and at the same time has a better immunity to noise.


Production and sale of livestock in Kenya has been changing in terms of quantity over time. As population, urbanization and income growth increases, pastoral livestock keepers should be able to respond to potential increases in demand for livestock and livestock products by releasing small ruminants into the market. This study critically examines the sales decisions of the rural livestock keepers in the arid and semi arid lands (ASALS) of Kenya by analyzing the significant determinants of the market participation decisions in small ruminants market by the pastoral livestock keepers. The study was carried out in Isiolo and Marsabit Districts where data were drawn by interviewing a sample of 250 livestock keepers through administration of structured questionnaires in July 2010. These were supplemented with secondary data from libraries and government offices in the study area. The two step selectivity model was used to analyze the data collected from the study. The study results show that road conditions to the markets, price for small ruminants, group membership, cash relief, credit facilities and the herd size are the significant determinants of market participation decisions by livestock keepers. The study recommends that in order to increase participation of livestock keepers in the small ruminant market, it is imperative to improve the conditions the of the roads, discourage reliance of pastoralists in relief by promoting diversification of activities in the ASALS and motivate pastoralists to be commercially oriented by focusing on investments that result in marketable surplus through increased production.


This paper identifies a potentially serious problem with the widely used self-rated health (SRH) survey item: that different groups (e.g., different nationalities) have systematically different ways of using the item's response categories. Analyses based on unadjusted SRH may thus produce misleading or entirely erroneous results. We explore anchoring vignettes as a possible solution to this problem. Using vignettes specifically designed to calibrate the SRH item, and data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we show how certain demographic and health-related factors, including sex and education, predict differences in rating styles. Such differences, when not adjusted for statistically, may be sufficiently large to lead to mistakes in rank orderings of groups: in our sample, models that fail to account for women's greater health-optimism show—incorrectly—that women have better SRH than men. Vignette-based adjustment may reduce risk of such errors. Implications for future research using anchoring vignettes are discussed.


Rapid urbanisation as well as the rising need for water from industries and agriculture is intensifying freshwater scarcity in delta cities such as Maputo, Mozambique. Environmental pollution caused through the disposal of untreated wastewater and faecal sludge is additionally increasing water competition, posing a serious hazard to public health. Safe water reuse could hereby significantly lower the pressure on freshwater resources, still cities in developing countries lack knowledge, tools and capacities to integrate reuse into the overall (waste)water and faecal sludge management. With a city-wide onsite coverage of 90% it is essential to understand prevailing attitudes and practises along the faecal sludge management chain in order to quantify the end-use potential. This issue has been addressed through a survey of around 1,200 households in Maputo conducted by a cooperation of the Technical University of Delft and the Water and Sanitation Programme of the World Bank.


. Daly C, Campbell M, Cody J, et al. Double bag or Y-set versus standard transfer systems for continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis in end-stage renal disease . Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2001;(2):CD003078 (latest version 28 Feb 2001). .

 QUESTION: Do double bag and Y-set exchange systems reduce peritonitis in patients receiving continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) compared with standard systems?

Randomised and quasi-randomised trials in any language were identified by searching Medline (1966 to September 1999), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1984 to October 1999), CINAHL (1982–96), BIOSIS (1985–96), Cochrane Library , SIGLE (1980 to June 1996), and National Research Register (14th consolidation September 1996); hand searching Kidney International (1980–97); reviewing bibliographies of studies and relevant book chapters; and contacting authors and relevant biomedical companies.

Studies were selected if they included patients with end stage renal disease who were treated or expected to be treated with CAPD, and if they compared double bag and/or Y-set exchange systems with standard CAPD exchange systems or compared double bag …


AIMS
To investigate whether condylar morphological changes influence the condyle position in the glenoid fossa as well as the amount of condylar movement from the intercuspal position (IP) to the reference position (RP).

METHODS
Helical computed tomography was used for precise measurement of the joint spaces at IP and RP in 22 subjects (mean age 22.7 years). Subjects were divided into 2 groups, those without condylar bone changes (n = 11) and those with condylar bone changes (n = 11). The latter group was further subdivided into a flattening subgroup and an osteophyte subgroup, according to the type of condylar bone change.

RESULTS
There were no significant differences in the width of the anterosuperior or posterosuperior joint spaces at IP between either the 2 groups or the 2 subgroups. On the other hand, during condylar movement from IP to RP, the condyles moved significantly more superiorly and posterosuperiorly in the bone-change group than in the no-bone-change group. There was also greater absolute horizontal condylar movement between IP and RP in the bone-change group. In addition, within the bone-change group, the type of condylar bone change influenced the amount of condylar movement. Joints with osteophyte formation showed the most superior, posterosuperior, and absolute horizontal movement from IP to RP.

CONCLUSION
The findings that condyles of the bone-change group, especially those with osteophyte formation, were located significantly more anteroinferiorly in the glenoid fossa at IP than RP than the condyles of the no-bone-change group suggest that condylar IP-RP positional changes might be related to condylar shape alteration.


We construct and estimate a model of child development in which both the parents and children make investments in the child's skill development. In each period of the development process, partially altruistic parents act as the Stackelberg leader and the child the follower when setting her own study time. We then extend this non-cooperative form of interaction by allowing parents to offer incentives to the child to increase her study time, at some monitoring cost. We show that this incentive scheme, a kind of internal conditional cash transfer, produces efficient outcomes and, in general, increases the child's cognitive ability. In addition to heterogeneity in resources (wage offers and non-labor income), the model allows for heterogeneity in preferences both for parents and children, and in monitoring costs. Like their parents, children are forward looking, but we allow children and parents to have different preferences and for children to have age-varying discount rates, becoming more "patient" as they age. Using detailed time diary information on the allocation of parent and child time linked to measures of child cognitive ability, we estimate several versions of the model. Using model estimates, we explore the impact of various government income transfer policies on child development. As in Del Boca et al. (2016), we find that the most effective set of policies are (external) conditional cash transfers, in which the household receives an income transfer given that the child's cognitive ability exceeds a prespecified threshold. We find that the possibility of households using internal cash transfers greatly increases the cost effectiveness of external cash transfer policies.


The tension between domesticating and foreignising translation strategies is particularly strongly felt in the translation of children's literature, and has been a key issue in many studies of such literature. However, despite the pervasiveness of the concepts, there is little existing empirical research investigating how child (and adult) readers of translated children's books process and respond to foreignised elements in translation. This means that scholars' arguments in favour of either domestication or foreignisation in the translation of children's literature are often based on intuition and personal experience, with no substantial empirical basis. This article presents the findings of an experiment undertaken to investigate Afrikaans child and adult readers' processing of and responses to potentially linguistically and culturally foreign textual elements in translated children's picturebooks, against the background of postcolonial/neocolonial cultural and linguistic hybridity in South Africa. The paper reports the results relating to two of the research questions informing the study:
1. Does the use of foreignised elements in translated children's picturebooks have any significant effect on the cognitive effort involved in reading for child and adult readers?
2. Is the comprehension of child and adult readers affected by the use of foreignised elements in translated children's picturebooks?
A reading study utilising eye-tracking was conducted, involving both child and adult participants reading manipulated domesticated and foreignised versions of pages from two picturebooks translated from English to Afrikaans. To answer research question (1), data obtained by means of eye-tracking were analysed for dwell time, fixation count, first fixation duration and glances count for areas of interest (AOIs) reflecting domesticating or foreignising translation strategies. In order to answer question (2), short structured questionnaires or interviews with participants were used, focusing on the degree of comprehension of the two texts. Overall, the findings of the experiment demonstrate that while there are perceptible effects on processing and comprehension associated with the use of foreignising strategies, these effects are not straightforward or uniform, with notable differences not only for different AOIs, but also for child and adult readers.


This thesis discusses my exploration of a musical language in which the performer's and audience's subjectivity plays a key part in the formation of a composition's core meaning. Following an introductory chapter elaborating on a constellation of concepts surrounding the Japanese aesthetics of ma, the chapters correspond to three phases of research. The first phase considers strategized ideas of silence, the relations of determinacy-indeterminacy, and spatio-temporal architecture examined in the Lizard series within a framework informed by the ma concept. In the second phase with the Skin, Gelatine, Soot cycle, I use paradoxical states, such as sounds-silence and elements of indeterminacy to extend concepts of an architecture of presence and absence into a more complex polyphony of lines. This chapter also describes how the theatricalization of the performer's body and their vocalisation are used to challenge linear thought. In the final chapter with One Arm series, I discuss ventriloquism effects between the performer and their performance as a means to bring an interplay of paradoxical sensibility onto the stage. Shifting performative modes between a kind of first and third-person stance result in a slippage or interstice in which the performer might 'communicate' with him or herself. In conclusion, I summarize my quest for certain qualities of aesthetic experience and where this might lead me musically and aesthetically in addition to giving a perspective on how my viewpoints on 'culture' and 'identity' have been established and transformed.


Physiological and behavioral rhythms are governed by an endogenous circadian clock. The response of the human circadian clock to extraocular light exposure was monitored by measurement of body temperature and melatonin concentrations throughout the circadian cycle before and after light pulses presented to the popliteal region (behind the knee). A systematic relation was found between the timing of the light pulse and the magnitude and direction of phase shifts, resulting in the generation of a phase response curve. These findings challenge the belief that mammals are incapable of extraretinal circadian phototransduction and have implications for the development of more effective treatments for sleep and circadian rhythm disorders.


Organizations are continually confronted by new regulatory pressures, but there is debate as to how much freedom organizations have to select a strategic response to such pressures. Organizations do not respond to a regulatory pressure in isolation, but rather in concert with, and in reaction to, the response of other relevant stakeholders and pressures within the environment. This inductive study contributes to the established resource dependence and institutional literature by examining organizational responses to a new external regulatory pressure, the Ontario (Canada) Environmental Bill of Rights, and the influences that motivated such responses. Results of the study challenge the mechanistic approach of organizational responses to external pressures, presenting evidence of the interactive nature of such responses. This research also revealed four organizational strategies and three influences, not previously identified in organizational theory, which motivate organizational responses.


Modelling functions of sets, or equivalently, permutation-invariant functions, is a long-standing challenge in machine learning. Deep Sets is a popular method which is known to be a universal approximator for continuous set functions. We provide a theoretical analysis of Deep Sets which shows that this universal approximation property is only guaranteed if the model's latent space is sufficiently high-dimensional. If the latent space is even one dimension lower than necessary, there exist piecewise-affine functions for which Deep Sets performs no better than a na\"ive constant baseline, as judged by worst-case error. Deep Sets may be viewed as the most efficient incarnation of the Janossy pooling paradigm. We identify this paradigm as encompassing most currently popular set-learning methods. Based on this connection, we discuss the implications of our results for set learning more broadly, and identify some open questions on the universality of Janossy pooling in general.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In MS, the relation between clinical and MR imaging measures is still suboptimal. We assessed the correlation of disability and specific impairment of the clinical functional system with overall and regional CNS damage in a large cohort of patients with MS with different clinical phenotypes by using a random forest approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Brain conventional MR imaging and DTI were performed in 172 patients with MS and 46 controls. Cervical cord MR imaging was performed in a subgroup of subjects. To evaluate whether MR imaging measures were able to correctly classify impairment in specific clinical domains, we performed a random forest analysis. RESULTS: Between-group differences were found for most of the MR imaging variables, which correlated significantly with clinical measures (r ranging from −0.57 to 0.55). The random forest analysis showed a high performance in identifying impaired versus unimpaired patients, with a global error between 7% (pyramidal functional system) and 31% (Ambulation Index) in the different outcomes considered. When considering the performance in the unimpaired and impaired groups, the random forest analysis showed a high performance in identifying patients with impaired sensory, cerebellar, and brain stem functions (error below 10%), while it performed poorly in defining impairment of visual and mental systems (error of 91% and 70%, respectively). In analyses with a good level of classification, for most functional systems, damage of the WM fiber bundles subserving their function, measured by using DTI tractography, had the highest classification power. CONCLUSIONS: Random forest analysis, especially if applied to DTI tractography data, is a valuable approach, which might contribute to overcoming the MS clinical−MR imaging paradox.


replace with: Currently, the impacts of wide-scale implementation of photovoltaic (PV) technology are evaluated in terms of such indicators as rated capacity, energy output or return on investment. However, as PV markets mature, consideration of additional impacts (such as electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure or socio-economic factors) is required to evaluate potential costs and benefits of wide-scale PV in relation to specific policy objectives. This study describes a hybrid GIS spatio-temporal modelling approach integrating probabilistic analysis via a Bayesian technique to evaluate multi-scale/multi-domain impacts of PV. First, a wide-area solar resource modelling approach utilising GIS-based dynamic interpolation is presented and the implications for improved impact analysis on electrical networks are discussed. Subsequently, a GIS-based analysis of PV deployment in an area of constrained electricity network capacity is presented, along with an impact analysis of specific policy implementation upon the spatial distribution of increasing PV penetration. Finally, a Bayesian probabilistic graphical model for assessment of socio-economic impacts of domestic PV at high penetrations is demonstrated. Taken together, the results show that integrated spatio-temporal probabilistic assessment supports multi-domain analysis of the impacts of PV, thereby providing decision makers with a tool to facilitate deliberative and systematic evidence-based policy making incorporating diverse stakeholder perspectives.


The human consequences of occupational accidents in Algeria are multiples of their action on the profitability and the added value, knowing that the company is the employee's home and the damage of each may affect the whole. Moreover, understanding and applying concepts of risk management in their Anglo-Saxon sense is completely absent in our companies. Preventive measures are still insufficient, especially for the protection of workers who are often left on their own. This results in an uneven maturity of companies, different strategies considered and dissimilar organizational choices. Of the more than 50,000 accidents/year that have been recorded in Algerian companies, between 750 and 800 of those accidents have caused deaths. The number of days lost that are automatically compensated is 14 10. These costs are exorbitant for the whole of society and even more so for the companies themselves (the continuing rise of absenteeism, disruption of ongoing work and lost production, etc...). Conscious of the importance of industrial safety control for the future of our industrial heritage, we covet raising employees' and employers' awareness on the importance of all issues raised by technological risks within companies. Everything has to be done in order to avoid an accident which breaks or handicaps a human life; the objective of this paper. Instantly, everything has to be done to ensure the means to provide occupational health and make the industrial action daily to ensure the safety of its personnel in different companies or even in each workplace. Thus, a permanent anticipation of work accidents and occupational diseases can therefore be reached and to develop a permanent and sustainable culture of prevention in companies. So we hope that prevention is on Risk Analysis VIII 405 www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Information and Communication Technologies, Vol 44, © 201 WIT Press 2 doi:10.2495/RISK120341 the agenda of each employer, each worker, all employers' associations, trade unions and professionals. Safety and health at work should be seen as a tool for productivity and an economic asset. Only in this way, individually and collectively, risks can be controlled and sources of danger can be eliminated for the health, safety and physical integrity of workers, while relying on the general principles of prevention: the health in the company is the health of the company.


The general objective of the MADFORWATER project is to develop an integrated set of technological and
management instruments for the enhancement of wastewater treatment, treated wastewater reuse for
irrigation and water efficiency in agriculture, with the final aim to reduce water vulnerability in selected
basins in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
In particular, Work Package 3 "Adaptation of technologies for efficient water management and treated
wastewater reuse in agriculture" aims to investigate several technological and non-technological solutions
to enhance the use of treated waste water as alternative source of water for the irrigation sector, and to
adapt them to the local contexts of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
Among the non–technological solutions, in Task 3.3 an agro physical (yield and water balance) - economic
integrated model for land and water use optimization has been built and calibrated in the three case studies
area of MADFORWATER, which are: the irrigated farming system in the Kafr-El- Sheikh Region in Egypt, the
citrus farming system in Souss-Massa region in Morocco and the Nabeul Governorate in Tunisia.
This deliverable presents the integrated model by describing the objective function to be maximized and the
numerous physical (water resources availability, land use and climate change), technological, socio-economic
(production costs, labour, prices) and water policy (pricing, licensing) constraints to be considered. In
addition, the main outputs to be estimated have been identified, and the needed data to run the model that
have been collected and used to calibrate it for the three case studies areas are also presented.


Summary and Discussion
By cultivating Leishmania brasiliensis, Leishmania tropica, Leishmania donovani, Leishmania infantum, Leishmania canis and Leptomonas ctenocephali in Noguchi's medium for Leptospira, in which anti- Leishmania brasiliensis serum was used instead of normal serum, the author was able to verify that only when the flagellates were heterologous in relation to the serum employed could their growth take place; otherwise, their lysis occurred in the presence of homologous serum.
The only explanation for the lysis is the development of lytic specific antibodies in the rabbits used in the preparation of the agglutinating sera. These rabbits received about 7 cc. of a culture of living flagellates, in five inoculations. The complement indispensable to the production of lysis must have proceeded, not from the immune serum, which as a rule was not of recent preparation, but from rabbit the hemoglobin added in the culture medium. The discordant results, obtained whenever the medium was kept for two months before being planted, seem to confirm this opinion.
We also obtained lysis with a homologous strain, and absence of lysis with heterologous ones, by using, as an antigen, Leishmania brasiliensis and Leishmania tropica grown in Noguchi's culture medium, washed and suspended in salt solution, anti-Leishmania serum concentrated to 1:10 being added to the opalescent suspension. The only explanation for the lysis in these cases may lie in the existence of complement in the serum used, because of its being of very recent preparation.
The phenomenon of lysis as produced by normal sera upon protozoa has already been the subject of some detailed study particularly in regard to certain Trypanosomata. While working with Leishmania brasiliensis Vianna, 1911, we observed that a non-specific lytic action of this parasite may be caused by highly concentrated rabbit normal serum. That this lysis was really due to the combined action of antibodies and complement it seems to have become clear in the light of the following experiment.
Three hanging drops were prepared with a strain c of Leishmania brasiliensis of our collection:
No. 1, with one drop of culture in Noguchi's media for Leptospira.
No. 2, with one drop of the same culture added to one drop of rabbit normal serum inactivated at 55° for half an hour.
No. 3, with one drop of the same culture added to one drop of non-inactivated rabbit normal serum.
The examination performed fifteen minutes later disclosed:
In nos. 1 and 2, aspect of a well developed normal culture.
In no. 3, all the flagellates motionless and unable to recover their motility. The flagellates became less motile in the beginning, then suddenly stopping; turgence and vacuolization might be seen, the protoplasma becoming granulous as in degenerated forms.
This non-specific lytic action is to be observed only in high concentration. Therefore, it can not be considered a cause of error in the reaction we described in this paper, since we know that the Leishmanias may be readily cultivated in culture media having one-tenth or even more of concentration of normal serum (Noguchi's media for Leptospira, by instance).
Noguchi already made some references to the lysis of Leishmania in pure rabbit serum, in a work published in "Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Problems in Tropical America" (9). He, however, stated that the lysis is no more present in a dilution of 1:10.
The results herein reported on appear to warrant the distinction of the genus Leishmania Ross, 1903, as represented by an anti-Leishmania brasiliensis Vianna, 1911 immune serum, from the genus Leptomonas Kent, 1880, as represented by Leptomonas ctenocephali (Fantham, 1912).
Cross-reactions with more numerous species of Leishmania and Leptomonas must have been performed to confirm the experiments, for no one could say that the fact of anti-brasiliensis serum not being lytic for Leptomonas ctenocephali means that specific sera against other species of Leishmania are not lytic as well; nor can any one affirm a priori that an anti-Leptomonas serum is not able to produce lysis of the Leishmania strains. Considering, however, the results obtained by other workers with different methods, this disagreement is not probable.
The results obtained in the lysis experiments seem to warrant the distinction between Leishmania brasiliensis Vianna, 1911, on the one hand, and Leishmania tropica Wright, 1903, Leishmania infantum Nicolle, 1908, Leishmania donovani (Laveran and Mesnil, 1903), and Leishmania canis Nicolle, on the other hand. Therefore, they confirm the specific differences pointed out by both Noguchi, Kliger and others.
1
Another conclusion we may draw from this paper concerns the close antigenic affinity among the 13 species of Leishmania brasiliensis employed, some of which were isolated in Brazil and others in Argentina. Contrary to Noguchi's hypothesis, this observation appears to demonstrate the probability of the Leishmania strains of American leishmaniasis belonging to but one serological species. This species is perfectly distinct from Leishmania tropica (in spite of the affinities shown in the pathogeny of the infections they both determine on humans) because of the differences noticed in the infections they cause experimentally.
The results obtained by the use of the above described technic seem to indicate that it deserves a place among the reactions proposed for the specific diagnosis of this important and complex group of flagellates, provided that some technical conditions dealing in short with the principles of bacteriolysis be firmly established.


The price at which a stock is traded in the market reflects the ability of the firm to generate cash flow and the risks associated with generating the expected future cash flows. The authors point to the limits of widely used valuation techniques. The most important of these limits is the inability to forecast cash flows and to determine the appropriate discount rate. Another important limit is the inability to determine absolute value. Widely used valuation techniques such as market multiples - the price-to-earnings ratio, firm value multiples or a use of multiple ratios, for example - capture only relative value, that is, the value of a firm's stocks related to the value of comparable firms (assuming that comparable firms can be identified). The study underlines additional problems when it comes to valuing IPOs and private equity: Both are sensitive to the timing of the offer, suffer from information asymmetry, and are more subject to behavioral elements than is the case for shares of listed firms. In t...


In their article, "Asian Americans in the public Service: Success, Diversity, and Discrimination," Kim and Lewis (1994) note that Asian Americans experience discrimination within the federal service, suggest that the problem is pervasive and serious, and propose remedies. This writer has personally witnessed at least two incidents of employment discrimination against Asian Americans. Neither of these episodes involved federal personnel, but it seems reasonable that the federal service is not totally immune to prejudices evident elsewhere in society. However, Kim and Lewis's statistics shed little light on such discrimination's pervasiveness. Anti-Asian discrimination may not be as important a federal phenomena as their article concludes. Kim and Lewis's lucidly presented statistics can be interpreted in varying ways. The alternative interpretation which follows may also have implications for identification of discrimination against other groups, such as women, Hispanics, and African Americans. Using 1990 and 1992 statistics, Kim and Lewis describe differences between Asian Americans and nonminority whites. Asian Americans make up 2.6 percent of the civilian work force but constitute less than 1 percent of municipal officials. There are almost no Asian American mayors or city/county managers. Only .9 percent of the Senior Executive Service is Asian, while 3.5 percent of the federal work force and 4.3 percent of the postal service are Asian (286-287). Twenty-seven percent of white men serving the federal government are supervisors, but only 15 percent of Asian American men hold such positions. Twelve percent of white women in the federal service hold supervisory positions, compared to only 7 percent of Asian women (288-289). Kim and Lewis also discovered grade discrepancies between Asian Americans and whites. "Asian men [in federal service] tended to be .03 of a grade lower than white men with the same amount of education, federal experience, and age who had the same handicap and veteran status" (288). The disparity between Asian American and white females employed by the service is even greater; Kim and Lewis found Asian women to be .06 of a grade behind white women with "the same, education, seniority, age, veteran status and handicap status" (289). Kim and Lewis assert, "Because other factors also affect career success, the persistence of grade gaps after controlling for age, education, federal experience, veterans preference and disability status does not prove discrimination, but it does indicate problems that the government needs to investigate" (287). Elsewhere they attribute disparities to discrimination more bluntly. Asian American women are said to "face double discrimination" but be "held back more by their gender than their race" (287). Kim and Lewis conclude that "even this model minority faces discrimination. Policy makers should not ignore this evidence and assume that the battle against discrimination has been won for Asian Americans" (289-290). Readers seem to be presented with a stark choice: either envelop oneself in blanket denial of the existence of any anti-Asian discrimination, thus ignoring the "evidence," designate anti-Asian discrimination as a serious problem requiring responses such as diversity training, special recruitment and placement, and Asian American political mobilization. This writer, however, remains uncertain about the phenomenon's extent; Anti-Asian discrimination may be pervasive within the public service, or it may consist largely of isolated incidents addressable through existing laws and grievance procedures. The statistical disparities cited above shed little light on this issue because plausible alternatives to the discrimination hypothesis can be formulated. One alternative could be called immigrants' loss or the educational devaluation hypothesis. Education's contribution to productivity is often contingent upon linguistic and cultural contexts, so immigration can devalue human capital. …


A Web mining based on semantic web is helping to improve the levels of web services as well as addressing methods of current web services which are supported by the lack of semantic problem. Web data mining which is based on semantic is a fusion of web mining and semantic web. The pre knowledge of semantic web makes web mining easier to achieve, but it also helps to improve the efficiency of web mining. In this paper, we give a brief description of the related knowledge of semantic web and web mining and then discuss the web mining based on semantics. Finally we try to propose a web mining model based on semantics under the framework of agent.


Networked Service Systems are considered. Services are realized by service components, which by their inter-working, provide a service in the role of a service provider to service users. During more than two decades, networked service systems have been an important research topic. Focus was on efficiency in the definition, deployment and execution of services. This focus now has been changed into adaptability.Adaptable service systems are service systems that are able to adapt dynamically to changes in time and position related to users, nodes, capabilities, system performance, changed service requirements and policies.This thesis has focus on adaptability aspects related to capabilities. A capability is defined here as an inherent property of a node, which is used as a basis for implementing a service.Goal adaptability properties of an adaptable service system can be classified as general and core properties. The general properties are requirement to the architectural framework while the core properties are requirement to the functionality. The core properties are classified as i) re-arrangement flexibility, ii) failure robustness and iii) resource load awareness and control properties.The realization of the goal adaptability properties both needs an appropriate architectural framework as well as management functionality. This thesis presents a solution framework for reasoning-based capability configuration management for adaptable service systems. This framework is defined to consist of five contributions. Each contribution consists of sub-contributions; each of which represents contributed concept, model or mechanism. The contributions are:• C1: Capability-based computing architecture• C2: Policy-based reasoning• C3: Capability configuration management• C4: Concept model and data representation• C5: Scenarios - experimentation and simulationCapability-based computing architecture is a capability and QoS-based architectural framework intended to be used for the specification and execution of any service functionality. Policy-based reasoning is a support functionality that makes adaptable service systems being able to take decisions based on flexible and expressive behavioral specification. Capability configuration management is a functionality related to capability specifications, configuration, allocation, re-allocation and optimization. Concept model and data representation is the data model applied for the formalization and representation of the concepts applied for the capability configuration management based on policy-based reasoning. Scenarios – experimentation and simulation shows the experiments and simulations that have been conducted for validating the other contributions.My PhD work and thesis is related to TAPAS (Telematics Architecture for Play-based Adaptable Service Systems). This thesis is structured into two main parts: Part I – Introduction and Part II – Selected publications. Part I is intended for the reader to get an overview of the publications included in Part II.


This paper aims to articulate aspects of the Private Sector Development Strategies of two key Development Banks in order to reflect on commonalities and differences. The paper reviews these strategies and focuses on what is included and what is omitted, as well as commenting on the characteristics of these strategies as corporate direction setting. The degree to which strategies seem to have incorporated organisational learning, power relationships and cultural contexts is then assessed.


There are marked socioeconomic variations in the risk of female reproductive cancers. We examine here data from the World Fertility Surveys, the Demographic and Health Surveys, and other national surveys, to assess whether these variations in cancer risk might be explained, at least in part, by socioeconomic variations in reproductive behaviour. There were marked socioeconomic differentials in achieved parity, age at first birth, final childlessness, duration of breastfeeding, and possibly also age at menopause. These differentials were present in almost all settings: countries with low and high levels of modernization, and countries with low and high levels of fertility. In general, women of higher socioeconomic status and with more education had lower fertility and later age at first birth, but a greater prevalence of childlessness, shorter duration of breastfeeding and later age at menopause. However, the size and even the direction of these differentials varied markedly from country to country according to its level of economic development and, within each country, from generation to generation of women. It is possible that some of these socioeconomic differences may be narrowing in recent generations in Western countries. There was little evidence of socioeconomic variations in age at menarche. The observed socioeconomic differentials in most aspects of reproductive behaviour could potentially account for some of the socioeconomic variation in the risk of female reproductive cancers. However, this relationship could not be assessed directly because such analysis would require birth-cohort-specific data on socioeconomic variations in reproductive behaviour and in cancer risks. Unfortunately, these data are not available.


A retrospective study of the abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) with EVAR treated patients. The third-party collected the data from twelve vascular centres in Indonesia during 2012-2017. Patient demographics and computed tomography data were evaluated with Osirix MD Software. During five years, we had 148 EVAR cases done using Endurant stent graft (Medtronic). In this paper, we perform Bayesian modelling and selection of feature selection by Boruta. Before performing the models, we will determine the selection of dependent variables start with the Age, Class, and Sex. It will get what is important to be dependent and independent. The difference between Bayesian and the classical method is the introduction of prior information in the form of probability distributions. In addition, to determine the parameters using the Bayesian method obtained from the probability statement. Parameter estimation in Bayesian is no longer a point estimate but, on the contrary, is a statistical distribution. In other words, Bayesian states that a parameter is a variable that has a distribution. Bayesian has become a popular method in modern statistical analysis. Bayesian is applied to a broad spectrum in the scientific and research fields. Bayesian data analysis involves learning from data that uses probability models for many observations and some information to be studied. In other words, analysing statistical models are by combining prior knowledge about the model or parameters of the model. In a nutshell, the simulation results obtained modelling with Bayesian-ZIP-MCMC R2 87.52 and Bayesian-Boruta R2 88.28%.


Thermodynamic principles play a key role in almost all processes occurring in the Earth9s atmosphere. They are formidably expressed in the thermal stratification of the atmosphere, in the appearance of various regional and large-scale wind systems, as well as in the formation of clouds and precipitation. It is important to note that the application of simplified thermodynamics is usually sufficient to describe large-scale atmospheric processes. However, for an in-depth understanding of the microphysical structure of clouds, a detailed investigation of the complex thermodynamic cloud processes is needed.


The massive scarcity of physicians in India, mainly in rural
areas, prompted the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to propose a three-and-a-half year Bachelor of Rural Health and Care degree designed exclusively to serve rural populations. The fierce opposition by powerful medical lobbies forced the proposal to fade away. This paper emphasises the importance of "task shifting" and "non-physician prescribing" in the global context and argues that
non-physician healthcare providers would not only increase availability and accessibility to rural healthcare, but also provide an empowered second line of authority, adding to the checks and balances to the exploitative prestige-based hierarchy that pervades this knowledge-intensive service.


There is an urgent need to develop robust tools and policies for stability and hazard risk assessments in order to manage upland peat landslides in locations such as the British Isles where they have frequently occurred and caused harm to the environment. One of the particular difficulties is that reliable values of peat strength are difficult to obtain.
The objectives of this research were to establish the nature of any relationships between the strength characteristics and the botanical, physical and chemical properties of the peat, and to determine whether palaeobotanical analyses of samples of the basal peat can provide a reliable indication of potential instability in upland blanket bogs. The research was carried out at the Straduff Townland (Co. Sligo), Slieve Anierin (Co. Leitrim) and Slieve Rushen (Co. Cavan) landslides, all located in northwest Ireland, from the margins of which monolith and core peat samples were collected. Standard and validated paleobotanical, chemical and geotechnical protocols, modified or refined where necessary to suit the nature of the peat, were used in the study. The triaxial, direct shear and tensile strength tests were conducted using experimental very low stress conditions in order to fully replicate in-situ conditions. The reliability of the measured strength parameters was examined by performing deterministic and probabilistic stability analyses of the failed slopes using industry-standard "limit equilibrium" software (SLOPE/W). The nature, extent and spatial distribution of the hydrocarbons unexpectedly found in the basal peats during the fieldwork were also investigated.
This research found that blanket peat dominated by monocotyledons (with mainly E. vaginatum) is likely to be susceptible to failure because its "effective structural properties", specifically the high degree of humification and low fibre content of its basal peat, cause it to have very low strength and also therefore a very low bearing capacity. Furthermore, monocotyledons or its remains in peat have morphological, chemical, biological features that can promote bogflow-type failure. These may include for example (i) their parallel and elongated leaf veinations that promote flow, (ii) the genesis of hydrocarbons such as bitumen from their lignified tissues and (ii) being host to a hydrocarbon-producing aphid Colopha compressa. Laboratory measurements of undrained strength of the weak basal peats were consistently < 3 kPa, and deterministic stability analyses revealed that the value of the tensile strength can be used as an indicator of the undrained shear strength. A new classification (i.e. "the modified fibre content scheme") and a modified procedure for assessing upland peat failure for construction projects has been proposed based on peat fibre and humification characteristics and their apparent influences on peat strength. Deposits of hydrocarbons such as bitumens within the basal peat constitute a previously unrecognised factor that probably contributed to the occurrence of the studied landslides due to their hydrophobic properties.


A study on chemical properties and authentication of virgin coconut oil (VCO) was conducted. Chemical properties showed that commercial VCO had iodine value of 4.47 to 8.55, peroxide value of 0.21 to 0.57 meq oxygen/kg, free fatty acid of 0.15 to 0.25, saponification value of 250.07 to 260.67 mg KOH/g oil and anisidine value of 0.16 to 0.49. Lauric acid was the predominant fatty acid which ranged from 46.64 to 48.03%. Major triacylglycerol (TAG) were LaLaLa, LaLaM, CLaLa, LaMM and CCLa (La:lauric; C:capric; M:Myristic) which accounted for more than 80% TAG of the oil. Total phenolic content ranged from 7.78 to 29.18 mg GAE/g oil. VCO samples exhibited higher antioxidant activity (49.79 to 79.87%) compared to refined, bleached and deodorized (RBD) coconut oil (49.58%). Comparison between different processing methods of VCO showed that VCO produced by fermentation method possessed the strongest scavenging effect on 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) with the amount of oil necessary to decrease the initial DPPH radical concentration by 50% (EC50) value of 1.24 mg/mL. VCO produced by fermentation method also exhibited the highest antioxidant activity of 71% while the highest reducing power of VCO produced by chilling method was 1.02 at 10 mg/mL. The results revealed that VCO produced by both fermentation and chilling method had higher antioxidant potency than RBD coconut oil. Total phenolic content was strongly correlated with radical scavenging capacity (r = 0.91) and reducing power (r = 0.96) while no correlation was observed for β-carotene bleaching test. Some phenolic acids found in VCOs were protocatechuic, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, coumaric acid and ferulic acid.
Rapid methods were developed to detect adulteration in VCO. First, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to detect adulteration of VCO with palm kernel olein. The results showed that FTIR was capable of detecting adulteration down to 1% adulteration level. Discriminant analysis using 10 principal components was able to classify pure and adulterated samples on the basis of their spectra. A partial least square (PLS) calibration demonstrated a good linear regression (R2) of 0.9875 of actual value against FTIR predicted concentration of palm kernel olein. Discriminant analysis was also capable to distinguish between VCO and other vegetable oils.Another rapid method, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was also used to determine adulteration of VCO with selected vegetable oils, namely soybean oil (SBO) from linolenic acid group, sunflower oil (SFO) from oleic-linoleic acid group and palm kernel oil (PKO) from lauric acid group. The heating curves of SBO and SFO adulterated samples demonstrated adulteration peaks appearing at the lower temperature region starting at 10% adulteration level. Regression analysis using stepwise multiple linear regressions (SMLR) was used to predict the percent of adulterant with R2 of 0.9390 for SFO and 0.9490 for SBO. No adulteration peak was observed for PKO adulterated oils but a good relationship between the main exothermic peak height of PKO and percentage of adulteration was established with R2 of 0.9454.
Finally, electronic nose with surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor was used to detect adulteration in VCO with palm kernel olein. Qualitative analysis was made possible using VaporPrintTM, which translated the sensor's response into visualized two dimensional image. Adulteration peaks were identified from chromatogram profile and the best relationship (R2 = 0.9093) was obtained between adulterant peak F and the percentage of palm kernel olein added. Pearson correlation (r) of 0.92 was obtained between adulterant peak F and iodine value while correlation (r) of 0.89 was obtained between peroxide value and adulterant peak F. Principal component analysis (PCA) provided good separation of samples with 74% of the variation accounted for principal component 1 and 17% accounted for principal component 2. Excellent result was obtained in the differentiation of pure and adulterated samples down to 1% detection limit.
In conclusion, this study provides references on chemical properties as well as presented the antioxidative potential of VCO. New methods were also developed for detection of adulteration of VCO with other oils using rapid analytical techniques.


The JMLR study Do we need hundreds of classifiers to solve real world classification problems? benchmarks 179 classifiers in 17 families on 121 data sets from the UCI repository and claims that "the random forest is clearly the best family of classifier". In this response, we show that the study's results are biased by the lack of a held-out test set and the exclusion of trials with errors. Further, the study's own statistical tests indicate that random forests do not have significantly higher percent accuracy than support vector machines and neural networks, calling into question the conclusion that random forests are the best classifiers.


A New York Times Notable Book of 2018. Winner of the 2019 Lionel Gelber Prize 'Majestic, informative and often delightful ... insights on every page' Yanis Varoufakis, Observer The definitive history of the Great Financial Crisis, from the acclaimed author of The Deluge and The Wages of Destruction. In September 2008 the Great Financial Crisis, triggered by the collapse of Lehman brothers, shook the world. A decade later its spectre still haunts us. As the appalling scope and scale of the crash was revealed, the financial institutions that had symbolised the West's triumph since the end of the Cold War, seemed - through greed, malice and incompetence - to be about to bring the entire system to its knees. Crashed is a brilliantly original and assured analysis of what happened and how we were rescued from something even worse - but at a price which continues to undermine democracy across Europe and the United States. Gnawing away at our institutions are the many billions of dollars which were conjured up to prevent complete collapse. Over and over again, the end of the crisis has been announced, but it continues to hound us - whether in Greece or Ukraine, whether through Brexit or Trump. Adam Tooze follows the trail like no previous writer and has written a book compelling as history, as economic analysis and as political horror story.


This plan of multiple-use is made on the private owned forestproperty Aspinge 2:2 in the middle of Skane.
The term "multiple-use" came to Sweden in the beginning of the twentieth century and has slowly grown until about 30 years ago when the laws of nature conservation and sustainability was written into the forest law. The so called ecoturism got more and more popular and people began to seek space and silence in difference to the life in the highly populated areas. This also encouraged foreign tourists to come to Sweden. Mostly danish, german, and dutch people. In the close area to Aspinge 2:2 there is a lot of summerhouses owned by people from one of these three countries. The property is also very good located, right in the border between the forestland and the big farmlands.
Aspinge 2:2 is and old Assi Doman property that was bought by the current owner in 1995. The property is 113 hectares with mostly Norway spruce that has been managed in a way to produce as much timber as possible until today. There has been two severe storms, one in 1999 and the other in 2005 that made a lot of damages to the forest. The replanting of these areas has made the average age of the forest to fall a lot. 75 % of the area is younger than 30 years.
The main purpose of this study is to get better and larger possibilities to make money on different sources of maintenance and also to make the property more attractive on the open market in case of selling.
The study began with establish contact with some of the people who are expected to be interested in this sort of multiple-use. After that the whole property was re-planed from a multiple-use perspective. The length of the plan was set to 20 years and calculations of the expected income and costs with multiple-use was made and an evaluation of the property in BM-Win 3.5.1.
The differences are clear between the two alternatives. The expected income from the traditional forestry will be about 3 850 000 SEK during the time of the plan. With multiple-use the income will fall to about 2 475 000 SEK witch proves that the property will need other incomesoureces to maintain economical profitability.
The hunting and tourism is very popular in the area and gives good possibilities for profitable business. People are prepared to pay a lot of money to go hunting for a weekend or go hiking and live in the woods.
During the work with the study a lot of thoughts has come up about whether how true this study is. It´s known that small adjustments in the economical calculation changes the figures much more than one might think and that
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this is no certainty, just a guideline for a possible outcome. Other factors that might change, is the price of wood, ratelevel and changes in currency.
The biggest problem with this study is however the fact that the forest grows faster on the property than I could calculate with in this study. This is due to a limit in the planningprogram, PC-Skog. Unfortunately it´s impossible to fill in values of growth higher than G 36 which makes the program calculate a lower growth than it really is.


Abstract The goal of this article is to write a social and political history of the now preeminent approach to the 'commons' institutions, by focusing on Elinor Ostrom's contributions to its development. My methodology is that of Science and Technology Studies (STS). I focus here on the materiality of E. Ostrom and her team's research practices (fieldwork, data collecting, indexing and analysis), on their intellectual and institutional strategies, their networking practices, how their research was funded, and their interactions with administrative and academic institutions and actors (USAID, NSF, National Academy of Sciences). I analyze the history of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, the research center that E. Ostrom and her husband Vincent founded and animated for some 40 years at Indiana University, Bloomington. By doing so, I hope to be able to analyze the close ties between the form and content of the Ostromian theories on the commons and the main lines of tension in the U.S. society of the 1970s and 80s that saw their emergence: urban crisis and "neighborhood revolution", increasing distrust of modernization and centralization ideals, mutations in U.S. development policies and doctrines, rise of neoliberalism.


Molten salt coolants are being investigated as primary coolants for a fluoride high-temperature reactor and as secondary coolants for high-temperature reactors such as the next-generation nuclear plant. This work provides a review of the thermophysical properties of candidate molten salt coolants for use as a secondary heat transfer medium from a high-temperature reactor to a processing plant. The molten salts LiF-NaF-KF, KF-ZrF4, and KCl-MgCl2 were considered for use in the secondary coolant loop. The thermophysical properties necessary to add the molten salts KF-ZrF4 and KCl-MgCl2 to RELAP5-3D were gathered for potential modeling purposes. The properties of the molten salt LiF-NaF-KF were already available in RELAP5-3D. The effect that the uncertainty in individual properties had on the Nusselt number was evaluated. This uncertainty in the Nusselt number was shown to be nearly independent of the molten salt temperature.


The optical characterisation and device functionality for a series of axially modified silicon phthalocyanines (SiPcs) as dopant red emitters in solution-processed and vapour-deposited organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is presented. Control over the axial group composition enables bandgap maintenance around 1.8 eV and photoluminescence quantum yield values of up to 66% in solution. We confirm efficient energy transfer between a polyfluorene host matrix and a SiPc dopant under photoexcitation, and demonstrate solution-processed OLED devices with narrow electroluminescence spectra (20 nm full-width at half-maximum) close to 700 nm. Vapour-deposited OLEDs based on TCTA as host exhibit characteristic SiPc emission around 715 nm, but with greater spectral contamination from the host. An initial OLED optimisation exercise demonstrates external quantum efficiencies of up to 2.5% in solution-processed devices, indicating that such phthalocyanines may prove promising red dopant emitters for OLEDs with high colour purity.


Research shows that resistance exercise can lower blood pressure, yet little is known regarding the best time for resistance exercise for the greatest blood pressure benefit; therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of resistance exercise timing on blood pressure. We hypothesized improved blood pressure after 7 a.m. resistance exercise. Twenty five healthy, young adults completed the study. VO2max, 10-RM, and control blood pressures were measured before the study. Subjects completed randomized visits at 7 a.m., 1 p.m., and 7 p.m., where they performed 9 machine weight resistance exercises at 65% of their 10-RM for 3 sets of 10 repetitions for 30 minutes per visit. Blood pressure was recorded using an Oscar2 Ambulatory Blood pressure monitor after VO2max testing and after each resistance exercise visit. Blood pressure was unchanged between resistance exercise sessions. Overall, resistance exercise was not harmful to BP; however, nocturnal systolic blood pressure was elevated after 7a.m. resistance exercise in both sexes, but more for men. Nocturnal systolic blood pressure was lower in women after 1p.m. resistance exercise than 7p.m. Resistance exercise at 7 a.m. may increase BP, especially in men, yet resistance exercise at 1p.m. improved BP more than other exercise times.


Pitt-Hopkins syndrome (PHS) is a rare syndromic encephalopathy characterized by daily bouts of hyperventilation and a facial gestalt. We report a 1.8-Mb de novo microdeletion on chromosome 18q21.1, identified by array-comparative genomic hybridization in one patient with PHS. We subsequently identified two de novo heterozygous missense mutations of a conserved amino acid in the basic region of the TCF4 gene in three additional subjects with PHS. These findings demonstrate that TCF4 anomalies are responsible for PHS and provide the first evidence of a human disorder related to class I basic helix-loop-helix transcription-factor defects (also known as "E proteins"). Moreover, our data may shed new light on the normal processes underlying autonomic nervous system development and maintenance of an appropriate ventilatory neuronal circuitry.


Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) converts easily into a thermo-reversible gel through crystallization by standing at room temperature in cyclohexanone. In this study, the Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra were measured continuously at room temperature during the conversion of the solution into a gel. The IR difference spectra derived from these spectra by absorbance subtraction clearly indicate the presence of PVDF α-crystallites in the gel due to the presence of absorption bands corresponding to the TG+TG− conformation of the α-phase. In the time interval from 25 to 45 min after the beginning of the experiment, the IR bands of PVDF increased dramatically, indicating the conversion of polymer chains from random statistical coils to the ordered TG+TG− conformation (α-form). In the time interval from 45 to 90 min, the IR bands of PVDF increased slowly, reflecting no further crystallization. Using two-dimensional (2D) IR analysis, it could be shown that the v(C=O)) absorption band of cyclohexanone changed during the gelation process. During the conformational ordering process (25–45 min), the v(C=O) absorption band of the cyclohexanone dimer (1707 cm−1) decreased while the corresponding band of the monomer at 1718 cm−1 increased. Furthermore, a new band at 1695 cm−1 increased, which could be assigned to C=O groups of the solvent interacting with the CF2 groups in the polymer chain. The bands of the crystalline PVDF share positive cross-peaks with the bands of cyclohexanone, which indicates that the chain of PVDF changed prior to the cyclohexanone molecules during the conformational ordering process. However, these positive cross-peaks disappeared during the crystallization process, which means that the chain of PVDF changed synchronously with the solvent molecules. As for the bands of PVDF chains, the band at 762 cm−1 varied prior to the bands at 873 cm−1 and 796 cm−1 during the conformational ordering process. The 762 cm−1 absorption is assigned to the CF2 group of PVDF, the 873 cm−1 absorption involves the C–C group of PVDF, and the 796 cm−1 band is attributed to the CH2 groups of PVDF. Thus, the CF2 functionalities change faster than the C–C and CH2 groups. However, the correlation cross-peaks between 762 cm−1 and 873 cm−1 and at 796 cm−1 disappeared during the later state of the gelation process. At the same time, the bands of PVDF and solvent still varied, which suggests that it is a physical interaction process between PVDF chain and solvent.