A total of 127 specimens of grey mullets (Teleostea: Mugilidae) from the Mistras Lagoon (Sardinia - western Mediterranean) were examined for metazoan parasites. Five species of grey mullets were found: Chelon labrosus, Liza aurata, L. ramada, L. saliens and Mugil cephalus . Forty-one species of parasites were identified: 14 monogeneans, 5 crustaceans, 18 digeneans, 3 nematodes and 1 acanthocephalan; 26 of them being reported from Sardinia for the first time. Findings of faunal interest are: Ergenstrema sp. (Monogenea) in L. saliens; Caligus pageti (Crustacea) in L. aurata and L. saliens; Saturnius sp. (Digenea) in C. labrosus, L. aurata and L. saliens; Capillaria sp. (Nematoda) in C. labrosus, L. aurata and M. cephalus . The dynamics and distribution of ectoparasites were partially influenced by salinity, while the interpretation of the results for endoparasites was more complex. The data obtained show the richness of the parasite fauna of grey mullets from the Mistras Lagoon, providing additional environmental information on this body of water.


Because it fosters our dreams of immortality, regeneration has been for centuries a matter of fascination for countless biologists and clinicians. While in mammals regeneration is obviously less spectacular than in hydra, newt or zebrafish, it allows, in any case, repairing intestine, skin or liver. The latter organ is seen as a paradigmatic regeneration model because, as for an amputated fin's zebrafish or newt's forelimb, it is indeed possible to follow the complete restoration of a rodent liver mass after a 2/3 partial hepatectomy (PH) within a few days. The caveat is that most of our knowledge about liver regeneration is based on this specific surgical model. The amazing conclusion is that liver regeneration relies mainly on highly differentiated hepatocytes, which, while actively dividing to restore the missing part, maintain their vital functions.1 Hepatocytes are in a quiescent state (G0) in a normal adult liver. Following 2/3 PH, >95% of these parenchymal cells present in the remnant lobes divide in a rather synchronous manner, for one or two rounds of cell division. Other liver cell types, such as macrophages, cholangiocytes or endothelial cells, will divide afterwards. Schematically, one can distinguish two successive main steps allowing proper regeneration. The first phase requires the secretion of cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 in the very first minutes after PH, which poise hepatocytes to enter G1 phase and to become receptive to growth factors. The second step involves concomitantly metabolic changes, consisting in particular in a transient accumulation of lipid droplets, and in the activation of two growth factor pathways, epidermal growth factor receptor and c-Met. Both pathways then recruit scaffolding proteins and activate multiple intracellular intertwined networks, such as mitogen-activated protein kinases, signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), …


This article examines how the African Union (AU) has handled Africa's peace and security challenges since 2002, defines what has been successful and what remains aspirational. It does so by examining how the AU has responded, from using sanctions against coups, to deploying peacekeeping missions and mediating in conflicts. An African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) has developed since 2002, including a Peace and Security Council, an African Standby Force, a Continental Early Warning System and a Panel of the Wise. This sounds impressive, but the operationalization record is patchy: AU-deployed missions have been fully dependent on external donors; harmonization is a major problem; serious questions remain over AU capacity; and some of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are developing at a quicker pace than the AU. Given these circumstances and its internal capacity deficit, the AU will likely struggle to exercise oversight of regional processes, including the development of regional standby force arrangements. APSA is clearly based on a liberal peace model, yet democratic systems, respect for human rights and good governance aren't always in place in African countries, and the self-interest of elites continues to be a constraint on APSA and its success. Over the last decade the AU has found a voice and, despite some setbacks, it has shown through AMISOM in Somalia that it is capable of conducting a successful peacemaking operation. Its biggest challenge is not making the decision to intervene or deploy forces, but the capacity of most African states to deploy effectively. APSA's dependence on external partners needs to diminish over the next decade if better African solutions are to be found to peace and security challenges in the continent. Yet, the internationalized nature of crises such as the one in Mali in 2012–13 requires international partnerships. Not all of Africa's security problems can be solved by Africa alone, but APSA does provide a vision framework for African and external partnership.


A growing number of East Asian men marry a bride from a foreign country. In the late 2000s, marriages in which the wives were of foreign origin accounted for 15% of new unions in Taiwan, 8% in South Korea and 6% in Japan. The largest group of immigrant spouses in these countries come from the People's Republic of China. Vietnamese women are the second largest group of immigrant spouses in South Korea and Taiwan, and likewise for Filippino women in Japan.The quest for spouses abroad stems from the difficulties encountered by men in their own countries. Women are increasingly unwilling to accept the traditional role of wife and mother, with an unequal division of tasks between spouses and, in many cases, the obligation to leave their job. Matchmaking agencies play a key role in the rapid increase of these marriages. A large majority of foreign spouses who migrate to get married do so of their own accord and not because of parental pressure. Their objectives are to marry and migrate. Like most migrants from developing countries, they hope that migration will enable them to send money back to their families and to improve their own lives.


The present study was undertaken to find the predominant etiological agent of dermatophytoses among the patients attending the out patient clinic of Mycology Section, Department of Dermatology, Madras Medical College and Hospital, Chennai. Specimens were collected from suspected patients with dermatophytoses and examined for the presence of fungal elements, cultured, isolated and identified. Among the 90 suspected patients with clinical symptoms of dermatophytoses, 71 (78.9%) were confirmed in culture. Trichophyton genus was accounted for 93% of dermatophytoses, which was shared by Trichophyton rubrum (73.3%) andTrichophyton mentagrophytes (19.7%), followed by Epidermophyton floccosum (4.2%) and Microsporum gypseum (2.8%). It was noted that tinea corporis (64.8%) is the most prevalent infection followed by tinea cruris (26.8%), tinea pedis (5.6%) and onychomycoses (2.8%). T. rubrum was the predominant species responsible for the dermatophytoses, especially tinea corporis in Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. In addition it was also observed that T. rubrum was most predominant species responsible for the chronic dermatophytoses (81.8%). Further work is in progress to understand the protease profile of the isolates with relation to the chronisity of the infection.

 Key words:  Dermatophytoses, Dermatophytes, Tinea, Trichophyton and Skin infections.


This study evaluates noise and vibrations in a heavy freight locomotive cab, and

 provides several measures for providing more comfort to the crew. A full-scale

 production cab and sill structure is used to provide the results. The cab is setup in a

 controlled laboratory environment in a manner similar to the installation on a

 locomotive. Field measurements are used to emulate actual vibration input to the

 cab structure. A 16-channel data acquisition system is used to collect both noise and

 vibration data on various parts of the cab structure and inside the cab. Upon

 establishing the baseline for laboratory vibration measurements and correlating

 them with field data, a design of experiment was conducted to evaluate the vibration

 contribution of various parts of the cab. This showed that the cab floor and cab roof

 had the largest vibrations. A series of solutions including stiffening the cab floor

 and damping the cab roof were investigated. The results showed that although such

 solutions reduce localized vibrations, the overall effect on reducing cab interior

 noise is minimal. As a more global solution, the cab was isolated from the sill

 structure through six elastomeric elements mounted at the base of the cab and at the

 crash post. The mounts at the base were selected such that they support the static

 weight of the cab, provide a resonance frequency that is below the excitation range,

 and offer good lateral and longitudinal stability. Two tube-form elastomeric mounts

 were placed between the cab structure and the crash posts which attach to the front

 of the sill structure. The test results showed that the soft-mounted cab had

 significantly lower noise and vibration than the original cab. The vibration levels

 were reduced 10 to 100 times at certain locations and frequency ranges. The overall

 noise level was reduced by approximately 6 dBA. In an attempt to provide an

 estimate of effectiveness of the mounts with different stiffness values, a simulation

 model was prepared in Matlab. Although the model did not yield accurate results, it

 resulted in several recommendations for future research work.


Studies  that  employed  activity  theory  as  a  theoretical  lens  for  exploring  computer-mediated interaction have not adopted social media as their object of study. However, social  media  provides  lecturers  with  personalised  learning  environments  for diagnostic  and  prognostic  assessments  of  student  mastery  of  content  and  deep learning. The integration of Facebook into educators' pedagogical intentions potentially scaffolds  students  cognitively,  leverages  their  understanding  of  content  and ameliorates  limited  mediated  learning  experiences.  Using  activity  theory  as  an interpretive  framework  and  a  multi-method  data  construction  process  involving  in-depth  semi-structured  interviews,  in-class  observations,  post  observation  debriefingand  data  mining  of  student  and  lecturer-generated  Facebook  postings,  the  studyexplored  Facebook's  potential  to  scaffold  student  cogitative  processes  and  promote academic  engagement.  Findings  suggest  that  the  academic  value  of  Facebook  iscontingent  upon  the  extent  of  its  integration  into  the  pedagogical  design  of  courses, student academic maturity and their level of ICT competence. The unintended effects of  Facebook  were  its  reproduction  of  peer-based  academic  hierarchies,  and  its revelation  of  cognitive  tensions  and  power  differentials  between  academically  gifted and cognitively challenged learners during lectures.


Prediction of residual stresses induced by any additive layer manufacturing process greatly helps in preventing thermal cracking and distortion formed in the substrate and deposition material. This paper presents the development of a model for the prediction of residual stresses using three-dimensional finite element simulation (3D-FES) and their experimental validation in a single-track and double-track deposition of Ti-6Al-4V powder on AISI 4130 substrate by the microplasma transferred arc (µ-PTA) powder deposition process. It involved 3D-FES of the temperature distribution and thermal cycles that were validated experimentally using three K-type thermocouples mounted along the deposition direction. Temperature distribution, thermal cycles, and residual stresses are predicted in terms of the µ-PTA process parameters and temperature-dependent properties of substrate and deposition materials. Influence of a number of deposition tracks on the residual stresses is also studied. Results reveal that (i) tensile residual stress is higher at the bonding between the deposition and substrate and attains a minimum value at the midpoint of a deposition track; (ii) maximum tensile residual stress occurs in the substrate material at its interface with deposition track. This primarily causes distortion and thermal cracks; (iii) maximum compressive residual stress occurs approximately at mid-height of the substrate material; and (iv) deposition of a subsequent track relieves tensile residual stress induced by the previously deposited track.


The EMD algorithm, first proposed in [11], made more robust as well as more versatile in [12], is a technique that aims to decompose into their building blocks functions that are the superposition of a (reasonably) small number of components, well separated in the time-frequency plane, each of which can be viewed as approximately harmonic locally, with slowly varying amplitudes and frequencies. The EMD has already shown its usefulness in a wide range of applications including meteorology, structural stability analysis, medical studies -- see, e.g. [13]. On the other hand, the EMD algorithm contains heuristic and ad-hoc elements that make it hard to analyze mathematically. In this paper we describe a method that captures the flavor and philosophy of the EMD approach, albeit using a different approach in constructing the components. We introduce a precise mathematical definition for a class of functions that can be viewed as a superposition of a reasonably small number of approximately harmonic components, and we prove that our method does indeed succeed in decomposing arbitrary functions in this class. We provide several examples, for simulated as well as real data.


Abstract. In estuarine coastal systems such as the Baltic Sea, mussels suffer from low
salinity which limits their distribution. Anthropogenic climate change is
expected to cause further desalination which will lead to local extinctions
of mussels in the low saline areas. It is commonly accepted that mussel
distribution is limited by osmotic stress. However, along the salinity
gradient, environmental conditions for biomineralization are successively
becoming more adverse as a result of reduced [Ca 2+ ] and dissolved
inorganic carbon ( CT ) availability. In larvae, calcification is
an essential process starting during early development with formation of the
prodissoconch I (PD I) shell, which is completed under optimal conditions
within 2 days. Experimental manipulations of seawater [Ca 2+ ] start to impair PD I
formation in Mytilus larvae at concentrations below 3 mM, which
corresponds to conditions present in the Baltic at salinities below
8 g kg −1 . In addition, lowering dissolved inorganic carbon to critical
concentrations (  1 mM) similarly affected PD I size, which was well
correlated with calculated ΩAragonite and
[Ca 2+ ][HCO 3 - ]  ∕  [H + ] in all treatments. Comparing
results for larvae from the western Baltic with a population from the central
Baltic revealed a significantly higher tolerance of PD I formation to lowered
[Ca 2+ ] and [Ca 2+ ][HCO 3 - ]  ∕  [H + ] in the low saline
adapted population. This may result from genetic adaptation to the more
adverse environmental conditions prevailing in the low saline areas of the
Baltic. The combined effects of lowered [Ca 2+ ] and adverse carbonate chemistry
represent major limiting factors for bivalve calcification and can thereby
contribute to distribution limits of mussels in the Baltic Sea.


While worksite wellness programs are generally designed to help employees realize better overall health, some employees may not see them in that light. The current study sought to better understand why employees refuse to participate in a new employer-sponsored wellness program. This study also investigated how participation in the program is related to employees' self-perceived health, efficacy to be healthier and their perceptions toward their organization providing useful resources to engage in a healthy lifestyle. A survey of more than 1,500 employees at a large Midwest organization was conducted after their annual open-enrollment period. Open-ended responses from participants refusing to participate in the wellness program (n = 297) indicated privacy considerations as their primary concern. They also thought participation would take too much time, conceptually thought the program was unfair or not useful and felt they were already healthy and not in need of the program. Both participants and nonparticipants had no differences in self-perceived overall health. However, participants had greater self-efficacy, and perceptions that their employer offered useful resources to engage in a healthy lifestyle, than nonparticipants. Recommendations for communicating new wellness programs to employees are discussed.


This work investigated the purification of phosphoric acid using a suitable organic solvent, followed by re-extraction of the acid from the solvent using water. The work consisted of practical batch and continuous studies and the economics and design of a full scale plant, based on the experimental data. A comprehensive literature survey on the purification of wet process phosphoric acid by organic solvents is presented and the literature describing the design and operation of mixer-settlers has also been reviewed. In batch studies, the equilibrium and distribution curves for the systems water-phosphoric acid-solvent for Benzaldehyde, Cyclohexanol and Methylisobutylketone (MIBK) were determined together with hydrodynamic characteristics for both pure and impure systems. The settling time increased with acid concentration, but power input had no effect. Drop size was found to reduce with acid concentration and power input. For the continuous studies a novel horizontal mixer~settler cascade was designed, constructed and operated using pure and impure acid with MIBK as the solvent. The cascade incorporates three air turbine agitated, cylindrical 900 ml mixers, and three cylindrical 200 ml settlers with air-lift solvent interstage transfer. Mean drop size in the fully baffled mixer was correlated. Drop size distributions were log-normal and size decreased with acid concentration and power input and increased with dispersed phase hold-up. Phase inversion studies showed that the width of the ambivalent region depended upon rotor speed, hold-up and acid concentration. Settler characteristics were investigated by measuring wedge length. Distribution coefficients of impurities and acid were also investigated. The following optimum extraction conditions were found: initial acid concentration 63%, phase ratio of solvent to acid 1:1 (v/v), impeller speed recommended 900 r.p.m. In the washing step the maximum phase ratio of solvent to water was 8:1 (v/v). Work on phosphoric acid concentration involved constructing distillation equipment consisting of a 10& spherical still. A 100 T/d scale detailed process design including capital cost, operating cost and profitability was also completed. A profit model for phosphoric acid extraction was developed and maximised. Recommendations are made for both the application of the results to a practical design and for extensions of the study.


Eminent scholar Saikrishna Prakash offers the first truly comprehensive study of the original American presidency. Drawing from a vast range of sources both well known and obscure, this volume reconstructs the powers and duties of the nation's chief executive at the Constitution's founding. Among other subjects, Prakash examines the term and structure of the office of the president, as well as the president's power as constitutional executor of the law, authority in foreign policy, role as commander in chief, level of control during emergencies, and relationship with the Congress, the courts, and the states. This ambitious and even-handed analysis counters numerous misconceptions about the presidency and fairly demonstrates that the office was seen as monarchical from its inception.


As intelligent content management of IPTV moves popular material nearer to the end-user, application-layer channel coding schemes, involving the retransmission of extra redundant data, become attractive as a result of the reduced latency. Applicationlayer, adaptive rateless channel coding is exploited in this paper's scheme to reconstruct streamed video across an IEEE 802.16e (mobile WiMAX) channel. The paper concentrates on the trade-offs in implementing the scheme, showing that exact calculation of the redundant data has the potential to reduce the forward error correction bit-rate overhead. To reduce delay, an appropriate compression rate should also be selected.


As in almost every country, Spanish society tends to trivialize cases of violence against women. There is little chance that this violence is perceived as a problem, not only by men, but also by women themselves. Some women have come to accept domestic violence as normal and internalized their oppression to the extent that they expect this as a pattern of acceptable, normative behavior imposed by society. Some social norms and institutions can ensure the perpetuation of violence against women since they are rooted in the culture and traditions that legitimize it. Awareness campaigns that address violence against women serve to counterbalance those institutions and to change that mentality. In fact, greater awareness coincides with periods of more information and social debate addressing the issue of violence against women. The goal of this study is to determine whether the public awareness campaigns carried out in Spain to promote sensitivity to violence against women are effective. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the evolution of Spanish society's perception of the problem of violence against women from 1985 to the present, relative to the Spanish government's expenditure on sensitization campaigns on violence against women. The joint analysis of expenses and results will enable us to reach conclusions about the relationship between these two variables. This is a novel analysis that has not been addressed until now in this field of research. It is hoped that this document will contribute to the literature by exploring the effectiveness of awareness campaigns against violence against women in the social perception of the problem.


The aim of the work was to assess the sensitivity of chemical and biochemical parameters in representative soils of the Pampa Region under different managements with the purpose of i) establishing the soil parameters that may have a role as early and sensitive indicators of soil ecological stress and restoration; and ii) comparing the results from cropped plots with the same undisturbed soil type, considered as reference (T). The experiment was carried out on experimental plots under different soil managements at the INTA Experimental Stations at Oliveros, Marcos Juárez and Rafaela. Total organic carbon (COT), organic carbon associated with the fine fraction (COff) and organic carbon associated with the coarse fraction (COfg), microbial biomass carbon (CBM), soil microbial respiration (ARM) and enzymatic activities of acid phosphatase (Pasa), dehydrogenase (Dasa) and urease (Uasa) were determined in composite soil samples. The metabolic quotient (qCO2), the relationship between ARM and CBM, the enzymatic activities/COT ratio, and the CBM/ COT ratio were also calculated. For each experimental site, cropped plots presented lower values than undisturbed soil in most of the parameters analyzed (p <0.05). The soil cultivation caused large reductions in COT and COfg. The soybean monoculture, at the experimental site Oliveros, had lower Pasa and qCO2 with respect to cornsoybean-wheat/soybean crop rotation, although the MBC was higher (p <0.05). In Marcos Juarez site, the combined tillage treatment had lower CBM, Pasa, Dasa and Uasa, with respect no-tillage with cover crop (p <0.05). At the Rafaela experimental site, no LAURA FERRERAS et al. CI. SUELO (ARGENTINA) 27(1): 103-114, 2009 104 differences were found in enzymatic activities, although the CBM showed differences between crop rotations. Significant differences were found in qCO2 at the cropped plots with respect to undisturbed soil at the Marcos Juárez experimental site. The higher values of qCO2 in cropped plots are indicative of higher maintenance energy of microorganisms. The Pasa/COT ratio in Marcos Juarez and the relationship between Pasa/COT and Uasa/COT in Rafaela, were lower in T than in cropped plots. One plausible explanation is that in cropped soils, organic carbon decreases at a faster rate than the reduction in enzyme activity, and thus the enzyme activity/COT is higher in cropped than in undisturbed soils. Alternatively, extracellular enzymes could bind to humified organic matter to form humoenzymatic complexes. Soil enzymes were positively correlated with COT and COfg. The assessment of biochemical parameters by means of MBC, qCO2 and enzyme activity of soils under different managements enables short-term changes in soil quality to be monitored. The evaluated soil parameters are shown in some situations be sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance and are well correlated with soil functions.


This paper discusses how the profile of the residual surface relief of quartz glass in an irradiation spot depends on the number of active pulses of plane-polarized laser radiation with wavelength lambda = 10.6 µm. Based on experimental data, it is shown that an important role in the mechanism for forming periodic structures is played by the structural change of quartz glass subjected to melting and the associated change of its refractive index. Refractive-index gratings are detected in the near-surface layer of the glass in the total absence of periodic surface relief. When the radiation is normally incident, the period of the relief grating lies within the limits 8.9-9.1 µm, while the refractive-index grating lies within the limits 7.9-8.9 µm. These results agree with the model that explains the formation of the spatial modulation of radiation close to the surface of glass by the interference of the incident wave with surface phonon-polaritons. © 2004 Optical Society of America


Patterns of transmigration emerging as a consequence of globalization are creating new and complex markets for communicative resources in which languages and language varieties are differently valued. In a Swedish context, where lingua franca English can facilitate communication but where monolingual norms prevail and Swedish is positioned as the key to 'integration', the purpose of this study is to examine English-speaking migrants' experiences of opportunities to use Swedish and English in communication. Interviews were conducted with 14 recently arrived migrants with English in their repertoires. Drawing on participants' experiences of language use in institutional contexts, analyses focus on the influence of value assessments, orientations to ideal-type norms, processes of self-surveillance and the effects of discursive positionings. While migrants' language choices are understood as a consequence of structural conditions, attention is also drawn to the ways in which such choices are flexibly negotiated. Analyses shed light on participants' creative and critical capacities and how, in their language choices, they evaluate, relate to and resist macro-social structures. Different varieties of English are shown to offer different communicative opportunities and not all are equally exchangeable. Opportunities to use English also differ as a consequence of the intersections of discursive positionings.


This article is based on a keynote address at the 2021 American Kinesiology Association's Annual Leadership Workshop, for which I was asked to talk about the future of work in connection to higher education. I am familiar with the kinesiology field in my role as Dean of the School of Professional Advancement at Tulane University. This article touches on issues important to the field of kinesiology that may also be applied across other academic disciplines. Technology is changing the nature of work; the global pandemic has sped up the pace of that change. Beyond this, the potential for future pandemics and other transformational events and trends mean that work is in a state of permanent flux. Preparing students for future success in this environment requires educators to think more broadly and holistically about their roles. Higher education institutions also, arguably, have a responsibility not just to educate, but to model workplace culture.


Let $k_3(n)$ denote the minimal cardinality of a ternary code of length $n$ and covering radius one. In this paper we show $k_3(7)\ge 156$ and $k_3(8)\ge 402$ improving on the best previously known bounds $k_3(7)\ge 153$ and $k_3(8)\ge 398$. The proofs are founded on a recent technique of the author for dealing with systems of linear inequalities satisfied by the number of elements of a covering code, that lie in $k$-dimensional subspaces of F ${}_3^n$.


Objectives
Genetics explains a small amount of the variability in the response of plasma phylloquinone to phylloquinone intake. Whether epigenetic modifications, which reflect interactions between the genome and environment, are related to the plasma phylloquinone response to supplementation has not been examined. The objective of this study was to conduct an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) to identify genetic loci whose methylation levels associate with changes in circulating phylloquinone in response to phylloquinone supplementation.

Methods
We used data from a 3-year, randomized controlled, phylloquinone supplementation (500 ug/d) trial in healthy older adults. One hundred four white participants in the supplementation group who passed filters for adherence to the protocol (mean age = 68(5.0) years, 56% female) were classified as responders or non-responders according to their change in plasma phylloquinone. Of these, 24 participants with the smallest (non-responders) and 24 participants with the largest (responders) change in plasma phylloquinone were selected for DNA methylation analysis. DNA was isolated from baseline blood samples. Bisulfite-converted DNA for these 48 individuals was analyzed using the Illumina MethylationEPIC microarray platform at the Yale Center for Genome Analysis in New Haven, CT. The association of responder status with methylation beta-value at each site was examined using logistic regression adjusted for control-probe principal components.

Results
Forty (38%) of the 104 participants had changes in plasma phylloquinone that classified them as non-responders. A single CpG site (cg10918016 in NCOR2) was associated with plasma phylloquinone responder status at genome-wide Bonferroni level of significance (P < 6.4 × 10-8). In the presence of moderate genomic inflation (λ = 1.21), 5239 sites showed suggestive associations (Benjamini-Hochberg FDR < 0.2).

Conclusions
DNA methylation levels may contribute toward the inter-individual plasma phylloquinone response to supplementation. Larger studies in diverse populations are warranted to clarify the causal influence of methylation on the vitamin K status.

Funding Sources
Study supported by the USDA Agricultural Research Service under Cooperative Agreement No. 58-1950-7-707, NHLBI T32HL069772, and the Gerald Cassidy Student Research Award. *JMK and KW contributed equally to this research.

Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs


Mobility of organic matter (OM) in soils is restricted by sorption to mineral surfaces. We investigated the sorption of hydrophilic and hydrophobic OM fractions on mineral soils of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), New Hampshire. Organic matter was extracted with 0.1 M NaOH from O- and Bh-horizons, fractionated into hydrophilic and hydrophobic fractions, and characterized by 13 C cross-polarization magic-angle spinning (CPMAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Sorption experiments were conducted with E, Bh, Bsl, Bs2, and C horizon soils at suspension pH of 3, 4, and 5. In all horizons, we observed net release of indigenous OM when OM-free solution was added. Net release of OM was greatest from Bh-horizon soils, which had the greatest OM content among the horizons we studied. The OM in the equilibrium solutions was primarily hydrophilic (65-97%) regardless of the fraction added. Sorption behavior was related to the content of carboxylic functional groups in the added solution. Hydrophobic OM had greater affinity to soils than hydrophilic OM, and Bh-horizon OM exhibited greater sorption than O-horizon OM. Maximum adsorption occurred at pH 4, and decreased with either an increase or decrease in pH. The pH-dependence of OM sorption probably reflects a balance between lower charge density of carboxyl groups at low pH and lower positive charge of adsorption sites at higher pH. The hydrophilic fraction contained higher organic N than the hydrophobic fraction, suggesting that dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) is more mobile than dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in these soils.


A model for the generation of secondary electrons and positrons within the collimated beam of energetic particles and magnetic fields flowing out of the central engines of extragalactic radio sources is proposed. It is demonstrated that if significant amounts of materials are entrained into this collimated beam as suggested recently by De Young, the proton-proton collision process may become a viable mechanism for the generation of radio-emitting electrons seen in large-scale radio jets. The model not only was successfully tested for radio jets in NGC 6251, M87, and 3C 449, but proved promising as a basis for accounting for the presence of gaps between radio cores and jets, as well as the observed absence of gradients in spectral index along some radio jets. 35 references.


The emphasis on migratory subjectivities within postcolonial studies has come from many directions—Bhabha, Gilroy, Appadurai, Boyce Davies—and their convergence has created a critical practice in which diaspora studies takes centre stage. More specifically the way in which the Caribbean person is given emblematic status as the metropolitan migrant is made clear in James Clifford's declaration that 'We are all Caribbeans now…in our urban archipelagos'. This paper examines the serious impact on the critical reception of Caribbean writings that has been made as a result of the fact that metropolitan diasporas are now the privileged places in which to be properly 'postcolonial'. It is my aim to show how Erna Brodber's culturally specific studies have enormous value in the face of the more general and flattened enunciations of diaspora and creolisation which are being circulated at a theoretical level. I shall look at two fairly recent pieces of writing by Brodber: a pamphlet entitled 'The people of my Jamaican village (1817 – 1948)' and an essay entitled 'Where are all the others?' in the book Caribbean Creolisation1.


Abstract India has the largest informal, unregistered economy in the world, infrastructurally backward, yet vital for both growth and livelihoods. In the first section of this article, five economic institutions that shape this economy are introduced: small firms, informality, non-metropolitan towns, innovation and innovation systems, and the state's regulative impact on the economy it does not directly regulate. In the second section, we trace the development of the commodity economy of a South Indian town taken for case study over 40 years, before exploring three kinds of innovation in the third section: invention, adaptive, and adoptive innovation. In the fourth section, the formal and informal institutions that nurture informal innovation are analysed: family business, business associations, banks and finance, informal insurance and gold, hybrid state–private institutions, and informal innovation inside the state. The conclusion confirms the innovative dynamism of the informal economy and the complex pathways of institutional change that both shape, and are shaped by, innovation.


A Monte-Carlo method is used to calibrate a randomly placed sensor node using helicopter sounds. The calibration is based on using GPS information from the helicopter and the estimated DOAs at the node. The related Cramer-Rao lower bound is derived and the effects of the GPS errors on the position estimates are derived. Issues related to the processing of the field data, e.g., time synchronization and data nonstationarity, are discussed. The effects of the GPS errors are shown to be negligible under certain conditions. Finally, the results of the calibration on field data are given.


The development of a1,3-galactosyltransferase deficient pigs along with overexpression of complement regulatory proteins was an important step to overcome hyperacute rejection of pig organs transplanted into primates. However, the lack of galactose-α1,3-galactose (αGal) epitopes does not protect against subsequent rejection mechanisms, such as acute vascular rejection, which plays a crucial role to achieve prolonged graft survival in pig-to-human xenotransplantation. Acute vascular rejection involves incompatibilities between human blood and porcine endothelial cells, leading to coagulation disorders. Indeed, thrombotic microangiopathy is one of the key characteristics of rejected pig-to-primate grafts from aGal-deficient donor animals. One of the strategies to overcome this coagulation problem by genetic modification of donor pigs is expression of human thrombomodulin (TM) on the porcine endothelium. Although porcine TM is able to bind circulating human thrombin, the resulting heterodimer is unable to cleave human protein C, which promotes the coagulation cascade. We addressed this problem by the development of a vector placing the single-exon open reading frame of human TM under the control of a 6-kb promoter fragment obtained from the porcine TM gene. In addition, we replaced the 3′-untranslated region (UTR) by a polyadenylation box from the bovine growth hormone gene to avoid interferon-y-dependent destabilization of thrombomodulin transcripts. This vector was linked to a floxed neomycin cassette and transfected into porcine fetal fibroblasts. Positive cell clones were selected with G418, mixed, and then used for nuclear transfer. Donor fibroblasts were electrofused with enucleated oocytes resulting in 358 reconstructed embryos (91.1% fusion rate). One or two days later, 294 embryos were transferred to 3 synchronized gilts. In total, 8 cloned transgenic piglets with 1 or 2 independent integration sites of the transgene were born. Heart, kidney, lung, and liver of 5 founder animals were analyzed by immunohistochemistry They were found to express thrombomodulin strongly and strictly limited to the vascular endothelium of at least heart and kidney. The staining intensity was estimated qualitatively, by grading from weak to strong immunoreactivity (brown color, using DAB as chromogen). Cells from founder pigs expressing TM strongly have been used for recloning. The effect of human TM to normalize blood coagulation will be tested in experiments involving ex vivo perfusion of transgenic hearts and kidneys with human blood. Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR 535).


Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes compromised and the fickle, venomous denizens of the courts and salons conspire to keep him out of their ranks. Lucien eventually learns that, wherever he goes, talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue and unscrupulousness. "Lost Illusions" is one of the greatest novels in the rich procession of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's panoramic social and moral history of his times.


Industrial smelting furnaces are subjected to significant structural changes and deterioration caused by the conditions under which they operate. The current methods for the structural assessment of furnaces include visual inspections, analysis of thermal data, acousto ultrasonic-echo (AU-E) of the refractory lining and surveying of the key structural elements. Acoustic Emission (AE) non-destructive testing (NDT) technique has proven its capabilities for continuous monitoring of industrial installations and structures. Recently, Hatch Ltd. has been successful in applying acoustic emission for monitoring furnace tapblocks, and expanding the scope of the acoustic emission monitoring to the structural integrity of the entire furnace. The capability of detecting emissions related to the fracture development in the furnace shell, movement of the refractory, electrode arcing, combined with efficient source location algorithms makes an acoustic emission system a comprehensive tool for the real-time furnace integrity monitoring. In this paper the concept of such state of the art system for structural integrity assessment is presented. The initial results of the acoustic emission monitoring together with data analysis techniques are discussed.


Learning at scale opens up a new frontier to learn about learning. MOOCs and similar large-scale online learning platforms give an unprecedented view of learners' behavior whilst learning. In this paper, we argue that the abundance of data that results from such platforms not only brings novel opportunities to the study of learning, but also bears novel methodological challenges. We show that the resulting data comes with various challenges with respect to the granular, observational, and large nature of these data. Additionally, we discuss a series of potential solutions, such as sharing validated models and performing pre-registered confirmatory research. With these contributions, this paper aims to increase awareness and understanding of both the strengths and challenges of research on learning at scale.


Adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) have low levels of physical activity and higher than average rates of related chronic health conditions. Understanding correlates of their physical activity participation may improve health promoting interventions. Forty-two adults with ID participated in a physical activity study. Physical activity knowledge and skills, awareness of recommendations and demographic characteristics were analyzed for their association with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) participation measured by accelerometers. Five variables were significantly correlated with MVPA. Body mass index was inversely correlated with MVPA, and gender, job location, job tasks, and place of residence were all significantly associated with MVPA. Understanding correlates of physical activity in this population will help inform disability service and health promotion professionals in future research and health intervention design.


Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created the first autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought.


Wireless sensor networks fuse data from a multiplicity of sensors of different modalities and spatiotemporal scales to provide information for reconnaissance, surveillance, and situational awareness in many defense applications. For decisions to be based on information returned by sensor networks it is crucial that such information be of sustained high quality. While the Quality of Information (QoI) depends on many factors, perhaps the most crucial is the integrity of the sensor data sources themselves. Even ignoring malicious subversion, sensor data quality may be compromised by non-malicious causes such as noise, drifts, calibration, and faults. On-line detection and isolation of such misbehaviors is crucial not only for assuring QoI delivered to the end-user, but also for efficient operation and management by avoiding wasted energy and bandwidth in carrying poor quality data and enabling timely repair of sensors. We describe a two-tiered system for on-line detection of sensor faults. A local tier running at resource-constrained nodes uses an embedded model of the physical world together with a hypothesis-testing detector to identify potential faults in sensor measurements and notifies a global tier. In turn, the global tier uses these notifications on the one hand during fusion for more robust estimation of physical world events of interest to the user, and on the other hand for consistency checking among notifications from various sensors and generating feedback to update the embedded physical world model at the local nodes. Our system eliminates the undesirable attributes of purely centralized and purely distributed approaches that respectively suffer from high resource consumption from sending all data to a sink, and high false alarms due to lack of global knowledge. We demonstrate the performance of our system on diverse real-life sensor faults by using a modeling framework that permits injection of sensor faults to study their impact on the application QoI.


Contact tracing, where exposed individuals are followed up to break ongoing transmission chains, is a key pillar of outbreak response for many infectious disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and SARS-CoV-2. Unfortunately, these systems are not fully effective, and cases can still go undetected as people may not know or remember all of their contacts or contacts may not be able to be traced. A large proportion of undetected cases suggests poor contact tracing and surveillance systems, which could be a potential area of improvement for a disease response. In this paper, we present a novel method for estimating the proportion of cases that are not detected during an outbreak. Our method uses next generation matrices that are parameterized by linked contact tracing and case line-lists. We use this method to investigate the proportion of undetected cases in two case studies: the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in New Zealand during 2020 and the West African Ebola outbreak in Guinea during 2014. We estimate that only 6% of SARS-CoV-2 cases were not detected in New Zealand (95% credible interval: 1.31 - 16.7%), but over 60% of Ebola cases were not detected in Guinea (95% credible interval: 15 - 90%).


We apply a general deep learning framework to address the non-factoid question answering task. Our approach does not rely on any linguistic tools and can be applied to different languages or domains. Various architectures are presented and compared. We create and release a QA corpus and setup a new QA task in the insurance domain. Experimental results demonstrate superior performance compared to the baseline methods and various technologies give further improvements. For this highly challenging task, the top-1 accuracy can reach up to 65.3% on a test set, which indicates a great potential for practical use.


Adipose tissue plays a key role as a fat-storage depot and as an endocrine organ. Although mouse adipogenesis has been studied extensively, limited studies have been conducted to characterize this process in humans. We carried out a temporal proteomic analysis to interrogate the dynamic changes in the secretome of primary human preadipocytes as they differentiate into mature adipocytes. Using iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomics, we identified and quantified 420 proteins from the secretome of differentiated human adipocytes. Our results revealed that the majority of proteins showed differential expression during the course of differentiation. In addition to adipokines known to be differentially secreted in the course of adipocyte differentiation, we identified a number of proteins whose dynamic expression in this process has not been previously documented. They include collagen triple helix repeat containing 1, cytokine receptor-like factor 1, glypican-1, hepatoma-derived growth factor, SPARC related modular calcium binding protein 1, SPOCK 1, and sushi repeat-containing protein. A bioinformatics analysis using Human Protein Reference Database and Human Proteinpedia revealed that of the 420 proteins identified, 164 proteins possess signal peptides and 148 proteins are localized to the extracellular compartment. Additionally, we employed antibody arrays to quantify changes in the levels of 182 adipokines during human adipogenesis. This is the first large-scale quantitative proteomic study that combines two platforms, mass spectrometry and antibody arrays, to analyze the changes in the secretome during the course of adipogenesis in humans.


In accounting and finance, fair value is a rational and unbiased estimate of the potential market price of a good, service or asset. On the other hand, cost accounting policy is more conservative and prudence. Accounting fairness refers mostly to the fair presentation, the initial recognition and measurement or valuation of an element. Therefore, adopting different accounting policies results in the assets being presented in the entity's financial statements with different values. With the application of cost or fair value accounting policies across firms or countries, the financial statements are being incomparable. Another issue arises from depreciation methods applied. With the application of different depreciation accounting methods across firms or countries, the financial statements are being incomparable. Both accounting policies for recognition and measurement and depreciation methods, determine the net value of fixed assets in financial statements' presentations. Thus, a decision-making procedure exists for recognition and measurement of property assets using the above components. The research objects of the paper are to explore in detail the relationship between cost and fair value accounting policies with depreciation methods, by enabling decision-making options. The financial method of discounted cash flow (DCF) technique is used for fair value accounting as well as for impairment test and the depreciation accounting methods are used for cost accounting policy, in order to explore the decision options for a property asset recognition and measurement. Following the above procedure, a fair value accounting model is correlated with the deprecation methods and an analysis of the impact of each decision-making alternative in financial statements' figures is produced.


Gustav Albert Stiasny was born in Vienna (Austria) on December 10th, 1877. After he had attended the elementary and grammar schools there and having finished a one year course of lectures in commercial enterprise, Stiasny enlisted as a volunteer with the Austro-Hungarian army. A year later he left the army after he had obtained his commission, to take up an appointment with his father's commercial business. Young Stiasny, who was much interested in Natural History, soon left his father's affairs to give himself completely to the study of Zoology, Botany and Geology. For that purpose he attended lectures at the universities of Vienna and Jena. As about that time such celebrities as Hatschek, Grobben, Haeckel, et al., were lecturing there it is no wonder that Stiasny soon developed a strong preference for Zoology. In 1903 Stiasny took his Philosophical Doctor's degree at the University of Vienna, using his first three publications as his thesis. Stiasny then went to Norway to join an international course in Oceanography and to make a trip on board the research vessel "Michael Sars". Here he had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of a number of oceanographers and marine biologists of international reputation, viz. Appelloff, Helland-Hansen, Hjort and Gran. In 1906 Stiasny took part in an expedition of the University of Vienna to the West coast of Greenland. From his return until 1912 he worked at the former AustroHungarian marine Station at Trieste, where he became the personal assistant of Prof. Dr. C. J. Cori. During his stay in Trieste Stiasny travelled extensively in the Mediterranean, visited the Acores and the Canaries and in 1910 visited the Argentine Republic, Uruguay and Brazil. In 1912 he


Synaptojanin1 is involved in endolysosomal trafficking in cone photoreceptors Ashley Amelia George Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Susan E. Brockerhoff Biochemistry Cells require the ability to properly sort and traffic proteins to their correct subcellular destination. The production of new proteins must be balanced by the turnover of old and damaged proteins. A breakdown in this process is detrimental to any cell; however highly polarized, non-proliferating cells, such as neurons, are particularly vulnerable to defects in protein turnover. Photoreceptors are highly polarized, specialized neurons that have high protein trafficking demands. At one end of the photoreceptor is the outer segment; the site of photon detection and phototransduction. The outer segment requires a constant supply of new proteins and membranes to maintain proper function. At the opposite end of the cell is the site of synaptic transmission. The synapse also undergoes large amounts of membrane trafficking and turnover due to the release of neurotransmitter and subsequent synaptic vesicle recycling. Although both ends of the photoreceptor require efficient membrane trafficking, the majority of studies of protein trafficking in photoreceptors have focused on the outer segment. In addition, photoreceptors do not need to degrade old and damaged proteins and membranes from the outer segment; the retinal pigment epithelium phagocytoses outer segment discs. Therefore the focus on outer segment trafficking has resulted in a deficit in our understanding of the process of protein degradation in photoreceptor cells. In this study we establish that the zebrafish nrca14 mutant has a specific defect in endolysosomal and autophagic trafficking and can therefore be used as a model to understand these processes in cone photoreceptors. The trafficking defects in the nrca14 cones begin early in photoreceptor development. The accumulation of autophagosomes in the nrca14 mutant is due, at least in part, to impaired autophagosome maturation that is not caused by a decrease in autophagosome mobility. The causative mutation in the nrca14mutant is in the gene encoding a polyphosphoinositide phosphatase Synaptojanin1; highlighting the importance of the phosphoinositide lipids in protein degradation pathways. We analyzed the distribution of the phosphoinositides PI(3)P, PI(4)P, PI(3,5)P2 and PI(4,5)P2 in wild type and nrca14 photoreceptors. We found that the distribution of these lipids in wild type photoreceptors is the same as in non-neuronal cell types; PI(3)P on endosomes, PI(4)P on the Golgi, PI(3,5)P2 on late endosomes/lysosomes and PI(4,5)P2 in the plasma membrane. We found no gross change in the distribution of these phosphoinositides in nrca14 mutant photoreceptors. Further, we use the nrca14 mutant phenotypes to discover that the Synaptojanin1 dephosphorylates a PIP species with a 5'phosphate to regulate autophagy and endolysosomal trafficking. Collectively, my work has generated a large tool set for studying membrane trafficking in zebrafish cone photoreceptors and has defined a specific role for Synaptojanin1 in regulating autophagy and degradative trafficking pathways in cones.


Far from the vision of popular actors in the popular economy as reactionary and archaic, stubbornly resisting any move towards change, the book's overall aim is to contribute to a broadening and deepening of our understanding of the logic and socio-economic practices of those operating in the informal economy. It focuses on the vulnerabilities of these participants, resulting from high exposure to different risks combined with low social protection, and on the interactions between vulnerability and poverty. It considers security of livelihoods as the guiding principle for multiple practices in the informal economy. Thirteen studies, based on careful analyses of empirical data in different contexts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, contribute to this multidisciplinary discussion. The book describes how people develop their own strategies to solve their problems through the use of interpersonal networks, associations, and other community-based arrangements. Moreover, it shows that informal economy actors systematically reposition themselves vis-a-vis the State, markets, international, and national policies with the aim of enhancing their economic and social security, and they may do this either individually or collectively. The book emphasizes how adaptability of the informal economy can be influenced by such factors as the macroeconomic context, access to financial, technological, and information resources, infrastructure, social protection schemes, and the institutional environment within which adaptations occur. Case studies stress the need to reformulate questions relating to policy intervention based on a more thorough understanding of the perspective of informal economy actors.


all phases of bipolar disorder can be difficult to treat, and patients remain symptomatic on average about half the time. (1) Not all bipolar patients who experience continued illness and disability are treatment-resistant (Box 1, page 40), but when symptoms persist you may ask yourself: Was treatment suboptimal or simply ineffective? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Patients with severe symptoms may be satisfied with a substantial decrease in symptoms, but any residual symptoms cause ongoing distress and lower the threshold for recurrences. (2) Finding the right combination of therapies for your patient is key to achieving an enduring response. Future studies may tell us which treatments to combine and in what sequence for complex bipolar disorder, but--since most published studies exclude complex and comorbid cases--for now we must rely on limited controlled data and clinical experience. Using those resources, we offer comprehensive, practical recommendations for troubleshooting (Box 2, page 41) (3-6) and getting better results when bipolar disorder does not respond to standard treatment. Mania When a patient with mania does not respond as expected, the next step depends on which antimanic agent you prescribed: Lithium can take a month to become fully effective for mania, which is why a benzodiazepine or antipsychotic is often added acutely to reduce agitation. Do not mistake neurotoxic interactions between lithium and antipsychotics for increased mania. Although data vary on lithium's optimal serum level, adjust to approximately 0.8 to 1 mEq/L, if tolerated, when lower levels are not effective. Children and young adolescents may need higher serum levels (such as 1.5 mEq/L) because the difference between serum and brain lithium levels is greater in younger patients than in adults. Consider the dosing schedule. Because lithium's elimination half-life with repeated dosing is 24 hours, most adults can take any formulation once daily--which improves adherence and reduces adverse effects. Children eliminate lithium more rapidly and need more frequent dosing. Valproate. Empiric trials in bipolar disorder or epilepsy do not support the frequently reported "therapeutic range" of 50 to 125 [micro]g/mL. Pooled data from three 21-day, double-blind studies of valproate in mania show a linear relationship between serum level and clinical response, with the most beneficial response at >94 [micro]g/mL. (7) Better results--but more side effects--are seen with levels >100 [micro]g/mL. High loading doses result in more rapid control of agitation, probably as a result of sedation. In our experience, however, rapidly sedating patients may interfere with long-term adherence. Carbamazepine, other anticonvulsants. Because they less sedating, carbamazepine and other anticonvulsants might not appear to be rapidly effective for bipolar mania. If you wait up to a month, however, any antimanic effect will be obvious. Antipsychotics are rapidly effective for mania. Higher doses work faster but produce more side effects. After an acute response, some patients can be maintained on a second-generation antipsychotic (SGA), but others do better on a standard mood stabilizer such as lithium or valproate. Calcium channel blockers. Verapamil has been effective mostly for lithium-responsive mania in 27 of 30 studies. Nimodipine has been useful for more complex bipolar syndromes in a few studies using patients as their own controls. To be effective for bipolar disorder, however, calcium channel blockers require frequent, high dosing (such as verapamil, 120 mg 4 times daily, or nimodipine, 60 to 120 mg 6 times daily), which makes adherence difficult. Augment or switch? If mania does not respond to an adequate dose of an antimanic drug given for a sufficient time, the next question is whether to augment or switch treatments. …


Management is an important input into agricultural production, as it a determinant of the uptake and proper implementation of productive technologies and practices. While there is a large literature on evaluations of extension programs meant to improve management practices in agricultural development, there is no consensus on the extension modalities that are most effective. This paper adds to the literature on extension interventions by evaluating the Uruguayan Livestock Program (ULP), a publicly funded, privately delivered extension program designed to improve management practices among cattle breeders. Using an eight year panel constructed by combining data from the Uruguayan livestock traceability system with a registry of ULP participants, we place bounds on the impact of the program on production and sales of calves by ULP beneficiaries using inverse probability weights estimated using propensity scores for selection into the ULP and selection into the dataset. Results show that the ULP increased calf production by between 11.36 and 15.3 calves on average in 2009 and 2010 and increased calf sales minus purchases by 4.35 on average over the same time span. Internal rates of return suggest these are moderately sized economic impacts. We examine the aspects of the ULP's design that might account for its positive but modest effects.


The University of Pennsylvania Law Review's symposium on executive discretion, held in the fall of 2015 but just published this November, is an important undertaking, but it is remarkable for several silences — for things left unsaid on this important subject — and for questions not asked. First, although the Constitution's "Take Care" Clause is extensively discussed, the one power Article II gives the President over domestic administration — to require the "Opinion, in writing" of the heads of the agencies Congress has invested with administrative duties — is not. Second, the discussion of the President's undoubted but possibly constrained authority to remove officials of whose actions he disapproves omits discussion of the difference between the strictly political discretion enjoyed by some officers in some functions, and the law‐constrained discretion enjoyed by others. Third, discussion of the executive branch's clear advantages in dealing with complex, technological issues of fact, as compared to Congress and the courts, omits discussion of the possibility that the opaqueness of the executive's internal functioning may prevent understanding of the extent to which electorally driven politics, not technical expertise, controls its actions. And finally, the empirical exploration of the public's attitude toward possible differences between presidential oversight and presidential control frames its questions in a manner likely to have predetermined its outcome, and in considering the impact on public perceptions does not address the possible impact on administrators' behavior of their understanding whether the President's views have only political or (rather) legal bearing on the issues statutes say they are to decide. This Response addresses each topic in turn.


1. Stable urea isotopes can be used to study urea kinetics in humans. The use of stable urea isotopes for studying urea kinetic parameters in humans on a large scale is hampered by the high costs of the labelled material. We devised a urea dilution for measurement of the distribution volume, production rate and clearance of urea in healthy subjects and renal failure patients using the inexpensive single labelled [13C]urea isotope with subsequent analysis by headspace chromatography-isotope ratio MS (GC-IRMS) of the [13C]urea enrichment. 2. The method involves measurement of the molar percentage excess of [13C]urea in plasma samples taken over a 4 h period after an intravenous bolus injection of [13C]urea. During the sample processing procedure, the plasma samples together with calibration samples containing a known molar percentage excess of [13C]urea are acidified with phosphoric acid to remove endogenous CO2, and are subsequently incubated with urease to convert the urea present in the plasma samples into CO2. The 13C enrichment of the generated CO2 is analysed by means of GC-IRMS. This method allows measurement of the molar percentage excess of [13C]urea to an accuracy of 0.02%. 3. Reproducibility studies showed that the sample processing procedure [within-run coefficient of variation (CV) < 2.8% and between-run CV < 8.8%] and the GC-IRMS analysis (within-day CV < 1.3% and between-day CV < 1.3%) could be repeated with good reproducibility. 4. In clinical urea kinetic studies in a healthy subject and in a renal failure patient without residual renal function, reproducible values of the distribution volume, production rate and clearance of urea were determined using minimal amounts of [13C]urea (25-50 mg). 5. Because only low [13C]urea enrichments are needed in this urea dilution method using GC-IRMS analysis, the costs of urea kinetic studies are reduced considerably, especially in patients with renal failure.


Persisters are a subpopulation of normal bacterial cells that show tolerance to conventional antibiotics. Persister cells are responsible for recalcitrant chronic infections and new antibiotics effective against persisters would be a major development in the treatment of these infections. Using the reporter dye SYTOX Green that only stains cells with permeabilized membranes, we developed a fluorescence-based screening assay in a 384-well format for identifying compounds that can kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) persisters. The assay proved robust and suitable for high throughput screening (Z`-factor: >0.7). In screening a library of hits from a previous screen, which identified compounds that had the ability to block killing of the nematode Caenorhabditis by MRSA, we discovered that the low molecular weight compound NH125, a bacterial histidine kinase inhibitor, kills MRSA persisters by causing cell membrane permeabilization, and that 5 μg/mL of the compound can kill all cells to the limit of detection in a 108 CFU/mL culture of MRSA persisters within 3h. Furthermore, NH125 disrupts 50% of established MRSA biofilms at 20 μg/mL and completely eradicates biofilms at 160 μg/mL. Our results suggest that the SYTOX Green screening assay is suitable for large-scale projects to identify small molecules effective against MRSA persisters and should be easily adaptable to a broad range of pathogens that form persisters. Since NH125 has strong bactericidal properties against MRSA persisters and high selectivity to bacteria, we believe NH125 is a good anti-MRSA candidate drug that should be further evaluated.


Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder that causes general cognitive and developmental delays. Compared to persons with Down syndrome (DS) at the same developmental level, individuals with WS generally exhibit superior expressive language abilities, but have difficulty with tasks that require the visual control of movement. Recently it has been suggested that this latter problem reflects a deficit in dorsal stream function. In the present study, this hypothesis was investigated by examining the kinematics of rapid aiming movements. The performance of the participants with WS (n=4) was compared to the performance of participants with DS (n=8), with undifferentiated developmental delays (n=8), and from the general population (n=8). In partial support of the dorsal deficit hypothesis, the results suggest that, compared to people from the other groups, the participants with WS had difficulty in preparing their movements on the basis of the visual and other information available to them. This was particularly evident in their inability to properly scale movement velocities to the amplitude of the movements and in the number of discrete corrections made during movement execution.


Abstract It is recognized that building projects for the performing arts are complex and unique not only because of the need to meet strict technical demands, but also the need to provide a successful venue satisfying the varied and sometimes conflicting needs of clients and stakeholders. It is generally accepted that projects' objectives should mesh with those of their stakeholders, and continue to fit stakeholders' interests as the projects evolve, conditions change and the interdependencies of key systems, stakeholders and their objectives change. In order to achieve these objectives, various guidance and reports from within the industry recommend the appropriate involvement of the projects' stakeholders, and call for the involvement of users, including the audience and general public, as secondary stakeholders. Taking into account the previously developed stakeholders' model for arts projects as the ideal model, the paper reports a recent study of three arts projects in the UK which shed light on current practice of user consultation, particularly with secondary stakeholders. The findings highlight that although consultation was undertaken, these secondary stakeholder groups were often not well defined or representative, with data often not appropriately addressed in the design brief. The paper discusses these issues, conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future projects are presented.


Nowadays, electrical drives generally associate inverter and induction machine. Thus, these two elements must be taken into account in order to provide a relevant diagnosis of these electrical systems. In this context, the paper presents a diagnosis method based on a multidimensional function and pattern recognition (PR). Traditional formalism of the PR method has been extended with some improvements such as the automatic choice of the feature space dimension or a ldquononexclusiverdquo decision rule based on the k-nearest neighbors. Thus, we introduce a new membership function, which takes into account the number of nearest neighbors as well as the distance from these neighbors with the sample to be classified. This approach is illustrated on a 5.5 kW inverter-fed asynchronous motor, in order to detect supply and motor faults. In this application, diagnostic features are only extracted from electrical measurements. Experimental results prove the efficiency of our diagnosis method.


Health policy decisions should be based on sound evidence

Sustained increases among homosexual men of unsafe sexual behaviour, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV have caused much concern.1 HIV transmission among homosexual men continues despite the use of antiretroviral therapy that lowers infectiousness.2 The idea that "treatment optimism" has led to "behavioural disinhibition" has attracted much attention although recent data suggest it is by no means the whole story.3

Guidelines for the administration of antiretroviral drugs as post-exposure prophylaxis following non-occupational or sexual exposure (termed nPEP in the United States and PEPSE in the United Kingdom) have been drawn up in both the United Kingdom4 and the United States.5 These guidelines offer advice on when to give prophylaxis and to whom. Both guidelines acknowledge that the evidence in support of the recommendations is not watertight. Much of the evidence is inferred from retrospective data on occupational exposure,6 the use of antiretroviral therapy to reduce mother to child transmission of HIV,7 and on experimental simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and HIV-2 infections in macaques.8,9 The data suggest that PEPSE can reduce the risk of infection with HIV if administered promptly (less than 72 hours after exposure) and continued for 28 days. A non-randomised study among 202 homosexual men provided with …


Curl up with a playful collection of poems from best-selling children's author and poet Michael Rosen, perfect for sharing with young friends.

In this exuberant compilation, Michael Rosen invites children to joyfully celebrate sounds and the infinite possibilities of language. Nonsense verses with the feel of classic nursery rhymes tickle the ear and set feet tapping while expressive illustrations by Chris Riddell illuminate the larger-than-life characters. With subject matter that runs the gamut of a child's emotional range from hungry and angry to wiggly and giggly, these thirty-six clever poems will delight little listeners.


We derive a new clustering algorithm based on information theory and statistical mechanics, which is the only algorithm that incorporates scale. It also introduces a new concept into clustering: cluster independence. The cluster centers correspond to the local minima of a thermodynamic free energy, which are identified as the fixed points of a one-parameter nonlinear map. The algorithm works by melting the system to produce a tree of clusters in the scale space. Melting is also insensitive to variability in cluster densities, cluster sizes, and ellipsoidal shapes and orientations. We tested the algorithm successfully on both simulated data and a Synthetic Aperture Radar image of an agricultural site with 12 attributes for crop identification.


Nowadays, the impact of technology on education has been outstanding and this brings new challenges for educational institutions to manage many issues that were previously not managed with ease due to geographical limitations or lack of adequate training technologies. The extensive use of technology in learning makes its use inevitable in the assessment process. Although, a lot of software packages exist in the market, it is difficult to adapt them according to a certain educational system. In this paper we present the characteristics of the new model of e-testing system that we have designed and developed. This system is implemented and is used for testing by several schools of our country. Before applying the new system, students were tested in a classical way. We have gathered and compared the classical testing results and those from using e-testing tool for assessment of student knowledge. As a conclusion, the success of the students tested electronically is much higher comparing with the success of students tested classically.


This research project aims to study the feasibility of using the water from the abandoned and flooded coal mines for space heating applications using a Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) in open loop configuration and take a conceptual idea to a commercial deployment level. The flooded coal mines are the legacy that has been left behind after the three centuries of continuous operations by the coal mining industry. The closure of all coal mines in the UK has led to the flooding of all those abandoned underground workings and due to the subsequent rise in the water levels; mine water is posing a threat to the water table. Mine water in the abandoned coal mines can be considered as a low enthalpy energy resource with very little practical applications, however it can be upgraded to a high enthalpy resource by using a heat pump and used for heating applications. Heat pumps are considered as low carbon heating systems, using them for the space heating purpose is economically and environmentally beneficial compared to the conventional heating systems.

A generic methodology has been developed to help in evaluating the process of harnessing the energy from mine water for the heating applications using an open loop GSHP. The methodology covers the core technical, environmental and economic aspects. An MS Excel based tool has been developed to assist in the design and commercial evaluation of a mine water based heating system. Financial model is created using Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) method to analyse the feasibility of implementing the system. Theoretical case studies have been conducted for three different sites using the software tool. Two pilot plants have been constructed at two different sites, namely at Markham, Alkane Energy and at Caphouse, National Coal Mining Museum (NCM) for the experimental work.

The field trials from the two pilot plants show promising results in terms of reducing both the operating costs and carbon emissions. It also shows that with a careful design, the threat posed by mine water to the operations and maintenance of the plant can be minimised. The three theoretical case studies conducted show that the energy from the flooded coal mines is a good alternative source for heating and can contribute significantly in reducing the operating costs and the carbon emissions at those proposed sites.

The abandoned mines underlie large parts of UK and at many sites, the water is being pumped out to prevent it from coming in contact with the water table and pollute the water bodies, these sites are ideal to implement the mine water based heating system, as they can support large thermal loads. The energy from the flooded coal mines is ideal to supplement or even replace the conventional sources of heating, as it is reliable and contributes to a reduction in carbon emissions and operating costs. Even though the initial capital costs are higher than other conventional heating systems, it becomes economically feasible with a good payback period, when additional financial incentives in the form of Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), currently being offered by the government for GSHP technology, is taken into consideration. This research work shows that the energy from the mine water can be profitably harnessed to heat the buildings. The unique design developed to design the system, achieves continuous operation and minimises the maintenance requirements, even when a heavily polluted water is used.


The debate surrounding the way in which Heidegger and Blumenberg understand the modern age is an opportunity to discuss two different approaches to history. On one hand, from Heidegger's perspective, history should be understood as starting from how Western thought related to Being, which, in metaphysical thinking, took the form of the forgetfulness of Being. Thus, the modern age represents the last stage in the process of forgetfulness of Being, which announces the moment of the rethinking of the relationship with Being by appealing to the authentic disclosure of Being. On the other hand, Blumenberg understands history as the result of the reoccupation process, which means replacing old theories with other new ones. Thus, to the historical approach it is not important to identify epochs as periods of time between two events, but to think about the discontinuities occurring throughout history. Starting from here, the modern age will be thought of not as an expression of the radicalization of the forgetfulness of Being, but as a response to the crises of medieval conceptions. For the same reason, the interpretation of history as a history of the forgetfulness of Being is considered by Blumenberg to subordinate history to an absolute principle, without taking into account its protagonists' needs and necessities.


We investigate the importance of an appropriate representation of behavior, risk attitude, and related characteristics for owner-managers making marketing decisions. We assess whether managerial/firm characteristics directly affect the decisions or if their influence occurs indirectly through impacts on risk aversion. The findings, which support an indirect effect, indicate that failure to represent the relationship between risk aversion, other characteristics, and behavior appropriately can mask the effect of risk aversion. A more complete understanding of the structure of decision making may assist economists and policymakers in designing and targeting mechanisms to transfer risk.


This book is a comprehensive study of cooperation among the advanced capitalist countries. Can cooperation persist without the dominance of a single power, such as the United States after World War II? To answer this pressing question, Robert Keohane analyzes the institutions, or "international regimes," through which cooperation has taken place in the world political economy and describes the evolution of these regimes as American hegemony has eroded. Refuting the idea that the decline of hegemony makes cooperation impossible, he views international regimes not as weak substitutes for world government but as devices for facilitating decentralized cooperation among egoistic actors. In the preface the author addresses the issue of cooperation after the end of the Soviet empire and with the renewed dominance of the United States, in security matters, as well as recent scholarship on cooperation.


A wide range of metadata projects in Denmark over the last 4-5 years are described. A new Danish legal deposit act in 1997 facilitated cooperation in the creation of a common application form for Danish Dublin Core including the basic fifteen elements and four sub-elements. The form is used for creation of metadata in government publications and as application form for legal deposit and inclusion in the national bibliography. Then several public libraries initiated projects developed with different views on how to make the Internet accessible for the common user. Not all the projects use Dublin Core from the start but that will change. Actually some research library based subject gateways have been launched and all of these projects use Dublin Core based on a common solution. In 2001 a very ambitious governmental information project was started, where the ambition is to cover all documents on governmental and municipal servers on the net. Finally are described the efforts to gather all registrations from the projects to be included in the National Union Catalogue.


Tumours that grow locally, but do not invade the surrounding tissue are called benign. Such benign tumours are characterized by the presence of a surrounding band of connective tissue called a capsule. In some cases, the tumours are also broken into a number of discrete nodules. In this paper the authors use a partial differential equation model to study the interactions of a growing tumour with the surrounding tissue. They predict mechanisms for both capsule formation and nodularity. The former has the mathematical form of bifurcation from travelling waves to aggregating waves of connective tissue, resulting in the accretion of connective tissue in a manner corresponding to capsule formation. The cause of multilobularity in tumours is currently not known. Using their model, the authors are able to predict lobulation, when tumour cell motility is retarded by aggregating connective tissue. In the final part of the paper, the authors introduce an enlarged model, and use it to demonstrate both capsule formation and the possible dissolution of the capsule following a mutation resulting in the production of proteases by the cancer cells.


The hydrologic status of three peat wetland areas was compared to test a theoretical model which suggests that loss of conveyance capacity in artificial channels allows wetlands to restore hydrologic equilibrium after artificial drainage. Soil moisture and water table elevations were measured at an undrained Atlantic White Cedar swamp control site, and artificially-drained site where flashboard risers were installed in an attempt to restore wetland conditions, and an artificially-drained site with no water control structures which had not been renovated for at least 20 years. Results showed no significant difference in water table elevations, water table fluctuations, or soil moisture status between the sites. When a model accounting for loss of moisture storage capacity due to subsidence of peat is applied the artificially-drained sites differ from the natural site. Results suggest that loss of peat due to subsidence and the associated water storage capacity is the only permanent hydrologic alteration associated with artificial drainage. If artificial channels are not maintained, loss of conveyance capacity ultimately restores a hydrologic regime similar to that of unaltered wetlands.


Background: Periodontitis is a pathological inflammatory condition of the periodontal tissues surrounding the teeth. It is a multiple factor disease caused by genetic factors, environmental factors, and periodontal bacteria. Human leukocyte antigen is the most polymorphic genetic system in man. Genes of this region influence susceptibility to certain diseases including periodontitis. Objectives: This study was established to shed light on the possible association of HLA class II (HLA-DQB1) alleles with chronic periodontitis. Materials and Methods: The study involved 40 Iraqi patients with chronic periodontitis and 40 healthy controls. Periodontal parameters used in this study were plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), probing pocket depth (PPD) and clinical attachment level. DNA was extracted from a blood sample taken from each subject, then HLA-DQB1 gene was amplified using sequence specific oligonucleotide primed PCR (PCR-SSO). Genotyping of HLA-DQB1 alleles were performed using a reverse a hybridization automatic line probe assay (Auto-LiPA). Results: There was an increased frequency of HLA-DQB1*05:02 allele in patients as compared to controls group (25% and 7.5% respectively) with P=0.04 and odds ratio=4.11. In contrast, the frequency of DQB1*03:01 allele was higher among controls group as compared to periodontitis patients ((P=0.04, odds ratio=4·11). Conclusion: Our data show a correlation between the HLA-DQB1 locus and the occurrence of periodontitis in Iraq, supporting DQB1*05:02 as a predisposing allele for this disease.


Abstract In the ten years since the Modern Language Association published their report, "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" (2007) dissatisfaction with the "two-tiered configuration" of US foreign language departments has become increasingly vocal. While the target of the criticism is often the curriculum, it has often been noted that programmatic bifurcations mirror institutional hierarchies, e.g. status differences between specialists in literary and cultural studies and experts in applied linguistics and language pedagogy (e.g. Maxim et al., 2013; Allen & Maxim, 2012). This chapter looks at the two-tiered structure of collegiate modern language departments from the perspectives of the transdisciplinary shape-shifters who maneuver within them – scholars working between applied linguistics and literary studies. These individuals must negotiate the methodologies and the institutional positions available to them – in many instances, the latter is what has prompted them to work between fields in the first place. The particular context of US foreign language and literature departments serves as a case study of the lived experiences of doing transdisciplinary work in contexts that are characterized by disciplinary hierarchies and the chapter ends with a call for applied linguistics to consider not only the epistemic, but also the institutional and affective labor needed to sustain transdisciplinary work.


Cattle-grazing is a dominant land use in the United States, with more than 300 million hectares of land grazed each year. The habitat changes facilitated by cattle grazing can influence resource availability and habitat selection for associated wildlife. To investigate the potential for changes in traditional livestock management to restore native grassland and riparian habitat, we evaluated biological community responses to winter-grazing and livestock exclusion at the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant in southeastern Kansas. In grassland habitats, we combined winter-grazing by domestic cattle and discontinued fertilization in an attempt to restore pastures dominated by tall fescue to native tallgrass prairie and improve habitat for grassland-breeding birds. We observed a decrease in tall fescue and an increase in native, warm-season grasses in winter-grazed pastures compared to fertilized, year-round grazed pastures. Grasslandbreeding bird responses to winter-grazing were species-specific. Dickcissels preferred winter-grazed pastures, while Eastern Meadowlarks and Grasshopper Sparrows tended to prefer year-round grazed pastures. Dickcissels were negatively correlated with the presence of cattle during the breeding season and the abundance of tall fescue. Grasshopper Sparrows were negatively correlated with native, warm-season grass abundance and visual obstruction, but were positively correlated with forb abundance. Henslow's Sparrows and Common Yellowthroats were detected breeding in low numbers on pastures that had been winter-grazed for five years. Our results suggest that wintergrazing and discontinued fertilization of agricultural grasslands can direct semi-natural plant communities toward tallgrass prairie and benefit some grassland-breeding birds. In riparian habitats, livestock were excluded from 1996 to 2005. We measured bird community responses in grazed and ungrazed sites using baseline data collected in 1996-97 and post-treatment data collected in 2004-05. Riparian bird community data were analyzed using robust design mark-recapture models that allowed us to evaluate changes in bird species richness while accounting for differences in detectability among species. We detected increases in species richness in both ungrazed and grazed treatments. We observed few differences in community vital rates between treatments; however, we did detect differences in guild responses. The changes observed within both grazed and ungrazed riparian bird communities were likely influenced by regional fluctuations in species richness and composition.


Description: The Olin Renovation Planning Advisory Committee conducted this survey at the request of the University Librarian. The primary goals of the survey were to find out who is using Olin; how often they use the library; where they work when they are in the building; and what improvements they would recommend. This information will be used to help prioritize user space needs during the schematic and design development phases of the project. The majority of the surveys were submitted by undergrads (63%). Most respondents were affiliated with Arts & Sciences (44%) followed by Agriculture & Life Sciences (17%). Most respondents used Olin Library at least once a week (80%). The most used spaces overall were the public computers, Libe Café, and the stacks. The top three space functions overall were: quiet individual study, use library computers, and use books. The top three choices for allocation resources were: individual quiet study (751), more computers (617), and more comfortable furniture (519).


When the U.S. terminated its income tax treaty with the Netherlands Antilles in 1984, there was criticism from U.S. corporations that they were being unfairly kept out of the competitive Eurobond financing market. In order to provide access to the Eurobond market, Congress enacted Section 871(h) to provide an exemption (the "portfolio interest exemption") from the 30% withholding tax on U.S.-source income earned by a nonresident alien individual or foreign corporation that is not effectively connected with the conduct of a U.S. trade or business. Portfolio interest, under Sections 871(h) and 163(f), is any U.S.-source interest (including original issue discount) that is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business and (1) is paid on an obligation that satisfies certain registration requirements or specified exceptions contained in Section 163(f), or for which the U.S. payor (or U.S. person whose duty it would otherwise be to withhold tax) obtains a statement that the beneficial owner is not a U.S. person, and (2) which is not received by a 10% owner or issuer of the obligation taking into account shares owned by attribution.


In present research the ways and methods of the sustainable management and conservation of the soil biota in the modern agricultural ecosystems of the Republic of Moldova are considered. The database of invertebrates, microorganisms and enzymatic activities of different zonal soils in the long-term field experiments has been developed and constantly is updated with a view to the operative evaluation of the degradation processes and ecological effectiveness of the land management. The current status of the biota of arable soils of the Republic of Moldova is characterized by the significant reduction in the abundance, biomass, activity and diversity in comparison with soil's standards that are in conditions of natural ecosystems. The long use of soils in agricultural production led to the imbalance between the processes of decomposition and humus formation and promoted the decrease of soil biota stability and degradation. The values of most soil biological indices decrease in the following sequence: virgin and fallow land → arable land under organic system with farming manure and incorporation of crop residues → arable unfertilized land. A soil management with the involvement of areas with natural vegetation in a crop rotation system created conditions for the improvement of the biota's vital activity in the soil which degraded as a result of a long-term arable use. The recovery rate of the population of Lumbricidae family reaches of 3.0-5.6 worms m per year. Annual increase in the content of microbial biomass in the typical chernozem can be up to 81.3 kg C ha in the layer of the 050 cm. The organic farming system greatly improves the enzymatic and humus status of the old arable soils, but does not restore the biodiversity of invertebrates. Key-words: soil biota, humus, conservation, organic fertilizer


Web navigation relies heavily on the use of the 'back' button to traverse pages. The traditional back button suffers from the distance and targeting issues that govern Fitts' Law. An alternative to the button approach is the use of marking menus--a gesture based technique shown to improve access times of commonly repeated tasks. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a gesture-based mechanism for issuing the back and forward commands in web navigation. Results show that subjects were able to navigate significantly faster when using gestures compared to the normal back button. Furthermore, the subjects were extremely enthusiastic about the technique, with many expressing their wish that "all browsers should support this". Subjective measures also showed significantly higher ratings for the gesture system over the back button. Finally, subjects found the 'flick' gesture easy to learn.


Abstract The skin glands of Rana cancrivora, the euryhaline crab-eating frog, were examined using histochemistry and immunohistochemistry. The skin contained three different glands: a mucous gland, a mixed gland and a vacuolated gland. The acinar cells of the mucous gland stained strongly with alcian blue at pH 2.5 (AB) and weakly with periodic acid-Schiff stain (PAS). In the acinus of the mixed glands, several kinds of cells could be identified: (1) cells with abundant cytoplasm which stained with PAS in the transition region between acinus and duct; (2) cuboidal or squamous cells in the apical portion of the acinus; (3) cells filled with carminophilic granules; (4) cells containing many large vacuoles which stained by PAS and AB. In the acinus of the vacuolated glands, the nuclei of the epithelical cells were located peripherally and the large lumen was filled with vacuoles. In all gland types, no specific immunoreactivity was detected by immunohistochemistry for thyrotropin releasing hormone, cholecystokinin 10, neuropeptide Y, neurotensin, somatostatin and 5-hydroxytryptamine. These results indicate that the skin glands of Rana cancrivora have a different structure and properties from those of other amphibians studied so far.


Computed tomography has become a routine method for probing processes in porous media, and the use of neutron imaging is especially suited to the study of the dynamics of hydrogenous fluids, and of fluids in a high-density matrix. In this paper we give an overview of recent developments in both instrumentation and methodology at the neutron imaging facilities NEUTRA and ICON at the Paul Scherrer Institut. Increased acquisition rates coupled to new reconstruction techniques improve the information output for fewer projection data, which leads to higher volume acquisition rates. Together, these developments yield significantly higher spatial and temporal resolutions, making it possible to capture finer details in the spatial distribution of the fluid, and to increase the acquisition rate of 3-D CT volumes. The ability to add a second imaging modality, e.g., X-ray tomography, further enhances the feature and process information that can be collected, and these features are ideal for dynamic experiments of fluid distribution in porous media. We demonstrate the performance for a selection of experiments carried out at our neutron imaging instruments.