Many theories and models exist for understanding and explaining information seeking processes (ISP) for individuals. Such is not the case for collaborative information seeking (CIS), despite its growing importance. In this paper we take Kuhlthau's ISP model, designed for individual information seeking, and map it to a CIS situation. We present a laboratory study with 84 participants in 42 pairs and demonstrate how their information seeking processes over two sessions can be mapped to various stages of the ISP model. In addition, we explore the affective dimension of information seeking as well as perceived relevance expressed by the participants through their interactions. We discuss similarities and disparities of ISP for individuals and collaborative information seeking. In particular, we show that there is a logical progression from uncertainty about the task to being satisfied about the collected information among the participants; and at the same time, there is a lack of clear segmentation between stages of formulating information need, exploring information, and collecting it. The latter can be attributed to exploratory search tasks and interactions among the collaborators.


Bixin (9Z-6, 6'-diapocarotene-6, 6'-dioate), one of the carotenoid-based colour extracted from the seeds of the tropical tree Bixa orellana L . , used primarily as a natural colouring agent in the food industry. In the present study, different solvents were used in both hot and cold conditions to extract bixin from B. orellana seeds, collected from two different geographical locations (Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal) of India. The crude annatto extract was characterized by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC). The major component, bixin was identified by TLC and further isolated from the crude extract by Preparative TLC (PTLC) method with a purity of 80%. Analysis of purified bixin contents isolated from samples was quantified by both High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and spectrophotometer. The results obtained from both the analytical techniques were comparable and lead to the conclusion that the highest amount of bixin was obtained from Chhattisgarh variety of annatto seed (21.13%), extracted by hot extraction method using acetone as a solvent. As compared to HPLC, the spectrophotometric analysis is an easy, rapid and cost-effective alternate route for the quantitative determination of isolated and purified bixin.


This is the final report from Phase 2, the last phase of the second Nordbib-project on hprints and related issues. The first project set out to establish an e-print archive for the humanities and social sciences. Our case studies have shown that when informed more thoroughly about OA, researchers realised the potential advantages for them. The universities have a role here as well as the libraries that manage the archives and support scholars in various aspects of the publishing processes. Libraries are traditionally service providers with a mission to facilitate the knowledge production and dissemination of research results. Today"s transitional and for researchers confusing state of scholarly communication should also lead to a modification of the missions of research libraries. Even they should undergo a kind of paradigm shift.


The article examines Danilo Kis's essayistic and narrative articulations of the cultural space of Central Europe in the context of dissident debates and the Yugoslav political crisis. In mid-1980s, Kundera's essay "The Tragedy of Central Europe" sparked a heated debate prompting most writers of the time to take explicit and largely partisan views on Central European identity and its borders in Europe but also within Yugoslavia. However, in his essay "Variations on Central European Themes" and the short stories "The Apatrid" and "The Mirror of the Unknown" Kis takes a more moderate and remarkably elusive approach which centres on the trauma of Central European Jewry before and during the Second World War. The main argument is that in the essay Kis does not offer a clear and coherent theoretical platform on Central Europe's past and cultural diversity but proceeds to develop an imaginative one in his narrative fiction from the same period. This approach enables him to avoid the ideological pitfall of interpreting the Holocaust as a preparatory stage for the final demise of Central Europe during the Cold War. Instead of the trope of the harbinger victim, which addresses the past merely as a mirror of present developments, Kis stresses the essential inaccessibility of obliteration as a distinctive Central European experience. Perspectives irretrievably lost through rapid obliteration of lives can only be conjured up by an occult mirror of imagination and it is precisely those mirrors that occupy Kis as a motif in his stories.


Cationic and anionic polymers with the same molecular weight were used as sludge conditioning reagent to study the polymer charge effect on alum sludge dewatering characteristics. On the basis of capillary suction time, bound water content, and zeta-potential measurement in this study, the function of charge neutralization appears to be an important consideration in the sludge dewaterability and moisture content. Using the dilatometric technique to measure the bound water content, we found that alum sludge conditioned by cationic polymer presented more significant variation in the bound water content than sludge subject to anionic conditioning. We hypothesise that the mechanism of charge neutralization caused much water depletion by replacement and exclusion in sludge and results in the decrease of bound water within the cationic polymer conditioning. An insignificant bound water variation found during the anionic conditioning resulted from the lack of charge neutralization. A lighter and looser floc structure is also be found in the anionic conditioned sludge after the analysis of wet floc density and fractal dimension. Such open floc structure can be attributed to the lack of charge neutralization as the flocs aggregate with anionic polymer.


Introduction NAFLD is characterised by steatosis, chronic inflammation and fibrosis. The underlying mechanisms include insulin resistance, increased free fatty acid flux from de-novo lipogenesis and decreased lipid oxidation. Vascular Adhesion Protein—1 (VAP -1), is an adhesion molecule with semicarbazide- sensitive amine oxidase activity (SSAO), which is also expressed as a soluble protein in serum (sVAP-1) and elevated in inflammatory liver diseases such as NAFLD. VAP-1 has been shown to modulate glucose and lipid uptake in muscle and adipose tissue and thus we investigated whether it may contribute to glucose and lipid homeostasis in human liver tissue. Method We have used precision cut liver slices (PCLS) from normal and diseased human liver specimens and cultured human sinusoidal endothelium (HSEC) and hepatocyte cells in combination with VAP-1 substrates (200 μM methylamine or benzylamine) and inhibitors (400 μM bromoethylamine) to perform standard ex vivo radiolabelled glucose uptake and fatty acid uptake assays using oil red O quantification following exposure of cells to Oleic and Palmitic acid (PA). Immunohistochemical staining and qPCR were performed using standard techniques and for confirmatory experiments HSEC were transfected with enzymatically active/inactive VAP1. Results QPCR confirmed upregulation of VAP-1 mRNA (ΔΔCT =1.144 p=0.03) in NASH vs normal liver and also changes in FABP1, -4, -5, FATP3, -4 (p≤0.05 for all) and GLUT-1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 12 in NAFLD compared to normal individuals. Results were confirmed using immunohistochemical staining. Exposure of human PCLS to sVAP-1 and methylamine typically resulted in a 38–54% increase in PA uptake (p≤0.01 for all) and a 20% increase in hepatocyte glucose uptake in vitro which could be inhibited using bromoethylamine. Transduction of HSEC with enzymatically active VAP-1 also increased glucose uptake which was prevented in the absence of enzyme activity. Interestingly methylamine treatment of human liver resulted in decreased expression of mRNA for glucose transporters and an increase in some lipid transporters including FABP6, FATP and LRP8, and H2O2 produced by SSAO activity increase lipid uptake by hepatic cells. Conclusion In conclusion, we demonstrate for the first time global alterations in cellular expression of glucose and lipid transporter proteins in human NAFLD. We confirm that VAP-1 is elevated in disease and that SSAO activity of VAP-1 results in enhanced hepatic lipid and glucose uptake and changes in transporter expression. Thus we propose that bioactive metabolites of SSAO activity contribute to the metabolic derangement evident in fatty liver disease.


This thesis addresses the difficulty young children have making the transition from solving simple addition and subtraction problems with referential support to the formalised language of arithmetic ('what does one and one make?') (Hughes, 1981, 1986). Nine experiments are reported testing a total of 782 children between 4 and 5 years old on their use of strategic prompts in addition and subtraction. Results produced evidence for their significant positive impact, whether it be imagery, solving problems with their eyes closed or provision of a memory-check for the initial addend. Effectiveness was mainly on more difficult problems, particularly subtraction, with one mentalistic strategy generating results as effective as those using concrete referents. Five-and-a-half year old children were shown to have greater sensitivity overall to such prompts, whereas the younger children of around five years showed less sensitivity to the imagery-prompt, but like their older counterparts were most sensitive to prompts involving a memory-check. Referential support was also found to be effective when the older children were presented with written formal code notation. Furthermore, children were also found to be sensitive to implicit (rather than explicit) strategic prompts with child-initiated strategies, like 'fingers', most effective when chosen by the children themselves. Results are discussed in relation to how such explicit strategic prompts are effective, whether working directly or indirectly.


Pomegranate from the plant Punica granatum L. possesses strong antioxidant and anti‐inflammatory properties. Recently, we have demonstrated that treatment of normal human epidermal keratinocytes with pomegranate fruit extract (PFE) inhibited UVB‐mediated activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF‐κB) and mitogen activated protein kinases pathways. Here, we evaluated the effect of PFE on early biomarkers of photocarcinogenesis employing SKH‐1 hairless mice. PFE was provided in drinking water (0.2%, wt/vol) to SKH‐1 hairless mice for 14 days before a single UVB (180 mJ cm−2) irradiation. We found that oral feeding of PFE inhibited UVB‐induced: (1) skin edema; (2) hyperplasia; (3) infiltration of leukocytes; (4) lipid peroxidation; (5) hydrogen peroxide generation; (6) ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity; and (7) ODC, cyclooxygenase‐2 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen protein expression. Oral feeding of PFE enhanced repair of UVB‐mediated formation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and 8‐oxo‐7,8‐dihydro‐2′‐deoxyguanosine (8‐oxodG). Importantly, PFE treatment further enhanced UVB‐mediated increase in tumor suppressor p53 and cyclin kinase inhibitor p21. Furthermore, oral feeding of PFE inhibited UVB‐mediated: (1) nuclear translocation of NF‐κB; (2) activation of IKKα; and (3) phosphorylation and degradation of IκBα. Taken together, we provide evidence that oral feeding of PFE to mice affords substantial protection from the adverse effects of UVB radiation via modulation in early biomarkers of photocarcinogenesis and provide suggestion for its photochemopreventive potential.


The organization, survival, and function of eukaryotic cells depend on intracellular transport governed by the microtubule based molecular motors cytoplasmic dynein and kinesin. Dynein carries out the inward transport of cargos whereas kinesins are responsible for the outward movement. Although intracellular transport is necessary for the function of all cells, polarized cells in particular have specific transport needs due to their asymmetry and elongated shape. These extraordinary requirements necessitate efficient long range microtubule based transport mechanisms. The anterograde transport needs in these cells are satisfied by a variety of kinesins but only a single cytoplasmic dynein fulfills the retrograde transport requirements. Dynein is a megadalton, multiprotein motor complex composed of heavy chains, intermediate chains, light intermediate chains, and light chains. The heavy chains form the force producing motor entity of the dynein complex and the rest of the iii components are involved in linking dynein to cargoes. The heavy chain has the two functional domains; motor head and a tail. The motor head is responsible for the ATP hydrolysis as well as the microtubule interaction of the dynein complex. The tail domain is involved in the homodimerization of heavy chains as well as interaction with the other dynein subunits. The enormous size and complex mechanochemisty of dynein has complicated our understanding of the functions and regulation of dynein. The study presented here utilized the ascomycete fungus Neurospora crassa in a series of genetic, cell biological and complementing biochemical approaches to study dynein function and regulation. The study is divided into two sections of which the first section will focus on the effects of spontaneous dynein heavy chain mutations on dynein functions in the hyphae of Neurospora crassa along with biochemical analyses of purified dynein from wildtype and a representative mutant strain. The second section focuses on the effect of a mouse neurodegenerative dynein heavy chain mutation on N. crassa dynein function both in vivo and in vitro. The aim of this work is to understand the structure-function relationship and the regulation of dynein.


Protecting children online from sexual predators has been a focus of research in psychiatry, sociology, computer science, and information systems (IS) for many years. However, the anonymity afforded by social media has made finding a solution to the problem of child protection difficult. Pedophiles manipulate conversation (discourse) with children in social media in order to exercise power, control and coercion over children leading to their psychological and often physical victimization. Recent IS research points to "individuals, groups, and organizations that have been transformed - in intended and unintended ways - by technology" (Dang and Brown 2010, p. 2). This research examines a darker side of social media that demonstrates unintended consequences that are negatively transforming and affecting lives of children who fall victim to predatory coercion. There is a critical need for information systems research to investigate and understand how sexual predators victimize children online. The knowledge gained could help society as a whole to develop interventions to better protect children online, enabling them to use valuable online resources for education, social development and becoming better citizens in the future. In this context, this dissertation contributes to the larger research narrative of information systems and critical social issues. This dissertation comprises three studies. Study 1 addresses how online sexual predators use social media, as a discursive system, to propagate their ideology of acceptance of sexual acts between adults and children. Study 2 addresses how online sexual predators use and manipulate the text of institutional logics within negotiated cyber-social realities to victimize children. Study 3 examines how online sexual predators use text to construct and control negotiated cyber-social realities during the online victimization of children. Across these three studies we examined how online sexual predators used computer-mediated communications to coerce and victimize children within social media. This research introduces: (1) critical discourse analysis in information systems research to critically examine the role of social media in society, (2) an example of a mixed methods research combining critical discourse analysis, structured content analysis and grounded theory approach for the development of theory in social media and, (3) the use of institutional logics to examine social media phenomena. The central contribution of this dissertation is the development of theoretical models that uncover ways in which power relations and effects of pedophilic ideology are manifested in language and discourse between pedophiles and children in social media. The resulting theoretical models of: (1) pedophilic ideology manifestation, coercion and victimization of children in social media, (2) cyber-victimization logic and, (3) negotiated cyber-social realities provide the foundation for further research, social intervention and policy formulation that lead to better protection of children in social media. Additionally, we present a matrix of predatory coercion and victimization of children within social media that aggregates the results of all three studies. This dissertation aims to contribute beyond the traditional focus of IS research on business and organizations, leveraging the wealth of knowledge from IS research to positively impact societal causes that affect the lives of millions of our fellow citizens - in this particular research - millions of children that are the most vulnerable population in our society. These contributions aim to empower the powerless and expose power abuse as expressed in coercion of children leading to their victimization.


A previously healthy 35-year-old woman was admitted to a New York City hospital after presenting to the emergency department (ED) with a 10- to 14-day history of generalized weakness, progressive frontal headache, and lethargy. She immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, from urban Haiti 9 years previously and had not returned to Haiti since. She denied any recent travel elsewhere and had no pets. An HIV antibody test, performed 4 months before ED presentation, was negative.


textabstractNon-malleable codes (NMCs) protect sensitive data against degrees of
corruption that prohibit error detection, ensuring instead that a corrupted
codeword decodes correctly or to something that bears little relation to the
original message. The split-state model, in which codewords consist of two
blocks, considers adversaries who tamper with either block arbitrarily but
independently of the other. The simplest construction in this model, due to
Aggarwal, Dodis, and Lovett (STOC'14), was shown to give NMCs sending k-bit
messages to $O(k^7)$-bit codewords. It is conjectured, however, that the
construction allows linear-length codewords. Towards resolving this conjecture,
we show that the construction allows for code-length $O(k^5)$. This is achieved
by analysing a special case of Sanders's Bogolyubov-Ruzsa theorem for general
Abelian groups. Closely following the excellent exposition of this result for
the group $\mathbb{F}_2^n$ by Lovett, we expose its dependence on $p$ for the
group $\mathbb{F}_p^n$, where $p$ is a prime.


We analyse the impact of corruption and two key aspects of electricity sector reforms, such as the creation of independent regulatory agencies and private sector participation, on several performance indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa. We find that corruption reduces technical efficiency of the sector and constrains the efforts to increase access to electricity and national income. However, some negative effects are offset where independent regulators are established and privatisation is implemented. Our findings suggest that well-designed reforms not only boost economic performance of the sector, but also reduce the negative effects of macro-level institutional deficiencies, such as corruption, on performance indicators.


The electrical power distribution system (EPDS) of the more electric aircraft (MEA) is a fundamental component that needs to be efficient and resilient. The commonly considered architectures feature separate buses to achieve separation between different subsections of the EPDS. Although effective, this implies an over design, since all subsections are sized for the local worst case scenarios. In the MEA concept, multiport converters could connect the whole EPDS while guaranteeing the galvanic isolation between buses. Since multiport converters would give rise to a completely different EPDS topology, dominated by power electronics interfaces, the stability of such a system must be assessed. This article investigates the input impedance of multiple active bridge (MAB) converters when interfaced with a single dc bus and multiple resistive loads. A transfer function-based input impedance model of the MAB converter is proposed. To validate the proposed input impedance model, the verification of input impedances of a triple active bridge (TAB) converter and a quadruple active bridge (QAB) converter is carried out using both simulation and experimental results.


In-plane-aligned, c axis-oriented YBa2Cu307 (YBCO) films with superconducting critical current densities Jc as high as 700,000 amperes per square centimeter at 77 kelvin have been grown on thermomechanically rolled-textured nickel (001) tapes by pulsedlaser deposition. Epitaxial growth of oxide buffer layers directly on biaxially textured nickel, formed by recrystallization of cold-rolled pure nickel, made possible the growth of YBCO films 1.5 micrometers thick with superconducting properties that are comparable to those observed for epitaxial films on single-crystal oxide substrates. This result represents a viable approach for the production of long superconducting tapes for high-current, high-field applications at 77 kelvin.


endothelium cellular the endothelium help regulate functions the blood pump the (vasomotor enter the blood vessel (blood vessel permeability), of to clot (hemostasis). a in sepsis. size, appearance of endothelial cells, their phenotypes, which part of the body the cells are called phenotypic heterogeneity. The endothelium, its properties, and its responses to are by the local environment of the cells. phenotypic heterogeneity endothelial cells microenvironment the individual cells. Endothelial cells to stimuli their immediate a flexible and adaptive ability to respond to the of their local environment. endothelial cells in the blood-brain cells in the brain, astroglial cells, the separation between circulating blood and cerebrospinal fluid. endothelial cells in the capillaries the heart are exposed to from their heart muscle cells, cardiomyocytes, perfusion of blood to the surrounding muscle. factor the phenotype of endothelial cells the genetic of each cell. the genes in endothelial cells


Viruses have evolved a variety of mechanisms to interact with host cells for their adaptive benefits, including subverting host immune responses and hijacking host DNA replication/transcription machineries [1–3]. Although interactions between viral and host proteins have been studied extensively, little is known about how the vial genome may interact with the host genome and how such interactions could affect the activities of both the virus and the host cell. Since the three-dimensional organization of a genome can have significant impact on genomic activities such as transcription and replication, we hypothesize that such structure-based regulation of genomic functions also applies to viral genomes depending on their association with host genomic regions and their spatial locations inside the nucleus. Here, we used Tethered Chromosome Conformation Capture (TCC) to investigate viral-host genome interactions between the adenovirus and human lung fibroblast cells. We found viral-host genome interactions were enriched in certain active chromatin regions and chromatin domains marked by H3K27me3. The contacts by viral DNA seems to impact the structure and function of the host genome, leading to remodeling of the fibroblast epigenome. Our study represents the first comprehensive analysis of viral-host interactions at the genome structure level, revealing unexpectedly specific virus-host genome interactions. The non-random nature of such interactions indicates a deliberate but poorly understood mechanism for targeting of host DNA by foreign genomes.


This paper examines the effects of hands-on learning in an undergraduate circuits class that is taught to non-majors; i.e., students outside of electrical and computing engineering. The course, ECE3710, is taught in a blended format facilitated by the video lectures prepared for two Massive Open Online Courses developed for the Coursera Platform. Because of the video content covered outside of class, the face-to-face portion of the class is enhanced with a number of active and collaborative learning techniques, including the inclusion of small-scale, mobile, hands-on labs. The assessment results show that the laboratory experiences play a significant role in the enhancement of student performance. The labs also have the benefit of improving students' confidence in course topics that are related to lab exercises.


The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) is one of the multilateral treaties adopted at the end of the Uruguay Round in 1994. The Agreement establishes the requirements that the laws of the member states must meet in order to protect intellectual property in all its forms: copyright, patents, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial design. The agreement represents an attempt to overcome the differences in the way member states protect IPRs, in order to bring them under common international rules. Chinese Government adopted Patent, Copyright and Trademark Laws, and joined the main intellectual property international conventions. None of these, though, can be compared, as far as completeness, orderliness and far-reaching consequences are concerned, to the TRIPS agreement, which China has now to deal with, after its accession to the WTO.


We herein report supported Pd nanoparticles on N,O-doped hierarchical porous carbon as a single operation catalyst-enabled additive-modulated reaction pathway for alkynes addition with organosilanes between hydrosilyation and semihydrogenation. In the case of alkynes hydrosilylation, a simple iodide ion as an additive has a promotion effect on the activity and regio- and stereoselectivity, where iodide can coordinate with Pd NPs via strong δ donation to increase the electron density of the Pd atom, resulting in an increased ability for the oxidative addition of hydrosilane as the rate-determining step to make the reaction proceed efficiently to afford vinylsilanes in high yields with excellent regio- and stereoselectivity. For the catalytic transfer semihydrogenation of alkynes, water was introduced to mix with organosilane to form a silanol together with the generation of hydrogen atoms on the Pd NPs surface or the liberation of H2 gas as a reducing agent, whereby the quantitative reduction of alkynes was achieved with exclusive selectivity to alkenes. In both cases, the catalyst could be recycled several times without a significant loss in activity or selectivity. A broad range of alkyl and aryl alkynes with various functional groups are compatible with the reaction conditions. The role the additive exerted in each reaction was extensively investigated through control experiments as well as the kinetic isotopic effect along with spectroscopic characterization. In addition, the respective mechanism operating in both reactions was proposed.


Abstract Because of their smaller size and isolation, island populations tend to be more divergent and less genetically variable than mainland populations. We collected DNA samples from nine Galápagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis) island populations, covering the species' entire range. Neutral minisatellite DNA markers were used to calculate within-island genetic diversity and between-island genetic differentiation (FST). Typically, these markers mutate too quickly to be informative in such studies. However, in very small, isolated populations, concerns about high mutational rate are obviated by the relative force of genetic drift. Individuals within islands had the highest levels of reported genetic uniformity of any natural bird population, with mean within-population band-sharing similarity values ranging from 0.693 to 0.956, increasing with decreasing island size. Galápagos Hawks exhibit cooperative polyandry to varying degrees across islands; however, we did not find an association between degree of polyandry and genetic variability. Between-island FST values ranged from 0.017 to 0.896, with an overall archipelago value of 0.538; thus, most populations were genetically distinct. Also, we documented higher levels of genetic similarity between nearby populations. Our results indicated negligible gene flow among most Galápagos Hawk populations, and genetic drift has played a strong role in determining structure at these minisatellite loci. Genética de Poblaciones de Buteo galapagoensis: Monomorfismo Genético dentro de Poblaciones Aisladas


Two papers published in this week's issue of Nature and a third that will appear in the 28 June issue of Science (with independent results from at least one other team reportedly about to be published) report the identification of an essential "coreceptor" for the HIV strains involved in the critical early stages of infection. All have fingered a cell membrane-bound protein called CC-CKR-5 as the elusive partner of HIV's primary receptor, CD4, in allowing these strains to enter their target cells. Last month, another coreceptor, called "fusin," was reported in Science (10 May, p. 809). The discovery of these two coreceptors--and perhaps others yet to be identified--suggests that HIV may use different molecules to enter the cell at different stages of the disease.


Social Security provides higher replacement rates to disability insurance beneficiaries than retired beneficiaries. This fact reflects two factors: 1) Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries have lower career earnings, and Social Security benefits are progressive; and 2) SSDI benefits are not reduced for claiming early. This project uses the 1992-2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) linked to Social Security Administration earnings records to decompose the differences between the Social Security replacement rates for retired worker and SSDI beneficiaries into these two factors. The project also examines how the total replacement rate – which accounts for other sources of income in addition to Social Security – differs between retirees and SSDI beneficiaries to capture the difference in overall retirement security between the two groups. The results indicate that about half of the 10-percentage-point advantage in Social Security replacement rates for SSDI beneficiaries is due to the actuarial adjustment applied to retirement benefits, implying that career earnings are not that different between retired workers and SSDI beneficiaries. But total replacement rates are substantially lower for SSDI beneficiaries, which indicates that, despite Social Security's vital role in providing a reliable income source, SSDI beneficiaries have much lower post-career well-being than retired workers.


Rubidium vapor is loaded into hypocycloidal core shaped Kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) with the wall of its inner core coated with aluminosilicate ceramic (sol-gel). We show that the presence of Rb vapor is maintained for a longer duration when compared to uncoated Kagome HC-PCF. Rb vapor within the hollow-core of a sol-gel coated Kagome HC-PCF is preserved for over 500 h after the source of Rb is halted. And Rb vapor is detected in the sol-gel coated HC-PCF for more than 80 h after the background Rb vapor signal is no longer observed.


This dissertation presents a detailed experimental and numerical analysis of the aerothermal characteristics of the turbine extremity regions i.e. the blade tip and endwall regions. The heat transfer and secondary flow characteristics were analyzed for different engine relevant configurations and exit Mach/Reynolds number conditions. The experiments were conducted in a linear blowdown cascade at transonic high turbulence conditions of Mexit ~ 0.85, 0.60 and 1.0, with an inlet turbulence intensity of 16% and 12% for the vane and blade cascade respectively. Transient infrared (IR) thermography technique and surface pressure measurement were used to map out the surface heat transfer coefficient and aerodynamic characteristics. The experiments were complemented with computational modeling using the commercial RANS equation solver ANSYS Fluent. The CFD results provided further insight into the local flow characteristics in order to elucidate the flow physics which govern the measured heat transfer characteristics. The results reveal that the highest heat transfer exists in regions with local flow reattachment and new-boundary layer formation. Conversely, the lowest heat transfer occurs in regions with boundary layer thickening and separation/lift-off flow. However, boundary layer separation results in additional secondary flow vortices, such as the squealer cavity vortices and endwall auxiliary vortex system, which significantly increase the stage aerodynamic losses. Furthermore, these vortices result in a low film-cooling effectiveness as was observed on a squealer tip cavity with purge flow. Finally, the importance of transonic experiments in analyzing the turbine


Aims. We compute the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts produced by purely electromagnetic outflows to see if it shows characteristic signatures differing from those obtained with the standard internal/external shock model. Methods. Using a simple approach for the injection of electromagnetic energy to the forward shock we obtain the afterglow evolution both during the period of activity of the central source and after. Our method equally applies to a variable source. Results. Afterglow light curves in the visible and X-ray bands are computed both for a uniform medium and a stellar wind environment. They are brighter at early times than afterglows obtained with the internal/external shock model but relying only on these differences to discriminate between models is not sufficient.


This study was conducted to examine the health information needs and seeking behavior of
students in Nigeria It also focused on the following: health information sources used by the
students, sources of health information, how these health information are used, extent to which
their health information needs are satisfied, demographic factors that influence health
information needs and seeking behaviour of the students and the main barriers students
encounter in meeting their health information needs. The findings from the study showed that
students have a variety of health information needs and their needs vary among gender. It also
found that the specific major health information needed by students were information about
exercise, nutrition/diet and preventive health while the least health information needed by the
students are mental health and tobacco, alcohol and drug use.


The report 'Turning the tide' highlighted the need to increase the capacity for clinical research in child health.1 The increase in training posts funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will slow the fall in academic consultant positions.2 The rapid growth in clinical trials in neonatology (figure 1), however, means that all neonatal professionals need to have the necessary awareness and skills. Research involvement within a clinical service should be considered a sign of healthcare quality.3

Figure 1
Time trend in published clinical trials in neonatology.

With the separation of academic and clinical specialist training, most trainees have little involvement in research4 and proposed changes could make this worse.5 The paediatric curriculum does include research skills that are currently being refined and linked to assessment of competencies by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). There is, however, no easily accessible training, and it is thus not surprising that trainees lack confidence in this area.1

Nurses are the primary source of information for parents of babies in neonatal units6 and are thus potentially important advocates for research. Nurse training curricula include no research competencies, although the specific roles of the clinical research nurse and nurse researcher have recently been defined.7

The British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) is developing Basic Research Skills Training for all neonatal professionals with input from the NIHR Neonatal Clinical Studies Group and the RCPCH with a curriculum mapped …


PURPOSE
Proteus mirabilis is a common pathogen associated mainly with complicated urinary tract infections and sometimes with septicemia. There is great serological diversity of the microorganism. While P. mirabilis O3 is commonly found in patients with infections, the serotype O18 rarely occurs. The O18 lipopolysaccharide contains a phosphocholine substitute, which makes it unique among Proteus strains. To explain different clinical significance of the strains we evaluated the biological activity of the lipopolysaccharides of P. mirabilis O3 and O18, as measured by interleukin-8 (IL-8) production.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Three cell lines were used, namely uroepithelial cells, renal epithelial cells and monocytes. IL-8 production was determined on the protein and mRNA levels using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and real-time polymerase chain reaction, respectively, and CD14 expression on the cell surface was studied using flow cytometry.

RESULTS
Uroepithelial cells and monocytes reacted to lipopolysaccharides by higher IL-8 production compared with renal epithelial cells. Cell specific IL-8 response corresponded to the cell expression of CD14. Renal epithelial cells produced more IL-8 after stimulation with the phosphocholine rich lipopolysaccharide O18, although adding phosphocholine alone did not induce or increase IL-8 production.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggest that different cells within the human urinary tract have different roles during urinary tract infection. The biological activity and pathogenicity of P. mirabilis lipopolysaccharides might be determined by their specific chemical structure.


The discipline of Knowledge Management (KM) is rapidly becoming established as an essential course or module in both information systems and management programs around the world. Many KM texts pitch theoretical issues at too technical or high a level, or presenting a only a theoretical prescriptive treatment of knowledge or KM modeling problems. The Knowledge Management Primer provides students with an essential understanding of KM approaches by examining the purpose and nature of its key components. The book demystifies the KM field by explaining in a precise, accessible manner the key concepts of KM tools, strategies, and techniques, and their benefits to contemporary organizations. Readers will find this book filled with approaches to managing and developing KM that are underpinned by theory and research, are integrative in nature, and address softer approaches in manifesting and recognizing knowledge.


An iodine surface layer has been prepared on Ru(poly) and Ru(0001) electrodes by exposure to iodine vapor in UHV and polarizing in a 0.1 M HClO4/0.005 M KI solution, respectively. A saturation coverage of I on a Ru(poly) electrode passivates the Ru surface against significant hydroxide, chemisorbed oxygen or oxide formation during exposure to water vapor over an electrochemical cell in a UHV-electrochemistry transfer system. Immersion of I-Ru(poly) results in greater hydroxide and chemisorbed oxygen formation than water vapor exposure, but an inhibition of surface oxide formation relative that of the unmodified Ru(poly) surface is still observed. Studies with combined electrochemical and XPS techniques show that the iodine surface adlayer remained on top of the surface after cycles of overpotential electrodeposition/dissolution of copper on both Ru(poly) and Ru(0001) electrodes. These results indicate the potential bifunctionality of iodine layer to both passivate the Ru surface in the microelectronic processing and to act as a surfactant for copper electrodeposition. The electrodeposition of Cu on Ru(0001) or polycrystalline Ru was studied using XPS with combined ultrahigh vacuum/electrochemistry methodology (UHV-EC) in 0.1 M HClO4 with Cu(ClO4)2 concentrations ranging from 0.005 M to 0.0005 M, and on polycrystalline Ru in a 0.05M H2SO4/0.005 M CuSO4/0.001 M NaCl solution. The electrochemical data show well-defined cyclic voltammograms (CV) with a Cu underpotential deposition (UPD) peak and overpotential deposition (OPD) peak. XPS spectra of Ru electrodes emersed from perchloric acid solution at cathodic potentials indicate that ClO4- anions dissociate to yield specifically adsorbed Cl and ClOx species. Subsequent Cu deposition results in the formation of a thin, insoluble Cu(II) film with Cu(I) underneath. In contrast, similar deposition on polycrystalline Ru in the sulfuric acid/Cu sulfate solution with NaCl added yields only Cu(0), indicating that the formation of Cu(II) and Cu(I) involves both Cl and perchlorate interactions with the deposited Cu. A pre-adsorbed layer of iodine on the Ru(0001) surface inhibits perchlorate dissociation in iodide-free electrolyte and leads to the deposition of Cu(0) in the perchlorate bath. XPS depth profile analysis demonstrates that the iodine monolayer "floats" on top of the deposited film, in agreement with previous results, effectively protecting the Cu film from air oxidation.


Agriculture emits a range of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas metrics allow emissions of different gases to be reported in a common unit called CO2-equivalent. This enables comparisons of the efficiency of different farms and production systems and of alternative mitigation strategies across all gases. The standard metric is the 100 year global warming potential (GWP), but alternative metrics have been proposed and could result in very different CO2-equivalent emissions, particularly for CH4. While significant effort has been made to reduce uncertainties in emissions estimates of individual gases, little effort has been spent on evaluating the implications of alternative metrics on overall agricultural emissions profiles and mitigation strategies. Here we assess, for a selection of New Zealand dairy farms, the effect of two alternative metrics (100 yr GWP and global temperature change potentials, GTP) on farm-scale emissions and apparent efficiency and cost effectiveness of alternative mitigation strategies. We find that alternative metrics significantly change the balance between CH4 and N2O; in some cases, alternative metrics even determine whether a specific management option would reduce or increase net farm-level emissions or emissions intensity. However, the relative ranking of different farms by profitability or emissions intensity, and the ranking of the most cost-effective mitigation options for each farm, are relatively unaffected by the metric. We conclude that alternative metrics would change the perceived significance of individual gases from agriculture and the overall cost to farmers if a price were applied to agricultural emissions, but the economically most effective response strategies are unaffected by the choice of metric.


We have studied a function-lock strategy for all-optical logic gate (AOLG) utilizing the cross-polarization modulation (CPM) effect in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). By monitoring the power of logic light, the strategy realized controllable methods to capture OR and NOR functions and switch between them. The strategy has been successfully applied in experiment with 10-Gb/s not-return-to-zero (NRZ) signals, which has a high success-rate above 95% and ensures the high extinction ratio of result light above 11.4 dB. Every step in the strategy has definite numeric evaluation, which provides the potential of automatic implementation.


Prostatitis is an inflammatory condition of the prostate that presents with urethral symptoms, prostatic symptoms and sexual dysfunction. It is diagnosed by clinical symptoms and signs, the microscopy of expressed prostatic secretion (EPS) and culture of EPS and segmented urine samples. Prostatitis is chronic when symptoms have been present for at least 3 months. As a part of several scientific research projects we have been prospectively investigating prostatitis syndrome at the Outpatient Department of Urogenital Infections and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Dr Fran Mihaljevic University Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Zagreb, Croatia, since March 1, 1999 and is still ongoing. We examined more than 3450 patients over 18 years of age with symptoms of chronic prostatitis and no evidence of lower genitourinary tract abnormalities. Azithromycin fulfills the criteria for the treatment of chronic prostatitis and sexually transmitted infections-high efficacy against the most common bacterial agents of urogenital and sexually transmitted infections, acceptable toxicity and tolerability, simple oral use, excellent penetration through chronic inflammatory changed prostate capsule, achieves high concentrations in prostatic tissue and slowly eliminates for 4-8 weeks, has anti inflammatory and immunomodulatory effect, and is active against bacterial biofilm. At total of 307 patients with chronic prostatitis caused by Chlamydia trachomatis were treated with azithromycin in a total dose of 4.0, 4.5 or 6.0 g for 3-4 weeks. Eradication of Chlamydia trachomatis was achieved in about 80%, with 70% of patients clinically cured. There were no statistically significant differences between these three dosage regimens. A total of 82 patients with chronic prostatits caused by Ureaplasma urealyticum were treated with azithromycin in a total dose of 4.5 g for 3 weeks. The eradication of Ureaplasma urealyticum was 85% and clinical cure 76%. Conclusion: azithromycin is an effective and safe antimicrobial drug for the treatment of chronic prostatitis caused by Chlamydia trachomatis or Ureaplasma urealyticum. It is recommended in a total dose of 4.5 g po. during 3 weeks, administered for 3 days weekly in a dose 1x500 mg po. per day. The results of recently published clinical studies on the treatment of chronic bacterial prostatitis with combination therapy with ciprofloxacin and azithromycin are impressive. We also have a limited, but positive experience.


Land fallowing is one possible response to shortage of water for irrigation. Leaving the soil unseeded implies a change of the soil functioning that has an impact on the water cycle. The development of a soil crust in the open spaces between the patterns of grass weed affects the soil properties and the field-scale water balance. The objectives of this study are to test the potential of integrated non-invasive geophysical methods and ground-image analysis and to quantify the effect of the soil–vegetation interaction on the water balance of fallow land at the local- and plot scale. We measured repeatedly in space and time local soil saturation and vegetation cover over two small plots located in southern Sardinia, Italy, during a controlled irrigation experiment. One plot was left unseeded and the other was cultivated. The comparative analysis of ERT maps of soil moisture evidenced a considerably different hydrologic response to irrigation of the two plots. Local measurements of soil saturation and vegetation cover were repeated in space to evidence a positive feedback between weed growth and infiltration at the fallow plot. A simple bucket model captured the different soil moisture dynamics at the two plots during the infiltration experiment and was used to estimate the impact of the soil vegetation feedback on the yearly water balance at the fallow site.


Abstract Objectives Growing recognition that health is shaped by social and economic circumstances has resulted in a rapidly expanding set of clinical activities related to identifying, diagnosing, and intervening around patients' social risks in the context of health care delivery. The objective of this exploratory analysis was to identify existing documentation tools in common US medical coding systems reflecting these emerging clinical practices to improve patients' social health. Materials and Methods We identified 20 social determinants of health (SDH)-related domains used in 6 published social health assessment tools. We then used medical vocabulary search engines to conduct three independent searches for codes related to these 20 domains included in common medical coding systems (LOINC, SNOMED CT, ICD-10-CM, and CPT). Each of the 3 searches focused on one of three clinical activities: Screening, Assessment/Diagnosis, and Treatment/Intervention. Results We found at least 1 social Screening code for 18 of the 20 SDH domains, 686 social risk Assessment/Diagnosis codes, and 243 Treatment/Intervention codes. Fourteen SDH domains (70%) had codes across all 3 clinical activity areas. Discussion Our exploratory analysis revealed 1095 existing codes in common medical coding vocabularies that can facilitate documentation of social health-related clinical activities. Despite a large absolute number of codes, there are addressable gaps in the capacity of current medical vocabularies to document specific social risk factor screening, diagnosis, and interventions activities. Conclusions Findings from this analysis should help inform efforts both to develop a comprehensive set of SDH codes and ultimately to improve documentation of SDH-related activities in clinical settings.


This thesis presents an investigation into the role played by laboratory records in the disciplinary discourse of academic molecular biology laboratories.

The motivation behind this study stems from two areas of concern. Firstly, the laboratory record has received comparatively little attention as a linguistic genre in spite of its central role in the daily work of laboratory scientists. Secondly, laboratory records have become a focus for technologically driven change through the advent of computing systems that aim to support a transition away from the traditional paper-based approach towards electronic recordkeeping. Electronic recordkeeping raises the potential for increased sharing of laboratory records across laboratory communities. However, the uptake of electronic laboratory notebooks has been, and remains, markedly low in academic laboratories.

The investigation employs a multi-perspective research framework combining ethnography, genre analysis, and reading protocol analysis in order to evaluate both the organizational practices and linguistic practices at work in laboratory recordkeeping, and to examine these practices from the viewpoints of both producers and consumers of laboratory records. Particular emphasis is placed on assessing variation in the practices used by different scientists when keeping laboratory records, and on assessing the types of articulation work used to achieve mutual intelligibility across laboratory members.

The findings of this investigation indicate that the dominant viewpoint held by laboratory staff other than principal investigators conceptualized laboratory records as a personal resource rather than a community archive. Readers other than the original author relied almost exclusively on the recontextualization of selected information from laboratory records into 'public genres' such as laboratory talks, research articles, and progress reports as the preferred means of accessing the information held in the records. The consistent use of summarized forms of recording experimental data rendered most laboratory records as both unreliable and of limited usability in the records management sense that they did not form full and accurate descriptions that could support future organizational activities.

These findings offer a counterpoint to other studies, notably a number of studies undertaken as part of technology developments for electronic recordkeeping, that report sharing of laboratory records or assume a 'cyberbolic' view of laboratory records as a shared resource.


American statutes can seem like labyrinthine mazes when compared to some countries' legislation. French codes are admired for their intellectual elegance and clarity. Novelists and poets (Stendhal, Valery) have considered the Code civil to be literature. Swedish legislation might be based on empirical research into problems the legislation is intended to remedy, and the drafting style, though modern today, is descended from an oral tradition of poetic narrative.Comparing these legislative cultures with our own reveals that the main problem with American legislation is not too many words. It is too many ideas — a high ratio of concepts per legislative goal. When American, French, and Swedish legislatures address similar problems, the French and Swedes draft using far fewer concepts than Americans do. In both countries, simple solutions are preferred over convoluted ones. The drafters of the Code civil thought the highest intellectual and legislative accomplishment to be simplicity. The Swedes got to approximately the same place through a cultural value that law be understandable to the public. Where the American legislative process can seem chaotic, there has been some respect for Cartesian rationality in France and for empirical evidence in Sweden.Even if American statutes were to be translated into ordinary English, they would still be labyrinths because our legislatures insist on addressing every conceivable detail that legislators can imagine. The result is excessively conceptualized legislation, imposing large numbers of duties. Statutory concepts cost money. They create issues, which must be decided by publicly funded courts and agencies with additional costs to the parties involved. Every unnecessary statutory concept wastes social and economic resources. And to the extent law seems incomprehensible to the public, it loses moral authority.


The first growing season of Edmonton's Parkallen Community Garden began in Spring 2012. We transformed an unused strip of lawn bordering our hockey rink into a loamy, thriving "edible food forest" of corn, beans, squash, kale, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, apple trees, and mammoth sunflowers. It is unlike most community gardens in that individual plots are not tended by individual gardeners; rather, the PCG is tended communally, by the community. The garden is open and accessible to the community, always, and all are welcome there, from the toddler whose only contribution is to chomp on a snowpea and water a dandelion, to the senior who wants to plant a tree in his community that he knows will outlive him. Hundreds of Parkallen residents have planted something, admired something, or munched on something there. In its first year Parkallen's garden won The City of Edmonton's top community gardening award from Communities in Bloom. This article is a case study of the Parkallen Community Garden. Through the lenses and observations of the author, it details how Parkallen's permaculture design came, literally, to fruition and how permaculture has been interpreted and how it informs our garden and our gardening community.


Biodiesel is one of the alternative fuels. Biodiesel can be made from palm oil and the other raw materials. This research studies the optimum condition of palm oil (RPO) production by methanolysis reaction of heterogeneust catalyst calcium Oxide (CaO) aided by microwave irradiation. In order to get optimum condition, pretreatment catalyst has been done in 500 o C at 1 hour. FFA removal can be reduced until 0,2% by esterification . The result of biodiesel was analyzed by Gas chromatography to measure the total of methyl esters conversion. The optimum condition for transesterification was 400 watts and catalyzed by 5% of CaO of weight oil, have the yield of biodiesel 75,60% and the conversion of methyl esters 92%.


In theorem proving, the task of selecting useful premises from a large library to unlock the proof of a given conjecture is crucially important. This presents a challenge for all theorem provers, especially the ones based on language models, due to their relative inability to reason over huge volumes of premises in text form. This paper introduces Thor, a framework integrating language models and automated theorem provers to overcome this difficulty. In Thor, a class of methods called hammers that leverage the power of automated theorem provers are used for premise selection, while all other tasks are designated to language models. Thor increases a language model's success rate on the PISA dataset from $39\%$ to $57\%$, while solving $8.2\%$ of problems neither language models nor automated theorem provers are able to solve on their own. Furthermore, with a significantly smaller computational budget, Thor can achieve a success rate on the MiniF2F dataset that is on par with the best existing methods. Thor can be instantiated for the majority of popular interactive theorem provers via a straightforward protocol we provide.


Airborne observations using lightweight camera systems are desirable for a variety of applications. This system was contemplated as a method to provide a simple remote sensing aerial platform. Kites have been successfully employed for aerial observations, but have historically required natural wind or towing to become airborne. This new method negates this requirement, and widens the applicability of kites for carrying instrumentation. Applicability is primarily limited by the space available on the ground for launching. The innovation is a method for launching kites in low-wind or no-wind conditions. This method will enable instrumentation to be carried aloft using simple (or complex) kite-based systems, to obtain observations from an aerial perspective. This technique will provide access to altitudes of 100 meters or more over any area normally suited for kite flying. The duration of any observation is dependent on wind strength; however, the initial altitude is relatively independent. The system does not require any electrical or combustion-based elements. This technology was developed to augment local-scale airborne measurement capabilities suitable for Earth science research, agricultural productivity, and environmental observations. The method represents an extension of techniques often used in aeronautical applications for launching fixed-wing aircraft, such as sailplanes, using mechanical means not incorporated in the aircraft itself. The innovation consists of an elastic cord (for propulsive force), a tether extension (optional, for additional height), and the kite (instrumentation optional). Operation of the system is accomplished by fixing the elastic cord to ground (or equivalent), attaching the cord with/or without a tether extension to the kite, tensioning the system to store energy, and releasing the kite. The kite will climb until energy is dissipated.


Synchronous and asynchronous communication provide a resource in terms of curriculum, planning and implementation of lessons as well as a source of kinship of like-minded teachers who find in each other sympathetic and empathetic sounding boards. Interviews with four administrators and 22 members of the Trinidadian teachers' Facebook site A Teacher's Voice (ATV) revealed that the site is used by its 4,895 members as an informal professional development tool and allows for the nourishing of teachers' personal development. According to these interviewees, ATV helps to develop teachers professionally through the provision of information on: (a) curriculum; (b) teaching methodologies; (c) instructional technology; (d) general teacher concerns (e) ethical concerns; and (f) topical issues globally and locally. ATV, according to the participants, also promotes personal development through: (a) mentoring; (b) social support and collaboration; (c) celebrations; (d) shared humor; and (e) prayer.


" ... his 'number' is already written down, along with the fate that goes with this particular number." (1) This line by Kenneth Burke suggests that so much more can be said about number as a medium, which means Marshall McLuhan's chapter on number in Understanding Media can be extended with diverging emphases. (2) Oswald Spengler's chapter entitled "The Meaning of Numbers" in The Decline of the West can serve as a good source as we conduct the extension. (3) In China, there is a species of "nomad" (a la Gilles Deleuze) therapists who treat patients with numbers. As a practice that invokes the therapeutic power of numbers, numerotherapy is very different than logotherapy. It immediately calls to mind I Ching, the idea of alea (the Latin name for the game of dice, as explained by Roger Caillois), and the Nietzschean notion of the dicethrow. (4) Deleuze has a passage in Nietzsche and Philosophy that is highly relevant to the point I'd like to make: To think is to send out a dicethrow. Only a dicethrow, on the basis of chance, could affirm necessity and produce "the unique number which cannot be another". ... The dice which fall are a constellation, their points form the number "born of the stars." The table of the dicethrow is therefore double, sea of chance and sky of necessity, midnight-midday. Midnight, the hour when the dice are thrown ... (5) The sentiment here is well in line with the spirit of I Ching, as explained by Alan Watts in The Way of Zen. (6) Based on this understanding, the more sophisticated kind of numerotherapy should chance upon each of its prescriptions, as if it were triggered off by a singular, nonduplicable encounter, a once-occurrence, a hecceity, rather than predetermined by a formula. The December 2010 issue of the Sheng Yi Tong (Business Expert) magazine carried a page-long article on numerotherapy entitled "Therapy Based on Numerical Codes of the Human Body." The article listed eighty diseases that can be alleviated by silently mumbling combinations of numbers between one and eight. The specific combination has to do with the actual symptom. What "primitives" intuitively grasped may take hundreds of years or even forever for science to understand. The advancement of science is too often punctuated by the retrieval of what it displaced earlier. Reliance upon technology has numbed humans' natural perceptive powers. Accomplished meditators claim being able to hear their own blood flow, heartbeat, stomach movement, and "bowel movement" (in a literal sense, rather than as a euphemism), which work together like an orchestra. Along the same lines, Claude Levi-Strauss mentions "a particular tribe which was able to see the planet Venus in full daylight." (7) In the Ming-Dynasty semimythical novels Investiture of the Gods (Feng Shen Yan Yi, by Xu Zhonglin) and Journey to the West (Xi You Ji, by Wu Cheng'en), there is a god by the name of Erlang, who has a third truth-seeking eye in the middle of his forehead. In the Chinese language, "to open one's third eye (kai tian yan)" is an idiomatic expression, which has a strong media ecological resonance. Metaphorically, it indicates getting rid of hindrances so one's natural, latent potentials can be actualized--precisely what Zen is about. …


BACKGROUND
Individuals with early or intermediate stages of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) make up a large, growing segment of the elderly population. Evidence is sparse regarding modifiable factors that may decrease the risk of progression to the advanced forms of AMD.

OBJECTIVE
To advise patients with a high risk for advanced forms of AMD about preventive measures through our evaluation of the relationship between dietary fat intake and the progression of early or intermediate AMD to the advanced stages of the disease associated with visual loss.

DESIGN
A prospective cohort study with an average follow-up time of 4.6 years.

SETTING
A hospital-based clinical retinal practice specializing in macular degeneration. Patients The 261 participants were aged 60 years and older and had some sign of nonexudative AMD and visual acuity of 20/200 or better in at least 1 eye. Main Outcome Measure Progression to advanced AMD, which was defined as having geographic atrophy or neovascular disease.

RESULTS
Higher total fat intake increased the risk of progression to the advanced forms of AMD, with a relative risk (RR) of 2.90 (95% confidence interval, 1.15-7.32) for the highest fat-intake quartile relative to the lowest fat-intake quartile, after controlling for other factors (P trend =.01). Animal fat intake was associated with a 2-fold increased risk of progression (RR, 2.29 for the highest quartile compared with the lowest quartile; 95% confidence interval, 0.91-5.72), although the trend for increasing risk with higher animal fat intake was not significant (P=.09). Higher vegetable fat intake had a stronger relationship with increased risk of AMD progression with an RR of 3.82 (95% confidence interval, 1.58-9.28) for the highest quartile compared with the lowest quartile (P trend =.003). Saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and transunsaturated fats increased the likelihood of progression (RR, 2.09 and P trend =.08; RR, 2.21 and P trend =.04; RR, 2.28 and P trend =.04; RR, 2.39 and P trend =.008, respectively). Higher fish intake was associated with a lower risk of AMD progression among subjects with lower linoleic acid intake. Processed baked goods, which are higher in some of these fats, increased the rate of AMD progression approximately 2-fold, and nuts were protective.

CONCLUSIONS
Among individuals with the early or intermediate stages of AMD, total and specific types of fat intake, as well as some fat-containing food groups, modified the risk of progression to advanced AMD. Fish intake and nuts reduced risk. Since advanced AMD is associated with visual loss and reduced quality of life, these preventive measures deserve additional research and greater emphasis.


Crabs from the Mithrax–Mithraculus species complex are known for their diversity of lifestyles, habitats, and coloration. This group includes small, colourful, symbiotic species and much larger, reef-dwelling crabs targeted by fishermen. The evolutionary relationships between the species within this complex are not well-defined. Previous studies based upon morphological characters have proposed the separation of this complex into two genera (Mithrax and Mithraculus), but cladistic analyses based upon larval characters do not support this division. A molecular phylogeny of the group may help to resolve this long-standing taxonomic question and shed light on the ecological conditions driving the diversity of these crabs. Using a 550-bp alignment of the 16S rRNA mitochondrial DNA segment we examined the phylogenetic relationships between 8 species within the Mithrax–Mithraculus complex native to the Caribbean. The resulting phylogeny indicates that this complex is paraphyletic, as it includes the genus Microphrys. The analyses revealed a well-supported, monophyletic group containing four species of Mithraculus (M. cinctimanus, M. coryphe, M. sculptus and M. forceps) and supported one pair of sister species from the genus Mithrax (M. caribbaeus and M. spinosissimus). No complete segregation of species, according to genera, was evident, however, from tree topologies. Bayesian-factor analyses revealed strong support for the unconstrained tree instead of alternative trees in which monophyly of the two genera was forced. Thus, the present molecular phylogeny does not support the separation of the species within this complex into the genera Mithrax and Mithraculus. A review of the literature demonstrated considerable phenotypic variation within monophyletic clades in this group.


In an attempt to evaluate the long-term reciprocal impact of renal transplantation on hepatitis B virus infection, we analyzed the clinical, virologic, and pathologic features of 151 HBsAg-positive kidney transplant recipients. The spontaneous disappearance rates of HBsAg, HBeAg, and HBV DNA during a median follow-up of 125 months (range 1 to 320) were 3, 30.6, and 3%, respectively, figures lower than in the general population. A high rate of persistent viral replication (50%) and reactivation (30%) was noted. Noteworthy was the high frequency of histologic deterioration (85.3%), accompanied by cirrhosis in 28% and by hepatocellular carcinoma in 23% of the patients with cirrhosis. Co-infection by hepatitis C and B viruses was significantly associated with histologic worsening. Liver disease was the leading cause of death (36.6%), especially in patients with cirrhosis. Despite persistent viral replication, histopathologic deterioration, and liver-related overmortality, there were paradoxically no significant differences in the survival of these 151 HBsAg-positive compared with 1247 HBsAg-negative kidney recipients--however, allograft actuarial survival was better in the former than in the latter group (P=0.0006). Chronic hepatitis B infection is not a contraindication to renal transplantation in the absence of cirrhosis. The presence of cirrhosis should lead either to dialysis continuation or to a combined liver/kidney transplantation, in the absence of viral replication.


The Niger River Basin (RNB) is and has been important to the cultural and socio-economic development of the West African region. However, the basin, which is home to some of the poorest countries in the world, might be experiencing a new landscape of conflict with water resources being a key factor. A combination of climate change, human population growth and unsustainable resource use is threatening the RNB. The purpose of this article is to determine, through the Homer-Dixon Environmental Scarcity Theory, the impact and effects of environmental scarcity in contributing to a nascent conflict in the RNB. The article conceptualises Homer-Dixon's Environmental Scarcity Theory as a theory that argues for the potential of conflict in transboundary river basins as a result of environmental scarcity. Furthermore, the article conceptualises Regime Theory, particularly in the RNB, as treaties on international rivers that hold essential norms and encourage rule-based cooperation to politically resolve problems and conflict in the field of international river basin management. The article will therefore use Regime Theory to examine the existence and formation, role and progress (i.e. successes and challenges) of the regimes and/or institutional mechanisms that aim to deal with environmental scarcity in the RNB.


From cyber porn to striptease culture, this trailblaising book uncovers the shockingly fascinating new ways that western society is being sexualized. We don't realise how far the 'pornogrification' of culture has reached - this book does and discusses it graphically but responsibly. Media interest in this subject is huge."Mainstreaming Sex" uncovers the significant impact, hitherto only half glimpsed, that striptease culture is having on our media, relationships, educational and working lives. It is a welcome and much needed book.Western culture is exhibiting its fascination with sex in new, often surprising ways. Pole dancing is a form of keep fit, porn stars find work as agony aunts, pornography itself is just 'a mouse click away', and phone sex, email affairs and cybersex are now part of our everyday lives. This sexualization of modern culture is the subject widely discussed here.In original chapters, the contributors confront the reality that in all aspects of social and cultural life, sex is being 'mainstreamed'. They explore film, print and online pornographies; representations of masturbation in film and television, supersexualized advertising, and problem page sex. They also examine young people's views of sex in mainstream media; women's use of sexual media in the home; and, pole dancing as exercise and performance and third wave feminism and the sexualization debate.


Most prior methods for learning navigation policies require access to simulation environments, as they need online policy interaction and rely on ground-truth maps for rewards. However, building simulators is expensive (requires manual effort for each and every scene) and creates challenges in transferring learned policies to robotic platforms in the real-world, due to the sim-to-real domain gap. In this paper, we pose a simple question: Do we really need active interaction, ground-truth maps or even reinforcement-learning (RL) in order to solve the image-goal navigation task? We propose a self-supervised approach to learn to navigate from only passive videos of roaming. Our approach, No RL, No Simulator (NRNS), is simple and scalable, yet highly effective. NRNS outperforms RL-based formulations by a significant margin. We present NRNS as a strong baseline for any future image-based navigation tasks that use RL or Simulation.


There have been a number of anthologies of Walt Whitman criticism; A Companion to Walt Whitman was intended to be comprehensive, definitive, and inclusive of the leading contemporary scholars writing on Whitman in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Donald Kummings is one of the most respected Whitman scholars; editors of previous critical anthologies contributed in this work.

I was commissioned to contribute a book chapter on the basis of an American Literary Association talk I gave in Cambridge, Massachusetts that impressed the editors of the definitive Whitman Online site, Ed Folsom and Ken Price. My chapter on 'Nation and Identity' forms one of the core opening essays by a handful of critics who present Whitman's most prevalent and difficult poetic subjects. The subject of the chapter also constitutes a quintessential American problem and paradox: the relationship between the self and the broader political and cultural state of being, one carried into twentieth and twenty-first century contexts. I trace Whitman's essential models to a vein of American pragmatism; my study is not only literary but also engages with philosophy, sociology, and politics, specifically through the recent writings of Richard Rorty, Richard Sennett, and Krishnan Kumar. Hand-in-hand with this interdisciplinary approach is my own application of formalist close reading to a supposedly 'style-less' poet. I also address the topic of the nature and place of democracy in America in relation to individual identity.


HIV-associated tuberculosis (HIV/TB) was responsible for an estimated 374,000 deaths globally in 2016. Much of this burden resides in hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/TB is usually disseminated and is the major cause of admission and death. Recently, urine-based detection of mycobacterial lipoarabinomannan (LAM) or nucleic acids (using the Xpert MTB/RIF assay) has improved diagnosis of HIV/TB in this population, with the potential to improve outcomes. However, disseminated 'urine-positive' TB may also be associated with a higher mortality risk and impaired immune responses compared to patients with HIV/TB disease who are urine TB test negative. This thesis addresses the hypothesis that positive urine-diagnostics in inpatients with HIV/TB disease are associated with mortality, can identify patients with impairment of immune responses, and can be used as useful prognostic markers for identifying patients with poor outcomes. First, a systematic review and meta-analysis was undertaken to synthesise existing evidence of the association between urine-LAM detection and mortality risk in HIV/TB (Gupta-Wright et al, BMC Med 2016). Ten eligible studies were identified, and random-effects meta-analysis demonstrated urine-LAM positive patients had a 2.3-fold greater mortality risk, and 2.5-fold greater adjusted odds of death than urine-LAM negative HIV-TB patients. Secondly, a prospective observational cohort study nested within a large randomised trial of urine-based TB screening was undertaken (STAMP trial in Malawi and South Africa, Gupta- Wright at al BMC Inf Dis 2016 and Lancet 2018). It included 322 patients with laboratoryconfirmed HIV/TB disease and demonstrated a remarkably high (31%) 2-month mortality risk despite rapid initiation of TB treatment. It also demonstrated that advanced immunosuppression was common in HIV/TB disease despite high antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage. Cohort data were used to identify clinical phenotypes associated with poor outcomes: urine-test positivity (LAM, Xpert or both) was independently associated with a 50% increase in 2 month case-fatality. Thirdly, a study of immune responses was nested in the Malawi STAMP trial site. A functional whole blood assay of phagocytic activity was developed (Gupta-Wright et al, Frontiers Immunology 2017) and utilised in 65 HIV/TB patients and 16 matched HIV-positive TB-negative controls. Cellular and soluble markers of immune activation, ex-vivo monocyte and T-cell cytokine responses and multiplex plasma cytokine and chemokine levels were also measured. Poor outcomes and urine-positive HIV/TB disease were associated with broadly impaired immune responses, including phagocytic oxidative burst function, monocyte activation and dominant innate immune responses. Finally, urine-LAM was included in a simple, pragmatic clinical score to identify patients at high risk of a poor outcome in resource-poor settings, which was externally validated on an individual-patient record dataset combining data from 2 different studies over 5 African countries (Gupta-Wright et al, PLOS Medicine 2019). This PhD has demonstrated the high prevalence and case-fatality associated with disseminated HIV/TB disease in HIV-positive hospital admissions despite widespread access to ART, and the utility of urine-diagnostics in identifying patients at high risk of mortality, in addition to their diagnostic use. These linked studies could potentially inform on the choice and nature of interventions to reduce the high mortality of HIV/TB, including better identification and management of ART failure, therapies to address TB-related immune dysfunction, and improved supportive care and prevention and treatment of co-morbidities.


The high levels of atmospheric sulfate and nitrogen deposition due to human activities have had a visible impact on forest ecosystems in Sweden. Although these emissions are already being reduced as a result of the introduction of transboundary air pollution protocols, the recovery of forest ecosystems may take a long time. This study describes the development of 16 forest ecosystems in Sweden during and after the emissions peaks. It is found that most of the sites are recovering from the acidification effects, but that the recovery process is very slow. The recovery is found to be slower in southern sites with richer soil than in northern sites. This is probably due to the higher buffering capacity of the southern soil.


Spring flowering enabled by a winter chill is regulated by interplay between protein-coding and noncoding RNA transcripts. For many plants, the chilly temperatures of winter act to coordinate flowering with the more favorable growth environment that follows in springtime. This process of vernalization translates environmental temperatures into developmental responses through a cascade of molecular responses that depend on epigenetic regulation of the floral repressor. Heo and Sung (see the Perspective by Turck and Coupland) have identified an RNA that is transcribed from an intron of the repressor gene but that itself does not encode a protein. Instead, this noncoding RNA, called COLDAIR, adds a histone-methylating complex onto the repressor locus. With the repressive gene itself repressed, the stage is then set to allow flowering. J. B. Heo, S. Sung, Vernalization-mediated epigenetic silencing by a long intronic noncoding RNA. Science 331, 76–79 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text] F. Turck, G. Coupland, When vernalization makes sense. Science 331, 36–37 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Traffic simulation is a powerful tool that provides transportation engineers with the ability to test the feasibility and performance of a system before it is implemented and also helps in optimizing the proposed system. Over the past twenty years significant amount of work has been conducted on improving the quality and accuracy of transportation simulation models. Much of this work has been concentrated on microscopic simulation models because they provide traffic engineers greater opportunity to examine the inherently complex, stochastic, and dynamic nature of transportation systems when compared to traditional macroscopic models. In order to test the performance of some of the simulation models, a study is conducted on freeway weaving sections, which are considered to be one of the most complex regions to be modeled and analyzed. The intent of the research is to evaluate TRANSIMS, CORSIM, VISSIM and INTEGRATION and compare them with Highway Capacity Manual, which adopts a traditional methodology for carrying out the operational analysis of a highway system. The statistics collected for the simulation runs include weaving speeds, non-weaving speeds and density of the weaving section.


Space borne infrared limb emission measurements by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) reveal the formation of a belt of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles over Antarctica in mid-June 2003. By mesoscale microphysical simulations we show that this sudden onset of NAT PSCs was caused by heterogeneous nucleation on ice in the cooling phases of large-amplitude stratospheric mountain waves over the Antarctic Peninsula and the Ellsworth Mountains. MIPAS observations of PSCs before this event show no indication for the presence of NAT clouds with volume densities larger than about 0.3 µm 3 /cm 3 and radii smaller than 3 µm, but are consistent with supercooled droplets of ternary H 2 SO 4 /HNO 3 /H 2 O solution (STS). Simulations indicate that homogeneous surface nucleation rates have to be reduced by three orders of magnitude to comply with the observations.


Airflow measurement techniques are necessary to determine the most basic of indoor air quality questions: ''Is there enough fresh air to provide a healthy environment for the occupants of the building?'' This paper outlines airflow measurement techniques, but it does not make recommendations for techniques that should be used. The airflows that will be discussed are those within a room or zone, those between rooms or zones, such as through doorways (open or closed) or passive vents, those between the building and outdoors, and those through mechanical air distribution systems. Techniques that are highlighted include particle streak velocimetry, hot wire anemometry, fan pressurization (measuring flow at a given pressure), tracer gas, acoustic methods for leak size determination, the Delta Q test to determine duct leakage flows, and flow hood measurements. Because tracer gas techniques are widely used to measure airflow, this topic is broken down into sections as follows: decay, pulse injection, constant injection, constant concentration, passive sampling, and single and multiple gas measurements for multiple zones.


I was awarded funding from Ulster University as part of its widening access and participation strategy to deliver 'A Peaceful Christmas' project. North Belfast has one of the highest suicide rates in Europe and this project was a way of initiating conversations around emotional wellbeing with young people in the area. I worked with PIPS Charity for suicide awareness, The Science Shop and two post-primary schools in North Belfast to design Christmas cards suitable to send to someone who had suffered a bereavement. The project delivery was carefully designed given the sensitive nature of the subject area and the young age of the participants. All of the designs created by the young people where shown in the gallery space on the Belfast campus. Six designs were chosen to be printed and sold, with proceeds donated to PIPS charity.


The assumption that Peter Dawson is known as a world-famous recording
star, the most famous ballad singer of his era, as the baritone who had
recorded more titles and sold more records than any one else during a career
which spanned fifty years has almost precluded a comprehensive study of
his actual achievements. Through a detailed review of his career from its
genesis to the final years this investigation of the professional life of the
Australian baritone, Peter Dawson (1882-1961) seeks to test the reality against
the legend.
Parallel chapters dealing with the principal areas of professional experience
leading to analyses of his repertoire are introduced by a general
chronological overview which covers more general aspects of Peter
Dawson's life and activities within a framework of broad historical events
not revealed in the detailed chapters.
As hypothesised, the observation of his repertoire reveals an unexpected
range and depth of quality. The investigation also reveals his secure
competence as a composer and reveals that the extent of his abilities and the
quantity of compositions are largely unknown and undervalued. As his
fame is unquestioned it is argued that his repertoire must have reflected
contemporaneous values; further, that these values were reflected in blind
belief in the Empire, in a Commonwealth of Nations, and unquestioning
loyalty to the Crown. As these values never changed for Peter Dawson he
remained an icon for those generations· which held true to the same
conservative values.
But, as the investigation proves that his popularity was restricted to the
British Empire and proves that his -popularity gradually diminished, it can
be argued that the gradual disintegration of interest in his type of repertoire
paralleled a shift away from those values of Empire which he represented;
that only a hard core continued to defend these ideals in face of the slow
disintegration of the economic power and cultural influence of Great
Britain in favour of other nations, particularly the USA, following the
effects of World War I.
On the one -hand, the investigation confirms that Peter Dawson is
remembered as the legendary ballad singer: on the other, the -investigation
debunks the myth by exposing the over-simplification of a complex
professional career and the manipulation of information which created this
stereotype.


The paper considers the transformation of the political system as countries pass through the Grand Transition from a poor developing country to a wealthy developed country. In the process most countries change from an authoritarian to a democratic political system. This is shown by using the Gastil democracy index from Freedom House. First, the basic pattern of correlations reveals that a good deal of the short- to medium-run causality appears to be from democracy to income. Then a set of extreme biogeographic instruments is used to demonstrate that the long-run causality is from income to democracy. The long-run result survives various robustness tests. We show how the Grand Transition view resolves the seeming contradiction between the long-run and the short- to medium-run effects.


Business is expected to serve the common good of all stakeholders and have special legal interests with regard to upholding the values embedded in the constitution. Proper managerial ethics is becoming more of a concern within the context of business as the risks involved have grown in number, complexity, likelihood and significance. The extent of organisational pressure on management to perform accordingly on various indicators may also lead to compromises on organisational standards of ethical business conduct in order to achieve the bottom line and related objectives. The aim of this research is to measure the dimension of ethical attitudes amongst managers along a number of stated business scenarios which illustrate that managers may often be exposed to situations where they experience problems with role definition and other related interactions at their work place. The research used a questionnaire as measuring instrument to assess the attitudes pertaining to the ethical perceptions of managers. Data collection was implemented by administering the survey to a sample of managers with at least 2 years managerial experience. Six categories of factors were identified from the data analysis which are labelled as indirect ethical grey areas; devious behaviour; insider trading; leaking of competitive information; integrity and bribes.

 Key words: Business ethics, morals, values, attitudes, decision making, management.


The D. H. Hill Library is NC State University's main library, located on the north campus. The library features the Learning Commons, one of the top student destinations on campus for collaboration, study, and access to technology; the Special Collections Research Center; the Digital Media Lab; a coffee bar and ice cream shop; and the majority of the NCSU Libraries' collection of over 4.3 million items.


Antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins inhibit apoptosis in cultured cells by binding BH3 domains of proapoptotic Bcl-2 family members via a hydrophobic BH3 binding groove on the protein surface. We investigated the physiological importance of the BH3 binding groove of an antiapoptotic Bcl-2 protein in mammals in vivo by analyzing a viral Bcl-2 family protein. We show that the gamma-herpesvirus 68 (gammaHV68) Bcl-2 family protein (gammaHV68 v-Bcl-2), which is known to inhibit apoptosis in cultured cells, inhibits both apoptosis in primary lymphocytes and Bax toxicity in yeast. Nuclear magnetic resonance determination of the gammaHV68 v-Bcl-2 structure revealed a BH3 binding groove that binds BH3 domain peptides from proapoptotic Bcl-2 family members Bax and Bak via a molecular mechanism shared with host Bcl-2 family proteins, involving a conserved arginine in the BH3 peptide binding groove. Mutations of this conserved arginine and two adjacent amino acids to alanine (SGR to AAA) within the BH3 binding groove resulted in a properly folded protein that lacked the capacity of the wild-type gammaHV68 v-Bcl-2 to bind Bax BH3 peptide and to block Bax toxicity in yeast. We tested the physiological importance of this v-Bcl-2 domain during viral infection by engineering viral mutants encoding a v-Bcl-2 containing the SGR to AAA mutation. This mutation resulted in a virus defective for both efficient reactivation of gammaHV68 from latency and efficient persistent gammaHV68 replication. These studies demonstrate an essential functional role for amino acids in the BH3 peptide binding groove of a viral Bcl-2 family member during chronic infection.


The article explores the determination of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Balkan transition economies – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. Detailed FDI inflows to Southeast Europe are analysed to determine the main differences in the volume, timing and sectoral structure of FDI within the region and in comparison to the Central East European countries. A gravity model for all transition economies during 1990–2011 is then estimated to assess whether the factors driving FDI to the Western Balkans are different. They are found to be so; even when the size of their economies, distance from the source economies, institutional quality and prospects of EU membership are taken into account, Western Balkans countries receive less FDI than other transition countries. These issues are of policy relevance for the Balkan economies and ought to contribute to the current debate on the 'new growth model'.


Tabular representations of information can be organized so that the subject distance between adjacent columns is low, bringing related materials together. In cases where data is available on all topics, the subject distance between table columns and rows can be formally shown to be minimized. A variety of Gray codes may be used for ordering tabular rows and columns. Subject features in the Gray code may be ordered so that the coding system used is one that has a lower inter-column subject distance than with many other codes. Methods by which user preferences may be incorporated are described. The system optionally may display unrequested columns of data that are related to requested data.


We show how stated preference information obtained from a choice experiment, and revealed preference information based on housing market transactions, can be combined via generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. Specifically, we use a moment condition matching the predicted marginal willingness to pay (WTP) from a first-stage hedonic model to the marginal WTP formula implied by the choice experiment utility function. This is coupled with other moments from the choice experiment to produce GMM-based estimates of parameters that reflect the strengths of each data source. Our application values remediation of a contaminated site in Buffalo, New York, and we find evidence in support of estimates arising from our approach. (JEL Q51, Q53)


The aim of histo- and cytochemical studies is to identify and eventually to quantitate substances on a microscopic level. This necessitates isolating extremely small areas for analysis, preferably in the intact biological tissue. Physical methods have proven to be of value in this respect, in particular the radiant energy micro-absorption techniques (Fitzgerald & Engstrom, 1952). The field of histochemistry is rapidly developing. In this summary, X-ray methods that have found use in histochemistry and histophysiology will be briefly discussed. Critical reviews (Glick, Engstrom, & Malmstrom, 1951; Fitzgerald & Engstrom, 1952) have recently been published. The usual principle that has been adopted to obtain X-ray images of high definition is to place the object in close contact with a fine-grained photographic emulsion and make the exposure with X-rays as parallel as possible. The best emulsions, Eastman Kodak Spectroscopic Plate 548 or 649, Kodak Maximum Resolution Plate, Lippman emulsion (Gevaert), have a resolving power of about 1 μ.


The shape of a multi-core optical fiber is calculated by numerically solving a set of Frenet-Serret equations describing the path of the fiber in three dimensions. Included in the Frenet-Serret equations are curvature and bending direction functions derived from distributed fiber Bragg grating strain measurements in each core. The method offers advantages over prior art in that it determines complex three-dimensional fiber shape as a continuous parametric solution rather than an integrated series of discrete planar bends. Results and error analysis of the method using a tri-core optical fiber is presented. Maximum error expressed as a percentage of fiber length was found to be 7.2%.


The discovery of a new spinless particle at LHC has dominated the discussions in physics blogs during last weeks. Quite many bloggers identify without hesitation the new particle as the long sought for Higgs although some aspects of data do not encourage the interpretation as standard model Higgs or possibly its SUSY variant. Maybe the reason is that it is rather imagine any other interpretation. In this article the TGD based interpretation as a pion-like state of scaled up variant of hadron physics is discussed explaining also why Higgs is not needed and why it cannot even perform the tasks posed for it in TGD framework. Essentially one assumption, the separate conservation of quark and lepton numbers realized in terms of 8-D chiral invariance, excludes Higgs like states as also standard N = 1 SUSY. This identification could explain the failure to find the decays to τ pairs and also the excess of two-gamma decays. The decays gauge boson pairs would be caused by the coupling of pion-like state to instanton density for electro-weak gauge fields. Also a connection with the dark matter researches reporting signal at 130 GeV and possibly also at 110 GeV suggests itself: maybe also these signals also correspond to pion-like states.


Autoimmune diseases occur when an individual's own immune system attacks and destroys his or her healthy cells and tissues. Although it is clear that environmental stimuli can predispose someone to develop autoimmune diseases, twin- and family-based studies have shown that genetic factors also play an important role in modifying disease risk. Because many of these diseases are relatively common (prevalence in European-derived populations: 0.01-1%) and exhibit a complex mode of inheritance, many DNA sequence variants with modest effect on disease risk contribute to the genetic burden. Recently, the completion of the HapMap project, together with the development of new genotyping technologies, has given human geneticists the tools necessary to comprehensively, and in an unbiased manner, search our genome for DNA polymorphisms associated with many autoimmune diseases. Here we review recent progress made in the identification of genetic risk factors for celiac disease, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and type-1 diabetes using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Strikingly, GWAS have increased the number of genetic risk variants associated with these autoimmune diseases from 15 before 2006 to 68 now. We summarize what this new genetic landscape teaches us in terms of the pathogenesis of these diseases, and highlight some of the outstanding challenges ahead. Finally, we open a discussion on ways to best maximize the impact of these genetic discoveries where it matters the most, that is for autoimmune disease patients.


Monte Carlo Simulation is a mathematical technique that generates random variables for modelling risk. This technique is suitable and benefits to the various client such as public and private sector to evaluate the costing prepared by the Quantity Surveyor.  The methodology used is a qualitative approach consisting of a case study and document analysis. The result shows through Monte Carlo simulation, can predict the worst return from the accuracy of the estimation and given absolute confidence for project development.
Keywords: Monte Carlo, Risk Analysis, Cost Prediction, Qualitative Approach
eISSN 2398-4279 ©2020 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21834/ajqol.v5i18.204