Typhoid fever, caused by Salmonella typhi ( S. typhi ), is currently one of the most serious human diseases in Kenya, sometimes occurring in epidemic proportions, particularly in schools. It is essentially an enteric disease, which frequently becomes septicemic and if left untreated can cause death in 10-20% of the infected population. The disease is usually diagnosed by two methods: (1) isolation of the causative bacterium from suitable samples such as blood during the first week of illness and rose spots on the skin, feces and urine during the second to third week of illness, and (2) serologically by demonstrating a four-fold or greater rise in agglutinins to the 'O' antigen of S typhi in patients, using a standardized, stained S. typhi antigen, in a test commonly referred to as the 'Widal test'. In Kenya, there are a number of commercial Widal test kits currently in use. However, there is no documentation on their respective sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of typhoid fever. This study was therefore designed to compare sensitivity and specificity of the various Widal test kits in the detection of an active typhoid fever infection. This study compared five Widal test kits, using antisera against S typhi and S. typhimurium 'O' and 'H' antigens, experimentally produced in rabbits over a four-week period. S. typhimurium antiserum was used to check for the specificity of the Widal test kits for S. typhi agglutinins as well as cross reactivity with agglutinins against other Salmonella serotypes. All the five Widal test kits used in this study showed 100% sensitivity to S. typhi agglutinins, and Widal test kit E was distinctly more sensitive than the other 4, as it was associated with higher titres. The 'O' antibody titres displayed by all the test kits were significantly less than the 'H' antibody titres throughout the experimental period. Two test kits, D and E, picked 'O' and 'H' antibody titres greater than the standard cut-off titre of 1:160, whereas three test kits, A, B and C, picked the standard cut-off titre at one week post inoculation with respective S. typhi antigens. However, all test kits picked antibody titres greater than the standard cut-off titre at 2 weeks post inoculation, and at 4 weeks post inoculation, all kits picked an antibody titre greater than 1:2560. The Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 29 2005: pp. 94-99


An all-organic composite system was introduced as an active component for organic resistive memory applications. The active layer was prepared by mixing a highly polar plastic-crystalline organic molecule (succinonitrile, SN) into an insulating polymer (poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA). As increasing concentrations of SN from 0 to 3.0 wt % were added to solutions of different concentrations of PMMA, we observed distinguishable microscopic surface structures on blended films of SN and PMMA at certain concentrations after the spin-casting process. The structures were organic dormant volcanos composed of micron-scale PMMA craters and disk type SN lava. Atomic force microscopy (AFM), cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX) analysis showed that these structures were located in the middle of the film. Self-assembly of the plastic-crystalline molecules resulted in the phase separation of the SN:PMMA mixture during solvent evaporation. The organic craters remained at the surface after the spin-casting process, indicative of the formation of an all-organic composite film. Because one organic crater contains one SN disk, our system has a coplanar monolayer disk composite system, indicative of the simplest composite type of organic memory system. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the composite films with organic craters revealed that our all-organic composite system showed unipolar type resistive switching behavior. From logarithmic I-V characteristics, we found that the current flow was governed by space charge limited current (SCLC). From these results, we believe that a plastic-crystalline molecule-polymer composite system is one of the most reliable ways to develop organic composite systems as potential candidates for the active components of organic resistive memory applications.


Recently, it was shown that transceiver hardware impairments have a detrimental impact on the performance of communication systems, especially for high-rate systems. The vast majority of technical contributions in the area of relaying assume ideal transceiver hardware. This paper quantifies the impact of transceiver hardware impairments in dual-hop Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relaying, both for fixed and variable gain relays. The outage probability (OP) in this practical scenario is a function of the instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR). This paper derives closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic OPs under Rayleigh fading, accounting for hardware impairments at both the transmitter and the relay. The performance loss is small at low spectral efficiency, but can otherwise be very substantial. In particular, it turns out that for high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the instantaneous end-to-end SNDR converges to a deterministic constant, called the SNDR ceiling, which is inversely proportional to the level of impairments. This stands in stark contrast to the ideal hardware case for which the end-to-end SNDR grows without bound in the high SNR regime.


Problem. The South American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is studying the possibility of offering graduate theological education in its own territory. According to curricular theory, decisions regarding curricula should be based on studies of the society in which the school functions, studies of the nature and status of the discipline, and studies of the needs and aspirations of the learners. Information regarding South American society and theological education in the territory of the South American Division existed in scattered sources and needed to be gathered and organized. Most of the information concerning the learner--the Seventh-day Adventist minister who would attend graduate school--was non-existent. Method. Information concerning societal factors and theological education in South America was collected and organized from existing sources. Information regarding the ministers was obtained by means of a questionnaire sent to the five hundred ministers of the South American Division assumed to meet the criteria for the study: a completed four-year postsecondary theological course and a minimum of four years of service, or the holding of selected administrative positions. Despite mail and communication problems, 69.2 percent of the ministers responded. Data obtained included information about their work and congregations, evaluation of past theological education, and perceived needs for future study. Findings. Societal factors identified as most critical to shaping theological education were: (1) Catholic religion and general pre-occupation with spiritual matters; (2) population trends, including rapid growth, urbanization, and rejuvenation; (3) educational patterns, including a difficult secondary curriculum followed directly by professional training and a growing number of professionals; (4) limited financial resources due to poverty and inflation; and (5) growth patterns of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including rapid growth, and high rates of apostasy. Professional theological education in South America begins immediately after secondary school, usually lasts four years, and leads to a Bachelor of Divinity degree. This basic degree is followed by a Master of Theology degree, granted usually after three quarters of coursework and a master's thesis. Ecumenism and liberation theology influence some Protestant programs, while others are evangelically oriented. Present Seventh-day Adventist theological education in the South American Division compares favorably in content and number of hours with the non-Adventist accredited programs in Latin America and with the professional training for ministry offered at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Berrien Springs, Michigan. Ministers surveyed reported large districts and much time spent in pastoral and outreach activities, but little time in specialized ministries and training lay persons. The educational needs most often reported were in the areas of church administration, evangelism, and pastoral ministries. Ninety percent of the responding ministers desired further education, and 27.5 percent expressed willingness to pay all expenses for additional education. The ten subjects judged most important for further study were: righteousness by faith, advanced evangelism, lay leadership training, doctrine of Christ, biblical eschatology, advanced preaching, doctrine of the atonement, church administration, biblical theology, and biblical exegesis. Recommendations. It was recommended that: (1) Seventh-day Adventist theological education in the South American Division be offered within the philosophical, cultural, educational, and socio-economic context of its countries; (2) the degree granted by Seventh-day Adventist theological schools be considered the basis for a graduate program of three quarters of classwork plus a master's thesis; (3) the possibility of offering this program on the campuses of existing schools, perhaps during the summer, be studied; (4) the core of the curriculum be those subjects preferred by responding ministers; (5) strong emphasis be placed on the preparation of ministers to train lay members; and (6) subjects such as church growth and Christian education, not included in the respondents' first preferences, should also be offered.


Summary This paper presents case histories of two encounters with relic landslip features in Jurassic strata. The geometry and possible mechanism of growth of the landslips are considered, together with the effects of the reactivation of the landslips on the construction of Daventry By-Pass. The remedial options to stabilize the landslips are discussed together with the selected solution of 'on-going' maintenance. The uncertainty of detection of relic slip surfaces on hillslopes displaying little clear geomorphological evidence of previous movement is highlighted.


Effective Microorganisms (EM) is a commercially available liquid containing a variety of lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and phototrophic bacteria. These organisms create conditions which favour mutual support and enable them to outcompete harmful pathogens, while producing useful substances such as vitamins, enzymes, hormones, amino acids and anti-oxidants that create a reducing environment. Various EM agricultural application trials were run, mostly in partnership with farmers. The diverse applications included the following: improving soil conditions for better plant growth, treating waste water, controlling pests and diseases, improving animal growth, enhancing compost production and extending the shelf life of harvested crops. Generally EM appears to give the best results in situations where the natural balance of microorganisms has been severely disrupted or where agricultural inputs are in short supply. In situations where natural microorganism populations are reasonably intact, or where a balanced supply of inputs is available, the addition of EM does not seem to make a significant difference.


This work is a study, in historical context, of successive 'colonial' administrations' failure to effect permanent agricultural settlement in the Northern Territory. It seeks to provide greater understanding of why colonial settlement was less successful in the Territory than in the rest of Australia. Conceptualization places this study within a wider framework of studies of colonial economic development and especially that sponsored by government intervention. Under protracted colonial administration, attitudes to race, the background of world and colonial economics and the changing pattern of immigration all played a part in the Territory's formative evolution. This study explores some specific aspects within their particular political context of change. It traces the failure of policies, first envisaged by the South Australian Government in 1863 to establish agricultural settlement, and examines how succeeding Commonwealth administrations continued in that pursuit with little more success. This study covers the period from 1863 when South Australia first annexed the Territory, its later handover of administration and management to the Commonwealth Government and extends to the years immediately following World War 11. The role that past government policy has played in creating the confusing ambience still surrounding the question of agricultural development, past and present is examined. Despite the fact that the Territory's agricultural and economic development throughout its 'colonial' history was due almost entirely to government intervention and initiative, I contend that, by not engaging with available agricultural knowledge, agricultural settlement was in effect forestalled. Because local autonomy was never encouraged, selfevident political and inherent socioeconomic needs were ignored, and efforts to establish settlement were unable to benefit from the globalized nature of available agricultural knowledge or to profit from local learned experience. Farming, the very premise upon which colonial settlement was based was continuously circumscribed and prevented from constructing, transmitting and using local experience and agricultural knowledge to achieve socioeconomic sustainability.


The deep Boltzmann machine is a powerful model that extracts the hierarchical structure of observed data. While inference is typically slow due to its undirected nature, we argue that the emerging feature hierarchy is still explicit enough to be traversed in a feedforward fashion. The claim is corroborated by training a set of deep neural networks on real data and measuring the evolution of the representation layer after layer. The analysis reveals that the deep Boltzmann machine produces a feed-forward hierarchy of increasingly invariant representations that clearly surpasses the layer-wise approach.


Attempts to determine the geologic ages of crude oils based on their stable carbon isotope compositions have been unsuccessful. This is a consequence of the large range of δ 13 C values for crude oils from any specific time interval. These ranges have generally been attributed to differences in the relative contributions of biomass inputs of varying isotopic compositions and, to a lesser extent, isotopic fractionations associated with crude oil formation. However, a potentially important parameter that appears to have been largely overlooked is the effect of paleolatitude on δ 13 C of the marine biomass. In this study, Upper Jurassic–sourced oils representing most major and minor petroleum basins were investigated to assess the effects of paleogeography on their δ 13 C values. From high to low paleolatitudes, the oils become increasingly enriched in 13 C. Thus, for this specific geologic time interval (and likely others), the δ 13 C values of oils from the major marine basins reflect that of the primary marine biomass, which varied as a function of spatial paleoenvironmental parameters, in particular sea-surface paleotemperature.


Concentrations of promazine in plasma, plasma water, red blood cells, and urine were measured after oral administration of the drug to six patients during and after apparent recovery from the acute phase of viral hepatitis B. None of the promazine pharmacokinetic parameters were significantly different during and after the acute phase; these parameters included clearance, free drug clearance, metabolic clearance, volume of distribution, distribution and elimination half-life values, plasma protein binding, and per cent excreted in the urine. During the acute period of the illness, SGOP, SGPT, alkaline phosphatase, and total bilirubin were increased in all patients; they returned to within or near the upper limits or normal after recovery. Despite the unchanged promazine disposition, four out of six patients had more severe promazine side-effects, such as sedation, postural hypotension, and dizziness during the acute phase of the illness. This study suggests that promazine disposition was not significantly altered as a consequence of viral hepatitis. However, the pharmacodynamic effects of promazine were changed significantly. Care must be taken with patients who are taking promazine during the acute phase of viral hepatitis B.


Upon its release, Demange's award-winning '71 was reviewed and celebrated as an unusually dynamic British contribution to the sub-genre of the modern chase movie, following in the footsteps of Escape From New York (Carpenter, 1981) and Apocalypto (Gibson, 2006). Certainly, '71 offers the pleasures of the action genre, but this line of appeal is complicated by the film's historical setting during the British military occupation of Northern Ireland, the Irish Times described the film as 'A visceral reminder of dark days.' However, ' 71 has very little to say about the 'dark days' and the facts of the conflict, indeed it reverses 'good' political filmmaking by enacting a decontextualisation. There is neither a political content nor a related politics of representation in the film. Its politics, I argue in this paper, are in the formal patterning of its chase narrative and it is political precisely as a genre film informed by a hyper-kinetic poetics of neoliberalism. Drawing upon conceptualisations of cinematic cartography in relation to the 'poetics of circulation of commodity chain narratives' (Toscano, A. Kinkle, J., 2015), I examine how '71 constructs its cinematic city as a spectacular zone of commodification, filmed on largely abandoned housing estates in northern England, with Sheffield's Parkhill estate standing in for Belfast's Divis flats. This merging of the iconic 'failed' post-war architecture of welfare-state modernism with 1970s' Belfast's powerfully resonant aura of national crisis enables the film to create an abyssal, fractured city of neoliberal control. Within this zone - across markets of territory, bodies and weapons - the chase proceeds at frenetic, generic pace, opening up a space of encounters and ethical reflection. ' 71's chase, it will be argued, creates a paradoxical breathing space in which breathing itself – as a figure for contemporary precarity and resilience  - becomes political.


Background   South Australian regions have been given little attention in discussions on population decline.
Aims   This paper aims to examine the nature and incidence of population decline in South Australia as well as evaluate the potential impacts of COVID-19.
Data and methods   Estimated Resident Population data from 2001 to 2020, and Census data from 2006 and 2016, were used to investigate demographic and economic change. Measures of population change, age structure, employment and components of population change were used.
Results   Population decline has been a feature of South Australia's regions for decades and continues to be so as more of the population concentrates in its capital and regional centres where greater opportunities of employment and greater provisions of amenities are available. COVID-19 has the potential to accelerate this change if South Australia's vulnerable regions are not able to absorb the economic impacts the pandemic poses.
Conclusions   A strong driver of population decline in the regions is employment loss in core industries. Strategies that support these industries or otherwise aim to stimulate economic activity in these communities are required to moderate further decline in South Australia's regions especially as the economy recovers from the impacts of COVID-19.


When the density of sediment-laden river water exceeds that of the lake or ocean into which it discharges, the river plunges to the bottom of the receiving water body and continues to flow as a hyperpycnal flow. These particle-laden underflows, also known as turbidity currents, can travel remarkable distances and profoundly influence the seabed morphology from shoreline to abyss by depositing, eroding, and dispersing large quantities of sediment particles. Here we present a new approach to investigating the transformation of a plunging river flow into a turbidity current. Unlike previous workers using experimental and numerical treatments, we consider the evolution of a turbidity current from a river as different stages of a single flow process. From initial commotion to final stabilization, the transformation of a river (open channel flow) into a density-driven current (hyperpycnal flow) is captured in its entirety by a numerical model. Successful implementation of the model in laboratory and field cases has revealed the dynamics of a complex geophysical flow that is extremely difficult to observe in the field or model in the laboratory.


The community of researchers unanimously agrees that a code of ethics must be followed when engaging in research and consenting to publication of research findings in academic journals. However, unethical research practice continues to cause concern. In an effort to address the concern, several researchers have prescribed remedial action. Publishers and members of the research community have also tried to raise awareness of this malady plaguing the research community. For example, Ethics in Research & Publication, a website created by Elsevier, a trusted publisher of science and health information, aims to raise awareness in this regard by providing examples of scientific misconduct and breach of publications ethics, including plagiarism. Similarly, the iThenticate blog discusses plagiarism and other scholarly misconduct issues in a bid to promote integrity and ethical writing practices.


This book argues that Germans and Austrians have dealt with the Nazi past very differently and that these differences have had important consequences for political culture and partisan politics in the two countries. Drawing on different literatures in political science, David Art builds a framework for understanding how public deliberation transforms the political environment in which it occurs. The book analyzes how public debates about the "lessons of history" created a culture of contrition in Germany that prevented a resurgent far right from consolidating itself in German politics after unification. By contrast, public debates in Austria nourished a culture of victimization that provided a hospitable environment for the rise of right-wing populism. The argument is supported by evidence from nearly 200 semistructured interviews and an analysis of the German and Austrian print media over a twenty-year period.


Drawing on a unique panel data set of supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the study shows that programmatic differences between supporters of Frauke Petry and Bernd Lucke cannot sufficiently explain the crucial intraparty leadership contest of July 2015. Programmatic differences were minor in 2013 but became pronounced over time. Politically active supporters were disaffected with the old moderate leadership of Bernd Lucke, who pursued an organizational reform to reduce the influence of the rank-and-file. Social media also played a key role in the leadership turnover, as alternative news sources on social media were only politicized by the intraparty opposition. It is conceivable that the structure of social media networks influences opinion formation processes and internal affairs of right-wing populist parties in general, as their supporters tend to have low trust in mainstream news.


Reporting the diet of recently extinct or very rare taxa, only known by a few museum specimens, is challenging. This study uses X-ray microtomography, a non-destructive investigation method, to obtain the first data about feeding behaviours in the Montserrat galliwasp (Diploglossus montisserrati) by scanning one of the two specimens known to date. The scans revealed the occurrence of shell fragments of a freshwater snail (Omalonyx matheroni) in the digestive tract of the specimen. This data combined with morphological evidence shows the occurrence of a durophagous feeding habit and a possible tendency of association with freshwater environments. This information could be crucial to save this critically endangered lizard endemic on Montserrat island.


Food and fuel security in the face of population growth and climate change represent key societal challenges. Extending an arable farm-level bio-economic optimisation model 'MEETA' to include dedicated energy crops (DECs) and water metrics, we quantify water use implications and trade-offs between greenhouse gas emissions, net energy and farm profitability. Drawing upon the limited available water use data for arable and energy crops applicable for East Anglia in the UK, six different farm scenarios were investigated. Profit maximisation produces a conventional crop mix, while maximising net energy and minimising greenhouse gas emissions result in crop mixes which impose financial penalties and lower water use in comparison to conventional cropping; average financial impacts of the associated reduced water use under these respective scenarios range from £0.12 to £0.28 per m3 of water. Confidence in these results and work on water use and management more generally would be improved through better data on inter-annual crop-water needs, temporal water availability relationships and water response functions. Water availability for UK crop production is largely perceived to be a non-limiting resource; however climate change predictions demonstrate that availability of water for UK crop production is of increasing concern for both farmers and society as a whole.


The U.S. Textile and Apparel Industries and Rural America chapter of ERS Briefing Room on Cotton, www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/cotton/ustextileapparel.htm On January 1, 2005, the quotas that governed world textile and apparel trade for decades were removed, the culmination of a 10-year global liberalization process under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO). With this relaxation of import protection, U.S. clothing imports from Asia have risen and clothing prices have fallen. While both rural and urban communities across the United States have benefited from lower clothing prices, they have also felt the sting of a large number of textile plant closings. U.S. textile and apparel employment has fallen by more than 900,000 jobs since 1994, nearly a 60-percent decline. Nonmetro counties in the Southeast have taken the brunt of the losses, with some rural communities hit especially hard. After the expiration of the 1974 Multifiber Arrangement, WTO members agreed to eliminate textile and apparel trade quotas in four stages between 1995 and 2005 and to expand the import quantities permitted by quotas in the years leading up to their removal (see "The World Bids Farewell to the Multifiber Arrangement," in Amber Waves, February 2006). In the United States, the quota removal was "backloaded," that is, 80 percent of the effective quotas—quotas that were limiting imports from major Asian producers—remained in place through 2004. Despite that measure, U.S. textile and apparel employment declined steadily over the 10-year period, in large part as a result of a rise in nonquota imports from Mexico and the Caribbean Basin. These changes have been difficult for many U.S. textile and apparel workers. Compared with displaced workers in other industries, textile and apparel workers were more likely to drop out of the labor force, and those who found new jobs took longer to do so, with three-fourths earning less in their new jobs. Rural areas have been disproportionately affected by the job losses—45 percent of all displaced textile and apparel workers between 1997 and 2003 were nonmetro residents, more than double the nonmetro population's share of the U.S. labor force. Rural communities, as well as workers, have been hurt by these plant closings, as the losses of these longestablished businesses can take a large bite out of an area's tax base. With many of these communities already operating with low budgets, those faced with plant closures may be hard-pressed to maintain public service levels.


Long-term effects of the Horns Rev 1 offshore wind farm (OWF) on fish abundance, diversity and spatial distribution were studied. This OWF is situated on the Horns Reef sand bank in the North Sea. Surveys were conducted in September 2001, before the OWF was established in 2002, and again in September 2009, 7 yr post-establishment. The sampling surveys used a multi- mesh-size gillnet. The 3 most abundant species in the surveys were whiting Merlangius merlan- gus, dab Limanda limanda and sandeels Ammodytidae spp. Overall fish abundance increased slightly in the area where the OWF was established but declined in the control area 6 km away. None of the key fish species or functional fish groups showed signs of negative long-term effects due to the OWF. Whiting and the fish group associated with rocky habitats showed different dis- tributions relative to the distance to the artificial reef structures introduced by the turbines. Rocky habitat fishes were most abundant close to the turbines while whiting was most abundant away from them. Species diversity was significantly higher close to the turbines. Overall, these results indicate that the artificial reef structures were large enough to attract fish species with a prefer- ence for rocky habitats, but not large enough to have adverse negative effects on species inhabit- ing the original sand bottom between the turbines.


Extracted from text ... COMPARING CRIMINAL LAW RULES: A ROLE FOR CUSTOMARY LAW CONCEPTS? SV Hoctor (University of KwaZulu-Natal - Pietermaritzburg) 1 Introduction The motivation for this article, apart from my own curiosity, proceeds from two primary sources. At a previous conference of the Southern African Society of Legal Historians, held in 1999, Justice Albie Sachs issued a challenge for greater recognition of the need to grant customary (or ""indigenous"") legal principles their rightful status in the broader South African legal context. This challenge echoed his words in his judgment in the landmark case of S v Makwanyane...


A quarter century ago, Margaret Jane Radin interrupted the hegemonic law and economic discourse on property with a theory of personhood. And the New Jersey Supreme Court declared in the historic case of State v. Shack that property rights serve human values. From these our modern social relations theory of property was born. Now, the pundits declare that intellectual property has come of age. But is intellectual property philosophically and theoretically mature enough to face the world? Unlike its cousins property law and the First Amendment, which bear the weight of values such as autonomy, culture, equality, and democracy, in the United States intellectual property is understood almost exclusively as about incentives. To put it bluntly, there are no giant-sized intellectual property values. But there should be. Intellectual property has grown, perhaps exponentially, but its march into all corners of our lives and to the most destitute corners of the world has paradoxically exposed the fragility of its economic foundations while amplifying its social and cultural effects. Indeed, with full compliance to the TRIPS Agreement now required in all but the world's very least developed countries, bringing with it patents in everything from seeds to drugs, intellectual property law becomes literally an issue of life or death. Despite these real world changes, intellectual property scholars increasingly explain their field through the lens of economics alone, evidence of Amartya Sen's observation that theories have lives of their own, quite defiantly of the phenomenal world that can be actually observed. The theory is behind the practice. On the ground, underground, and in the ether, intellectual property is spurring what the New York Times calls the first new social movement of the century. I show that in case after case, from MGM v. Grokster, to new licenses from the Creative Commons for developing nations and cultural heritage, to the rise of Internet auteurs of fan fiction, mash-ups, and machinima, to efforts to deliver medicines to the world's poor, to demands for Geographical Indications for sarees and other crafts of the developing world, and to the nascent global movement for Access to Knowledge, traditional economic analysis fails to capture fully the struggles at the heart of local/global intellectual property law conflicts. This Article builds from these examples to lay a foundation for a cultural analysis of intellectual property. I offer IP3 as a metonym. The twentieth century closed with the rise of identity politics, the Internet Protocol, and intellectual property rights. I suggest that the convergence of these IPs begins to explain the growth of intellectual property rights where traditional justifications for intellectual property do not. IP3 reveals intellectual property's social effects and this law as a tool for crafting cultural relations. Call it the ripping, mixing, and burning of law.


With an availability of a single medical therapy, ischaemic stroke continues to be one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in the World. Hence it is of paramount importance to find alternative therapies that can simultaneously affect various molecular mechanisms and demonstrate long term effects. Hypothermia has long been considered as a therapeutic option in preventing ischaemia-mediated brain damage and is already in place as an efficacious neuroprotective treatment regimen in neonatal hypoxic encephalopathy and in adults after cardiac arrest. However, before becoming an approved treatment for stroke, a comprehensive understanding of molecular mechanisms involved in its putative beneficial effects during or after ischaemic cerebral damage is needed. Furthermore, strong evidence on the optimal conditions in that hypothermic therapy may be administered and a thorough understanding of the associated potential complications are also required. This review paper initially discusses the optimal conditions in which hypothermic therapy may be safely applied before pointing out the systematic complications that may emerge from this treatment.


There has been significant recent interest in game-theoretic approaches to security, with much of the recent research focused on utilizing the leader-follower Stackelberg game model. Among the major applications are the ARMOR program deployed at LAX Airport and the IRIS program in use by the US Federal Air Marshals (FAMS). The foundational assumption for using Stackelberg games is that security forces (leaders), acting first, commit to a randomized strategy; while their adversaries (followers) choose their best response after surveillance of this randomized strategy. Yet, in many situations, a leader may face uncertainty about the follower's surveillance capability. Previous work fails to address how a leader should compute her strategy given such uncertainty.

We provide five contributions in the context of a general class of security games. First, we show that the Nash equilibria in security games are interchangeable, thus alleviating the equilibrium selection problem. Second, under a natural restriction on security games, any Stackelberg strategy is also a Nash equilibrium strategy; and furthermore, the solution is unique in a class of security games of which ARMOR is a key exemplar. Third, when faced with a follower that can attack multiple targets, many of these properties no longer hold. Fourth, we show experimentally that in most (but not all) games where the restriction does not hold, the Stackelberg strategy is still a Nash equilibrium strategy, but this is no longer true when the attacker can attack multiple targets. Finally, as a possible direction for future research, we propose an extensive-form game model that makes the defender's uncertainty about the attacker's ability to observe explicit.


The recent crisis was characterized by widespread deterioration in funding conditions, as well as impairment of the mechanism through which liquidity is normally redistributed within the financial system. Central banks responded with extraordinary measures. This article examines the provision of liquidity by central banks during the crisis as they adapted their existing facilities and introduced new ones, while encouraging a return to private markets and mitigating moral hazard. A review of this experience illustrates the importance of clear principles for intervention, a flexible operating framework, and clear communication and co-operation by central banks. By exposing the degree of interdependence of financial institutions and markets the crisis highlighted the need for reforms aimed at improving the infrastructure supporting core funding markets and the liquidity of individual institutions.


A cw synchronously-pumped optical parametric oscillator (SPOPO) based on periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) has produced a factor of 20 pulse compression, resulting in signal pulses as short as 200fs, when driven by 4ps pump pulses. Furthermore these compressed pulses extract most of the energy from the pump pulses so that the output signal pulses have higher peak power than the pump pulses. The principle of this pulse compression in a SPOPO has previously been demonstrated in BBO, using very intense (~1MW) Q-switched mode-locked pulse trains. The requirements for pulse compression were identified as high gain (10 quoted in ref. [1]) and large group-velocity walk-off between pump and resonated wave. Thus when the OPO resonator is biassed longer than the length for exact synchronism, the resonated signal pulse arrives at the nonlinear crystal late relative to the pump pulse and then 'walks-through' the pump pulse over the crystal length. The high gain allows the leading edge of the signal pulse to deplete the entire pump pulse so that essentially all of the pump pulse energy is extracted into the compressed pulse. We have shown that this principle can be extended to the case of cw mode-locking in PPLN, since high gains can be achieved for much lower pump powers. In fact we also find that the required gain in the cw mode locked case is only ~10. In the first experiment on a 1047nm pumped PPLN OPO, we used a 6mm sample that we had fabricated by electric-field poling. For these compression experiments we used a longer crystal (19mm, fabricated by Crystal Technology). The length was chosen to provide a group delay between pump and signal which was comparable to the 4ps pump pulse duration. A 4 mirror OPO resonator was used, either as a standing wave resonator or as a ring. The output mirror was an uncoated flat of LiNbO3 or ZnSe, providing a 15% reflectivity, hence forcing operation in the high-gain regime. The OPO was pumped by a diode-pumped Nd:YLF mode-locked laser (4psec, 120MHz, mean power 1W, Microlase DPM-1000-120). With the resonator set for exact synchronism, the signal pulses (tunable over 1.7-1.9µm) were 4psec in duration and the average power 300mW. With the resonator length increased by 50µm, compressed pulses of 200-250fsec were obtained at an average power of ~220mW. These compressed pulses were extremely stable, and had a time bandwidth product of ~0.33. The idler pulses, in the 2.3 to 2.7µm range, also showed compression, although to a smaller extent. These compression results confirm PPLN as a material well suited to ultrashort uses and offering a convenient route to broad tunability in the femtosecond regime


Forgiveness can be a bridge to help restore relationships beset by bitterness and resentment caused by interpersonal offenses. What factors hinder forgiveness and what facilitate it? This study examined closely the factors that predict forgiveness using structural equation modeling. An integrated model of forgiveness in close relationships was tested among Filipino college students (N=1200) in Metro Manila who are between 16 to 22 years old. The factors were categorized according to: impact on self (perceived severity, negative emotions, rumination and attribution); offender's behavior (acknowledging the offense and making amends); relationship (quality of relationship, commitment, and sense of indebtedness or utang na loob); and spirituality. Forgiveness was significantly predicted by empathy and impact on self but not spirituality. Together, the predictors explain 49 % of the variance in forgiveness. Empathy which was found to be the strongest predictor of forgiveness was further predicted by offender's behavior after the offense and relationship. The factors were also found to be significantly correlated with each other. The findings of this study imply that empathy should be strongly encouraged among Filipinos to facilitate forgiveness.


Simple asymptotic approximations are derived for the bulk coherent propagation coefficient (K) in pair-correlated distributions of obstacles with minimum separation (b) between particle centers large compared to wavelength (λ). The size of the scatterer (maximum diameter 2a ≤ b) is arbitrary compared to λ. The functional equation for K involves only the forward-scattered and backscattered amplitudes of an obstacle and simple integrals of the total correlation function (F). For large particles with small refractive contrast, the leading terms differ from the leading terms for small-spaced particles in that the scattering cross-section term involves a different packing factor (W). The present W depends on 2a/b and the zeroth moment of F, whereas for small spacing W is the limit of the structure factor for small b/λ. Higher-order terms involving the first and second moments of F are also derived, and the forms are applied to obtain explicit results for spheroids in terms of the volume fraction of statistical particles. More generally, the initial functional equation can be evaluated in terms of existing tabulated values of F.


Objective:
The nature of contemporary cancer therapy means that patients are faced with difficult treatment decisions about surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. For some, this process may also involve consideration of therapies that sit outside the biomedical approach to cancer treatment, in our research, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Thus, it is important to explore how cancer patients in Taiwan incorporate TCM into their cancer treatment journey. This paper aims to explore of the patterns of combining the use of TCM and Western medicine into cancer treatment journey in Taiwanese people with cancer.

Methods:
The sampling was purposive and the data collected through in-depth interviews. Data collection occurred over an eleven month. The research was grounded in the premises of symbolic interactionism and adopted the methods of grounded theory. Twenty four participants who were patients receiving cancer treatment were recruited from two health care settings in Taiwan.

Results:
The study findings suggest that perceptions of health and illness are mediated through ongoing interactions with different forms of therapy. The participants in this study had a clear focus on "process and patterns of using TCM and Western medicine". Further, 'different importance in Western medicine and TCM', 'taken for granted to use TCM', 'each has specialized skills in Western medicine and TCM' and 'different symptoms use different approaches (Western medicine or TCM)' may explicit how the participants in this study see CAM and Western medicine.

Conclusions/Implications for practice:
The descriptive frame of the study suggests that TCM and Western medicine occupy quite distinct domains in terms of decision making over their use. People used TCM based on interpretations of the present and against a background of an enduring cultural legacy grounded in Chinese philosophical beliefs about health and healthcare. The increasingly popular term of 'integrative medicine' obscures the complex contexts of the patterns of use of both therapeutic modalities. It is this latter point that is worthy of further exploration.


This article explores the concept of "other effective area-based conservation measures" (OECMs) in the context of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 on marine protected areas and OECMs and its linkages to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It argues that mainstreaming biodiversity through CBD Aichi Biodiversity Targets' implementation into the SDGs can contribute to a more systemic and comprehensive implementation of SDG 14.5 on conservation of at least 10% of marine and coastal areas. It argues that OECMs can complement MPAs and contribute to ecologically representative and effectively managed marine protected areas systems integrated into broader governance systems such as marine spatial planning. Selected global and local sectoral conservation measures are therefore highlighted in this analysis as potential forms of OECMs. At the local level, a case study of ecologically or biologically significant marine areas managed as locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) in Mozambique is discussed. This case study explores how multipleuse LMMAs, which respond to short-term fisher's needs and targeted biodiversity conservation, could contribute to the achievement of specific SDGs on food security, poverty elimination and resilient ecosystems if properly supported by long-term investments, strong institutions and integrated oceans management.


The use of crown and root morphology to estimate population relationships has a long history in dental anthropology. Over the past two decades, methods employing dental morphology within forensic anthropology have been formalized with the incorporation of statistical models. This paper presents a new web-based application (rASUDAS) that estimates the ancestry of unknown individuals based on their suite of tooth crown and root traits. The application utilizes 21 independent traits that were scored following the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS). The reference sample represents approximately 30,000 individuals from seven biogeographic regions. A naive Bayes classifier algorithm was created in the R open source programming language to assign posterior probabilities for individual group assignment. To test the application, 150 individuals were selected from the C. G. Turner II database with the proviso that an individual had to be scored for a minimum of 12 of the 21 traits. In a seven-group analysis, the model correctly assigned individuals to groups 51.8% of the time. In a four-group analysis, classification accuracy improved to 66.7%. With three groups, accuracy was at 72.7%. It is still necessary to validate the program using forensic cases and to augment the reference sample with modern skeletal data. However, results from the beta version of rASUDAS are presented as proof of concept on the potential of dental morphology in ancestry estimation in forensic contexts.


Cultural geography has a long and proud tradition of research into human–plant relations. However, until recently, that tradition has been somewhat disconnected from conceptual advances in the social sciences, even those to which cultural geographers have made significant contributions. With a number of important exceptions, plant studies have been less explicitly part of more-than-human geographies than have animal studies. This special issue aims to redress this gap, recognising plants and their multiple engagements with and beyond humans. Plants are not only fundamental to human survival, they play a key role in many of the most important environmental political issues of the century, including biofuels, carbon economies and food security. In this introduction, we explore themes of belonging, practices and places, as discussed in the contributing papers. Together, the papers suggest new kinds of 'vegetal politics', documenting both collaborative and conflictual relations between humans, plants and others. They open up new spaces of political action and subjectivity, challenging political frames that are confined to humans. The papers also raise methodological questions and challenges for future research. This special issue grew out of sessions we organised at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in New York in 2012.


Abstract.
 This study analyzes taphonomic alteration of brachiopod shells, i.e., Bouchardia rosea (Mawe) from Ubatuba Bay, northern coast of São Paulo State, Brazil. The average age of the studied shell deposits is 674 years BP. The underlying hypothesis is that taphonomic signatures are not uniformly distributed along a bathymetric gradient. Assemblages were sampled using a Van Veen grab sampler (31 × 40cm) along transect of fourteen stations from zero (beach) to 35 m water depth. Four sedimentary environments were recognized: (a) beach, (b) protected bay with clay bottom, (c) protected bay with sandy bottom, and (d) inner shelf with sandy bottom. All brachiopod shells (i.e., total fraction including fragments) from each of the five stations with appreciable accumulations (up to 1607 shells) were investigated following a protocol of ten taphonomic signatures. Six of these ten taphonomic signatures (articulation, fragmentation, edge alteration, color alteration, bioerosion, and encrustation) were homogeneously distributed among studied environments, indicating that these general types of taphonomic signatures per se are not sensitive to environmental conditions in this case. On the other hand, shell surface texture varied along the bathymetric gradient, thus showing a high potential to be used in taphofacies analyses. Several examples of taphonomic generalizations available in the literature are neither applicable nor comparable to our results, which further confirm that overgeneralizations should be avoided in taphonomic studies.


Oxygen and carbon isotope data from Cretaceous (Valanginian) glendonites and belemnites from Arctic Svalbard are presented. Oxygen isotope data from well-preserved glendonites, in conjunction with the ikaite to glendonite pseudomorph transition temperature, are used to provide an estimate of the oxygen isotope composition of ambient seawater. Calculation of such a factor is essential for robust paleotemperature estimates. Using this methodology, our paleotemperatures calculated from the oxygen isotope compositions of coexisting belemnites yield cool temperatures (4–7 °C) consistent with transient glacial polar conditions during the Cretaceous greenhouse. Cool polar temperatures during the Cretaceous help reconcile geologic data with the simulations of general circulation models. Nevertheless, beyond this postulated and transient cool event within the Valanginian, the remainder of the isotope data are interpretable in terms of warm polar conditions during the Cretaceous greenhouse.


Objective: To characterize the socioeconomic and clinical profile of children and adolescents with ostomies attended at a public reference hospital in children's health in the state of Piauí, Brazil. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study of 55 children/adolescents with at least one ostomy. Results: There was a predominance of males, brown, mean age of 4.1 years. The main causes for the confection of the stoma were congenital malformations, especially the anomaly. Regarding the organic system, the gastrointestinal was the most affected and the colostomy was the most frequent. The majority of participants with elimination ostomies did not use collecting equipment. With regard to the complications of the stoma, the accidental release of the gastrostomy tube was the most common, followed by stomatal bleeding. Dermatitis was the most common skin complication. Conclusion: The realization of this study made it possible to know the socio-demographic profile of children and teenagers with ostomies and to promote reflections about nursing care to improve the assistance provided to these clients.


Architectural Exploration and Design Methodologies of Photonic Interconnection Networks Jong Wu Chan Photonic technology is becoming an increasingly attractive solution to the problems facing today's electronic chip-scale interconnection networks. Recent progress in silicon photonics research has enabled the demonstration of all the necessary optical building blocks for creating extremely high-bandwidth density and energy-efficient links for onand offchip communications. From the feasibility and architecture perspective however, photonics represents a dramatic paradigm shift from traditional electronic network designs due to fundamental differences in how electronics and photonics function and behave. As a result of these differences, new modeling and analysis methods must be employed in order to properly realize a functional photonic chip-scale interconnect design. In this work, we present a methodology for characterizing and modeling fundamental photonic building blocks which can subsequently be combined to form full photonic network architectures. We also describe a set of tools which can be utilized to assess the physicallayer and system-level performance properties of a photonic network. The models and tools are integrated in a novel open-source design and simulation environment called PhoenixSim. Next, we leverage PhoenixSim for the study of chip-scale photonic networks. We examine several photonic networks through the synergistic study of both physical-layer metrics and system-level metrics. This holistic analysis method enables us to provide deeper insight into architecture scalability since it considers insertion loss, crosstalk, and power dissipation. In addition to these novel physical-layer metrics, traditional system-level metrics of bandwidth and latency are also obtained. Lastly, we propose a novel routing architecture known as wavelength-selective spatial routing. This routing architecture is analogous to electronic virtual channels since it enables the transmission of multiple logical optical channels through a single physical plane (i.e. the waveguides). The available wavelength channels are partitioned into separate groups, and each group is routed independently in the network. Each partition is spectrally multiplexed, as opposed to temporally multiplexed in the electronic case. The wavelength-selective spatial routing technique benefits network designers by provider lower contention and increased path diversity.


It is a truism that successful persuasive messages should be adapted to audience values. A substantial research literature—not previously systematically reviewed—has examined whether advertisements with appeals adapted to the audience's important cultural values (e.g., individualism for North Americans) are more persuasive and better liked than appeals that are unadapted to such values. A meta-analytic review of that research finds that adapted ads are only slightly more persuasive (mean r = .073, 67 cases) and slightly better liked (mean r = .082, 66 cases) than unadapted ads. Moreover, these effects were mainly limited to North Americans and Asians and to values related to individualism-collectivism. In this chapter, we discuss explanations for these results and identify directions for future research.


The use of 5-deazaFAD T491V cytochrome P450 reductase has made it possible to directly measure the rate of electron transfer to microsomal oxyferrous cytochrome (cyt) P450 2B4. In this reductase the FMN moiety can be reduced to the hydroquinone, FMNH(2), while the 5-deazaFAD moiety remains oxidized [Zhang, H., et al. (2003) Biochemistry 42, 6804-6813]. The rate of electron transfer from 5-deazaFAD cyt P450 reductase to oxyferrous cyt P450 was determined by rapidly mixing the ferrous cyt P450-2-electron-reduced 5-deazaFAD T491V reductase complex with oxygen in the presence of substrate. The 5-deazaFAD T491V reductase which can only donate a single electron reduces the oxyferrous cyt P450 and oxidizes to the air-stable semiquinone, with rate constants of 8.4 and 0.37 s(-1) at 15 degrees C. Surprisingly, oxyferrous cyt P450 turns over more slowly with a rate constant of 0.09 s(-1), which is the rate of catalysis under steady-state conditions at 15 degrees C (k(cat) = 0.08 s(-1)). In contrast, the rate constant for electron transfer from ferrous cyt b(5) to oxyferrous cyt P450 is 10 s(-1) with oxyferrous cyt P450 and cyt b(5) simultaneously undergoing spectral changes. Quantitative analyses by LC-MS/MS revealed that the product, norbenzphetamine, was formed with a coupling efficiency of 52% with cyt b(5) and 32% with 5-deazaFAD T491V reductase. Collectively, these results suggest that during catalysis a relatively stable reduced oxyferrous intermediate of cyt P450 is formed in the presence of cyt P450 reductase but not cyt b(5) and that the rate-limiting step in catalysis follows introduction of the second electron.


In this study, we investigate the influence of visual feedback on haptic exploration. A haptic search task was designed in which subjects had to haptically explore a virtual display using a force-feedback device and to determine whether a target was present among distractor items. Although the target was recognizable only haptically, visual feedback of finger position or possible target positions could be given. Our results show that subjects could use visual feedback on possible target positions even in the absence of feedback on finger position. When there was no feedback on possible target locations, subjects scanned the whole display systematically. When feedback on finger position was present, subjects could make well-directed movements back to areas of interest. This was not the case without feedback on finger position, indicating that showing finger position helps to form a spatial representation of the display. In addition, we show that response time models of visual serial search do not generally apply for haptic serial search. Consequently, in teleoperation systems, for instance, it is helpful to show the position of the probe even if visual information on the scene is poor.


Background: High birth weight has been associated with subsequent increased risk of breast cancer in the infant's mother, possibly related to maternal estrogen and growth factor pathways. However, its association with maternal risk of colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer among women, is unknown. Methods: We conducted a national cohort study of 1,838,509 mothers who delivered 3,590,523 babies in Sweden in 1973–2008, followed up for colorectal cancer incidence through 2009. Results: There were 7,318 mothers diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 36.8 million person-years of follow-up. After adjusting for maternal age, body mass index, diabetes, and other potential confounders, high fetal growth was associated with a subsequent increased risk of colorectal cancer in the mother [incidence rate ratio (IRR) per additional 1 SD relative to mean birth weight for gestational age and sex, 1.05; 95% confidence intervals (CI), 1.03–1.07; P < 0.0001]. Each 1,000 g increase in the infant's birth weight was associated with a 12% increase in the mother's subsequent risk of colorectal cancer (IRR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.07–1.17; P < 0.0001). Multiple gestation was also independently associated with increased maternal risk of colorectal cancer (IRR for twin or higher order vs. singleton, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.04–1.44; P = 0.02). Conclusion: In this large cohort study, high fetal growth and multiple gestation were independently associated with subsequent higher maternal risk of colorectal cancer. These findings warrant further investigation of maternal growth factor and estrogen pathways in the etiology of colorectal cancer. Impact: If confirmed, our findings may help identify subgroups of women at high risk of colorectal cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 24(8); 1184–9. ©2015 AACR.


In recent years, due to the use of methacrylates in many fields, especially in nail cosmetics, including home-based manicures, the reported numbers of allergic contact dermatitis to methacrylates has increased significantly, exceeding the percentage requested by the European Society of Contact Dermatitis in the general population to introduce a new allergen in the European Baseline Series. Following recent studies, the European Society of Contact Dermatitis decided to introduce 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (2-HEMA) in the European Baseline Series starting with 2019. 2-HEMA is the incriminated allergen in over 90% of the positive patch skin tests for acrylates in the general tested population.


Subarctic environmental changes are expected to affect the foraging ecology of marine top predators, but the response to such changes may vary among species if they use food resources differently. We examined the characteristics of foraging behavior of two sympatric congeneric diving seabird: common (Uria aalge: hereafter COMUs) and thick-billed (U. lomvia: hereafter TBMUs) murres breeding on St. George Island, located in the seasonal sea-ice region of the Bering Sea. We investigated their foraging trip and flight durations, diel patterns of dive depth, and underwater wing strokes, along with wing morphology and blood stable isotope signatures and stress hormones. Acceleration– temperature–depth loggers were attached to chick-guarding birds, and data were obtained from 7 COMUs and 12 TBMUs. Both species showed similar mean trip duration (13.2 h for COMUs and 10.5 h for TBMUs) and similar diurnal patterns of diving (frequent dives to various depths in the daytime and less frequent dives to shallow depths in the nighttime). During the daytime, the dive depths of COMUs had two peaks in shallow (18.1 m) and deep (74.2 m) depths, while those of TBMUs were 20.2 m and 59.7 m. COMUs showed more frequent wing strokes during the bottom phase of dives (1.90 s) than TBMUs (1.66 s). Fish occurred more frequently in the bill loads of COMUs (85 %) than those of TBMUs (56 %). The δN value of blood was significantly higher in COMUs (14.5 ‰) than in TBMUs (13.1 ‰). The relatively small wing area (0.053 m) of COMUs compared to TBMUs (0.067 m) may facilitate their increased agility while foraging and allow them to capture more mobile prey such as larger fishes that inhabit deeper depths. These differences in food resource use may lead to the differential responses of the two murre species to marine environmental changes in the Bering Sea.


When phosphorus requirement experiments in lupins were started in the early 1970s, most soils were highly deficient in phosphorus and consequently lupin yields were highly correlated (r2=0.72) with the Colwell soil phosphorus test, with a critical value defined as 20 mg P/kg soil. However, as phosphorus was applied to the soil the phosphorus status improved and this has, in turn, altered the ability of the Colwell soil phosphorus test to predict phosphorus response. Over time, various measurements of soil ability to adsorb phosphorus have been developed. The phosphorus retention index (PRI) was introduced during the early 1990s while the phosphorus buffer index (PBI) was introduced during the early 2000s (Bolland et al., 2006). Incursion of an indicator of phosphorus sorption into the phosphorus calibration curves can improve the ability of the phosphorus soil test procedure to predict phosphorus requirements of pastures (Bolland and Russell, 2010). In general, lupins are grown on sands that have a relatively low capacity to adsorb phosphorus. Within the available data base of phosphorus experiments done with lupins, PRI levels can be grouped into PRI=1, PRI=2 and PRI=3. These different PRI levels are known to have an impact on the shape of the phosphorus calibration curve for pastures (Bolland et al., 2010). The aim of this paper was to examine whether inclusion of PRI levels in the phosphorus soil test procedure could improve the ability of the Colwell soil phosphorus test to predict phosphorus deficiency in lupins.

While WA soils initially contained adequate indigenous soil potassium for cropping, removal of potassium over time in harvested grain gradually resulted in some soils becoming potassium deficient for grain production. While studies have been done to determine the potassium requirements of lupins grown on grey sands, a calibration for the relationship between relative yield and Colwell soil potassium test has not been reported. An additional aim of this paper was to examine the ability of the Colwell soil potassium test to predict potassium deficiency in lupin grown on grey sands.


Many applications in space weather and in space situational awareness require continuous solar spectral irradiance measurements in the UV, and to a lesser degree in the visible band. Most space-borne solar radiometers are made out of two different parts: (i) a front filter that selects the passband and (ii) a detector that is usually based on silicon technology. Both are prone to degradation , which may be caused either by the degradation of the filter coating due to local deposition or to structural changes, or by the degradation of the silicon detector by solar radiative and energetic particle fluxes. In this study, we provide a theoretical analysis of the filter degradation that is caused by structural changes such as pinholes; contamination-induced degradation will not be considered. We then propose a new instrumental concept, which is expected to overcome, at least partially, these problems. We show how most of the solar UV spectrum can be reconstructed from the measurement of only five spectral bands. This instrumental concept outperforms present spectrometers in terms of degradation. This new concept in addition overcomes the need for silicon-based detectors, which are replaced by wide band gap material detectors. Front filters, which can contribute to in-flight degradation, therefore are not required, except for the extreme-UV (EUV) range. With a small weight and a low telemetry, this concept may also have applications in solar physics, in astrophysics and in planetology.


As the largest ever Australian government investment in creative industries development, the Creative Industries Innovation Centre delivered tailored business services to more than 1500 creative businesses from 2009 to 2015 and provided industry intelligence and advice for public policy and peak sectoral activity. This collection gives an overview of the current 'state of business' in Australia's creative industries – both as an industry sector in its own right and as an enabling sector and skills set for other industries – and reflects on business needs, creative industries policy and support services for the sector. With contributions from the Centre's team of senior business advisers and from leading Australian researchers who worked closely with the Centre –including experts on design-led innovation and the creative economy – and case studies of leading Australia creative businesses, the book is intended as and industry-relevant contribution to business development and public policy. Content links to the publicly accessible Creative Industries Innovation Centre Collection Archive at the UTS Library, which holds material from Centre's activities over its six years of operation.


This paper is the penultimate draft of the fifth of six chapters of a book titled Public Debt: An Illusion of Democratic Political Economy. This paper modifies the benchmark condition of a cooperative democracy to incorporate a realistic treatment of democracy where there exist islands of political power within a relatively passive sea of generally modest democratic participation. This essay explains that descriptions of democracy as entailing self-governance are typically mythical or ideological formulations that promote the purposes of those who work with such notions. Public debt becomes a form of shell game, the success of which depends on most people looking somewhere other than where the real action occurs, and which entails a shifting of cost from dominant to subordinate groups as covered by an ideology of self-governance.


QT prolongation is the only clinically proven, yet insufficient, electrocardiogram (ECG) biomarker for drug-induced cardiac toxicity. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether JT area, i.e., total area of the T-wave, can serve as an ECG biomarker for drug-induced cardiac toxicity using both signal processing and computational modeling approaches. An ECG dataset that contained recordings from patients under control and sotalol condition was analyzed. In order to relate sotalol-induced ECG changes to its effect on ion channel level, i.e., blockade of the rapid component of the delayed rectifier potassium channel (IKr), varied degrees of IKr blockade were simulated in a slab of ventricular tissue. The mean JT area increased by 36.5% following the administration of sotalol in patients. Simulations in the slab tissue showed that sotalol increased action potential duration preferentially in the midmyocardium, which led to increased transmural dispersion of repolarization and JT area. In conclusion, JT area reflects the transmural dispersion of repolarization and may be a potentially useful surrogate/supplemental ECG biomarker to assess drug safety.


The first Buddhist city Anuradhapura (377 BCE–1017 CE), continues as a world heritage site. The unbroken relationship with the agriculture and irrigation landscape, apparent in the city, plays a vital role throughout the history, shapes the city and the sacred landscape. This research argues that urban agriculture in Anuradhapura establishes a 'performing system' to engage the people with the topography and the city and uplift their body and the mind for wellbeing. It illustrates that this is achieved through a process of dwelling, understanding the orientation of the place, which is a spiritual experience manifest in the landscape, cities and settlements. This research examines how and why urban agriculture engages everyday/ urban life with the topography and successfully establishes a healthy and sustainable city for wellbeing. It examines the anthropo-ethnographical and phenomenological experience, the encounters with the topography, agriculture & irrigation and their manifestation in landscape, place, and city, achieving spiritual and sustainable place, and discusses its relevance to wellbeing and healthy city. The research methodology synthesises aspects of phenomenology, philosophy, anthropology, ethnography, landscape research, neuroscience, and Buddhist philosophy. In Anuradhapura sacred city, the everyday life of people has been devoted around large wewa (reservoirs) and vast paddy fields for the sustenance of the city as well as achieving sacred experiences. Through engaging in the laborious life of agriculture in the periphery, they experience the four noble truths and the deeper dimensions of the place, relating to the centre/orientation (physically & non-physically) which shapes the city form affirming the Buddhist sacred city. This engagement evokes embodied agriculture landscape which brings healthy space for human wellbeing.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) in the Western setting remains a challenge. Therefore, other simplified techniques such as knife-assisted snare resection (KAR) have been reported to overcome this issue.

METHODS
patients who underwent an ESD for the treatment of gastrointestinal neoplasms were included in a retrospective cross-sectional observational study. Factors associated with the end of ESD as a salvage p-KAR were identified and a logistic regression model was developed.

RESULTS
a total of 136 lesions in 133 patients were analyzed. Operator experience of under 50 cases and the combination of lesion size > 30 mm and colorectal location were independent predictive factors for switching to a salvage p-KAR according to the multivariate logistic regression analysis. We developed a risk scoring system based on these four variables (experience, size, location and the combination of size and location) with a receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.81 (95% CI: 0.74-0.89). The diagnostic accuracy of the score for a cut-off point ≥ 5 had a sensitivity of 0.79 (95% CI: 0.66-0.93) and a specificity of 0.71 (95% CI: 0.61-0.80).

CONCLUSION
a simple predictive score system that includes four preoperative factors accurately predicts ESD to finish as a p-KAR. A careful selection of cases considering these variables could be useful to achieve better outcomes in the Western setting.


Social determinants are the most important markers of health. Identifying risk factors and standardized intervention on them are the main ways to prevent disease. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease is an area as present, as it is necessary for an effective health system. The current concept of primary prevention of cardiovascular disease also includes action on risk factors and the need for action in a multidisciplinary care team with active involvement of the patient in the therapeutic act.


The PET compound 18F-fluoroestradiol (18F-FES) has been developed and tested as an agent for the imaging of estrogen receptor (ER) expression in vivo. 18F-FES uptake has been shown to correlate with ER expression assayed in vitro by radioligand binding; however, immunohistochemistry (IHC) rather than radioligand binding is used most often to measure ER expression in clinical practice. We therefore compared 18F-FES uptake with ER expression assayed in vitro by IHC with both qualitative and semiquantitative measures. Methods: Seventeen patients with primary or metastatic breast cancer were studied with dynamic 18F-FES PET; cancer tissue samples, collected close to the time of imaging, were assayed for ER expression by IHC. For each tumor, partial-volume-corrected measures of 18F-FES uptake were compared with ER expression measured by 3 different ER scoring methods: qualitative scoring (0–3+), the Allred score (0–10), and a computerized IHC index. Results: There was excellent agreement (r = 0.99) between observers using IHC as well as the different methods of measuring ER content (P < 0.001). ER-negative tumors had 18F-FES partial-volume-corrected standardized uptake values of less than 1.0, whereas ER-positive tumors had values above 1.1. Correlation coefficients for the different measures of ER content and the different measures of 18F-FES uptake ranged from 0.57 to 0.73, with the best correlation being between the computerized IHC index and 18F-FES partial-volume-corrected standardized uptake values. Conclusion: Our results showed good agreement between 18F-FES PET and ER expression measured by IHC. 18F-FES imaging may be a useful tool for aiding in the assessment of ER status, especially in patients with multiple tumors or for tumors that are difficult to biopsy.


The basic principles of operation of gas sensors based on solid-state galvanic cells are described. The polarisation of the electrodes can be minimised by the use of point electrodes made of the solid electrolyte, the use of a reference system with chemical potential close to that of the sample system and the use of graded condensed phase reference electrodes. Factors affecting the speed of response of galvanic sensors in equilibrium and non-equilibrium gas mixtures are considered with reference to products of combustion of fossil fuels. An expression for the emf of non-isothermal galvanic sensors and the criterion for the design of temperature compensated reference electrodes for non-isothermal galvanic sensors are briefly outlined. Non-isothermal sensors are useful for the continuous monitoring of concentrations or chemical potentials in reactive systems at high temperatures. Sensors for oxygen, carbon, and alloying elements (Zn and Si) in liquid metals and alloys are discussed. The use of auxiliary electrodes permits the detection of chemical species in the gas phase which are not mobile in the solid electrolyte. Finally, the cause of common errors in galvanic measurements, and tests for correct functioning of galvanic sensors are given. 60 ref.--AA


Parking lot allocation problem has received much attention in recent years. There have been various works in the literature that target the parking slot allocation problem. However, most of these works use algorithms that run on centralized servers and are based on some predictions on historical data. Due to the dynamic nature of vehicular networks, the accuracy of such prediction models is not high which ends up in a chaotic situation for the parking lot owners as well as the vehicle owners. Therefore, a distributed Parking slot Allocation Framework based on Adaptive Pricing Algorithm and Virtual Voting is proposed in this paper. The proposed model is based on virtual voting and hashgraph consensus algorithm. Using the model, all users and parking lot owners can easily come to consensus finality about the allocation of a parking slot with the use of minimal bandwidth. The proposed model provides a fair, fast and cost-optimal parking slot allocation method. The perfect ordering of allocation requests is also maintained based on consensus timestamp. Further, an adaptive pricing model is proposed to enhance the overall revenue of the parking lot owners and comfort of the users. The proposed model is deterministic and can reduce the average parking cost and time. Performance evaluations reveal that the proposed model outperforms its counterparts in terms of accurate parking slot allocation, reduced cost and parking lot resource utilization.


Grammaticalization processes in East and mainland South East Asian languages show remarkable areal parallels within the domain of the verb and the noun. Since language contact increases processes of reanalysis it supports grammaticalization and its cross-linguistic similarity. Grammaticalization processes are governed by attractor positions (cf. 1.1.3.) and pathways of grammaticalization (cf. 1.1..4.). The former is a good parameter for making areal distinctions, the latter is of areal relevance only within the domain of the verb. Because of attractor positions, grammaticalization processes are not necessarily slow and gradual. The distribution of attractor positions relative to each other is governed by the principles of relevance and generality (Bybee 1985).


A total of 16 reed gages of a design which had previously been used in Operations Plumbob, Hardtack, Hardtack II, and Nougat were installed in the Small Boy Event. These gages recorded horizontal and vertical displacement shock spectra at four stations between 185 feet and 290 feet of ground zero. Some gages were placed at the surface and others at 10-foot depth. All gages yielded readable records and data is presented in both tabulated and chart form. The gages 10 feet below the surface showed a marked attenuation at high frequencies but very little attenuation of horizontal shock at frequencies below 50 cps and of vertical shock at frequencies below 25 cps. A peak was noted in horizontal acceleration be tween 90 and 150 cps at the surface and between 50 and 90 cycles at 10-foot depth. No similar peaks were noted in the vertical acceleration. Examination of the data presented indicated that no simple scaling was possible for the ground shock which occurred. This data will have to be studied with other shock spectra data so that it may be properly weighed, and quantitative scaling rules derived.


Algebraic multigrid (AMG) is one of the most efficient algorithms for solving large sparse linear systems on unstructured grids. Classical coarsening schemes such as the standard Ruge-Stuben method [14] can lead to adverse effects on computation time and memory usage that affect scalability. Memory and execution time complexity growth is remedied for various large three-dimensional problems using the parallel modified independent set (PMIS) coarsening strategy developed by De Sterck, Yang, and Heys [18]. However, this coarsening strategy often leads to erratic grids without a regular structure that diminish convergence. This thesis looks at two modifications of the PMIS algorithm that aim to improve scalability. These include a greedy implementation of PMIS and restricting PMIS coarsening to finer grid levels while Cleary-Jones-Luby-Plassman coarsening (based on the standard Ruge-Stuben method) is performed on all other grids. It is shown that, for a variety of problems, the greedy PMIS algorithm does little to improve convergence, while the second modification can improve convergence. However, it is also shown that the second modification can result in increased memory usage that is unfavorable to scalability. The PMIS based algorithm can be improved by redefining interpolation. As shown by De Sterck and Yang [17], PMIS coarsening combined with F-F interpolation dramatically improves convergence, but often has negative effects on computation time per iteration and memory usage that affect scalability. A third modification is proposed that aims to remedy this problem by altering F-F interpolation. The new algorithm is called F-F1 interpolation, and is shown to reduce computation time per iteration and memory usage compared to F-F interpolation, while maintaining fast convergence and good scalability, for a variety of problems.


The use of various forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to aid the work of groups has spread quite rapidly and widely. This proposed research intends to examine the relationships between media richness/social presence, task equivocality, and social loafing as well as the influence of social loafing on group decision quality using a laboratory experimental approach. This paper reports the results from the pilot study of the proposed research. The main findings include that (1) CMC participants reported higher perceived loafing than FTF participants did, (2) CMC participants perceived both lower task equivocality and lower task interdependence, and (3) Participants doing the high equivocality task perceived lower feedback immediacy.


Soil erosion, soil nutrient depletion and soil acidity associated to Aluminium (Al) toxicities are the main soil related constraints to agricultural development in many countries of sub-Sahara Africa. The lime plays an important role in improving soil acidity and hence favours plant nutrition. The aim of this study was to map out the available limestone deposits and to determine their selected quality. The selected quality of limestone (CaO, MgO and fineness factor) was analyzed using ethylene diamine tetraacetate (EDTA) method. The global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of limestone deposits were taken. The collected data were processed using Arc GIS 9. The fineness factor was determined by mechanically sieving the lime through a stag of 4 sieves of various aperture dimensions (2, 1, 0.5 and 0.2 mm). The map showed that the limestone deposits are scattered in Northern and Western provinces with more concentration in Northern region. Mpenge limestone had an average of 40% ±4.2 of CaO and 3% ±0.9 of MgO. However, its fineness factor of 63% ±2.01 found to be in good range. Gishyita deposit was heterogeneous in CaCO3, its CaO was 50% ± 20.02 indicating high variability within mines where CaO reached < 30%. Mashyuza deposit in Rusizi region had 50% ±3.4 of CaO and moderate MgO of 3% ±0.6. However, its fineness factor was 55.6% ±1.6 .The difference in lime quality observed in this study was possibly due to the origin of limestone rocks. However, the fineness factors were below the acceptable level because of non-additional grinding and lack of technological skills in producing lime. Therefore, this study recommends the use of grounded limestone after fine grinding.

 Key words: Limestone deposit sites, CaO, MgO, fineness factor.


We present a universal set of quantum gate operations based on exchange-only spin qubits in a double quantum dot, where each qubit is obtained by three electrons in the (2,1) filling. Gate operations are addressed by modulating electrostatically the tunneling barrier and the energy offset between the two dots, singly and doubly occupied respectively. We propose explicit gate sequences of single qubit operations for arbitrary rotations, and the two-qubit controlled NOT gate, to complete the universal set. The unswitchable interaction between the two electrons of the doubly occupied quantum dot is taken into account. Short gate times are obtained by employing spin density functional theory simulations.


Anthracnose fruit rot is a serious limiting factor in the
production and yield of fresh chillies (Capsicum annuum L.) in
Peninsular Malaysia. Isolates obtained from diseased chilli
fruits collected in various localities in the country yielded
the fungus, Colletotrichum capsici (Syd.) Butler & Bisby.
Pathogenicity studies on mature chilli fruits confirmed
that C. capsici could produce typical elliptical or oblong
straw-coloured lesions on the fruit surface with subsequent
development of black acervuli in concentric rings. Comparison
of isolates on potato dextrose agar showed that all the
isolates were relatively similar in cultural and morphological characteristics. Germination of conidia occurred 3-4 hours
after plating on chilli agar medium. Branching of germtubes
occurred between 16-24 hour s after germination. The fungus grew
over a wide range of hydrogen-ion concentrations (between pH
3.0 and pH 10.0) with optimum between pH 7.0 and pH 9.5.
Acervuli formation and development was more evident on alkaline
medium than on acidic medium. Optimum temperature for mycelial growth was between 25˚C and 32˚C. The minimum and maximum temperatures for visible growth were l0˚C and 45˚C ,
respectively.


Despite its typical responsiveness to technological advances, copyright law has not kept pace with the emergence of the director as the primary player in American theater, leaving the contributions of this essential, creative artist without recognition or protection. Because work must be original, authored, and fixed to warrant copyright protection, critics cite the lack of fixation in live theater as a fatal obstacle to protection. This Note contends that stage direction is not only original and authored, but that contemporary legislative and judicial dilution of the fixation requirement has led to a doctrinal framework flexible enough to render stage direction copyrightable as a derivative work. This Note first traces the history and purpose of the Copyright Act and its requirement that work be "fixed in any tangible medium of expression." It then explores the relationship between copyright law and theater directing. Finally, this Note considers solutions to the issue of the intellectual property rights of stage directors and argues that, given the lack of robustness in the fixation doctrine, the staging of a play is sufficiently fixable to warrant protection under the Copyright Act.


A cross-sectional study was conducted for assessing the prevalence of and risk factors associated with Cryptosporidium parvum in diarrheic children who were hospitalized in Goiânia, capital of Goiás State in Brazil. A crude prevalence of 14.4% (64 of 445) was observed using a direct immunfluorescent assay (DFA), but the true prevalence was 18.7% (83 of 445) when a gold standard of immunomagnetic separation was used in combination with the DFA. Infection was more predominant in children less than 24 months old (odds ratio [OR] = 0.50, 90% confidence interval [CI] = 0.36-0.68, P = 0.0001), and males were 2.2 times more at risk for infection when compared with females (OR = 2.2. 90% CI = 0.13-3.8, P = 0.01). The socioeconomic, intra-familial, and environmental factors associated with cryptosporidiosis were day care attendance, household children with diarrhea up to 30 days prior to the interview, contact with surface water within past 30 days prior to the interview, dwelling distance from a body of water, and the late rainy season (P < 0.10). C. parvum was not associated with the parent's occupation, household sleeping arrangements, number of caregivers, breast-fed children, diet and type of food hygiene, source and type of treatment of drinking water, presence of sewage, and animal exposure (P > 0.10). Although weight was not found to be associated with infection, children infected with C parvum weighed on average 2.0% less than children not infected with C. parvum (P > 0.10). Thus, C. parvum is an important etiologic agent of childhood diarrhea and should be identified in routine parasitologic tests of diarrheal stool samples.


This article analyses the complex cultural politics of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It focuses on how AIDS 'dissident' science impacted on policy discourses and how AIDS activists, together with scientists, the media and health professionals, responded. It also shows how the HIV/AIDS debate and struggles over access to treatment were framed by historically embedded cultural and political interpretations of AIDS that were a product of South Africa's apartheid and post-apartheid history. However, rather than adopting a cultural nationalist response to this historical legacy, activists from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) deployed a class-based politics that concentrated on access to anti-retroviral drugs rather than debates on the complexities of AIDS causation. This approach contrasts with attempts by AIDS activists in the United States to influence the production of scientific knowledge on AIDS directly, for example, research funding and protocols for trials. The article discusses how TAC and its partner organisation, Medicins Sans Frontières (MSF - Doctors without Borders), strategically positioned themselves in the struggle for access to AIDS drugs, and how new forms of health citizenship, gendered identities and political subjectivities emerged in the course of these struggles. For example, ideas of bodily autonomy associated with liberal individualist conceptions of citizenship collided with patriarchal cultural ideas and practices that prevent many women from accessing biomedical interventions (for example, contraception, HIV testing and treatment). The biomedical paradigm that underpinned TAC/ MSF campaigns also had to contend with local understandings of misfortune and illness. While TAC's strategies included networking with global civil society organisations such as MSF, Health Gap, and Oxfam, they also involved grassroots mobilisation and an engagement with local socio-cultural realities. This brand of health activism produced solidarities that straddled local, national and global spaces, resembling what Arjun Appadurai and others describe as 'globalisation from below'.


Resilience is a person's general ability that is used to cope with the pressures, someone said resilient if they have the ability to interact with the surrounding environment, problem-solving skills, self-reliant, have a purpose in life, and has a religious flavor. One factor that may affect the success possible for someone to be resilient is the type of personality. This type of personality trait is a permanent tendency, disposition or character of someone who can be seen from their behavior, resilience is needed, especially for those who work as nurses. Because nurses are one of the professions that are vulnerable to the occurrence of the pressures. Success or failure of nurses in adjusting themselves to the various demands of their environment both physically and psychologically not be separated from the existing characteristics in his personality type. Characteristics that exist in the type of personality and characteristics of resilience is an important factor and closely related to their success is possible to overcome the problems that arise in their profession as a nurse. The research design used in this research is non-experimental research with this type of comparative quantitative research. Where is the independent variable (X) is a type of personality and dependent variable (Y) is resilience. Instrumenyang use the form Eysenck Personality Inventory test instrument (EPI) and Likert type scale resilience, data analysis using t-test and description of the data using a t-score. This study was conducted on April 25 to May 9, 2006 at nurses working in hospitals Gambiran Kediri. From the analysis and description of the data in this study indicate that, there is a very signifikat = (t = 3224, p = 0.002 <0.01) between personality type ekstrovet and introverted personality type in terms of resilience are recognized. This means nurses with ekstrovet personality type has a high resilience capacity dibandigkan with nurses who have introverted personality type. But there are also about 31% sebjek ekstrovet who have low resilience. This is possible because of each personality type has positive and negative characteristics that influence the resilience of each subject.


The aerial spraying operations in New Brunswick against the spruce budworm have involved large areas in which tree mortality was imminent. In working out practical methods of timing applications, consideration has been given to the protection of foliage as well as to the immediate reduction of budworm populations. Modifications in operational techniques to lower spraying costs and increase area coverage have necessitated earlier spraying and lighter dosages. Factors considered in the timing include severity of infestation and defoliation, probable amount of spraying weather available, phenological differences between areas, the feeding habits of the budworm, and the tendency of spray to drift. The assessment of development was accomplished mainly by ground studies at representative locations and extended to the area at large by aerial surveys of balsam fir shoot growth.An analysis is made of spraying effectiveness in relation to timing from field data collected for studying the immediate results. From thi...


In sub-Saharan Africa, risk of HIV infection was associated with increased education, mobility and income in studies completed before 1996. Some later studies found no association or a negative socioeconomic gradient in prevalent HIV infection. The social epidemiology of HIV infection among South African young people remains poorly understood. This study examined the association between socioeconomic factors and HIV risk among unmarried young people aged 14-25 years in rural South Africa in 2001. Some 916 males (73.6% of those eligible) and 1003 females (80.8%) were included in the study sample.
Households were ranked into those that were "very poor", "poor, but a bit better off" or "doing OK". Most young people attended school, though this was associated with increased wealth among the females. Those not attending school were mostly unemployed. Temporary migration was increasingly common with greater age but was not associated with household wealth. Low HIV awareness and risky sexual behaviour characteristics were widespread. HIV prevalence was 5.6% among males and 12.2% among females.
Household wealth was not associated with HIV risk except that young women from wealthier households more often reported condom use. Those attending school of both sexes reported lower numbers of sexual partners than those not attending. Young women attending school reported partnerships with lower frequency of intercourse, men closer in age to themselves and higher levels of condom use. HIV prevalence was lowest among young men attending school. Temporary migrants of both sexes reported greater levels of HIV awareness than those staying at home, while female migrants also reported more condom use.
In this study, young people were at high risk of HIV infection, particularly those not attending school. Young people remaining in rural areas were also at high risk of new infection. Programmes that reach these young people and increase educational opportunities might help reduce HIV infection rates.


This paper proposes a novel neural architecture — Attentive Tensor Product Learning (ATPL) — to represent grammatical structures of natural language in deep learning models. ATPL exploits Tensor Product Representations (TPR), a structured neural-symbolic model developed in cognitive science, to integrate deep learning with explicit natural language structures and rules. The key ideas of ATPL are: 1) unsupervised learning of role-unbinding vectors of words via the TPR-based deep neural network; 2) the use of attention modules to compute TPR; and 3) the integration of TPR with typical deep learning architectures including long short-term memory and feedforward neural networks. The novelty of our approach lies in its ability to extract the grammatical structure of a sentence by using role-unbinding vectors, which are obtained in an unsupervised manner. Our ATPL approach is applied to 1) image captioning, 2) part of speech (POS) tagging, and 3) constituency parsing of a natural language sentence. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in all these three natural language processing tasks.


GULMEZOGLU, N., O. ALPU and E. OZER, 2010. Comparative performance of triticale and wheat grains by using path analysis. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 443-453 The objectives of this study were to compare released triticale cultivars in terms of grain yield, plant height, protein and spike characters with bread and durum wheat and to evaluate the usefulness of path coefficient analysis for interrelationships among characters determining grain yield in triticale, bread and durum wheat in two locations. It was found that grain yield of triticale was statistically significant higher than that of durum wheat; however, triticale and bread wheat nearly had the same yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed that grain yield of triticale depended on the effect of four yield components (plant height, grain number per spike and thousand grain weight was positive and protein was negative) whereas grain yield of bread and durum wheat was due mainly to plant height, length of spike, protein, in addition to these, spike weight for durum wheat. Even though the effect of spike weight was positive, plant height and protein had a negative effect on the grain yield of durum wheat.