Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has become a popular tool for acquiring source data points which can be used to construct digital elevation models (DEMs) for a wide number of applications. A TLS point cloud often has a very fine spatial resolution, which can represent well the spatial variation of a terrain surface. However, the uncertainty in DEMs created from this relatively new type of source data is not well understood, which forms the focus of this letter. TLS survey data representing four terrain surfaces of different characteristics were used to explore the effects of surface complexity and typical TLS data density (in terms of data point spacing) on DEM accuracy. The spatial variation in TLS data can be decomposed into parts corresponding to the signal of spatial variation (of terrain surfaces) and noise due to measurement error. We found a linear relation between the DEM error and the typical TLS data spacings considered (30-100 mm) which arises as a function of the interpolation error, and a constant contribution from the propagated data noise. This letter quantifies these components for each of the four surfaces considered and shows that, for the interpolation method considered here, higher density sampling would not be beneficial.


ATypI 18 Antwerp Type Legacies ConferenceThe True source of the Sanshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz5X9my_X5QPublished online January 2019[Play, and Listen online to the Presentation while studying the Slides on Figshare. Or download the low-res Presentation with presenter notes .pdf]Abstract. The search for the origin of today's commercial sans serif typography has become something of a "holy grail" for type historians. The earliest known example of a deliberately geometrical "serifless" letterform was confirmed back in the late 1990s, on a plan-drawing title block for a new parliamentary building. It was produced whilst on the grand tour by the architect John Soane. Duly exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779, it marked the start of Soane's utilising this then-radical letterform on his design drawings and for inscriptions on buildings. Prior to Soane's exhibited "Design for a British Senate House," there is a void. Scholars are aware that the sans serif originates within the letterforms of Greece and the informal inscriptions of the Roman Empire. But what inspired Sir John Soane to use it, for what appears to be the very first time? Type designer and academic Jon Melton reveals his extensive research and evidence of "The True Source of the Sans" within a condensed paper that generates a new chapter in type-design history and launches Fount Sans1756, a revival typeface of the 18th century, the legacy for all the countless sans serif fonts today.[Contextual Narative] "Francesco Piranesi led Soane down the hall towards his father's studios and busy workshops at the back of the Palazzo Tomati, a large house just up from The Spanish Steps on Strada Felice (late known as Via Sestina). Passing a partially open door, our English architect caught sight of a woman in her early twenties engaged in engraving who appeared distraught. "Laura" Francesco exclaimed abruptly, "soon to be married". Piranesi's family were very much part of the business. Senior Piranesi had greeted Soane upon his arrival in Rome earlier in the Summer of 1778 but the great man was not in good health and had not been able to meet with him on this occasion. But Francesco his son, had been charged with accommodating Soane's request for his design of a British Senate House to be drawn up for presentation and submission to the Royal Academy in London. As the gold medal winning scholar on tour, Soane was looking to impress and demonstrate his progressive knowledge of the neoclassical and that he was developing as a worthy architect. He was led to Piranesi's library and print room where they would conduct business and discuss the fee. Soane had every confidence in the ability of Francesco to render the elevation drawing to the desired high standards of the Academicians but hesitated about what to do about the design for the Plan with a 'C' shaped colonnade that referenced that of St Peter's Square. It required fresh inspiration. Obligingly, Francesco directed Soane towards a drawer of prints that were first published in 1756, some 20 years earlier – the Antichita Romane. These were from a book that Soane had been familiar with whilst working with the architect George Dance and during his studies at the RA. Giovanni Battista Piranesi's genius at capturing both the structural magnificence and contextual romanticism of the antiquities of Rome was second to none. Having spread a number of prints on the large library table, Soane's eye was drawn to the plan design for a Nymphaeum built for Emperor Nero — and what appeared to be two title blocks in the form of inscriptional Roman stone fragments. But the lettering was in a manner Soane had never seen before; deliberately geometric, constructional, and highly rational. Perhaps the perfect proportions for the modern Neo-classical."Research Question(s): What is the source that inspired Soane, and an eighteenth century serif-less letterform? What influenced a young John Soan[e] on the Grand Tour to include two tabula ansata title blocks with the then, radical serif-less near mono-line and geometric lettering on his drawing for submission to the The Royal Academy's summer exhibition of 1779? And who executed the plan drawing titled 'Design for a British Senate House'? Was this 'modern' sans serif lettering informed by Graeco-Romano inscriptions, or earlier archaic serif-less Roman scripts?https://www.atypi.org/conferences/antwerp-2018/programme/speaker?s=Mr Jon MeltonResearch Website:http://emfoundry.com


We investigate the existence of the principal-agent (PA) problem in non-government, non-mall commercial buildings in the U.S. in 2003. The analysis concentrates on space heating and cooling energy consumed by centrally installed equipment in order to verify whether a market failure caused by the PA problem might have prevented the installation of energy-efficient devices in non-owner-occupied buildings (efficiency problem) and/or the efficient operation of space-conditioning equipment in these buildings (usage problem). Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) 2003 data for single-owner, single-tenant and multi-tenant occupied buildings were used for conducting this evaluation. These are the building subsets with the appropriate conditions for assessing both the efficiency and the usage problems. Together, these three building types represent 51.9percent of the total floor space of all buildings with space heating and 59.4percent of the total end-use energy consumption of such buildings; similarly, for space cooling, they represent 52.7percent of floor space and 51.6percent of energy consumption. Our statistical analysis shows that there is a usage PA problem. In space heating it applies only to buildings with a small floor area (<_50,000 sq. ft.). We estimate that in 2003 it accounts for additional site energy consumption of 12.3 (+ 10.5 ) TBtu (primary energy consumption of 14.6 [+- 12.4] TBtu), corresponding to 24.0percent (+- 20.5percent) of space heating and 10.2percent (+- 8.7percent) of total site energy consumed in those buildings. In space cooling, however, the analysis shows that the PA market failure affects the complete set of studied buildings. We estimate that it accounts for a higher site energy consumption of 8.3 (+-4.0) TBtu (primary energy consumption of 25.5 [+- 12.2] TBtu), which corresponds to 26.5percent (+- 12.7percent) of space cooling and 2.7percent (+- 1.3percent) of total site energy consumed in those buildings.


Doxorubicin (DOX), one of the most commonly used anticancer medications, has been reported to affect fertility by damaging ovarian follicles; however, the dose-dependent toxicity of DOX on the dynamic follicle development and oocyte maturation has not been well-defined. Our objective is to determine the effects of human-relevant exposure levels of DOX on follicular functions across developmental time. In vitro cultured multilayered secondary mouse follicles were treated with DOX at 0, 2, 20, 100, and 200 nM for 24 h, and follicle development, hormone secretion, and oocyte maturation were analyzed. DOX caused dose-dependent toxicity on follicle growth, survival, and secretion of 17β-estradiol (E2). At 200 nM, DOX induced DNA damage and apoptosis in follicle somatic cells first and then in oocytes, which was correlated with the uptake of DOX first to the somatic cells followed by germ cells. Follicles treated with DOX at 0, 2, and 20 nM showed similar oocyte metaphase II (MII) percentages after in vitro oocyte maturation; however, 20 nM DOX significantly increased the number of MII oocytes with abnormal spindle morphology and chromosome misalignment. In an effort to harmonize the in vitro study to in vivo treatment, dose-dependent toxicity on oocyte meiotic maturation was found in 16-day-old CD-1 mice treated with DOX at 0, 0.4, 2, and 10 mg/kg, consistent with the in vitro oocyte maturation outcomes. Our study demonstrates that DOX has dose-dependent toxicity on ovarian follicle development, hormone secretion, and oocyte maturation, which are three key factors to support the female reproductive and endocrine functions.


Over the past several decades there has been an explosion of interest in genetics and genetic inheritance within both the research community and the mass media. The science of genetics now forecasts great advances in alleviating disease and prolonging human life, placing the family and kin group under the spotlight. In Experiencing the New Genetics, Kaja Finkler argues that the often uncritical presentation of research on genetic inheritance as well as the attitudes of some in the biomedical establishment contribute to a "genetic essentialism," a new genetic determinism, and the medicalization of kinship in American society. She explores some of the social and cultural consequences of this phenomenon. Finkler discovers that the new genetics can turn a healthy person into a perpetual patient, complicate the redefinition of the family that has been occurring in American society for the past few decades, and lead to the abdication of responsibility for addressing the problem of unhealthy environmental conditions. Experiencing the New Genetics will assist scholars and general readers alike in making sense of this timely and multifaceted issue.


The aim of this thesis was the application and establishment of a semi-synthetic,
bioengineered model system for ovarian cancer and a naturally based, optimised hydrogel
system for non-invasive high resolution microscopy analysis of plasma membrane dynamics in
a physiological relevant microenvironment.
Providing ex vivo models for cancer research with physiologically relevant 3D conditions
combined with controllable physical and chemical composition is an ongoing challenge in the
field of tissue engineering and cell biology. In this study a semi-synthetic GelMA-based
hydrogel system was successfully applied to the study of ovarian cancer cells. Thereby GelMA
provided a biomaterial approach combining natural binding and cleavage sites with tuneable
properties in an easy to handle and cost-effective hydrogel system. Using this model system,
the unique metastatic pattern of ovarian cancer, found in patients with late stage disease, was
replicated in vitro and in vivo. The polymer concentration (2.5-7% w/v) did directly impact
the hydrogel stiffness (0.5± 0.2 kPa – 8.9 kPa ± 1.8 kPa) but had only minor impact on
solute diffusion. Diffusion of FITC labelled 70 kDa dextran was in all tested hydrogels
(2.5-7% w/v; 29.9±3.3 till 16.9 μm2/s) close to the diffusion coefficient measured in water
(39.2 ± 2.8 μm2/s). In the stiffest tested hydrogel the diffusion coefficient was decreased by
only 2.3 times. Spheroid formation, occurring in the tumour fluid (ascites) of ovarian cancer
patients with late stage disease, combined with the highest metabolic and proliferation rates
was reflected in medium stiff hydrogels (5%, 3.4 kPa). Inhibition of hydrogel degradation,
with a MMP inhibitor, reduced spheroid growth and metabolic activity. Additional ECM
components, Laminin-411 and hyaluronic acid increased spheroid growth, metabolic and
proliferation activity significantly. Furthermore this hydrogel system allowed bio-molecular
analysis of mRNA and protein levels. Ovarian cancer cells showed an increased mRNA level of
integrin β1 compared to monolayer or other 3D cultures. Next to the ex vivo experiments it
was shown that GelMA-based hydrogels can be successfully used as spheroid-based cancer cell
carrier system for in vivo studies. Spheroid-seeded hydrogels were intraperioteneally
implanted into female NOD/SCID mice, resulting in tumour development and metastasis,
known from the clinical sequence of the disease. The developed tumours showed a response
rate of 33% to the anti-cancer drug paclitaxel, but not the integrin antagonist ATN-161.
Combined treatment using both therapeutics resulted in 37.8% treatment response, while
treatment with ATN-161 alone had no effect.Collagen-based hydrogel systems are widely used for investigations of cell-ECM crosstalk;
however, they often lack reproducible, well characterised properties and are mostly not
suitable for high resolution microscopy. A small volume collagen-based hydrogel system
provided a 3D cell culture model utilised for high resolution microscopy approaches with
optimised sample properties, such as sample immobilisation and minimised sample thickness.
This study provided evidence of an alternative fluorescent labelling of collagen fibres after
hydrogel polymerisation with E133 and Sirius Red. In particular E133 was a cost and timeeffective
staining method, compatible with single photon CLSM and simultaneous cell-ECM
imaging. Diffusion through collagen-based hydrogels was affected by surface properties of the
diffusive particles rather than a size exclusive filtering. Carboxylated mircospheres (O 20 nm)
did not diffuse through the hydrogel pores; they showed a high binding affinity towards
collagen fibres. Also after 72 h, a gradient from the outer hydrogel parts to the centre was
observable. This small volume collagen-based hydrogel system allowed culture of 4 different
cell lines, showing high cell viability and being suitable for short and long term cultures.
Compared to 2D cultures, adherent cell lines showed a different morphology in 3D, while
non-adherent K562 cells did not show a morphological change. Studies on COS7 cells showed
that next to morphology also cytoskeleton organisation was a function of the local
microenvironment. In contrast, no differences in the intracellular organelle organisation
between cells cultured in 2D or 3D was observed. Additionally this small volume collagenbased
hydrogel system was suitable for single molecule microscopy measurements using the
lipid like tracer molecule CellMask™Orange; a specific probe for plasma membrane labelling
without biological function. This model system, combined with confined HILO excitation and
a customised algorithm allowed single molecule microscopy also in a more complex, 3D
microenvironment.
Overall it was shown that mimicking a more natural, bioengineered microenvironment in a
realistic experimental model can deepen the understanding of cancer cell behaviour and
reaction to anti-cancer treatment. Moreover a 3D microenvironment does not exclude
quantitative molecular assessment using single molecule microscopy, but therefore model
system and analysis methods had to be adapted to this more complex situation.


The paper presents a new device for analog optical links, the balanced electroabsorption modulator, to allow the simultaneous cancellation of laser relative intensity noise, all even-order distortions, and third order intermodulation. The RF photonic link employing the new balanced modulator shows great improvement in the overall link performance with respect to conventional links using a single electroabsorption modulator. Moreover, it favorably compares with the to date highest performance links employing lithium niobate cross-coupled Mach-Zehnder modulators, proving itself an enabling technology for placement of all-semiconductor radio-frequency lightwave transmitters in high performance analog fiber optic links.


In many European countries offshore windfarm projects are accompanied by obligatory
environmental impact assessments, including baseline monitoring of the marine benthos and
demersal fish. The effects of offshore windfarm developments on the benthic system are complex.
However, legal baseline monitoring merely allows for net effect descriptions but not for identifying
and understanding the underlying processes. Instead, key processes should be identified and
become subject to hypotheses‐based target monitoring and/or experimental studies in order to
make environmental impact assessments more efficient and reduce duplication internationally. We
compiled an overview over the anthropogenic activities associated with the construction and
operation of offshore windfarms and identified cause–effect relationship to facilitate the
development of specific hypotheses. We expect offshore windfarming activities to modify the geomorphological
and hydrodynamic environment at different temporal and spatial scales. The
environmental effects will have consequences for the behaviour and physiology of benthic
organisms, including demersal fish, restructuring natural local populations and communities.
Major effects on biological production, biogeochemical processes, as well as on structure and
function related to biodiversity, are expected from the massive colonization of the artificial
underwater constructions by a specific hard‐bottom fauna which is naturally missing in soft
sedimentary habitats. Understanding the mechanisms behind these changes is a priority for
assessing and predicting the ecological implications for the benthic system. Such predictions may
help to develop science‐based mitigation actions.


Corrosion behaviour of mild steel in 1M Phosphoric acid with Bacampcillin as corrosion inhibitor has been studied by using weight loss, Potentiodynamic polarization, Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, Hydrogen permeation and diffuse reflectance spectroscopic studies. All these techniques reveal that inhibition efficiency increases with the increase in the concentration of inhibitor. Polarization studies indicated that inhibitor behaved as cathodic inhibitor. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy confirmed the adsorption of inhibitor on the mild steel surface obeying Langmuir adsorption isotherm. A Gaussian simulation technique was used to track the quantum mechanical analysis and recognized correlations between different types of descriptors and measured corrosion inhibition efficiency for inhibitor. The quantum chemical analysis demonstrates the inhibition efficiencies of the compound determined by electrochemical methods.


The purpose of this study was to understand general education teachers' experiences with a school-wide effort to increase the use of evidence-based teaching practices that were highlighted through a professional development workshop in evidence-based reading instruction. A qualitative case study method was used to describe the experiences of five kindergarten and first grade teachers with a professional development program that was part of a school improvement initiative in early reading. The conceptual framework for this study combined a constructivist approach to understanding teachers' experiences with an interpretivist approach based on a theoretical model of school change The sample of participants for this study included two groups of participants: five K-1 general elementary teachers from a rural elementary school and six instructional leaders working in the district where that school is located. The three data sources for this study were documents, interviews, and anecdotal field notes. The researcher used pattern matching, the preferred strategies for case study analysis. Coding procedures and a data analysis plan provided categories of information which formed the basis of the emerging themes of the study. Four recurring topics emerged from the analysis of the data. Theme 1: Teachers are committed professionals. Theme 2: Teachers do what they know how to do. Theme 3: Job-embedded professional development is essential for school change. Theme 4: Effective leaders provide high expectations and support. The implications of these findings for future practice and research are discussed.


BACKGROUND
Exercise has many benefits for women with uncomplicated pregnancies. However, poor exercise knowledge may contribute to problems or barriers that reduce a woman's level of exercise after becoming pregnant.

AIM
This study was performed to identify pregnancy exercise knowledge among pregnant women using latent class analysis and to examine the relationship between pregnancy exercise knowledge patterns and sociodemographic characteristics.

DESIGN
A descriptive, cross-sectional approach was used in this study.

METHODS
Participants were recruited from the prenatal outpatient departments of two hospitals and a certified prenatal center in Taipei, Taiwan. A total of 618 participants completed a pregnancy exercise knowledge test. The data were analyzed using WINMIRA and SPSS 20.0 software.

RESULTS
Two latent classes were identified based on exercise knowledge among pregnant women. The Accurate Knowledge group (n = 543, 87.9%), which had a higher latent trait for exercise knowledge (M = 1.31, SD = 0.94), was larger than the Limited Knowledge group (n = 75, 12.1%), which had a lower latent trait (M = -0.22, SD = 1.14). The principles of exercise for pregnant women, particularly the appropriate intensity and duration, may be difficult items for women in the Limited Knowledge group to understand. Women with Limited Knowledge had significantly lower education levels and greater rates of unemployment, multiparity, and miscarriage than women in the Accurate Knowledge group.

LINKING EVIDENCE TO ACTION
A two-class system for interpreting exercise knowledge among pregnant women is statistically supported. We believe that this study has evidence-based potential to help healthcare providers improve pregnant women's exercise knowledge as part of routine prenatal care to promote exercise.


First of all, I want to introduce LG Cable briefly. LG Cable produces not only cables but also various products like heat pipe, refrigerator, injection machine, etc. Since 2001, LG Cable has tried to enhance R&D processes and manufacturing processes by applying TRIZ. Therefore, LG Cable opened TRIZ education course and have taught full process of TRIZ to research engineers. And TRIZ has been adapted to practical engineering projects. Several successful results were achieved through co-work with TRIZ team and research engineers. For instance, the quality of Polymer Insulator and Heat Shrinkable Tube were improved dramatically. The tolerance of Heat Shrinkable Tube was relatively more than 7mm and the production speed was limited by the tolerance. Some solutions which satisfy production speed and quality were developed by TRIZ. And the tensile strength of Polymer Insulator was increased by TRIZ, too. In this paper, TRIZ applications and activities in LG Cable will be discussed with example of Heat Shrinkable Tube and full processes.


Eukaryotic initiation factor 4A‐3 (EIF4A3) is a core component of the exon junction complex (EJC). Abnormalities in EIF4A3 are associated with carcinogenesis. The present study aimed to determine the biological role of EIF4A3 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Our study is based on the analysis of HCC sequencing data from public databases. We first used the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis tool and ONCOMINE to analyze the EIF4A3 expression, and the results were validated in human clinical tissues by a quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction, Western blot, and immunohistochemical. Then, we used cBioPortal to identify EIF4A3 alterations and function networks. Finally, we created a network of genes that were positively correlated with EIF4A3 using LinkedOmics, and analyzed this network using Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses. For the genes identified, we also analyzed the relevant kinase and transcription factor target networks as well as the protein‐protein interaction networks. Our results show that EIF4A3 was overexpressed in HCC tissues in comparison with normal tissues, and high EIF4A3 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis. Analysis of the functional networks of genes that were co‐occurring with EIF4A3 amplification revealed connections with several chemokine signaling pathways. Furthermore, genes that positively correlated with EIF4A3 were mainly related to cell cycle and spliceosome pathways, several cell cycle regulatory kinases, and tumor‐associated transcription factors. Finally, crosslinking‐immunoprecipitation and high‐throughput sequencing (CLIP‐seq) data showed that EIF4A3 protein binds to multiple exon regions of the cell cycle regulatory genes cyclin‐dependent kinases 1 and 2 and transcription factor E2F1. Our study unveils potential biological networks in HCC and the pivotal role of EIF4A3 as a bridging protein, highlighting the need for an in‐depth study of EIF4A3 in carcinogenesis.


The pressure sensitivity of turbine meters is a well-observed phenomenon since the inception of these devices. Unfortunately, very little organized experimental data were available for study until recently. Due to the ever-rising energy costs, the natural gas industry is paying much more attention to improve the accuracy of natural gas flow measurement. The latest revision of the AGA No.7 report recommends that a turbine meter should be calibrated close to its intended operating conditions in order to minimize measurement error caused by pressure variation. This paper describes a novel approach in high-pressure turbine meter proving using carbon dioxide gas as a test medium. The concept of Reynolds number turbine meter proving is explained. Test data demonstrating the validity of the Reynolds number matching method are presented and the description of a high-pressure turbine meter calibration facility based on this new technology is given.


A new robust neuro-fuzzy controller for autonomous and intelligent robot manipulators in dynamic and partially known environments containing moving obstacles is presented. The navigation is based on a fuzzy technique for the idea of artificial potential fields (APFs) using analytic harmonic functions. Unlike the fuzzy technique, the development of APFs is computationally intensive. A computationally efficient processing scheme for fuzzy navigation to reasoning about obstacle avoidance using APF is described, namely, the intelligent dynamic motion planning. An integration of a robust controller and a modified Elman neural networks (MENNs) approximation-based computed-torque controller is proposed to deal with unmodeled bounded disturbances and/or unstructured unmodeled dynamics of the robot arm. The MENN weights are tuned online, with no off-line learning phase required. The stability of the overall closed-loop system, composed by the nonlinear robot dynamics and the robust neuro-fuzzy controller, is guaranteed by the Lyapunov theory. The purpose of the robust neuro-fuzzy controller is to generate the commands for the servo-systems of the robot so it may choose its way to its goal autonomously, while reacting in real-time to unexpected events. The proposed scheme has been successfully tested. The controller also demonstrates remarkable performance in adaptation to changes in manipulator dynamics. Sensor-based motion control is an essential feature for dealing with model uncertainties and unexpected obstacles in real-time world systems.


Environmental fluctuations shape biofilm formation in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) and therefore distributed water quality. Yet the comprehensive performance in response to complex environmental conditions remains unclear. We investigated biofilm formation and distributed water quality under various nutrients, including chlorine concentrations and hydrodynamic conditions. Results showed that environmental fluctuations collectively induced changes in microbial propoagation were mostly associated with turbidity variations, concentrations of total organic carbon, NH4+-N and soluble phosphorus compared to the other parameters. Fuzzy pattern recognition analysis integrating multiple water quality indicators revealed that low nutrient availability and addition of mild chlorine at 0.50 mg/L at 0.50 m/s flow velocity were the most favorable conditions screened for optimized comprehensive performance, while nutrient supplements yielded significant performance deterioration. With these quantitative estimation, it offers new insights into advanced understanding of the system performance responding to often complex environmental fluctuations, essential for optimized design and practical functioning of DWDSs.


All children need to grow up with a sense of belonging and security in order to maintain healthy relationships later in life (Erikson, 1969:239; McWhirten, 2007:189; Toerien, 2001:31). Belonging is a basic human need that has to be met before certain other needs, such as self-actualisation and self-esteem, can be fulfilled (Erikson, 1969:238; Maslow, 1970:43; Max-Neef, 1991:33). A lack of a sense of belonging leads to feelings of rejection, loneliness and an inability to engage in future relationships (Ding & Littleton, 2005:i). Children who do not experience this sense of belonging can easily become involved in gangster activities, promiscuity or substance dependence in order to secure a false sense of belonging (Brendtro, Brokenleg & Van Bockern, 2002:9). Ideally, this need for belonging should be fulfilled within the primary family situation. However, the reality is that many children in South Africa do not live in what is generally regarded as the primary family, namely a family with two parents (Holborn & Eddy, 2011:1), but come from fractured families. Children from fractured families in disadvantaged communities have more complex needs to be met in order to feel secure (Ding & Littleton, 2005:iii; Holborn & Eddy, 2011:7; Minuchin, Colapinto & Minuchin, 2007:10; Toerien, 2001:31; Yuen, 2005:7).


Patterning of the facial skeleton involves the precise deployment of thousands of genes in distinct regions of the pharyngeal arches. Despite the significance for craniofacial development, how genetic programs drive this regionalization remains incompletely understood. Here we use combinatorial labeling of zebrafish cranial neural crest-derived cells (CNCCs) to define global gene expression along the dorsoventral axis of the developing arches. Intersection of region-specific transcriptomes with expression changes in response to signaling perturbations demonstrates complex roles for Endothelin1 (Edn1) signaling in the intermediate joint-forming region yet a surprisingly minor role in ventral-most regions. Analysis of co-variance across multiple sequencing experiments further reveals clusters of coregulated genes, with in situ hybridization confirming the domain-specific expression of novel genes. We then performed mutational analysis of a number of these genes, which uncovered antagonistic functions of two new Edn1 targets, follistatin a (fsta) and emx2, in regulating cartilaginous joints in the hyoid arch. Our unbiased discovery and functional analysis of genes with regional expression in zebrafish arch CNCCs reveals complex regulation by Ednl and points to novel candidates for craniofacial disorders. Summary Statement Using zebrafish to purify distinct groups of embryonic cells, Askary et al. have created a detailed map of how thousands of genes are deployed to shape the developing face.


Xanthomonas albilineans (Xa) is a systemic, xylem-invading pathogen that causes sugarcane leaf scald. Leaf symptoms vary from a single, white, narrow, Vol. 99, No. 6 (Supplement), 2009 S111 sharply defined stripe to complete wilting and necrosis of infected leaves, leading to plant death. Xa produces the toxin albicidin that blocks chloroplast differentiation, resulting in disease symptoms. Albicidin is the only previously known pathogenicity factor in Xa, yet albicidin-deficient mutant strains are still able to efficiently colonize sugarcane. We used Tn5 (transposome) mutagenesis in an attempt to identify additional Xa pathogenicity factors. Sugarcane cultivar CP80-1743, moderately susceptible to leaf scald, was inoculated by the decapitation method with 780 independently derived Tn5 insertions in Florida strain XaFL07-1. Leaf scald symptoms were recorded on emerging leaves one month after inoculation, and stalk colonization by the pathogen was determined two months after inoculation. In addition to the previously identified albicidin biosynthetic gene cluster mutations, four new Tn5 mutants were identified that produced no or very few leaf symptoms. These mutants produced albicidin in vitro but did not efficiently colonize sugarcane stalks. The transposon insertion site of all four mutants was found to be located in Orf XALc_0557 of the Xa genome. This gene is predicted to encode an OmpA family outer membrane protein, a previously unrecognized and apparently essential pathogenicity factor in Xa.


type="main" xml:id="ajar12072-abs-0001"> The notion that global agricultural output needs to double by 2050 is oft repeated. Using a new International Agricultural Prospects (iAP) Model, to project global agricultural consumption and production, we find in favour of a future where aggregate agricultural consumption (in tonnes) increases more modestly, by around 69 per cent (1.3 per cent per year) from 2010 to 2050. The principal driver of this result is a deceleration in population growth in the decades ahead. Per capita income growth and changing demographics (generally ageing population) have significant but secondary roles in spurring growth in agricultural consumption, as does our projected growth in the use of agricultural feedstocks to meet the growth we envisage in biofuel demand. Worldwide (but not equally everywhere), crop yield growth has generally slowed over the past decade or so. Notwithstanding a projected continuance of this slowdown, the prospective improvements in crop productivity are still sufficient to reduce per capita cropland use, such that land devoted to crops would need to increase by less than 10 per cent. Even in our upper-bound (high-consumption) scenario, we estimate that there remains sufficient productive agricultural land to more than meet the demand without ploughing-in additional forest-dominated lands.


Transverse momentum (pT) spectra of pions, kaons, and protons up to pT=20GeV/c have been measured in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76TeV using the ALICE detector for six different centrality classes covering 0%–80%. The proton-to-pion and the kaon-to-pion ratios both show a distinct peak at pT≈3GeV/c in central Pb-Pb collisions that decreases for more peripheral collisions. For pT>10GeV/c, the nuclear modification factor is found to be the same for all three particle species in each centrality interval within systematic uncertainties of 10%–20%. This suggests there is no direct interplay between the energy loss in the medium and the particle species composition in the hard core of the quenched jet. For pT<10GeV/c, the data provide important constraints for models aimed at describing the transition from soft to hard physics.


Drug Discovery Partnership will Translate Basic Research into New Cancer Drug Candidates Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) has been selected as a comprehensive center in a new National Cancer Institute (NCI) Chemical Biology Consortium, an integrated network of chemical biologists, molecular oncologists and chemical screening centers. The consortium will establish a new paradigm in the use of public-private partnerships to translate knowledge from leading academic institutions into new drug treatments for patients with cancer. Both the La Jolla, Calif. campus of Burnham and its new Lake Nona campus in Orlando, Fla. will participate in the consortium. The highly collaborative program will use state-of-the-art communications, data-sharing and project management tools. The NCI seeks to coordinate their own drug discovery efforts with those of academic institutions and private-sector companies in order to expedite the development of promising new therapeutics for cancer and to speed their entry into oncologic practice. The strategy is to expand current NCI programs in personalized medicine by applying a collaborative approach to assemble the skills and resources necessary to identify and advance novel drug candidates in high-risk, under-represented areas of cancer biology. "Burnham's strategic focus for the past five years has been on building our capabilities in chemical genomics and drug discovery," said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of Burnham. "The Chemical Biology Consortium gives Burnham an additional platform to use our advanced technologies, some of which are virtually unprecedented in the not-for-profit research world. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this national effort to develop innovative cancer medicines of the future." The network allows scientists from around the country to use the expertise and resources of the screening centers to identify compounds that serve as research tools in the process of validating targets for more advanced drug discovery efforts. The NCI Chemical Biology Consortium, in which Burnham will partner as one of three comprehensive centers in the nation, will discover and refine compounds directed at cancer-relevant targets, advancing these potential therapies from the laboratory and into human clinical trials. In September 2008, Burnham was awarded a $98 million grant to establish one of four comprehensive national screening centers as part of the National Institute of Health's (NIH) Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network (MLPCN). Burnham's chemical genomics center recently received a gift of $10 million from philanthropist Conrad Prebys resulting in the renaming of the center to The Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. The Chemical Biology Consortium project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal Funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. NO1-CO-12400. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. About Burnham Institute for Medical Research Burnham Institute for Medical Research is dedicated to revealing the fundamental molecular causes of disease and devising the innovative therapies of tomorrow. Burnham, with operations in California and Florida, is one of the fastest growing research institutes in the country. The Institute ranks first worldwide for its research publications in the fields of biology and biochemistry for the past decade (citations per paper) and is among the top four institutions nationally for NIH grant funding. Burnham utilizes a unique, collaborative approach to medical research and has established major research programs in cancer, neurodegeneration, diabetes, infectious and inflammatory and childhood diseases. The Institute is known for its world-class capabilities in stem cell research and drug discovery technologies. Burnham is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation.


Objective Delayed hinge fracture (HF) that develops after cervical open door laminoplasty can be a source of postoperative complications such as axial pain. However, risk factors related to this complication remain unclear. We performed a retrospective clinical series to determine risk factors for delayed HF following plate-only open-door cervical laminoplasty. Methods Patients who underwent plate-only open-door laminoplasty and had available postoperative computed tomography (CT) scans (80 patients with 270 laminae) were enrolled. Hinge status, hinge gutter location, open location, hinge width, number of screws used, operation level, and open angle were observed in the CT to determine radiographic outcome. Demographic data were collected as well. Radiographic and clinical parameters were analyzed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis to determine the risk factors for HF. Results Univariate logistic regression analysis results indicated poor initial hinge status, medially placed hinge gutter, double screw fixation on the elevated lamina, upper surgical level, and wide open angle as predictors for HF (p<0.05). Initial hinge status seemed to be the most powerful risk factor for HF (p=0.000) and thus was collinear with other variables. Therefore, multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed excluding initial hinge status, and the results indicated that medially placed hinge gutter, double screw fixation on the elevated lamina, and upper surgical level were risk factors for HF after adjustment for other confounding factors. Conclusion To prevent HF and to draw a successful postoperative outcome after cervical laminoplasty, surgical and clinical precautions should be considered.


We describe a phase plate based on the fractional-Talbot effect that converts a single expanded laser beam into a regular array of uniformly illuminated apertures with virtually 100% efficiency. The size, spacing, and fill factor of the illuminated aperture grid can be freely chosen to interface with a variety of electro-optic devices. A binaryoptics phase plate is demonstrated that converts uniform illumination into an array of square illumination cells with a fill factor of 1/16.


The Zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha Pallas, is one of the most important fouling organisms in freshwater ecosystems. Infestations by Zebra mussels have caused chronic problems in both raw water(incoming water into facilities) intakes and man-made structures such as water treatment facilities, power plants and industrial facilities. In the mid-1980s, this pest, a species nonindigenous to North American freshwaters, was introduced into the Great Lakes of North America. This introduction probably occurred by means of the ballast water of a transoceanic ship, and concern has focused again on this nuisance and its impact. Recently, the Zebra mussel, a species native to Turkish freshwaters, has caused important technical and economic damage in Ataturk dam and hydropower plants built on the Euphrates River. Fouling by Zebra mussels will become an increasingly significant technical, economic and ecological problems in the Euphrates Basin in the near future. In this study, the general biology and potential impacts of the Zebra mussel are summarized and its impacts on engineered structures in the Euphrates Basin are emphasized.


This essay argues that the critical practice of New Historicism is a mode of "literary" history whose "literariness" lies in bringing imaginative operations closer to the surface of nonliterary texts and briefly describes some of the practice's leading literary features and strategies. I further point out that the ostensible "arbitrary connectedness" (Cohen 1987) of New Historicist writing is in fact aesthetically coded and patterned, both stylistically and in terms of potential semantic correspondences between various representations of the past. I then move on to address the question of why anecdotal evidence features centrally and has come to play a key role in New Historicist writing. Here, I contend that, as components of narrative discourse, anecdotal materials are central in enabling New Historicists to make discernible on the surface of their discourse procedures of meaning production typically found in literary forms. In particular, anecdotal materials are the fragmented "stuff" of historical narratization: they facilitate the shaping of historical events into stories and more or less formalized "facts." This essay examines how the New Historicist anecdote remodels historical reality "as it might have been," reviving the way history is experienced and concretely reproduced by contemporary readers of literary history. Finally, the essay confirms how the textual reproduction of anecdotal evidence also enables the New Historicist mode of "literary" history to secure its links to literary artifacts, literary scholarship, and conventional historical discourse.


Use of topical agents remained the primary mode of treatment of wound infections. The primary role of the use of topical agents in wounds is prevention and treatment of infections. Various topical agents are being used to treat wound infections. However, the safety and efficacy of many topical agents is a questionable issue. The commonly used topical agents are silver compounds, povidone-iodine, hydrogen peroxide, Dakin's solution, chloroxylenol, polyhexamethylene biguanide, mafenide acetate, chlorhexidine, etc. The studies show that many topical agents in current use would not satisfy all the criteria of ideal topical agents and need to be evaluated in terms of safety and efficacy, which varies as every topical agent has a different spectrum of antimicrobial activity and adverse effects. In view of this, an attempt has been made to review the safety and efficacy of commonly used topical agents used for the treatment of wound infections. The literature review shows that almost all topical agents are inhibitory to bacteria and other microorganisms. However, many of them have been found to be toxic to cells involved in the wound-healing process, especially in in-vitro studies. Although found highly toxic in in-vitro studies, the majority of them have been shown to be safe clinically and not to influence the process of wound healing negatively. © Medpharm Wound Healing Southern Africa 2019;12(1):34-37


We study the impact of mobile money transfers to a representative sample of low-income Ghanaians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement of the upcoming transfers affects neither consumption, well-being, nor social distancing. Once disbursed, transfers increase food expenditure by 8%, income by 20%, and a social distancing index by 0.08 standard deviations. Over 40% of the transfers were spent on food. The positive effects on income mostly persist at final measurement, eight months after the last transfer. Together, we learn that cash transfers can support households economically while also promoting adherence to public health protocols during a pandemic.


. Global ocean models that admit mesoscale turbulence spontaneously generate a substantial interannual-to-multidecadal chaotic intrinsic variability in the absence of atmospheric forcing variability at these timescales. This phenomenon is substantially weaker in non-turbulent ocean models but provides a marked stochastic flavor to the low- frequency variability in eddying ocean models, which are being coupled to the atmosphere for next-generation climate projections. In order to disentangle the atmospherically forced and intrinsic ocean variabilities, the OCCIPUT (OceaniC Chaos – ImPacts, strUcture, predicTability) project performed a long (1960–2015), large ensemble (50 members) of global ocean/sea ice 1/4° simulations driven by the same atmospheric reanalysis, but with perturbed initial conditions. Subsequent ensemble statistics show that the ocean variability can be seen as a broadband "noise," with characteristic scales reaching multiple decades and basin sizes, locally modulated by the atmospheric variability. In several mid-latitude regions, chaotic processes have more impact than atmospheric variability on both the low-frequency variability and the long-term trends of regional ocean heat content. Consequently, certain climate-relevant oceanic signals cannot be unambiguously attributed to atmospheric variability, raising new issues for the detection, attribution, and interpretation of oceanic heat variability and trends in the presence of mesoscale turbulence.


Objective: Local 50-deiodination of L-thyroxine (T4) to active thyroid hormone 3,30,5-tri-iodothyronine (T3) catalyzed by the two 5 0-deiodinase enzymes (D1 and D2) regulates various T3-dependent functions in the anterior pituitary and has been well studied in rodents. Only limited information about deiodinase expression and its cellular distribution in human anterior pituitaries is available. Design: We examined 50-deiodinase enzyme activities in pituitary adenomas (18 non-functioning, seven TSH-producing, one GHand TSH-producing, five GH-producing, eight prolactin (PRL)-producing, two adenomas each from patients with Cushing's disease and Nelson's syndrome) and three normal anterior pituitaries. Methods: Activities were measured as release of I from tyrosyl-ring labeled reverse T3 with or without propylthiouracil, a potent inhibitor of D1 which does not influence D2 activities. Results: Most of the adenomas and normal tissues expressed both isoenzymes, with D2 activity higher than D1. In a few tissues D1 activity was higher than D2 and some tissues did not express D1 activity at all. Highest activities of both enzymes were found in TSHand PRL-producing adenomas but absolute activities and the D1/D2 ratio were variable in the same kind of tumor in different patients. Conclusion: The finding that all examined tissues expressed 50-deiodinase activity, most of them expressing both isoenzymes, implies that both enzymes are still active in tumors and that local deiodination is important for the function and feedback regulation of human anterior pituitary. European Journal of Endocrinology 147 263–268


Biofuels development has received increased attention in recent times as a means to mitigate climate change, alleviate global energy concerns and foster rural development. Its perceived importance in these three areas has seen biofuels feature prominently on the international agenda. Nevertheless, the rapid growth of biofuels production has raised many concerns among experts worldwide, in particular with regard to sustainability issues and the threat posed to food security. The UN Secretary General, in his opening remarks to the High-level Segment of the 16th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, stated that: "We need to ensure that policies promoting biofuels are consistent with maintaining food security and achieving sustainable development goals."

Aware of a lack of integrated scientific analysis, OFID has commissioned this study, Biofuels and Food Security, which has been prepared by the renowned International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). This seminal research work assesses the impact on developing countries of wide-scale production and use of biofuels, in terms of both sustainable agriculture and food security. The unique feature of this study is that its quantified findings are derived from a scenario approach based on a peer reviewed modelling framework, which has contributed to the work of many scientific fora such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the United Nations (Climate Change and Agricultural Vulnerability, World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg).

One of the key conclusions of the study is that an accelerated growth of first-generation biofuels production is threatening the availability of adequate food supplies for humans, by diverting land, water and other resources away from food and feed crops. Meanwhile, the "green" contribution of biofuels is seen as deceptive, with mainly second-generation biofuels appearing to offer interesting prospects. Sustainability issues (social, economic and environmental), the impact on land use, as well as many risk aspects are amongst the key issues tackled in the research.

With the publication of this study, OFID seeks to uphold its time-honored tradition of promoting debate on issues of special interest to developing countries, including the OFID/OPEC Member States.


Trimen's false tiger moth, Agoma trimenii (Lepidoptera: Agaristidae), recently developed as a pest of grapevine in the Northern Cape and Limpopo (Groblersdal area) provinces of South Africa. Little is known about the biology of A. trimenii and control options are lacking. The aim of this study was to test the susceptibility of A. trimenii larvae and pupae to two locally isolated entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), Steinernema yirgalemense and Heterorhabditis noenieputensis , and two commercially available entomopathogenic fungi (EPF), Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana , under laboratory conditions. Larvae and pupae were screened for pathogenicity of the two nematode species, using a concentration of 100 infective juveniles (IJs)/50 μl of water. After 48 h, 100% mortality of the larval stage was found. However, no pupae were infected with EPNs. Larvae and pupae were screened for pathogenicity of the two EPF isolates by means of a dipping test, at a concentration of 0.2 ml/500 ml water and 0.5 g/500 ml water, respectively. Five days post-treatment, 100% larval mortality was recorded in comparison with no deaths in the controls. Overt mycosis was only observed in the case of M. anisopliae . However, in the case of pupae, no mortality was observed for both the nematode and the fungal applications. In future studies, the prepupal soil stage of A. trimenii should be screened for susceptibility to EPNs and EPF. The results of this study indicate the excellent potential of EPNs and EPF as biological control agents against the larvae of A. trimenii , especially for application to small areas with high infestation, without disrupting an integrated pest management programme.


A variety of palladated PCP pincer complexes are covalently tethered onto polymeric and silica supports via either amide or ether linkages and are evaluated in the Heck reaction of iodobenzene and n-butyl acrylate. The decomposition under reaction conditions of all complexes studied is established through poisoning and kinetic studies. Furthermore, the initial steps of the decomposition pathway of PCP as well as SCS pincer Pd(II) complexes are proposed and validated using in situ NMR, mass spectroscopy, and XAS as well as computational methods. These findings together with our previous reports strongly suggest that all Pd(II) pincer complexes are simply precatalysts during the Heck reaction that decompose to form catalytically active Pd(0) species.


A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi are among the leading tick-borne disease agents in the United States. Both agents are of veterinary and public health significance as dogs, cats, and human beings are known to be susceptible. B. burgdorferi and A. phagocytophilum are transmitted trans-stadially by either nymphs or adults of either the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) or the western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus). Little information is available regarding either the prevalences of these agents in cats or the dynamics of vector transmission. Four hundred and sixty feline blood samples from sites throughout the United States were assayed for antibodies to A. phagocytophilum using an indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA). Samples that were positive by IFA were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis to measure presence of bacterial DNA. In an attempt to determine the minimum transmission times of A. phagocytophilum and B burgdorferi, wild caught adult I. scapularis ticks were applied to cats and removed at 8, 16, 24, and 36 hours after attachment. Blood was collected on days 42, 56, 72, 84 and 98 after tick removal and examined using both IFA and PCR. Biopsies were collected from sites of tick attachment and examined for A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi-specific DNA by PCR procedures. 26 Two samples from Providence, Rhode Island were positive using an indirect immunofluorescence assay at a titer of 1:200; however, whole blood samples were not provided and positivity could not be corroborated by PCR. Eighteen other samples (12/90 from Florida, 3/45 from Michigan, and 3/23 from California) appeared positive at a titer of 1:50, however bacterial DNA was not detected using PCR procedures. The remaining samples were seronegative as determined by IFA. All ticks were negative by PCR for A. phagocytophilum, however, B. burgdorferi was detected in two of eight ticks attached to the 8 hour cat and five of seven attached to the 16 hour cat. Fourteen of 31 pooled unattached ticks were positive for B. burgdorferi and one was positive for B. miyamotoi. Cats remained antibody negative for both A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi throughout the transmission study. Biopsy sites from all cats were negative for both A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi. These results demonstrate that natural infection of A. phagocytophilum in cats is uncommon. Methodologies used in the study to determine transmission times could be of value in determining times necessary for vector-mediated transmission of agents. However, several features of the model could be improved. These potential modifications are discussed below.


The initial stage of the work was a study of an 80 tonne industrial furnace, taking observations, panel water temperature data and samples of slag layers from the sidewalls. This resulted in a simple model of layer formation which explained the observed structures, and also the effect of slag layer thickness on heat losses was examined.However, the complexity and variety of structures found were such that a full series of direct thermal conductivity measurements was deemed impractical, and so a theoretical model to calculate the thermal conductivity of complex structures from the thermal conductivities of it s components was developed. Other aspects of heat transfer both within the furnace and from the furnace interior to the water cooling were also explored.In order to obtain a reliable value of thermal conductivity for the slag component of layer structures, a technique was developed to measure the thermal conductivity of the slag. This consisted of firstly determining a viable route for the production of homogenous samples, followed by the design, construction and refinement of an experimental measuring rig. After a large number of preliminary measurements, a series of thermal conductivity values at temperatures between 300 and 800 C were measured using operating conditions calibrated against a heat storage brick sample of known thermal conductivity. These results were used to provide the data for the theoretical thermal conductivity model, which was then applied to real structures for which thermal data was available. Comparison of the results showed good correlation.Finally, in the appended case study, the heat loss calculation was applied for various furnace situations to identify the potential heat loss savings that could be achieved by controlling the slag layer thickness and structure, and the financial implications.


This paper presents the feasibility analysis of a small-scale low-temperature solar organic Rankine cycle power system. The heat transfer fluid for running the organic Rankine cycle system is hot water with a temperature of 120 °C provided by an array of evacuated tube solar collectors. The performance of the solar organic Rankine cycle system was investigated using two different working fluids over a wide range of the evaporation temperature. Technical and economic indicators such as the required solar collector aperture area, the total heat transfer surface area of the heat exchangers and the volume flow ratio between the outlet and inlet of the expander are among the key parameters used to evaluate the solar organic Rankine cycle. Thermolib toolbox 5.2 in conjunction with MATLAB/Simulink was used to predict the variation of the system performance. The results showed that the solar organic Rankine cycle system is able to achieve an overall system efficiency of 6.75% using a relatively low-temperature heat source. The results also showed that the solar organic Rankine cycle system requires smaller evacuated tube solar collector and heat exchanger areas when R245fa is used as the working fluid.


The pressure dependence of liquid-liquid equilibria in weakly interacting binary macromolecular systems (homopolymer solutions and blends) will be discussed. The common origin of the separate high-temperature/low-temperature and high-pressure/low-pressure branches of demixing curves will be demonstrated by extending the study into the region of metastable liquid states including the undercooled, overheated and stretched states (i.e. states at negative pressures). The seemingly different response of the UCST-branch of solutions and blends when pressurized (pressure induced mixing for most polymer solutions, pressure induced demixing for most blends) will be explained in terms of the location of a hypercritical point found either at positive (most solutions) or negative pressure (most blends). Further, it is shown that the pressure dependence of demixing of homopolymer solutions and blends may be described using a master-curve' which, however, is sometimes partly masked by degradation or by vapour-liquid and/or solid-liquid phase transitions. Experimental results demonstrating the extension of liquid-liquid phase boundary curves into the metastable regions will be presented, and the existence of solubility islands in the vicinity of the hypercritical points discussed.


This paper discusses the importance of pension fund which is a non-banking financial institution that has Perana in promoting economic growth and the welfare of workers in the retirement age and its benefits to eksistensu SMEs in the face of the Asean Economic Community (AEC). The purpose of this study to see the importance of the pension fund for workers during the later retirement age and the need for pension funds to the survival of SMEs in the face of the Asean Economic Community (AEC). The results explain that the role of pension funds are expected not just those given priority to the final target is to meet the needs of the current workforce entry age pension which is more widely used in the activities of a consumptive but expected the pension fund can be used not only by the participant retires but family members as well can be used for activities - activities such as setting up operations without having to wait for the parties concerned entered the retirement age. So with demikan welfare pension fund participants and families will be more prosperous and productive. It is then hoped all companies or small-scale industry should have a medium or large and obliging each program tenagakerjanya have pension funds to avoid terjadniya mobilization of human resources to a foreign company at the time of entering the MEA 2015. With the increased prosperity that it offered by domestic perusaaahn one of them by giving progam pensions to workers expected the existence and well-being of the workforce will increase.


Below the high court, however, was a veritable ant farm of judicial activity concerning our schools. This legal trench warfare involves critical issues that may give Chief Justice John Roberts plenty to do for years to come. Most of the action centered on the unsexy but significant question of the allocation of authority in education policymaking. A growing number of nasty fights between and among federal, state, and local officials about how to manage education resources emerged, and include two notable cases: Pontiac v. Spellings and Connecticut v. Spellings. These cases, and much other intergovernmental jockeying, derive from resentment generated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The historic law dramatically increased the federal government's influence in K–12 education policy, and hostility toward the law has been percolating for some time. The transition from hostility to federal education policy to formal litigation should surprise no one. What was not anticipated, however, was the federal law's influence on litigation concerning the adequacy of school financing. Thus the National Education Association and the several public-school districts in Michigan that sued the Department of Education last April in Pontiac v. Spellings, asserted that NCLB is an unfunded mandate and, for relief, sought the ability to use federal education funds as they saw fit. Similarly, last August the state of Connecticut sued the federal government (Connecticut v. Spellings) on the grounds of unfunded mandate and for perceived "inflexibility" regarding the state's numerous NCLB waiver applications. Though both lawsuits will probably fail in the courts (see "NEA Sues over NCLB," legal beat, Fall 2005), they are already having a political effect on the way that education funds are obtained and distributed. And they may already be more effective in diluting NCLB requirements than an army of Capitol Hill lobbyists has been. In an effort to buy some political peace, or perhaps in response to the litigation, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recently announced additional "flexibility" and a "common-sense" approach for states' regulatory compliance with NCLB. It is too early to tell whether the DOE's modified approach will fuel even more state foot dragging, but the winds of compromise are blowing. It will also be worth watching how NCLB affects other litigation concerning school finance. Although state and local district feuds over school funding persist, these disagreements are increasingly cast in a way to implicate the 2002 federal law. The Supreme Court's Rodriguez decision in 1973 may have insulated the federal government from any direct constitutional liability flowing from per-pupil spending gaps within a state, but many school-finance activists view NCLB as creating a federal statutory avenue for helping to transform failure in the classroom into success in the courtroom. Any legal success, however, comes out of state coffers, not the U.S. Treasury. The dynamic of a federal law's generating increased financial exposure for state lawmakers helps explain why some states, such as Louisiana, Colorado, and Connecticut, are lowering student achievement standards —and taking proactive measures in court. Viewed in isolation, these issues—NCLB litigation, the U.S. Department of Education's tinkering with NCLB compliance, and school-finance litigation—may not suggest anything out of the ordinary. Viewed collectively, however, the thread that binds all three is NCLB and, more important, how the act restructures K–12 education federalism. Fights over K–12 policymaking now loom even larger on the horizon and increasingly threaten to exacerbate an already litigious education culture. Roberts, long thought to be a states' rights advocate, may be forced to rethink such matters.


We assess empirically whether foreign official development assistance (ODA) has been effective in alleviating HIV/AIDS epidemics, which figures prominently among the Millennium Development Goals. We employ a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach to identify the treatment effect of ODA specifically meant to fight sexually transmitted diseases on HIV/AIDS-related outcome variables. We do not find that ODA has prevented new infections to an extent that would have reduced the number of people living with HIV. By contrast, ODA has contributed effectively to the medical care of infected people. However, conclusive evidence on significant treatment effects on AIDS-related deaths only exists for the major bilateral source of ODA, the United States. In particular, targeted US assistance programs appear to be more effective than the activities of multilateral organizations.


Outer hair cells (OHC) from the organ of Corti are capable of fast voltage-induced length changes (Santos-Sacchi and Dilger, 1988), suggesting that an associated voltage sensor should reside in the OHC plasma membrane. Voltage-dependent mechanical responses and nonlinear charge movement of isolated OHCs from the guinea pig were analyzed using the whole-cell voltage-clamp technique. Ionic currents in the cells were blocked. Nonlinear voltage-dependent charge movement or, correspondingly, voltage-dependent capacitance was measured with step or AC analysis. OHC movements were measured either from video or using a differential photodiode technique. Maximum charge movements up to 2.5 pC were measured in OHCs from the low-frequency region of the cochlea. Both AC and step analyses indicated a peak nonlinear capacitance of 16- 17 pF. The voltage dependence was fit to a Boltzmann relation with the step analysis indicating a maximum nonlinear capacitance at -23 mV step potential from a holding potential of about -120 mV, and AC analysis indicating a maximum at a holding potential near -40 mV. AC analysis probably provides a more accurate evaluation of voltage dependence. Measures of OHC motility magnitude versus voltage follow the nonlinear capacitance-voltage function obtained from AC measures. Treatment of the cells with gadolinium ions (0.5-1 mM) blocked OHC motility. This treatment also produced a shift of the nonlinear capacitance function along the voltage axis in the depolarizing direction, which can be explained by membrane surface charge screening. However, maximum capacitance was reduced as well and may correspond to the reduction or abolition of OHC motility in response to gadolinium treatment. Gadolinium effects were reversible. Nonlinear capacitance is not a function of membrane deformation due to length changes, since removal of OHC cytosol via the patch pipette abolished longitudinal movement but did not reduce nonlinear charge movement. It is interesting to note that the nonlinear capacitance will dynamically influence the time constant of the OHC during acoustically evoked receptor potential generation.


Despite the advances made in artificial intelligence, software agents, and robotics, there is little we see today that we can truly call a fully autonomous system. We conjecture that the main inhibitor for advancing autonomy is lack of trust. Trusted autonomy is the scientific and engineering field to establish the foundations and ground work for developing trusted autonomous systems (robotics and software agents) that can be used in our daily life, and can be integrated with humans seamlessly, naturally, and efficiently. In this paper, we review this literature to reveal opportunities for researchers and practitioners to work on topics that can create a leap forward in advancing the field of trusted autonomy. We focus this paper on the trust component as the uniting technology between humans and machines. Our inquiry into this topic revolves around three subtopics: (1) reviewing and positioning the trust modeling literature for the purpose of trusted autonomy; (2) reviewing a critical subset of sensor technologies that allow a machine to sense human states; and (3) distilling some critical questions for advancing the field of trusted autonomy. The inquiry is augmented with conceptual models that we propose along the way by recompiling and reshaping the literature into forms that enable trusted autonomous systems to become a reality. This paper offers a vision for a Trusted Cyborg Swarm, an extension of our previous Cognitive Cyber Symbiosis concept, whereby humans and machines meld together in a harmonious, seamless, and coordinated manner.


The Texaco/Chevron lawsuit, which started in November 1993 and is still being litigated in 2020, is a prominent example of the process of judicialization of environmental conflict. The Ecuadorian plaintiffs claim that the oil company's operations generated ruinous impacts on the environment and on the development prospects and health of nearby individuals and communities. The tortuous and lengthy judiciary process was further hindered by an arbitration process, an Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanism nested in the Ecuador—United States Bilateral Investment Treaty. The significance of the case goes beyond the specifics of Ecuador and provides further arguments fuelling the protracted legitimacy crisis experienced by International Investment Agreements. The current praxis of Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanisms is generating an asymmetrical system, protecting the interest of investors, and intruding into the space of human and environmental rights. These issues are resonating with social movements, activist scholars and policy makers who are reacting to the vulnerabilities engendered by International Investment Agreements through multipronged strategies. These asymmetries provide ammunition to resist the signing of new International Investment Agreements, support the inclusion of human and environmental rights safeguards in International Investment Agreements, and contribute to the rationale of pre-empting extractive projects that are likely to produce severe environmental liabilities. Some of the potential ways in which a somewhat more level playing field can be created include, in addition to denouncing investment agreements, transforming Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanisms towards a format that can also accommodate the complaints of affected communities or enacting moratoria on extraction projects that are prone to adverse socioenvironmental impacts. Both strategies could prove to be productive avenues towards the achievement of justice.


We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a cubic graph to be Hamiltonian by analyzing Eulerian tours in certain spanning subgraphs of the quartic graph associated with the cubic graph by 1-factor contraction. This correspondence is most useful in the case when it induces a blue and red 2-factorization of the associated quartic graph. We use this condition to characterize the Hamiltonian I-graphs, a further generalization of generalized Petersen graphs. The characterization of Hamiltonian I-graphs follows from the fact that one can choose a 1-factor in any I-graph in such a way that the corresponding associated quartic graph is a graph bundle having a cycle graph as base graph and a fiber and the fundamental factorization of graph bundles playing the role of blue and red factorization. The techniques that we develop allow us to represent Cayley multigraphs of degree 4, that are associated to abelian groups, as graph bundles. Moreover, we can find a family of connected cubic (multi)graphs that contains the family of connected I-graphs as a subfamily.


We consider a mesoscopic region coupled to two leads under the influence of external timedependent voltages. The time dependence is coupled to source and drain contacts, the gates controlling the tunnel-barrier heights, or to the gates that define the mesoscopic region. We derive, with the Keldysh nonequilibrium-Green-function technique, a formal expression for the fully nonlinear, time-dependent current through the system. The analysis admits arbitary interactions in the mesoscopic region, but the leads are treated as noninteracting. For proportionate coupling to the leads, the time-averaged current is simply the integral between the chemical potentials of the time-averaged density of states, weighted by the coupling to the leads, in close analogy to the time-independent result of Meir and Wingreen [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 2512 (1992)]. Analytical and numerical results for the exactly solvable noninteracting resonant-tunneling system are presented. Due to the coherence between the leads and the resonant site, the current does not follow the driving signal adiabatically: a "ringing" current is found as a response to a voltage pulse, and a complex time dependence results in the case of harmonic driving voltages. We also establish a connection to recent linear-response calculations, and to earlier studies of electron-phonon scattering effects in resonant tunneling.


Graphs are ubiquitous and have become increasingly important in modeling diverse kinds of objects. In many real-world applications, instances are not represented as feature vectors, but as graphs with complex structures, e.g., chemical compounds, program flows, XML web documents and brain networks. One central issue in graph mining research is graph classification, which has a wide variety of real world applications, e.g., drug activity predictions, toxicology tests and kinase inhibitions.

There are some major challenges in real-world graph classification problems as follows:

1) Learning from graphs with multiple labels:} For example, a chemical compound can inhibit the activities of multiple types of kinases, e.g., ATPase and MEK kinase; One drug molecular can have anti-cancer efficacies on multiple types of cancers.

2) Learning from a small number of labeled graphs: In many real world applications, the labels of graph data are very expensive or difficult to obtain. Creating a large training dataset can be too expensive, time-consuming or even infeasible. For example, in molecular medicine, it requires time, efforts and excessive resources to test drugs' anti-cancer efficacies by pre-clinical studies and clinical trials, while there are often copious amounts of unlabeled drugs or molecules available from various sources.

3) Learning from uncertain graphs: For example, in neuroimaging, the functional connectivities among different brain regions are highly uncertain. In such applications, each human brain can be represented as an uncertain graph, instead of a certain graph.

In this thesis, we explore four different settings of graph classification: multi-label setting, semi-supervised setting, active learning setting, and uncertain graph setting. In the multi-label setting, each graph object can be assigned with multiple labels. In semi-supervise setting and active learning setting, we explore two different settings to reduce the labeling costs in graph classification problems. In uncertain graph setting, we explore how to incorporate the uncertainty information in the graph structure for graph classification problems.


This study tracks the marketability of the graduates from the College of Business at California State University Chico (CSUC), a leader in ERP education in the U.S., and compares the salaries obtained by students who graduated with and without extensive ERP skills. Our findings indicate that students graduating with an extensive ERP background have consistently obtained higher salaries than students without this background. This effect was somewhat more pronounced before the bursting of the E-commerce bubble, but remained in effect after the bubble burst. A curious finding from this study is that, for students having extensive ERP skills and both before and after the bursting of the bubble, those with lower GP A's actually received marginally higher salary offers than those with considerably better GP A's. This was not the case for students without extensive ERP skills. Our conclusion is that at CSU Chico there is significant market power which accrues to students graduating with extensive ERP skills. Hence, from a student employment or market power perspective, the ERP curriculum has been a success.


Adiponectin, which is secreted specifically by adipose tissue, has been shown to act as an anti-atherosclerotic protein by direct effects on endothelial cells. Clinical studies have shown that adiponectin levels are lower in individuals with obesity, diabetes and coronary artery disease. The present study investigated relationships between serum adiponectin levels and body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, insulin resistance index, lipid profile, uric acid and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels in a large number of Japanese subjects not taking any medication for metabolic disease and without severe illness (705 men and 262 women; age 30-65 years; BMI 22.5+/-2.9 kg/m(2)). The serum adiponectin concentration was measured by ELISA, without a protein-denaturing step. The insulin resistance index was assessed by homoeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR). The serum concentration of adiponectin in women (13.5+/-7.9 microg/ml) was significantly higher than that in men (7.2+/-4.6 microg/ml). The serum adiponectin level was negatively correlated with BMI, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, total cholesterol, triacylglycerols, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol and uric acid, and positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol. The correlations between serum adiponectin level and insulin, HOMA-IR, triacylglycerols, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and uric acid were significant even after adjustment for age, sex and BMI. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that HDL-cholesterol, sex, BMI and HOMA-IR were independently correlated with the serum adiponectin level (R(2)=0.377). These findings suggest that the serum adiponectin level is negatively correlated with HOMA-IR and positively correlated with HDL-cholesterol, independent of age, sex and BMI, in the Japanese population.


In this paper we quantify the temporal variability and image morphology of the horizon-scale emission from Sgr A, as observed by the EHT in 2017 April at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. We find that the Sgr A data exhibit variability that exceeds what can be explained by the uncertainties in the data or by the effects of interstellar scattering. The magnitude of this variability can be a substantial fraction of the correlated flux density, reaching ∼100% on some baselines. Through an exploration of simple geometric source models, we demonstrate that ringlike morphologies provide better fits to the Sgr A data than do other morphologies with comparable complexity. We develop two strategies for fitting static geometric ring models to the time-variable Sgr A data; one strategy fits models to short segments of data over which the source is static and averages these independent fits, while the other fits models to the full data set using a parametric model for the structural variability power spectrum around the average source structure. Both geometric modeling and image-domain feature extraction techniques determine the ring diameter to be 51.8± 2.3 μas (68% credible intervals), with the ring thickness constrained to have an FWHM between ∼30% and 50% of the ring diameter. To bring the diameter measurements to a common physical scale, we calibrate them using synthetic data generated from GRMHD simulations. This calibration constrains the angular size of the gravitational radius to be + 4.8 0.7 1.4 μas, which we combine with an independent distance measurement from maser parallaxes to determine the mass of Sgr A to be  ́ + 4.0 10 0.6 1.1 6 Me. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Black holes (162)


In this paper, we first exploit the nature of parallel computations in the matrix multiplications, where the computational complexity of purely software approach vs. hardware/software code-sign are compared. Then the significance of entries of powers of adjacency matrix for a given graph is presented, which led to the determination of a bipartite graph. The calculations for the powers of an adjacency matrix are computational intensive. Even with a high speed computer, the computations of powers of a matrix in general can be a long process and time consuming. So a desirable hardware implementation of matrix multiplication using FPGA-Based computing platform is proposed, see [5]. Because the highly parallel nature of matrix multiplication it makes an ideal application for using such platform. The computations are done in parallel by multipliers and adders, which are implemented on multiple FPGA boards. The major challenge of this task is I/O interfaces between PC and FPGA board. In our approach, Our matrix multiplier is modeled in VHDL and runs on an ARC-PCI FPGA board, see [1]. The purpose of the software part of our co-design system is to provide I/O to the hardware, see [3], [6]. This part is implemented on a PC with a C program and a device driver to communicate with the board. We present the performance comparison of our co-design and purely software implementation, as well as the performance comparison of existing parallel implementations. AMS Subject Classification: 68W10, 68U10


In this paper, 222 news reports about Falun Gong found in the New York Times from 2008 to 2016 are scrutinized via the theory of image building. An analysis is offered of images of the movement presented in the New York Times, in which location, disorder, and superstition are presented as key themes. The newspaper's level of objectivity is considered, as are its reflections on the anti-cult movement. The context of cross-cultural communication is examined, with a focus on the lack of cultural understanding that is evident as well as the writers' uncertainty about the definition of Falun Gong.


Yvette is an innocent rector's daughter. When she meets a handsome gypsy she feels him watching her, acutely aware of her virginity. Half drawn to him and half afraid, it is only when her life is endangered that she finally feels true love. United by the theme of love, the writings in the "Great Loves" series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love's endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love...


Introduction: Working-Class Resistance in Hard Times, Adam Fishwick and Heather Connolly Resisting and Surviving Organised Politics: The Case of the London Housing Movement, Lisa Mckenzie Contesting Austerity in Low Resistance Capitalist Contexts, Saori Shibata and David Bailey Power of Labour and Logistics: Immigrant Struggles in Italy's Logistics Industry, Rossana Cillo and Lucia Pradella Resistance and Revolution: Working-Class Intransigence, The Libertarian Tradition, and the Catalan Crisis, Stuart Price From Social Movement to Labour Protests: The Case of the Sans Papiers in France, Heather Connolly and Sylvie Contrepois Beyond Water, Beyond Folk Politics? Lessons from Greece for an Irish Socialist Governmentality, Nicholas Kiersey Worker Recuperated Enterprises: Confronting the Return of Austerity in Argentina? Adam Fishwick E(a)ffective Precarity, Control and Resistance in the Digitalised Workplace, Phoebe Moore Conclusion: Towards Connecting the Diversity of Working-Class Resistance, Adam Fishwick and Heather Connolly About the Contributors


The Australian conscription lotteries of 1965-1972 are a unique and underutilised resource for studying the effects of army service and veterans' programs. Drawing on many data sources and 25 years of related US literature, we present a comprehensive analysis of this natural experiment, examining indicators of health, personal economic outcomes, family outcomes and educational attainment. We discuss the numerous potential mechanisms involved and the limitations of available data.


Abstract Autonomous hybrid power systems are used to supply electricity to the consumer without being connected to the electric grid. These kinds of decentralized systems are frequently located in remote and inaccessible areas, as the utility grid extension to those areas is not a cost-effective option and sometimes technically not feasible. The purpose of this paper is to create an accurate simulation photovoltaic-fuel cell (PVFC) hybrid system model. This system is analysed under different conditions such as different power conditioning unit technologies (Sunny and SW Trace technologies) and different weather conditions (Cairo, Egypt, at North Africa and Kassel, Germany, at Middle Europe approximately) to optimize the system design.


In recent years, disease mapping studies have become a routine application within geographical epidemiology and are typically analysed within a Bayesian hierarchical model formulation. A variety of model formulations for the latent level have been proposed but all come with inherent issues. In the classical BYM (Besag, York and Mollié) model, the spatially structured component cannot be seen independently from the unstructured component. This makes prior definitions for the hyperparameters of the two random effects challenging. There are alternative model formulations that address this confounding; however, the issue on how to choose interpretable hyperpriors is still unsolved. Here, we discuss a recently proposed parameterisation of the BYM model that leads to improved parameter control as the hyperparameters can be seen independently from each other. Furthermore, the need for a scaled spatial component is addressed, which facilitates assignment of interpretable hyperpriors and make these transferable between spatial applications with different graph structures. The hyperparameters themselves are used to define flexible extensions of simple base models. Consequently, penalised complexity priors for these parameters can be derived based on the information-theoretic distance from the flexible model to the base model, giving priors with clear interpretation. We provide implementation details for the new model formulation which preserve sparsity properties, and we investigate systematically the model performance and compare it to existing parameterisations. Through a simulation study, we show that the new model performs well, both showing good learning abilities and good shrinkage behaviour. In terms of model choice criteria, the proposed model performs at least equally well as existing parameterisations, but only the new formulation offers parameters that are interpretable and hyperpriors that have a clear meaning.


Stress may be a feeling of strain and pressure. Stress is that the body's traditional reaction to daily events. Excessive amounts of stress, however, might result in bodily hurt. Stress will increase the chance of strokes, heart attacks, ulcers, dwarfism, and mental diseases admire depression. Stress originates from alternate sources of a unique nature, admire physical, social, passionate, psychological, etc. A nerve-racking event will either be associate displeasing one (getting unemployed, probing a divorce, the loss of a love, etc.) or a cheerful one (wedding, birth, travel, etc.).The information will be either minor or terribly vital, and either temporary or chronic. We have a tendency to don't react to the same way to sources of stress, so it is important to identify what your stress triggers are to better face them.


Ma, Yu Tak. Ph.D., Purdue University, December, 2010. Mobility in Mobile Sensor Networks: A Study of Sensing Performance and Privacy. Major Professor: David K. Y. Yau. Recent advances in sensor technologies have made sensors more economical, power efficient, and portable to be mounted onto handheld devices for monitoring different environmental factors, and made mobile sensor networks possible. When it is financially infeasible to deploy enough or an excessive number of sen sors, while the environmental factors they monitor are critical for public health and safety, such as chemical or radiation monitoring, we deploy mobile sensors that move under our control. We also decide the best mobility strategy to achieve the desired goals. We propose and analyse mobility strategies that give a well-balanced perfor mance for various goals which may be antagonistic. We notice that for a stochastic mobility algorithm, pausing at a location is well-justified to achieve better quality in event monitoring and a closer match with the expected monitoring time of a location by the sensor. We also notice that the quality of event monitoring at a location may not be proportional to the time the sensors spend at the location. In other cases when it is economical to deploy an excessive number of sensors to monitor the environment by attaching them to electronic devices owned by the public, traces of mobile nodes are collected to help design and analyse of such systems and evaluate the expected performance before deployment. We are interested in studying privacy leakage through trace publication. Although published traces have their iden tity being replaced consistently with random IDs, movements of mobile nodes can be openly observed by others, or they may be learned through web blogs, status in social networks, and causal conversations, etc. It is then possible for an attacker to learn


This paper examines the statistics of the phase and magnitude of multilook synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferograms toward deployment of along-track interferometry (ATI) for slow ground moving-target indication (GMTI). While the known probability density function (pdf) of the interferogram's phase (derived under the assumption of Gaussian backscatter) is shown to agree almost perfectly for a wide variety of backscatter conditions, the corresponding magnitude's pdf tends to deviate strongly in most cases. Motivated by this discrepancy, a novel distribution is derived for the interferogram's magnitude. This pdf, called the polynomial or p-distribution, matches the real data much more accurately, particularly for heterogeneous composite terrain. For extremely heterogeneous terrain, such as urban areas, both pdfs for interferometric phase and magnitude fail and are extended. Based on these statistics, a completely automatic detection scheme with constant false-alarm rates (CFARs) for slow moving targets is proposed. All involved parameters required to determine the detection thresholds are estimated from the sample data. It is demonstrated, on the basis of experimental airborne SAR data, that this detector is capable of detecting slow moving vehicles within severe ground clutter.


The author, formerly H.M. Medical Inspector of Factories, provides a survey of the main features of the occurrence, preparation, physical and chemical properties, metabolism and toxicology of the principal metals encountered in modern industry. Special attention has been devoted to the metabolic features including the increasing importance of the possibility of the entry of some of them in radioactive form from nuclear fall-out.


The mechanism of CD40 ligand (CD40L)-mediated in vivo activation of CD4+ T cells was examined by investigation of the development of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) in CD40L-deficient mice that carried a transgenic T cell receptor specific for myelin basic protein. These mice failed to develop EAE after priming with antigen, and CD4+ T cells remained quiescent and produced no interferon-γ (IFN-γ). T cells were primed to make IFN-γ and induce EAE by providing these mice with B7.1+ antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Thus, CD40L is required to induce costimulatory activity on APCs for in vivo activation of CD4+ T cells to produce IFN-γ and to evoke autoimmunity.


Introduction The presence of increased numbers of CD3+ T cells in colorectal cancer (CRC) correlates with improved prognosis. However, it is difficult to measure anti-tumour responses in tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) suggesting these cells are suppressed. Although we have demonstrated CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) within the tumour and its stroma, the numbers are often low. We sought to identify phenotypic and functional characteristics of CD4+Foxp3− T cells to determine whether other regulatory populations exist within this environment. Methods Tumour samples were obtained from CRC patients with different stages of malignancy. Fixed tumour samples were examined by immunofluoresence for CD3, CD8 and FoxP3. TILs from fresh tumour tissue were stained with a panel of 20 antibodies (including Helios, LAG-3, LAP) and examined by FACS. Results Histology revealed tumours to be infiltrated by CD4+, CD8+ and Foxp3+ positive cells. Despite an increase in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in advanced tumours, there was not always a concomitant increase in Foxp3+ cells. Flow cytometry revealed the majority of the Treg fraction was Helios+ (indicating thymically-derived) and expressed higher levels of CTLA-4 and CD39 than Tregs from colon and blood. However, 30% of "conventional" CD4+Foxp3− T cells express markers associated with Tregs including LAP (latency-associated peptide), LAG-3 and CD25 and were highly suppressive in vitro. Conclusion Tumour-infiltrating CD4+ T cells are heterogeneous. A high percentage of these cells appear to have a regulatory function and include both Foxp3+ as well as FoxP3− T cells. Overcoming the suppressive environment of CRC is a major challenge for boosting anti-tumour immunity. Competing interests None declared.


High quality kutnohorite CaMn(CO3)2 single crystals up to 100 μm in size were successfully achieved under high pressure-temperature (P-T) conditions. Electron microprobe analyses revealed the average wt% of CaO was 25.98% and that of MnO was 32.88%, correspondingly well to the ideal formula of Ca1.0Mn1.0(CO3)2. Accurate crystalline structural data were determined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD), with the R3 space group and R3c space group used to refine the crystal structure of CaMn(CO3)2. The Ca-O and Mn-O bond lengths were slightly different when using the R3 space group, which were clearly distinguished from those in the dolomite structure. Therefore, R3c is the most probable space group for the CaMn(CO3)2 crystal structure. Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed that CaMn(CO3)2 decomposed from 620–750 °C, but only one endothermic peak was observed during the decomposition process. It indicated that the octahedral units in CaMn(CO3)2 have the same thermal stability due to the complete miscibility of Ca and Mn. The results of single crystal XRD and thermal analysis provided direct evidence that CaMn(CO3)2 has a calcitetype structure, not dolomite-type layered structure, which was in good agreement with the rigid model of rhombohedral carbonates.


A theoretical investigation of the dynamics in a photoluminescence experiment in strong-coupling semiconductor microcavities is presented. Radiative recombination rates of microcavity polaritons in the strong-coupling regime and their scattering rates with acoustic phonons are used to study the polariton dynamics in a photoluminescence experiment, as a function of the temperature and the cavity detuning. It is found that the leaky modes of the distributed Bragg reflectors enclosing the cavity constitute the main sink of radiation, and that these modes dominate the whole recombination process. As a result, the rise and decay times are almost independent of the cavity detuning. Moreover, these times are close to those of the bare exciton at any temperature, thus showing little cavity influence on the overall photoluminescence dynamics.