Oxidative stress elicits a response in cells that results in neutralization of noxious substances. In yeast, as in bacteria, two component phosphorelay systems have been identified that allow for the response to stress; however, in Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the fission yeast, the phosphorelay system is not well characterized. Nguyen et al. identify and characterize a phosphorelay kinase termed Mpr1 (multistep phosphorelay) that shares a histidine phosphorylation site that is well conserved in other histidine kinase systems. Mpr1-deficient yeast and yeasts harboring Mpr1 histidine phosphorylation site mutations exhibit diminished activation of the stress-activated kinase Spc1, in response to oxidative stress. In response to oxidative stress, glutathione S-transferase that is fused to Mpr1, but not to the Mpr1 histidine mutant, coprecipitated Mcs4, a stress response protein implicated in Spc1 activation. However, yeast deficient in Mpr1 and Mcs4 had a reduced but observable level of Spc1 activation, indicating that residual Spc1 activation was caused independently of the Mpr1, Mcs4 pathway. Resistance to oxidative stress and viability correlated with increased expression of the catalase gene ctt1. The yeast transcription factor Atf1 serves as a substrate for Spc1, and phosphorylated Atf1 can induce ctt1 expression. Yeast deficient in both Atf1 and Pap1, another transcription factor known to increase ctt1 expression in response to oxidative stress, were unable to induce ctt1 expression. However, single atf1 or pap1 yeast mutants induced half the ctt1 expression observed in wild type yeast, indicating that Atf1 and Pap1 have an additive effect on ctt1 gene transcription, and that presumably, both transcription factors are involved in different signal pathways. Additionally, whereas spc1-deficient yeast cannot express the ctt1 gene, a double spc1-, atf1-deficient yeast mutant can express ctt1, indicating that unphosphorylated Atf1 inhibits the ability of Pap1 to transactivate the ctt1 gene. Thus, several pathways in fission yeast intricately mediate oxidative stress responses. Nguyen, A.N., Lee, A., Place, W., and Shiozaki, K. (2000) Multistep phosphorelay proteins transmit oxidative stress signals to the fission yeast stress-activated protein kinase. Mol. Biol. Cell 11: 1169-1181. [Abstract] [Full Text]


We give an account of classical liberalism in Guatemala, its successes, failures, and main figures. Classical liberalism is a young tradition in the country and relatively small. The three most important organizations are Universidad Francisco MarroquAn, the Center for Economic and Social Studies (CEES), and the Center for National Economic Research (CIEN). The most important individual for liberalism in Guatemala has been Manuel Ayau, who passed away in 2010.


A key role in the regulation of membrane traffic is played by the rab proteins, members of a family of ras-related small GTP-binding proteins. This family comprises at least 25 identified members, the intracellular localization of only a few of which has been investigated. rab6p has been shown to be distributed along the exocytic pathway in association with the medial and trans regions of the Golgi apparatus. A confocal laser scanning microscopic (CLSM) approach coupled with image analysis was used to compare the localization of rab6p with selected reference Golgi markers by double immunofluorescence on culture cell lines. CLSM analysis shows that, under a set of well-defined conditions, one can investigate the possible colocalization of known markers of Golgi compartments and orientate a couple of labeled Golgi antigens with regard to the polarity of the Golgi apparatus. Thus, having validated the CLSM analysis, the localization of rab6p was studied and compared with some of these markers and the VSV-G protein in VSV (vesicular stomatitis virus)-infected cells blocked at 20 degrees C. rab6p is shown to be associated in all the cell lines used with the last cisternae of the Golgi apparatus and particularly with the trans-Golgi network (TGN), the site of protein sorting at the exit of the Golgi apparatus. These results were supported by an electron microscopic study using double-immunolabeled cryosections: rab6p was found in some flat cisternae of the Golgi stack and colocalized with the VSV-G protein in the TGN. Our results show that the small GTP-binding protein rab6p is distributed from medial Golgi to TGN along the exocytic pathway.


ABSTRACT Qualitative and mixed methods digital social research often relies on gathering and storing social media data through the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). In past years this has been relatively simple, with academic developers and researchers using APIs to access data and produce visualisations and analysis of social networks and issues. In recent years, API access has become increasingly restricted and regulated by corporations at the helm of social media networks. Facebook (the corporation) has restricted academic research access to Facebook (the social media platform) along with Instagram (a Facebook-owned social media platform). Instead, they have allowed access to sources where monetisation can easily occur, in particular, marketers and advertisers. This leaves academic researchers of digital social life in a difficult situation where API related research has been curtailed. In this paper we describe some rationales and methodologies for using APIs in social research. We then introduce some of the major events in academic API use that have led to the prohibitive situation researchers now find themselves in. Finally, we discuss the methodological and ethical issues this produces for researchers and, suggest some possible steps forward for API related research.


Total material requirement (TMR), a measure of all of the material input required by a national economy, is sometimes criticized for failing to link material flows within an economy and their global environmental impacts. This article presents a three‐step method for bridging this gap. The method shows how to (1) analyze TMR accounts to identify potentially environmentally relevant flows (PERF), that is, material flows with potential environmental impacts abroad; (2) assess the socioenvironmental impacts of the identified PERF; and (3) determine the main economic activities underlying these PERF. Using this method we are able to add an environmental dimension to TMR accounts and to make the connection between economic activities and their socioenvironmental impacts worldwide. This methodology has been applied to the Basque Country (BC) region (Spain). An in‐depth analysis of the trends in the TMR of the BC shows that tin imports associated with tin capsule production account for around 7% of the TMR. These high figures are due to the substantial hidden flows (HF) of tin imports, which is an indicator of potential environmental impacts abroad. We find that tin extraction and concentration involve several social and environmental impacts such as waste generation, soil, water, and air pollution affecting biodiversity and human health, and child labor. These impacts are located in Indonesia, China, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Malaysia, and Thailand.


Abstract Using a 1-D particle code, we have analyzed characteristics of an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion device with external ion source which is added to enable low pressure operation. When the pressure becomes low, though neutron yield decreases, the decreasing amount is less than estimated from the decrease in background (target) gas density and it is confirmed that ions are accelerated efficiently with little energy loss through charge-exchange collision with background gas at low pressure. And when the pressure is lower than 0.05Pa, almost all injected ions reach to the cathode and it is expected that applying high geometrical transparency enhances accumulation of ion and enlarges neutron yield.


In trying to estimate the work of a particular philosopher it seems natural enough to begin with a description of the history and circumstances of the man himself. And yet it is almost invariably the case that most, if not all, of these biographical items are gradually lost sight of as the main business of interpreting and criticizing advances. We include our knowledge of the man in an introductory chapter, and rarely, if ever, refer to it. As a result, the philosopher and his work seem to be things apart. The work becomes a contribution to philosophy, distinguished, in a personal sense, from other contributions by little more than the convenient symbol of its author's name.


Imaging systems with two pupils in the receiving optics have been used to synthesize bipolar point spread functions in incoherent image processing. We describe a two-pupil system using a scanning illumination technique and compare its attributes with more conventional techniques. Experimental examples using two-pupil interaction and an acoustooptic frequency offset for the direct 2-D bandpass filtering of diffusely reflecting objects are presented.


The increasing use of high strength steels in a variety of mechanical engineering applications has illuminatedproblems associated with galling in sheet metal forming operations. Galling is a tribological phenomenonassociated with transfer of material from the steel sheet to the tool surface during forming resulting in seizureof the tool/steel sheet contact and extensive scratching of the steel sheet surface. As a result, a number ofconcepts have been developed in order to reduce the tendency of galling in sheet metal forming, including thedevelopment of new dry lubricants, new forming tool steel grades and improved surface engineeringtreatments such as the deposition of low friction CVD- and PVD-coatings. In the present study the potentialperformance of three commercial PVD coatings, including CrN, (Ti,Al)N and a CrC/C DLC-based coating, in theforming of hot and cold rolled high strength steel as well as electro and hot-dip galvanized high strength steelhas been evaluated using pin-on-disc testing under lubricated contact conditions. Post-test examination ofthe tribosurfaces using FEG-SEM and EDS analyses was performed in order to evaluate the mechanismscontrolling the tendency to material transfer and wear. The results show that in contact with the hot and coldrolled steel the material pick-up tendency of the PVD coatings tend to increase in the order CrC/C–CrN–(Ti,Al)N while in contact with the two galvanized steel sheets, the CrC/C and the (Ti,Al)N coating show a significantlylower material pick-up tendency as compared with the CrN coating. Further, the substrate hardness has astrong influence on the wear of the PVD coatings and consequently on the friction characteristics and gallingtendency of the coating/substrate composite. Low substrate hardness, resulting in a low load bearing capacity,increases the tendency to cracking and subsequently chipping of the brittle coating.


We develop a rational theory of liquidity sentiments in which the market outcome in any given period depends on agents' expectations about market conditions in future periods. Our theory is based on the interaction between adverse selection and resale considerations giving rise to an intertemporal coordination problem that yields multiple self-fulfilling equilibria. We construct "sentiment" equilibria in which sunspots generate fluctuations in prices, volume, and welfare, all of which are positively correlated. The intertemporal nature of the coordination problem disciplines the set of possible sentiment dynamics. In particular, sentiments must be sufficiently persistent and transitions must be stochastic. We consider an extension with production in which asset quality is endogenously determined and provide conditions under which sentiments are a necessary feature of any equilibrium. A testable implication of the model is that assets produced in good times are of lower average quality than those produced in bad times. We discuss the predictions of our theory within the context of several applications. JEL: D82, E32, E44, G12.


It is no longer sufficient for a winning organisation to operate in isolation, however effective it may be in performing its core business. To survive, let alone win, it must be part of one or more supply chains producing world class performance. Each company in the chain must be internally "lean" but additionally must operate in a "seamless" environment in which all information relevant to the efficient operation of the total system is available on time and in an undistorted form. The term "predator" has been coined in the literature to describe the supply chain leader with the vision, drive, and determination to re-engineer the entire supply chain so as to satisfy end-customer needs. The paper reviews the techniques available to "predators" seeking to gain competitive advantage for their supply chains, including industrial engineering, operations engineering, production engineering, and information technology. Not all conceivable improvements can be implemented overnight, however desirable they might appear, hence the advocacy of simulation models within a decision support system so that top management can prioritise proposed Improvement Programmes against the relevant performance metric. In the example used to indicate the approach, the technological, organisational, and attitudinal problems to be solved by top management in achieving the seamless supply chain are all highlighted.


This paper explores the full potential of archaeobotanical research in the investigation of issues such as agricultural practices and resource management and mobilisation in shaping the social dynamics of Neolithic and Bronze Age Crete, through a synthesis for the first time of all available archaeobotanical information to date. To this body of data new information is added from six sites: Kephala Petras, Pryniatikos Pyrgos, Aghia Fotia, Knossos Little Palace North, Sissi and Zominthos. A comprehensive methodology is devised using three units of analysis to allow an in-depth study, firstly of the quality of the available dataset and secondly of its content. A total of archaeobotanical records, compiled in one database, are examined in the light of the methods employed for their sampling, recovery and processing. The reliability of the current dataset is assessed, highlighting shortcomings; methodological issues are addressed to improve its quality. These records are then analysed according to their temporal, spatial and contextual distribution across the island. A synthesis of the full resource base, including cereals, legumes, fruits, nuts, condiments and wild species, is conducted, providing a contextualised picture of their availability and use, and identifying lacunae and interpretational potential. On these bases a research agenda is set and future research priorities and new approaches are suggested that place archaeobotany in the core of current archaeological discourse on social models, practices and meanings for prehistoric Crete.


Summary Objectives: To determine if the use of a six degrees of freedom marker set would allow new kinematic data of the canine thoracic limbs to be calculated. To identify any significant differences in thoracic limb gait patterns in all planes of motion, between the normal canine population and patients with confirmed medial coronoid disease (MCD). Method: Two groups of dogs were selected representing the normal Labrador Retriever population (n = 13) and Labrador Retrievers with confirmed MCD (n = 13). Normal dogs had "normal" hip and elbow radiographic scores in line with the International Elbow Working Group and British Veterinary Association guidelines. Medial coronoid disease was confirmed using arthroscopy after kinematic analysis was performed with a six degrees of freedom marker set. Results: The diseased elbow was nine degrees more extended between 43%-55% of the gait cycle and 16° more supinated prior, early during and after foot strike. The antebrachium was nine degrees more supinated during foot strike and three degrees more abducted during early stance. None of the other parameters were significantly different. Clinical significance: The use of a six degrees of freedom marker set made it possible for the elbow and antebrachium to be reliably tracked in more than one plane of motion. Significant differences were identified between the normal canine population and those affected by MCD. These data may help elucidate biomechanical factors contributing to aetiopathogenesis of MCD.


Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) internal derangement (ID) is one of the most common form of temporomandibular disorders. There is evidence showing the increased expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in the cells from degenerated TMJ disc. ADAMTS are a large family of metalloproteases which are responsible for proteoglycans degradation. The present study aimed to evaluate ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5 immunohistochemical expression in human TMJ discs from patients affected by ID, and to find out if there is any correlation with the degree of histopathological changes. Eighteen temporomandibular displaced disc specimens and sixteen TMJ disc control were used for the present study. Specimens were immunohistochemically processed and ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5 expression were obtained respectively for the anterior (AB), intermediate (IB) and posterior (PB) bands and compared to the histopathological degeneration score (HDS). Immunoreactivity for ADAMTS-4 and -5, was observed in both not degenerated and degenerated human TMJ discs. Both the percentage of ADAMTS-4 and -5 immunostained cells (ES) and the intensity of staining (IS) were significantly greater in affected specimens compared with those in control discs. The ADAMTS-5 ES and IS of the 3 bands of the disc correlated to the TMJ disc HDS (0.001 < P < 0.05), on the other hand only AB and IB, ADAMTS-4 immunostaining scores correlated to HDS. According to these findings it can be assumed in that the more histopathological changes in the disc are detected, the higher levels of ADAMTS are produced. This in turn can lead to ECM breakdown and in turn to a more advanced disc displacement.


This master project on algebraic coding theory gathers various techniques from lattice theory, central simple algebras and algebraic number theory. The thesis begins with the formulation of the engineering problem into mathematical form. It presents how space-time codes appeared, and how we can construct codes based on Q(i)-central division algebras. More precisely, it is explained how we can build codes from cyclic division algebras; and a generalization is done with the introduction of crossed product algebras. The approach used is slightly more geometric than what is usually done in the literature. We also give slight generalization to known methods for analyzing minimum determinants of division algebra-based codes.


Among other threats, secure components are subjected to physical attacks whose aim is to recover the secret information they store. Most of the work carried out to protect these components generally consists in developing protections (or countermeasures) taken one by one. But this ``countermeasure-centered'' approach drastically decreases the performance of the chip in terms of power, speed and availability. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose a complementary approach: smart dynamic management of the whole set of countermeasures embedded in the component. Two main specifications for such management are required in a real world application (for example, a conditional access system for Pay-TV): it has to provide capabilities for the chip to distinguish between attacks and normal use cases (without the help of a human being and in a robust but versatile way); it also has to be based on mechanisms which dynamically find a trade-off between security and performance.
In this article, a prototype which enables such security management is described. The solution is based on a double-processor architecture: one processor embeds a representative set of countermeasures (and mechanisms to define their parameters) and executes the application code. The second processor, on the same chip, applies a given security strategy, but without requesting sensitive data from the first processor. The chosen strategy is based on fuzzy logic reasoning to enable the designer to describe, using a fairly simple formalism, both the attack paths and the normal use cases. A proof of concept has been proposed for the smart card part of a conditional access for Pay-TV, but it could easily be fine-tuned for other applications.


Lys-48-linked polyubiquitination regulates a variety of cellular processes by targeting ubiquitinated proteins to the proteasome for degradation. Although polyubiquitination had been presumed to occur by transferring ubiquitin molecules, one at a time, from an E2 active site to a substrate, we recently showed that the endoplasmic reticulum-associated RING finger ubiquitin ligase gp78 can mediate the preassembly of Lys-48-linked polyubiquitin chains on the catalytic cysteine of its cognate E2 Ube2g2 and subsequent transfer to a substrate. Active site-linked polyubiquitin chains are detected in cells on Ube2g2 and its yeast homolog Ubc7p, but how these chains are assembled is unclear. Here, we show that gp78 forms an oligomer via 2 oligomerization sites, one of which is a hydrophobic segment located in the gp78 cytosolic domain. We further demonstrate that a gp78 oligomer can simultaneously associate with multiple Ube2g2 molecules. This interaction is mediated by a novel Ube2g2 surface distinct from the predicted RING binding site. Our data suggest that a large gp78–Ube2g2 heterooligomer brings multiple Ube2g2 molecules into close proximity, allowing ubiquitin moieties to be transferred between neighboring Ube2g2s to form active site-linked polyubiquitin chains.


Obtaining high-quality samples from wild animals is a major obstacle for genomic studies of many taxa, particular at the population level, as collection methods for such samples are typically invasive. DNA from feces is easy to obtain noninvasively, but is dominated by a preponderance of bacterial and other non-host DNA. Because next-generation sequencing technology sequences DNA largely indiscriminately, the high proportion of exogenous DNA drastically reduces the efficiency of high-throughput sequencing for host animal genomics. In order to address this issue, we developed an inexpensive methylation-based capture method for enriching host DNA from noninvasively obtained fecal DNA samples. Our method exploits natural differences in CpG-methylation density between vertebrate and bacterial genomes to preferentially bind and isolate host DNA from majority-bacterial fecal DNA samples. We demonstrate that the enrichment is robust, efficient, and compatible with downstream library preparation methods useful for population studies (e.g., RADseq). Compared to other enrichment strategies, our method is quick and inexpensive, adding only a negligible cost to sample preparation for research that is often severely constrained by budgetary limitations. In combination with downstream methods such as RADseq, our approach allows for cost-effective and customizable genomic-scale genotyping that was previously feasible in practice only with invasive samples. Because feces are widely available and convenient to collect, our method empowers researchers to explore genomic-scale population-level questions in organisms for which invasive sampling is challenging or undesirable.


The effects of elevated junction temperature on the terahertz (THz) frequency characteristics of α-(hexagonal, 4H and 6H) silicon carbide (SiC) based double-drift region (DDR, p++ p n n++ type) impact ionization avalanche transit-time (IMPATT) devices are studied and compared for the first time through simulation experiments. This study reveals that at 300 K < T < 600 K, a 4H-SiC IMPATT diode may yield 3.5 W of output power (efficiency (η) ∼ 8.6%) at 1.3 THz, while its 6H-SiC counterpart can deliver 3 W of output power (η = 6.3%) at 1.2 THz. It is interesting to observe that at elevated temperature, the performance of a 6H-SiC IMPATT diode degrades more in comparison with its 4H-SiC counterpart. These comparative analyses reveal the superiority of 4H-SiC diodes over their 6H-SiC counterparts, and thus establish the potential of the former as a high-power THz IMPATT oscillator even in harsh environments. Mobile space charge effects and the effect of positive series resistance on the high-temperature performance of the THz devices are also simulated, and it is found that series resistance reduces the output power level of the diodes by at least 15.0%. Moreover, the effects of increased junction temperature on the photo-sensitivity of top mounted (TM) and flip chip (FC) α-SiC IMPATTs are also investigated using a modified simulation technique. The device operating frequencies, under TM illumination configuration, shifts upward by at least 40.0 GHz, whereas the operating frequency shifts upward by at least 100.0 GHz under FC illumination configuration. The simulation results and the proposed experimental methodology presented here may be used for realizing optically controlled α-SiC transit-time devices for application in THz communication.


Uncovering the extent of word associations and how they are manifested has been an important area of study in corpus linguistics since the 1960s (Sinclair et al. 1970). This paper defines and describes a new way of categorising word association, the concgram, which constitutes all of the permutations of constituency and positional variation generated by the association of two or more words. Concgrams are identified without prior input from the user (other than to set the size of the span) employing a fully automated search that reveals all of the word association patterns that exist in a corpus. This study argues that concgrams represent more fully word associations in a corpus. Most concgrams seem to be non-contiguous, and show both constituency (AB, ACB) and positional (AB, BA) variations. Further studies of concgrams will help in the task of uncovering the full extent of the idiom principle (Sinclair 1987).


All families may be created equal, so to speak. But differences between families in terms of economic wealth, resource networks, and access to cultural capital are both severe and stark. A large part of what shapes this scenery of economic possibility is the legal framework of wealth transfer. Wealth travels through generations and sticks, crystallizing in predictable places and shapes, thereby embedding complex forms of inequality within and between families. The family trust, in particular, is a mode of transfer that facilitates wealth preservation as well as wealth inequality. Family trusts are tailored to convey and defend complex patrimonies in ways that no other form of wealth transfer can do. Wills, the other most common form of wealth transfer, do not have the same functionality and can only effectuate a one-time transfer, making it difficult to exert long-term control over beneficiaries.

This Article's primary goal is to excavate the myriad ways in which the family trust is a driver of inequality by explaining the family trust's plasticity and ability to bend to the needs of high-wealth families. The Article accomplishes this by demonstrating how the family trust facilitates not only wealth inequality but also social and cultural inequality. These explorations into complex inequality and its furtherance by the family trust are useful because they help us better appreciate the significant role that family trusts play in the evolving story of class, gender, and race privilege in the United States. Attending to the practices and possibilities of the family trust also leads us to a better understanding of how trust reform might begin to dislocate the family trust from its central positioning within the legal architecture of inequality. Ultimately, the family trust does not have to be coextensive with elite family advantage; it can be reimagined to work on behalf of communities that are economically vulnerable and historically dispossessed.


Aims: Clinical stage at the time of diagnosis and achievement of complete macroscopic resection during initial surgery are key factors determining the outcome of ovarian cancer. However, prediction of outcome lacks accuracy and more reliable prognostic factors are required. Therefore, an analysis and evaluation of key angiogenic factors was carried out to determine their diagnostic and prognostic value in serous ovarian cancer. Methods: Expression levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A, hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)1-α and inducible nitric oxide synthase (i-NOS) were analysed by immunohistochemistry in a homogenous group of 112 patients with serous adenocarcinoma of the ovary. Vascular density as an indicator of angiogenesis was assessed using the Chalkley eyepiece method after staining for CD34. The correlation of these data with survival and established prognostic factors such as histological grade, Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage, and residual tumour after surgery, was evaluated. Survival analyses, multivariate analyses and correlation tests were performed. Results: In the patient group with macroscopic complete tumour resection (R0) there was a significant correlation between VEGF-A and i-NOS expression. Kaplan–Meier analysis further revealed improved progression-free survival for R0 patients with VEGF-A-positive and i-NOS-negative tumours. The predictive relevance of VEGF-A regarding progression-free survival was sustained in multivariate analysis using FIGO stage, grading and resection status as fixed variables. Conclusion: VEGF-A and i-NOS are prognostic markers for clinical outcome in serous ovarian cancer patients with macroscopic complete tumour resection (R0). Hence, pre-therapeutic assessment of VEGF-A as predictive factor for an antiangiogenic therapy might be of clinical value.


Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) plays an important role in myocardial injury. In the present study, we aimed to examine the protective effects of Danshensu (DSS) against I/R injury and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. For this purpose, H9c2 cells were cultured in hypoxic solution in a hypoxic incubator for 2 h, and then cultured in a high oxygen incubator for various periods of time and pre-treated with or without DSS, ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) or SP600125 [a c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitor]. Cell apoptosis and cytosolic free Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) levels were analyzed by flow cytometry. The protein expression levels of JNK, phosphorylated (p-)JNK, nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily C, member 6 (TRPC6) were measured by western blot analysis. The mRNA expression levels of JNK were measured by RT-qPCR. The results revealed that TRPC6 protein expression, the cell apoptotic rate and the [Ca2+]i levels increased in a time-dependent manner in the H9c2 cells following the induction of I/R injury. The apoptotic rate and TRPC6 protein expression decreased when the cells were treated with DSS prior to the induction of I/R injury. The knockdown of JNK expression by siRNA decreased the p-JNK and TRPC6 protein expression levels in the H9c2 cells subjected to I/R injury. The protein expression levels of p-JNK and NF-κB in the nucleus increased significantly when the H9c2 cells were subjected to I/R injury, whereas NF-κB expression in the cytoplasm decreased in a time‑dependent manner. However, p-JNK, NF-κB and TRPC6 protein expression, the [Ca2+]i level and cell apoptosis decreased when the H9c2 cells were pre-treated with DSS or SP600125. Therefore, our data suggest that DSS prevents myocardial I/R injury by inhibiting p-JNK activation and NF-κB translocation, which potentially upregulate TRPC6 expression, increase the [Ca2+]i level, and result in the apoptosis of H9c2 cells.


Drawing Practice : A Reflection
The act of drawing is a slowing down of time. Through observation, enquiry, and self-reflection the process of drawing is trying to understand a subject. This daily practice allows one to explore ideas or subject matter over time. A process of enquiry that is important to fully understand your own practice.
Personal research, investigation into a subject matter is important to feed back into commissioned work, to keep your practice developing & evolving rather than succumbing to the vagaries of fashions within the illustration industry. Reflective time to look back at your body of work is also essential to gain awareness of your practice, & knowing what you want the work to say. In the midst of commissioned work there isn't always the chance to look back at drawings, but I enjoy those moments when one can look back at work with a little distance, to see them a new outside of the emotion of the job.
I think that it is important to have time to view your body of work. It is perhaps at these times that you become fully aware of recurring themes or subjects in the work, to explore ideas through your career, & in this knowledge develop a practice – something very necessary for a sustained career in the graphic arts. Especially as illustration is increasingly becoming multi-disciplinary in nature, requiring many other skills with uses across varying digital platforms.
One of the benefits of teaching is being within a critical environment to keep questioning oneself & the work that you are producing. Personally I'm still trying to understand much about my work, and it is this combination of exploring drawings & then reflecting upon the work that you gain a better insight to it. Similar to a student having to discuss their work within a crit, I find lectures & talks a good focus point to look at the work a new & to discuss with an audience. This act of verbal communication can also aid the process of understanding.
The drawings that I do myself are simple in one sense, it is very much about the subject & how it is transformed by its depiction, how its representation re-contextualizes the object or scene. Much research is done acquiring reference & exploring the subject matter through drawing. This slow process allows me to develop ideas, a point of view through the resulting visual material. Perhaps also the distance between the photographic or filmic starting point to the drawn representation allows me to take ownership of the resulting image? Similar in a piece of commissioned illustration I have to find the image through exploring the subject matter, text, concept, or narrative & then forward my conclusions as a preliminary/rough stage.
In an age of digital technology, the phenomenon of 'laptop television' we are constantly bombarded by visual stimuli, meaning that the act of drawing is very important as a slowing of time. To view the act of drawing as an opportunity to properly look & observe the world around us, beyond a superficial glance. This is one reason why life drawing is still very important for students to take part in, & why it is mandatory for the first 2 years on the Illustration course at the University of Brighton where I teach. A period solely devoted to drawing without the distractions of modern life. Combining both formal anatomic lessons, with more experimental workshops - encouraging an opportunity of 'play' within drawing, & to see drawing as an opportunity for reflection & not merely an outcome.
An essential element for any sustained practice, career as an Illustrator requires challenging oneself, to continually break the mode of commissions to keep work fresh & stimulated. It's important to keep ahead of the field, to provoke commissions through your own developing practice. My former tutor Andrzej Klimowski would often site his own professor Henryk Tomaszewski who coined the phrase 'professional hygiene' referring to the need for experimentation & continued evolution of your work. It is this ongoing visual research that becomes a reservoir/repository for ideas outside of commercial restraints.


Nonadsorbing polymers are widely used as thickening agents for colloids. A quantitative description of the structure and dynamics of such colloid–polymer mixtures is crucial to reveal the mechanisms accounting for the desired mechanical properties. We use confocal microscopy to study colloids with three types of commonly used polymers with different architectures: linear, subgranular cross-linked, and branched microgels. All three thickeners give rise to heterogeneous colloidal dynamics, characterized by non-Gaussian displacement distributions. However, while the ensemble-averaged particle dynamics in these materials are very similar, the underlying individual particle dynamics are not. Linear polymers give rise to depletion attraction and the formation of colloidal gels, in which the majority of particles are immobilized, while a few weakly bound particles have much higher mobility. By contrast, the branched and cross-linked polymers thicken the continuous phase of the colloid, squeezing the particles into dense pockets, where the mobility is reduced and requires more cooperative rearrangements.


Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRB) are large stationary electricity storage systems with many potential applications in a deregulated and decentralized network. Flow batteries (FB) store chemical energy and generate electricity by a redox reaction between vanadium ions dissolved in the electrolytes. The most significant feature of the FB is maybe the modularity of their power (kW) and energy (kWh) ratings which are independent of each other. In fact, the power is defined by the size and number of cells whereas the energetic capacity is set by the amount of electrolyte stored in the reservoirs. Hence, FB can be optimized for either energy and/or power delivery. Over the past 30 years, several redox couples have been investigated (Bartolozzi, 1989): zinc bromine, polysulfide bromide, cerium zinc, all vanadium, etc. Among them, VRB has the best chance to be widely adopted, thanks to its very competitive cost, its simplicity and because it contains no toxic materials. In order to enhance the VRB performance, the system behaviour along with its interactions with the different subsystems, typically between the stack and its auxiliaries (i.e. electrolyte circulation and electrolyte state of charge), and the electrical system it is being connected to, have to be understood and appropriately modeled. Obviously, modeling a VRB is a strongly multidisciplinary task based on electrochemistry and fluid mechanics. New control strategies, based on the knowledge of the VRB operating principles provided by the model, are proposed to enhance the overall performance of the battery.


We present an inventory management solution for a non-stationary capacitated multi-echelon distribution network involving thousands of products. Assuming backlogged sales, we revisit and leverage the seminal multi-echelon inventory management results in the literature to establish the structural properties of the problem, and derive an efficient and practical solution method. In particular, we describe how the additive separability nature of the objective function can be used in a dynamic programming framework to circumvent the usual curse of dimensionality inherent to high-dimensional inventory management problems. We incorporate features such as asynchronous replenishment intervals at the different echelons, accounting of perishability, capacity constraints (both volume and flow), stochastic lead times, reverse logistics, supply risk and risk-pooling. Illustrative examples demonstrate some of these features. A version of this model was tested at a large grocery retailer in a two-layer network, resulting in a statistically significant increase of availability, sold units, and revenue, while lowering inventory volume at the hub.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether parenteral administration of selenium (Se) to calves and the amount of forage and protein provided to their dams affects unadjusted body weight, adjusted 205-day body weight, and average daily gain (ADG) of suckling beef calves.

DESIGN
Randomized controlled field trial.

ANIMALS
151 Hereford-Angus crossbred beef calves.

PROCEDURE
Newborn calves, randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups, served as untreated controls (n = 49) or were given Se (0.05 mg/kg [0.023 mg/lb] of body weight, SC) once within 2 days of birth (55) or within 2 days of birth and on days 70, 114, and 149 (47). Until day 149, cow-calf pairs were pastured in fields in which the amount of available forage was high or low and supplemental protein was or was not provided. Calves were weighed on days 1, 70, 149, and 209. On days 160 and 209, blood was obtained from 33 calves for measurements of Se concentration.

RESULTS
Mean consumption of supplemental protein was 0.65 kg/dam/d. Between days 1 and 70, calves that received the first of 4 multiple injections of Se had significantly greater ADG than control calves. Average daily gain for calves given only 1 injection was not significantly different from controls. Between days 70 and 149, ADG of calves increased with dietary supplementation of protein to their dams.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
Strategic administration of Se to calves and dietary supplementation of protein to their dams may result in greater ADG in suckling beef calves during specific time intervals.


Understanding and recognizing human activities is a fundamental research topic for a wide range of important applications such as fall detection and remote health monitoring and intervention. Despite active research in human activity recognition over the past years, existing approaches based on computer vision or wearable sensor technologies present several significant issues such as privacy (e.g., using video camera to monitor the elderly at home) and practicality (e.g., not possible for an older person with dementia to remember wearing devices). In this paper, we present a low-cost, unobtrusive, and robust system that supports independent living of older people. The system interprets what a person is doing by deciphering signal fluctuations using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology and machine learning algorithms. To deal with noisy, streaming, and unstable RFID signals, we develop a compressive sensing, dictionary-based approach that can learn a set of compact and informative dictionaries of activities using an unsupervised subspace decomposition. In particular, we devise a number of approaches to explore the properties of sparse coefficients of the learned dictionaries for fully utilizing the embodied discriminative information on the activity recognition task. Our approach achieves efficient and robust activity recognition via a more compact and robust representation of activities. Extensive experiments conducted in a real-life residential environment demonstrate that our proposed system offers a good overall performance and shows the promising practical potential to underpin the applications for the independent living of the elderly.


The aim of this study is to identify the ways in which nurses can be effective in helping anxious patients to feel calmer or more secure. This subject is important to all nurses who work in close day-to-day contact with people under stress. The study uses the Inferential Model of Communication as its main theoretical foundation, emphasising the value of identifying the intentions of the communicator and the inferences made by the respondent. It establishes a Nursing definition of the verb "to reassure" as "an attempt by nurses to communicate with patients who are anxious, worried or distressed with the intention of inducing them to predict that they are safe or safer than they presently believe or fear". The literature review reveals few research-based studies which explicitly refer to "reassurance", but many experimental studies of interventions designed to calm anxious patients. The inferential model helps to highlight the theoretical inadequacies of interventions based on "information-giving", and demonstrates the importance of the distinction between prediction and control in aversive situations. Grounded Theory methods were used to collect and analyse a total of 351 Critical Incidents reported in writing by 202 nurses, and in tape-recorded interviews by a further fifty-one nurses and fifty-one patients. The incidents were drawn from the experience of nurses and patients in a wide variety of clinical settings, including general hospital, community, psychiatric and mental handicap settings. A set of descriptive categories was developed from this database to code all the incidents collected. The classification scheme was tested for inter-rater coding reliability, yielding agreement levels of ninety per cent or higher in most categories. The results show that the nurses used five helping strategies - prediction, support, patient control, distraction and direct action. Of these, only the first two are always forms of "reassurance" as defined above. It appears that rational choice of a helping strategy requires nurses to compare their views of the aversiveness of patients' situations with the views of the patients themselves. Out of this comparative assessment, the study suggests that it is possible to predict which helping strategies are most likely to be effective in inducing patients to feel calmer, and which ones may have undesirable side-effects. The study concludes by offering some suggestions for further research, arguing that the inferential model of communication has demonstrated its potential as a powerful tool for the analysis of nurse-patient communication.


Whereas most traffic crashes occur in urban areas, the rates of fatal crashes and traffic fatalities (per capita and per vehicle mile) are higher in rural areas. The distinction between rural and urban areas is, therefore, an important delineation in any policy discussion about traffic safety. In particular, efforts to distinguish between rural and urban traffic safety should focus on those factors that increase the risk of fatal outcomes in rural areas. Notably, several aspects of the rural road environment can be characterized as hazardous. For example, several road design elements of rural roads, such as high speed limits, narrow shoulders with ditches, and the absence of median barriers can increase the risk of fatal crash types, such as head-on and rollover crashes. Moreover, the low population density and geographic isolation of rural communities can increase detection, response, and travel time for emergency medical services, thereby reducing crash survivability. In addition, the human factors associated with common impairment states and driving behaviors amongst rural drivers are also significant contributors to rural fatal crashes. The social forces that enable these human factors are embodied in the culture of rural communities. Indeed, comparisons of traffic safety performance between different countries have highlighted the importance of social attitudes, safety behaviors, and traffic safety policy in reducing fatal traffic crashes (Page 2001). Thus, it is necessary to consider the human factors associated with fatal rural crashes together with the relevant sociocultural context of rural communities. Only by understanding the psychological and social factors that define the rural safety culture may it then be possible to development human-centered and culturally sensitive programs to improve traffic safety in rural America.


The gene, encoding the A4 peptide found in the amyloid core of senile plaques isolated from the cerebral cortex of patients with Alzheimer's disease, produces at least three precursors that resemble cell surface receptors. A clone isolated from a human brain complementary DNA library contained the structural sequence for an A4 amyloid peptide precursor with a serine protease inhibitor domain in which 208 amino acids at the carboxyl terminal are replaced by 20 amino acids derived from nucleotide sequences with homology to the Alu repeat family. This protein devoid of the transmembrane domain most likely represents a secreted form of the A4 amyloid peptide precursor.


The first part of these lecture notes is mostly devoted to a comparative discussion of the three basic large $N$ limits, which apply to fields which are vectors, matrices, or tensors of rank three and higher. After a brief review of some physical applications of large $N$ limits, we present a few solvable examples in zero space-time dimension. Using models with fields in the fundamental representation of $O(N)$, $O(N)^2$, or $O(N)^3$ symmetry, we compare their combinatorial properties and highlight a competition between the snail and melon diagrams. We exhibit the different methods used for solving the vector, matrix, and tensor large $N$ limits. In the latter example we review how the dominance of melonic diagrams follows when a special ``tetrahedral" interaction is introduced.

The second part of the lectures is mostly about the fermionic quantum mechanical tensor models, whose large $N$ limits are similar to that in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. The minimal Majorana model with $O(N)^3$ symmetry and the tetrahedral Hamiltonian is reviewed in some detail; it is the closest tensor counterpart of the SYK model. Also reviewed are generalizations to complex fermionic tensors, including a model with $SU(N)^2\times O(N)\times U(1)$ symmetry, which is a tensor counterpart of the complex SYK model. The bosonic large $N$ tensor models, which are formally tractable in continuous spacetime dimension, are reviewed briefly at the end.


In winter 2012, some potted plants of African daisy (Arctotis × hybrida L., family Asteraceae) cv. Hannah, propagated by rooted stem cuttings and cultivated for commercial purposes in a greenhouse located at Albenga (Liguria region, Italy), were noticed for a rapid dieback, generalized reddening, following by an irreversible wilting. Around 130 plants on a total of 3,000 cultivated plants showed symptoms (4 to 5%). One gram of fresh leaves, each collected from three different symptomatic plants, was ground in 4 ml of cold (∼5°C) sodium phosphate 0.03 M buffer, containing 0.2% sodium diethyldithiocarbamate, 75 mg/ml of active charcoal, and traces of carborundum (600 mesh). The inoculum was rubbed on healthy indicator herbaceous plants and inoculated plants were maintained in an insect-proof greenhouse with natural illumination and temperatures of 24/18°C day/night. Healthy and buffer inoculated plants were also included in the test and used as negative control in the subsequent serological and molecular analysis. Sap-inoculated plants showed the following symptoms after 1 to 3 weeks: necrotic local lesions in Chenopodium amaranticolor and C. quinoa, yellowing and stunting following by systemic necrosis and death of the plants in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum cv. San Marzano), necrotic local lesions following by systemic necrotic patterns and leaf deformation in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi nc.) and N. glutinosa, necrotic local lesions in petunia (Petunia × hybrida cv. Pink Beauty). No symptoms were recorded on buffer inoculated plants. Leaf samples from both symptomatic hosts and the three original symptomatic African daisy plants were tested by double-antibody sandwich-ELISA with polyclonal antisera against Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and tospoviruses (Tospovirus broad-spectrum, Serogroups I, II, and III, Bioreba AG, Switzerland). Positive reaction was obtained with Tospo-groups antibodies, but not with the CMV ones. Total RNA was extracted from infected leaves of African daisy with the RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) and subjected to reverse transcription (RT)-PCR by using the tospovirus universal primers BR60/BR65 that amplify part of the nucleocapsid protein gene (1). Target amplicons of 454 bp were produced for all samples tested. The PCR products were cloned and sequenced on both strands (one clone per amplicon cloned). The resulting sequences were 100% identical, so a single sequence was deposited in GenBank (HF913777). The sequence showed highest homology (99%) with the Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) tomato isolate NJ-JN from South Korea (HM581936). The identity of the virus infecting African daisy was further confirmed by sequencing amplicons obtained by RT-PCR using primers partially covering the movement protein gene of TSWV (2). The sequence obtained (HF913776) showed the highest homology (99%) with three TSWV isolates: a tomato isolate from Spain (AY744493), a pepper isolate from South Korea (AB663306), and again the tomato NJ-JN isolate from South Korea (HM581936). To our knowledge, this is the first natural report of TSWV infecting African daisy plants. Moreover, since this ornamental is often cultivated with other flowering plants, it can act as reservoir for the virus that can infect other ornamentals and crops, considering that TSWV has a very broad host range (3). This result also represents the first finding of TSWV in the genus Arctotis, family Asteraceae, the greater botanical family of TSWV hosts (3). References: (1) M. Eiras et al. Fitopatol. Bras. 26:170, 2001. (2) M. M. Finetti et al. J. Plant Pathol. 84:145, 2002. (3) G. Parrella et al. J. Plant Pathol. 85:227. 2003.


We present a novel admissible pattern database heuristic (D) and tie-breaking rule (L) for Sokoban, allowing us to increase the number of optimally solved standard Sokoban instances from 20 to 28 and the number of proved optimal solutions from 25 to 32 compared to previous methods. The previously best heuristic for Sokoban (I) used the idea of an intermediate goal state to enable the effective use of pattern database heuristics in transportation domains, where the mapping of movable objects to goal locations is not fixed beforehand. We extend this idea to allow the use of multiple intermediate goal states and show that heuristic I is no longer effective. We solve this problem and show that our heuristic D is effective in this situation. Sokoban is a well-known single-agent search domain characterized by a large branching factor, long solution lengths, and the presence of unsolvable states. Given the exponential growth in the complexity of standard Sokoban instances, the increase in the number of optimally solved instances represents a major advance in our understanding of how to search in extremely large search spaces.


A remarkable exodus from Kosovo occurred in the winter 2014/15, raising urgent questions about its underlying drivers and implications for both Kosovo and the destination countries. This policy brief provides a first-hand qualitative snapshot of key migration drivers, as well as insights on some particularities of the phenomenon. We find that the exodus is the result of a struggling Kosovar state, which failed to maintain the enthusiasm and hope of its young nation and turn it into sustainable development. Instead, a lack of perspectives and accumulated frustration about the existing political caste, nepotism and corruption drive out even middle class people. The extent and timing of the migration wave was closely connected with facilitated travel conditions and incentivising rumours that caused a snowball effect. We argue that EU countries will have to react with patience and care in handling incoming migrants. Changes in the asylum and visa regimes are recommended, but a smart timing of measures is important. Ultimately, to prevent a deepening crisis and possible unrest in Kosovo, temporary legal migration opportunities are needed. Within Kosovo, only breaking up existing structures and establishing efficient institutions and functioning social models in their place could allow the country to overcome its economic deadlock.


The history of diplomacy and theory of political state shows that the modern international legal principle of self-determination, in the current state-centric formal international political system, regulates inter and intrastate relations. Therefore the international legal principle of self-determination contributes to the national and international order.
The self-determination is highly contentious, irregular and lacks a degree of certitude. This causes a threat to international peace and security when overlooked, or implemented immoderately, and without goodwill. Such a jurisprudential disposition leads to doubts over the legal credentials of the political concept of self-determination, suggesting that it invokes moral imperatives. This view runs contrary to the findings of this research.
Political and legal moderation is shown to be essential in the administration of international law and therefore that of self-determination due to three distinctive elements: the humanity, the political state and the formal state-centric international political system. The components and determinants of society, political, and legal rules are distinctive thus rendering each system sui generis. Therefore no legal precept serving all three distinctive domains of order can achieve certitude and regular application, found in dissimilar legal systems, and be subject to fair criticism arising from comparative analysis.
Although international law is sui generis legal system, the current challenges of self-determination can be resolved by the deployment of administrative measures and values within formally empowered international political system.
The hypothesis is that the conditionality of legitimate components and determinants of international legal principle of self-determination, in the current formal state-centric international political system, does not deprive its jural imperatives.

The hypothesis is proven by regressive historical tracing of the conceptual developments at national levels, and at international level, upon its transmutation, once the formal international political system was established.
Once the hypothesis is proven jural imperative of self-determination in all three domains of humanity, the political state and the formal international order will be self-evident. Secondly, if all three domains are unregulated by international jural imperatives, they would be pitted against each other's interest, and compete to subjugate each other.

The proof of the hypothesis leds to several sustainable conclusions.

First the transcendental jural cohesion provided by the three principles; legitimacy, democratic accountability and rule of law, in the said three domains of humanity, the state and the formal international order, forms the theoretic fusion of their pursued ends, as well as being found in practice as state action in the current UN era.
Second, self-determination also provides stability in diversity, and conflict of interests, aggravated by the constancy of change in national and international political systems.

Third, self-determination when administered moderately and with goodwill, provides the ultimate solution to international peace and security by placing greater international responsibility on the individual, and collective of individuals, and the state and international community, within the formal international political system. Thus, international law may be gentle civilised after all.


In the causal inference literature a class of semi-parametric estimators is called robust if the estimator has desirable properties under the assumption that at least one of the working models is correctly specified. A standard example is a doubly robust estimator that specifies parametric models both for the propensity score and the outcome regression. When estimating a causal parameter in an observational study the role of parametric models is often not to be true representations of the data generating process, instead the motivation for their use is to facilitate the adjustment for confounding, for example by reducing the dimension of the covariate vector, making the assumption of at least one true model unlikely to hold. In this paper we propose a crude analytical approach to study the large sample bias of estimators when all models are assumed to be approximations of the true data generating process, i.e., all models are misspecified. We apply our approach to three prototypical estimators, two inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimators, using a misspecified propensity score model, and a doubly robust (DR) estimator, using misspecified models for the outcome regression and the propensity score. To compare the consequences of the model misspecifications for the estimators we show conditions for when using normalized weights leads to a smaller bias compared to a simple IPW estimator. To analyze the question of when the use of two misspecified models are better than one we derive necessary and sucient conditions for when the DR estimator has a smaller bias than the simple IPW estimator and when it has a smaller bias than the IPW estimator with normalized weights. For most conditions in the comparisons, the covariance between the propensity score model error and the conditional outcomes plays an important role. The results are illustrated in a simulation study.


We have shown the fetal liver cell engraftments into multiple tissues of adult healthy mice, achieved without suppressing the animals' immune systems. Fetal cells from the livers of male C57Bl/6J Black lineage mice at day 13 to 15 of gestation were injected intravenously into female adult CC57W/MY White mice. The grafting was evaluated by Y-chromosome-specific PCR, cytometric analysis of fluorescently stained donor cells, and histological analysis. All the methods consistently showed the presence of multiple engraftments randomly distributed through the various organs of the recipients. After 60 days, the grafts still constituted 0.1 to 2.75% of the tissues. The grafted cells did not change their appearance in any of the organs except the brain, where they became enlarged. Inflammatory reactions were not detected in any of the histological preparations. The frequency of engraftments was higher in the liver, indicating that similarity between the donor and recipient cells facilitates engraftment. The high inherent plasticity of fetal liver cells underlies their ability to integrate into healthy recipient organs, which can be governed by environmental conditions and connections with neighboring cells rather than by the initial cellular developmental programs. The fact that fetal liver cells can be grafted into multiple tissues of healthy animals indicates that they can be used to replace the natural loss of cells in adult organisms.


Understanding 10-11-Year-Olds introduces the challenges that face children as they start to make their transition from childhood into adolescence.

Children at this age begin to express independence and confidence in their capability that may extend beyond their direct experience. Adults caring for their well-being need to monitor the new dimensions in the child's life, such as competitiveness and its impact on relationships at school and at home. Rebecca Bergese guides the reader through the broad range of emotional and social challenges experienced by children as they are encouraged to take on greater responsibility.

This book is essential reading for parents, carers and professionals who are seeking to understand and support a child at this vulnerable stage of development.


This Policy Brief summarizes the emerging regulations at the national level in the US, and offers an assessment of potential emissions reductions under the Clean Air Act. It also describes the efforts at the sub-national level, and the interaction of these policies with the Clean Air Act under the particular structure of so-called 'environmental federalism'. This structure places central responsibility for implementation of regulations at the state level, making the architecture of existing state-level policies increasingly relevant and influential. Finally, it compares the Act with comprehensive cap and trade legislation that was proposed in the previous Congress, and argues that comparable emissions mitigation may be achieved in the domestic economy by 2020. The author finds that the big difference likely to emerge in the short run is the ability of the US to meet its financing obligations under the Copenhagen agreement. And, in the long run, he finds that mitigation with a regulatory approach is likely to become increasingly expensive.


This research conducted because of many college student have problems associated with their learning process, examples : learning achievement down, relation problems with their parent or friends, adaptation with new environment or rules, etc., but theres no right place, like guidance and counseling, that can help have the college student that have difficulty solving their problems at the college. There 4 (four) aims of this research are : (1) If guidance and counseling services needed, (2)  Whether college student will take advantage of the guidance and counseling services, (3)  What kind of guidance and counseling services they need, (4) What factors that make student college need guidance and counseling services.The variable of this research is the need of guidance and counseling services at the college. This variable means the need of psychological assistance from  professionals who have the expertise and authority to give guidance and counseling servives to individu who are in college which aims to help solving problems so that the student develop optimally in accordance with their potential.The population of this research are 6.163 college student of Univesitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo 2014-2015. The sample taken with the technique non probability sampling taken using incidental sampling method. Determination of the number of samples based on the Issac Michael Table (with standart error of 1%) and representative samples obtained as 598 student, but samples collected 638 student.The analysis that used in this research is descriptive analysis with analysis of the percentage. The result show that 77,4% students  think that the guidance and college services required at college, and  78,06% students will utilize the available guidance and counseling services.  The form of services that most needed is Guidance and counseling services (19,2%), dan  18,37% student will utilize the services when they have a difficult problem solved.


In this article we tell the story of a Wabanaki sagamore who travelled from the Presumpscot River (in present-day Maine, United States) to Boston in 1739 to protest the damming of the river that he "belongs to," and on which his people depended for sustenance. In this account of the first documented dam protest in New England, we explore the notion of belonging and the social and ecological reciprocity embedded in that concept. Working with multiple disciplinary approaches, combining history and ecology within an Indigenous studies framework, we demonstrate that the reciprocal relationships and associated responsibilities between indigenous peoples and their environments are the very foundation of indigenous traditional ecological knowledge (ITEK). We show the complicated process through which Wabanaki communities sought to bring English settlers into this worldview and the conflicts that arose when colonists failed to engage in social and ecological reciprocity. Finally, we consider the implications of this local example within a contemporary, global context, drawing attention to the recently adopted United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In telling this story, we hope to learn from the past and look to a future where reciprocal and responsible relationships between and amongst communities and our environments are realized.


The 2007-2008 financial crisis forced governments to choose between the unattractive alternatives of either bailing out a systemically important bank (SIB) or allowing it to fail disruptively. Bail-in has been put forward as an alternative that potentially addresses the too-big-to-fail and contagion risk problems simultaneously. Though its efficacy has been demonstrated for smaller idiosyncratic SIB failures, its ability to maintain stability in cases of large SIB failures and system-wide crises remains untested. This paper's novelty is to assess the financial-stability implications of bail-in design, explicitly accounting for the multi-layered networked nature of the financial system. We present a model of the European financial system that captures all five of the prevailing contagion channels. We demonstrate that it is essential to understand the interaction of multiple contagion mechanisms and that financial institutions other than banks play an important role. Our results indicate that stability hinges on the bank-specific and structural bail-in design. On one hand, a well-designed bail-in buttresses financial resilience, but on the other hand, an ill-designed bail-in tends to exacerbate financial distress, especially in system-wide crises and when there are large SIB failures. Our analysis suggests that the current bail-in design may be in the region of instability. While policy makers can fix this, the political economy incentives make this unlikely.


Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a disease which is the most common cause of early disability and high mortality. One of the most effective treatments for diabetes is insulin therapy. The treatment is carried out using different types of insulin produced by the pharmaceutical industry. However, any such preparations are always a solution, which must be introduced with a device. Materials and Methods: Analysis of the State Register of medical equipment and medical products: Injection pens for insulin and needles for them of different brands that are most used to treat diabetes patients. Results and Discussion: Today on the world market, there are numerous devices that are used to deliver insulin into the body, including the special syringes, insulin pumps, injection pens, and more. Today, such a device as injection pen (autoinjector) is the most convenient for insulin administration. In the Ukrainian market, there are syringe-pens of mostly foreign origin. Conclusion: Use can increase compliance that increases the acceptability of treatment (ease of use, less pain) and improve blood glucose control.


Mobile robots are valuable tools for education because of both the enthusiasm they raise and the multidisciplinary nature of robotics technology. Mobile robots give access to a wide range of fields, such as complex mechanics, sensors, wireless transmission, mathematics, and computer science. However, despite their potential as educational tools, robots are still not as widespread in schools as they could be. In this article, we identify five key reasons: lack of diversity, high cost, noninclusive design, lack of educational material, and lack of stability over time. Then, we describe our answers to these problems, as we implemented them in the Thymio project: a mature mass-produced open-hardware robot, at a low price, with a multiage and gender-neutral feature set, and with a design promoting creativity, facilitating learning, and providing a wide range of interaction possibilities from built-in behaviors to text programming, passing through different visual programming environments. We highlight some neglected key issues that differentiate open-source hardware from open-source software, for instance the legal uncertainty of designing open hardware using professional computer-aided design (CAD) tools and the difficulty to distribute the development. Our solution to these being to increase the awareness of CAD editors to open-source hardware and to provide a two-layer development model for hardware.


Development of CAD systems for detection of prostate cancer has been a recent topic of research. A multi-stage computer aided detection scheme is proposed to help reduce perception and oversight errors in multi-parametric prostate cancer screening MRI. In addition, important features for development of computer aided detection systems for prostate cancer screening MRI are identified. A fast, robust prostate segmentation routine is used to segment the prostate, based on coupled appearance and anatomy models. Subsequently a voxel classification is performed using a support vector machine to compute an abnormality likelihood map of the prostate. This classification step is based on quantitative voxel features like the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and pharmacokinetic parameters. Local maxima in the likelihood map are found using a local maxima detector, after which regions around the local maxima are segmented. Region features are computed to represent statistical properties of the voxel features within the regions. Region classification is performed using these features, which results in a likelihood of abnormality per region. Performance was validated using a 188 patient dataset in a leave-one-patient-out manner. Ground truth was annotated by two expert radiologists. The results were evaluated using FROC analysis. The FROC curves show that inclusion of ADC and pharmacokinetic parameter features increases the performance of an automatic detection system. In addition it shows the potential of such an automated system in aiding radiologists diagnosing prostate MR, obtaining a sensitivity of respectively 74.7% and 83.4% at 7 and 9 false positives per patient.


Social media usage is affecting peoples' views through opinion sharing, a fact that has started to attract cultural institutions, as it is possible that this procedure can possibly be a part of a museum experience. As the main goal of a cultural institution is the maximization of senses stimulation, the device that is offered to the visitors' hands everyday and every moment, becomes an important tool for the art spaces. In this notion we perform research on issues that can be of great importance for the museum's online presence and attraction. We focus on establishing the personality of influencers related to culture, as well as the characteristics of qualitative discussions on the social media. Crosscult Project is an EU funded project, that aims to spur a change in the way European citizens appraise History, and sets that basis of our research as the experiments are conducted within its scope of. Through the experimental procedure, we collect information in order to define the character of the influencer and the substances of a "serious" conversation. "Serious" conversations are regarded the ones in which a cultural organization can participate actively and benefit from the participation. We present the results of our experimental evaluation and analyze how cultural institutions can benefit from the outcomes of our research.


13. Bulloch, J., and H. Morris. Saddam's War: The Origins of the Kuwait Conflic and the International Response. Winchester, Mass.: Faber and Faber, 1991. 14. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The Condition of the Professoriate: Attitudes and Trends. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. 15. Chirot, D. Social Change in the Modern Era. New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. 16. Chronicle of Higher Education, 34 12 (1991), 1, 14-15. In the preface to their landmark study of the politics of American college professors, Ladd and Lipset [45] comment on the political ascension of university academics and intellectuals in modern history. They argue that as an occupational category college professors have come to occupy a central place in the political structure of advanced industrial and postindustrial societies. College professors not only instruct the young in specialized areas of knowledg necessary for the continued functioning of modern society, they also advise leaders of government and industry and contribute importantly to social change through the discovery and analysis of new ideas. Consequently, the political orientations of academics and their apprentices merit serious study and attention. In Ladd and Lipset's words, "no examination of American politics . . . can properly ignore the place of those groups in the population located aroun the application of trained intelligence" [45, xiv]. Ladd and Lipset's study was based on national surveys of the American professoriate conducted in 1969 and 1972 during the throes of the Vietnam War, time when many American universities had become centers for the counterculture and antiwar movement of that era [2, 29, 34, 40, 49, 67, 75]. Among other thing their findings showed that the political orientations of college faculty as a whole were significantly more liberal than those of other occupational groups. This was not only true for academics during the Vietnam era, but data from othe studies support similar conclusions about the relatively liberal views of college professors in American society throughout the twentieth century, especially during times of national turmoil and conflict [2, 5, 46, 52, 59]. Although exaggerated caricatures of the prototypical "liberal professor" are unwarranted [28], data from our own survey, to be discussed later in this article, support the conclusion that, statistically, academics tend to be relatively liberal in their political, economic, and cultural orientations. The relative liberalism of many academic intellectuals may, in part, be attributed to the nature of their training and the expectations of their disciplines, which typically place a premium on questioning, innovation, and th critical analysis of conventional forms of thought and practice [6, 36, 68]. Bu beyond these generalizations, Ladd and Lipset's analysis also drew attention to the diversity and range of political values within the ranks of the professoriate. They demonstrated how varying political attitudes were systematically linked to structural divisions in academia based on such factors as the types of academic institutions in which individuals trained and worked, the subject matter of their particular disciplines and fields of specialization and their age cohort associations. For example, Ladd and Lipset's data showed that faculty and students at elite colleges and major research universities wer more liberal than those at primarily teaching institutions; that productive scholars and scientists were more liberal, on average, than than those who were not actively engaged in doing research; that faculty and students in social science disciplines and humanities were more liberal than those in physical science, business, or any applied fields of study such as engineering, nursing, or education; and that younger faculty were typically more liberal than older faculty. [For similar findings from studies of the same era, see 4, 17, 29, 71] These kinds of statistical patterns are of considerable importance to theories of political socialization among academics in American society and conceivably could be linked to current ideological contentions within the academy over issues of so-called "political correctness" and the proper functions of the university in a culturally diverse society [9, 12, 16, 23, 31, 36, 37, 42, 61]. …


One of the main concerns with the introduction of competition in the power sector is the strategic behaviour of market participants. Computable models of strategic behaviour are becoming increasingly important to understand the complexities of competition. Such models can help analyze market designs and regulatory policies. In this thesis, further developments on the modelling and analysis of strategic behaviour in electricity markets are presented. This thesis work has been conducted along three research lines. In the first research line, an oligopolistic model of a joint energy and spinning reserve market is formulated to analyze imperfect competition. Strategic behaviour is introduced by means of conjectured functions. With this integrated formulation for imperfect competition, the opportunity cost between generation and spinning reserve has been analytically derived. Besides, inter-temporal and energy constraints, and financial transmission rights are taken into account. Under such considerations, competition in electricity markets is modelled with more realism. The oligopolistic model is formulated as an equilibrium problem in terms of complementarity conditions. In the second research line, a methodology to screen and mitigate the potential exacerbation of market power due to the ownership of financial transmission rights is presented. Hedging position ratios are computed to quantify the hedging level of financial transmission rights. They are based on the actual impact that each participant has in the energy market, and on the potential impact that it would have with the ownership of financial transmission rights. Thus, hedging position ratios are used to identify the potential gambling positions from the transmission rights bidders, and, therefore, used to prioritize critical positions in the auction for transmission rights. In the last research line, alternative equilibrium models of markets for financial transmission rights are formulated. The proposed equilibrium framework is more natural and flexible for modelling markets than the classic cost-minimization markets. Different markets for financial transmission rights are modelled, namely: i) forwards, ii) options, and iii) joint forwards and options. Moreover, one-period, multi-period and multi-round markets for forwards are derived. These equilibrium models are proposed to analyze the bidding strategies of market participants. The potential impact of bidders on congestion prices is modelled by means of conjectured transmission price functions.


Background Empirical gonorrhoea treatment at initial diagnosis reduces onward transmission. However, increasing resistance to multiple antibiotics may necessitate waiting for culture-based diagnostics to select an effective treatment. There is a need for same-day culture-free diagnostics that identify infection and detect antimicrobial resistance. Methods We investigated if Nanopore sequencing can detect sufficient N. gonorrhoeae DNA to reconstruct whole genomes directly from urine samples. We used N. gonorrhoeae spiked urine samples and samples from gonorrhoea infections to determine optimal DNA extraction methods that maximize the amount of N. gonorrhoeae DNA sequenced whilst minimizing contaminating host DNA. Results In simulated infections the Qiagen UCP Pathogen Mini kit provided the highest ratio N. gonorrhoeae to human DNA and the most consistent results. Depletion of human DNA with saponin increased N. gonorrhoeae yields in simulated infections, but decreased yields in clinical samples. In ten urine samples from men with symptomatic urethral gonorrhoea, ≥87% coverage of an N. gonorrhoeae reference genome was achieved in all samples, with ≥92% coverage breath at ≥10-fold depth in 7 (70%) samples. In simulated infections if ≥104 CFU/ml of N. gonorrhoeae was present, sequencing of the large majority of the genome was frequently achieved. N. gonorrhoeae could also be detected from urine in cobas PCR Media tubes and from urethral swabs, and in the presence of simulated Chlamydia co-infection. Conclusion Using Nanopore sequencing of urine samples from men with urethral gonorrhoea sufficient data can be obtained to reconstruct whole genomes in the majority of samples without the need for culture.


Repartnering is steadily turning into a common life experience for many as more and more enter a second or higher-order co-residential union. While most remarry during the prime childbearing years, a non-negligible proportion does so in mid-life. For instance, in England and Wales, more than one fourth of those born in 1945 who had remarried by age 65 entered a second marriage between ages 45 and 65. However, little is known about remarriage and repartnering in mid- life and about whether the determinants of repartnering change over the life course. For instance, the role of children - such as their presence, age and number - in repartnering in mid- life is not well understood. The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of co-residential repartnering in mid-life after a partnership dissolution for two groups: those who experienced a partnership break-up before age 45 (group 1) and those who experienced a partnership break-up between ages 45 and 65 (group 2). It uses data from the first wave of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, which collected data on current and previous co-residential partnerships, including on cohabitation, marriage and civil partnerships. It also provides information on the presence and age of children, socio-economic status and physical health. In a first step of the analysis, life table techniques will be used to investigate the time to repartnering for several subgroups. In a second step, event history models will be used to investigate the determinants of repartnering in mid-life. By specifically focussing on repartnering in mid-life, this study will improve our understanding of the determinants of forming co-residential partnerships in older ages.


Background: Targeting modifiable risk factors may have a role in the prevention of Alzheimers disease. However, the mechanisms by which these risk factors influence Alzheimers risk remain incompletely understood. Genomic structural equation modelling can reveal patterns of shared genetic architecture that provide insight into the pathophysiology of complex traits. Methods: We identified genome-wide association studies for Alzheimers disease and its major modifiable risk factors: less education, hearing loss, hypertension, high alcohol intake, obesity, smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity, type 2 diabetes, sleep disturbance and socioeconomic deprivation. We performed linkage disequilibrium score regression among these traits, followed by exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Results: We identified complex networks of linkage disequilibrium among Alzheimers disease risk factors. The data were best explained by a bi-factor model, incorporating a Common Factor for Alzheimers risk, and three orthogonal sub-clusters of risk factors, which were validated across the two halves of the autosome. The first sub-cluster was characterised by risk factors related to sedentary lifestyle behaviours, the second by traits associated with reduced life expectancy and the third by traits that are possible prodromes of Alzheimers disease. Alzheimers disease was more genetically distinct and displayed minimal shared genetic architecture with its risk factors, which was robust to the exclusion of APOE. Conclusion: Shared genetic architecture may contribute to epidemiological associations between Alzheimers disease and its risk factors. Understanding the biology reflected by this communality may provide novel mechanistic insights that could help to prioritise targets for dementia prevention.


To increase RAP materials by up to 75% by binder replacement, a fractionation method was applied to the RAP stockpile by discarding RAP materials passing No. 16 sieve. This fractionation method was effective in improving volumetric properties of the HMA mixture with high RAP contents. The mix designs were then performed for both HMA and WMA with varying fractionated RAP amounts accounting for a replacement of 20, 30, 40, 50 and 75% of the mixture's optimum asphalt binder content. All mix designs met the Iowa DOT mix design requirements except the one with 75% RAP materials by binder replacement due to the excessive amount of dust content. Hamburg Wheel Tracking (HWT) test was used to evaluate the rutting and moisture susceptibility of both HMA and WMA mixtures with varying RAP amounts. Overall, HMA mixtures performed better than WMA mixtures and the mixes with higher RAP amounts performed better except the mix with 30% RAP materials by binder replacement. Both HMA and WMA mixes with 75% RAP materials by binder replacement (90% by weight replacement) performed the best by exhibiting very little deformation ranging between 2 and 4 mm after 20,000 repetitions. In order to evaluate the performance of WMA mixtures in the field, test sections were constructed in Iowa and Ohio. The average densities of the HMA and WMA test sections in Iowa were 94.3% and 93.9%, respectively, and those of the HMA and WMA test sections in Ohio were 94.6% and 95.2%, respectively. Significantly less emission and smoke were observed during construction of WMA mixtures, which confirmed the environmental benefits of using WMA technologies while meeting both Iowa and Ohio DOT's density requirements. Both HMA and WMA mixes from Iowa met Hamburg testing requirement by exhibiting very little deformation of 3 mm and 5 mm, respectively, after 20,000 repetitions. HMA mix from Ohio met Hamburg testing requirement by exhibiting very little deformation of 4 mm after 20,000 repetitions whereas WMA mix exhibited 15 mm deformation after 20,000 repetitions.


Beginning in the late 1970s foreign banks were allowed to enter into China in line with
the country's overall economic reform and opening up program.
Recently, many of the world's larger banks have entered the Chinese market and have
settled into a strong presence in China, mainly through branches, operating subsidiaries
and representative offices in coastal cities and Special Economic Zones. However, unlike
other Australian industries which are strengthening their operations or cooperative
undertaking in China, in respect of their number of operating institutions in the Chinese
financial market Australian banks are behind many foreign banks such as those of the
United States, Japan, Hong Kong, UK and France and so on.
There has been no systematic study of Australian banking industry entry into the Chinese
market to date. This study attempts to identify the opportunities and challenges which
foreign banks will face in the second stage of the Chinese economic and financial
reforms. The study will also compare and evaluate the market strategies of French and
Australian banks in China.
The survey focused on both Chinese and foreign banks in China. The findings indicated
that the second stage of the Chinese economic and financial reforms should bring
opportunities to foreign banks which should outweigh their challenges or difficulties. The
study also indicated that Australian banks were in unfavourable position as compared
with French Banks, and the business strategies of Australian banks are more conservative
than those of the French banks.


The chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) family of proteins has the remarkable property of maintaining both a soluble form and an integral membrane form acting as an ion channel. The soluble form is structurally related to the glutathione-S-transferase family, and CLIC can covalently bind glutathione via an active site cysteine. We report approximately 0.6 μs of molecular dynamics simulations, encompassing the three possible ligand-bound states of CLIC1, using the structure of GSH-bound human CLIC1. Noncovalently bound GSH was rapidly released from the protein, whereas the covalently ligand-bound protein remained close to the starting structure over 0.25 μs of simulation. In the unliganded state, conformational changes in the vicinity of the glutathione-binding site resulted in reduced reactivity of the active site thiol. Elastic network analysis indicated that the changes in the unliganded state are intrinsic to the protein architecture and likely represent functional transitions. Overall, our results are consistent with a model of CLIC function in which covalent binding of glutathione does not occur spontaneously but requires interaction with another protein to stabilise the GSH binding site and/or transfer of the ligand. The results do not indicate how CLIC1 undergoes a radical conformational change to form a transmembrane chloride channel but further elucidate the mechanism by which CLICs are redox controlled.


This study seeks to identify the challenges that the postgraduate Masters students faced to become self-directed learners. The challenges are determined based on the factors that influence the development of students' self-direction, namely the support provided by the lecturers, peers and library; the students' personal attitudes; as well as the students' knowledge and academic skills. It also aims to compare the challenges that full-time and part-time students encounter, in order to provide broader view of this matter and to help both authorities and students to take appropriate actions in addressing the problems. The population of the study is postgraduate students in Selangor while the samples are Masters students of a local university. A total of 121 questionnaires were distributed to the students but only 56 were returned. The findings suggest that the students faced challenges pertaining to the lack of support provided by the library, poor time management, motivation, ability to think critically, and lack of academic skills in reading journals and writing critically. As for the comparison of the challenges faced by the full-time and part-time students, 9 significant differences are detected which revolve around their perception of the support provided by the library and peers, the use of collaborative learning, dependency on the lecturers, and students' participation in classroom. Based on the findings, actions should be taken by various parties such as the library, students and lecturers in order to overcome the problems. The librarians should improve their service to the students and add more materials in the database; the students should improve their academic skills and learning attitudes; while the lecturers ought to revise their teaching methods to ensure that they are suitable for providing mediums for the students to enhance their knowledge and skills, and work collaboratively with each other.


This article is a contribution to the debate about the role of the Internet in mobilizations for political and social change, drawing on interviews and observations during the Egyptian revolution. We propose distinguishing between the use of the Internet as a tool by those seeking to bring about change from below, and the Internet's role as a space where collective dissent can be articulated. We argue that it is important to go beyond three sets of polemics. First, we argue for transcending the debate between utopian and dystopian perspectives on the role of the Internet in political change. Second, we propose a shift away from perspectives that isolate the Internet from other media by examining the powerful synergy between social media and satellite broadcasters during the January 25 uprising. And finally, we call for an understanding of the dialectical relationship between online and offline political action.


Summary Video poker machines, a former symbol of fraud and gambling in Brazil, are now being converted into computer-based educational tools for Brazilian public primary schools and also for governmental and non-governmental institutions dealing with communities of poverty and social exclusion, in an attempt to reduce poverty risks (decrease money spent on gambling) and promote social inclusion (increase access and motivation to education). Thousands of illegal gambling machines are seized by federal authorities, in Brazil, every year, and usually destroyed at the end of the criminal apprehension process. This paper describes a project developed by the University of Southern Santa Catarina, Brazil, responsible for the conversion process of gambling machines, and the social inclusion opportunities derived from it. All project members worked on a volunteer basis, seeking to promote social inclusion of Brazilian young boys and girls, namely through digital inclusion. So far, the project has been able to convert over 200 gambling machines and install them in over 40 public primary schools, thus directly benefiting more than 12,000 schoolchildren. The initial motivation behind this project was technology based, however the different options arising from the conversion process of the gambling machines have also motivated a rather innovative and unique experience in allowing schoolchildren and young people with special (educational) needs to access to computer-based pedagogical applications. The availability of these converted machines also helps to place Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the very daily educational environment of these children and youngsters, thus serving social and cultural inclusion aspects, by establishing a dialogue with the community and their technological expectations, and also directly contributing to their digital literacy.


Vestures are small projections from the secondary cell wall associated with tracheary elements of the secondary xylem. They are usually associated with bordered pits and characterize various angiosperm families, including important timber species such as Dipterocarpaceae and Eucalyptus trees. The micromorphology and distribution of vestures were studied in 22 species representing all families within the order Myrtales based on light and scanning electron microscopy. Vestures are consistently present near the outer pit aperture of bordered vessel pits, suggesting the synapomorphic character of this feature for the entire order. It is unclear in which geological period this feature originated in the evolution of the pre-Myrtalean lineages. In some species vestures are associated with inner pit apertures, inner vessel walls, simple perforation plates, depressions of the cell wall and bordered pits of tracheids or fibre-tracheids. A compact network of branched vestures almost completely filling the entire pit chamber is the most common vestured pit type in Myrtales, although considerable variation may occur within a wood sample. The micromorphology of vestures seems to some extent correlated with quantitative pit characters. Understanding the exact function of vestured pits with respect to hydraulic efficiency and safety remains a challenge.