Voltage‐evoked signals play critical roles in neural activities, muscle contraction and exocytosis. Ciona voltage‐sensor containing phosphatase (Ci‐VSP) consists of the transmembrane voltage sensor domain (VSD) and a cytoplasmic domain of phosphoinositide phosphatase, homologous to phosphatase and tensin homologue deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN). Previous experiments utilizing potassium channels as the sensor for phosphoinositides have demonstrated that phosphatase activities of Ci‐VSP are voltage dependent. However, it still remained unclear whether enzyme activity is activated by depolarization or hyperpolarization. Further, a large gap in voltage dependency was found between the charge movement of the VSD and potassium channel‐reporting phosphatase activities. In this study, voltage‐dependent dynamics of phosphoinositides mediated by Ci‐VSP were examined by confocal imaging and electrical measurements in Xenopus oocytes. Imaging of phosphatidylinositol‐4,5‐bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P2) using green fluorescent protein (GFP)‐tagged pleckstrin homology (PH) domains from phospholipase C δ subunit (PLC‐δ) showed that PtdIns(4,5)P2 concentration is reduced during depolarization. In the presence of Ci‐VSP, IRK1 channels with higher sensitivity to phosphoinositide than GIRK2 channels decreased their magnitude during depolarization over 0 mV, indicating that the PtdIns(4,5)P2 level is reduced upon depolarization. KCNQ2/3 channels coexpressed with Ci‐VSP exhibited voltage‐dependent decay of the outward current that became sharper with higher depolarization in a voltage range up to 100 mV. These results indicate that Ci‐VSP has an activity that depletes PtdIns(4,5)P2 unlike PTEN and that depolarization‐activated voltage sensor movement is translated into activation of phosphatase activity.


Abstract This paper presents research on the accuracy and repeatability of CNC axis positioning in an innovative lathe with an additional Xs axis. This axis is used to perform movements synchronized with the angular position of the main drive, i.e. the spindle, and with the axial feed along the Z axis. This enables the one-pass turning of non-circular surfaces, rope and trapezoidal threads, as well as the surfaces of rotary tools such as a gear cutting hob, etc. The paper presents and discusses the interpretation of results and the calibration effects of positioning errors in the lathe's numerical control system. Finally, it shows the geometric characteristics of the rope thread turned at various spindle speeds, including before and after-correction of the positioning error of the Xs axis.


Majorite is a new garnet in a veinlet of the Coorara meteorite. Its chemical composition is compatible with derivation mostly from original pyroxene, not from olivine as originally reported. Silicon is partly in sixfold coordination. Ringwoodite, a spinel of olivine composition, occurs as purple grains set in a matrix of fine-grained garnet. The similar mineralogy and texture of the Coorara and Tenham meteorites suggest a common parent body.


by non-resident travelling naturalists. Andre Michaux, born in Satory near Versailles, France, March 7, 1746, spent ten years in North America, 1786-1796, during which time he travelled from Hudson's Bay to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, and collected many species of plants. This collection contained about 20 species taken from Indiana on a trip across the state from Louisville to Vincennes in August 1795 ( 12, 24). Four days were required for the trip of 125 miles. In commenting on this trip he writes, "Of all the journeys I have made in North America in the past ten years, this is one of the most difficult owing to the quantity of trees overturned by storms, to the thick brushwood through which one is obliged to pass ; to the number of Flies by which one is devoured, etc." This total collection formed the basis for the first general flora of North America. The publication appeared in 1803 following his death in Madegascar in 1802.


Modern large-scale cosmological simulations model the universe with increasing sophistication and at higher spatial and temporal resolutions. These ongoing enhancements permit increasingly detailed comparisons between the simulation outputs and real observational data. Recent projects such as Illustris are capable of producing simulated images that are designed to be comparable to those obtained from local surveys. This paper tests the degree to which Illustris achieves this goal across a diverse population of galaxies using visual morphologies derived from Galaxy Zoo citizen scientists. Morphological classifications provided by these volunteers for simulated galaxies are compared with similar data for a compatible sample of images drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Legacy Survey. This paper investigates how simple morphological characterization by human volunteers asked to distinguish smooth from featured systems differs between simulated and real galaxy images. Significant differences are identified, which are most likely due to the limited resolution of the simulation, but which could be revealing real differences in the dynamical evolution of populations of galaxies in the real and model universes. Specifically, for stellar masses , a substantially larger proportion of Illustris galaxies that exhibit disk-like morphology or visible substructure, relative to their SDSS counterparts. Toward higher masses, the visual morphologies for simulated and observed galaxies converge and exhibit similar distributions. The stellar mass threshold indicated by this divergent behavior confirms recent works using parametric measures of morphology from Illustris simulated images. When , the Illustris data set contains substantially fewer galaxies that classifiers regard as unambiguously featured. In combination, these results suggest that comparison between the detailed properties of observed and simulated galaxies, even when limited to reasonably massive systems, may be misleading.


Federal legislation will begin requiring the provision of calorie information on the menus and menu boards of restaurants and other retail food establishments with 20 or more locations in May 2018. Food retailers not included in this mandate can choose to voluntarily provide calorie information to consumers. However, there are concerns that this major policy change will not have the desired widespread positive effects on consumer choice behavior. Further, although proponents of calorie labeling argue that consumers have the right to know the calorie content of their food orders, many food retailers have argued that calorie labeling is too expensive to implement and feared the loss of business from their calorie information becoming public knowledge. To address these important concerns, this dissertation offers a conceptualization to examine consumers' divergent responses to the provision of calorie information on restaurant menus, while providing a more complete understanding of the consequences of calorie labeling on retailer-related responses. Essay 1 offers a conceptualization regarding consumers' food-value orientations and develops valid multi-item measures of these constructs. These measures are used to understand the drivers of consumers' food consumption decisions and demonstrate how these new foodvalue orientations moderate responses to objective nutrition information provision. Eight studies, including two field studies, are conducted to establish the reliability and validity of the three orientation measures—health-value orientation, taste-value orientation, and quantity-value orientation—and examine the direct and moderating effects of these food-value orientations on meal choice. Findings from the three application experiments show that food-value orientations are associated with asymmetric responses to calorie labeling on restaurant menus and menu boards. Essay 2 focuses on the retailing implications of this major policy change. Specifically, this research examines the effects of menu calorie labeling on consumers' retailer-related responses. A conceptual framework is developed drawing from the attribution theory and consumer information processing literatures. Findings across five studies, including two restaurant field studies, show that menu calorie labeling has a positive impact on retailer-related outcomes. However, these effects are attenuated when the restaurant is perceived to be more (versus less) healthful and when menu calorie labeling is mandatory (versus voluntary).


Design patents have been part of American law since 1842. In that time, only just over 600,000 design patents have been issued, with more than half of these being granted in the last twenty years. This quantity is dramatically fewer than the number of utility patents issued which is rapidly approaching 9,000,000 issued patents. Possibly because of the low usage of design patents over time, no case law and little literature address the constitutional issues raised by them. This article intends to overcome that shortcoming. Two constitutional aspects of design patents will be examined.First, congressional authority to adopt the design patent laws will be examined. The Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 grants Congress specific powers to adopt both patents and copyrights. When a design is examined, it is unclear that it is an invention making its patentability suspect. At the same time, establishing a design as a writing is not problematic, leading to its eligibility for copyright. In this case, the clause itself must be examined to determine if something that qualifies only for copyright protection can nevertheless be granted a patent. The words chosen in the clause, particularly based on the way some of them were used in the Eighteenth Century, suggest that the answer is "no." Of course, any historical analysis of the Constitution may prove to be an inaccurate predictor of how modern courts would address an issue, but this analysis does suggest a significant Article I problem for design patents.Second, even if the Article I problem can be overcome, serious First Amendment issues are raised. Unlike a utility patent, design patents are far more likely to have direct impacts on speech. If so, the patent laws would have to accommodate that speech unless there is a compelling governmental need for it to not do so. Copyright law, for example, avoids much of this First Amendment conflict through the recognition of the Fair Use Defense under 17 U.S.C. § 107 which allow society to use copyrighted materials despite the legal protection where important First Amendment issues are raised. Patent law has no such defense, but may need one to avoid constitutional problems.


Though mountain bikers are at significant risk for overuse injury, there is minimal quality research describing this relationship. Single-speed mountain biking, in which participants pedal a bike with only a single gear, may place riders at even greater risk for overuse problems due to the disproportionate physical effort associated with this type of riding. The focus of this study was to provide additional perspective on overuse injuries sustained by mountain bikers and to determine if single-speed mountain biking places participants at greater risk for overuse conditions. Four hundred and four (404) mountain bikers were surveyed concerning overuse injuries sustained during the previous year. Findings indicate that 63% of respondents reported an overuse injury affecting at least one area with the most commonly reported areas being the lumbar spine, knees, hand/wrist, and cervical spine. Individuals riding single-speed mountain bikes did not have a higher incidence of overuse injuries than riders of multiple-geared bikes. However, respondents who split time between riding single-speed and multiple-geared bikes were significantly more likely to report an overuse syndrome than those only riding single-speed or multiple-geared bikes (p = 0.0104). This group of riders may be at greater risk for overuse injury due to excessive fatigue and poor biomechanics.


The integration of satellite data and modeling represents a step toward the next generation of quantitative hazard assessment in response to effusive volcano eruption onset. Satellite-based thermal remote sensing of hotspots related to effusive activity can effectively provide a variety of products suited to timing, locating, and tracking the radiant character of lava flows. Hotspots show the location and occurrence of eruptive events (vents). Discharge rate estimates may indicate the current intensity (effusion rate) and potential magnitude (volume). High-spatial-resolution multispectral satellite data can complement field observations for monitoring the front position (length) and extension of flows (area). Physics-based models driven, or validated, by satellite-derived parameters are now capable of fast and accurate forecast of lava flow inundation scenarios (hazard). Here, we demonstrate the potential of the integrated application of satellite remote-sensing techniques and lava flow models by using a retrospective analysis of the 2004–2005 effusive eruption at Mount Etna in Italy. The lava flow hazard was assessed by using the HOTSAT volcano hotspot detection system, which works with satellite thermal infrared data, and the MAGFLOW lava flow emplacement model, which is able to relate the flow evolution to eruption conditions at the vent. We used HOTSAT to analyze Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) data to output hotspot location, lava thermal flux, and effusion rate estimation. This output was used to drive the MAGFLOW simulations of lava flow paths and to continuously update flow simulations. We also show how Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (ETM+) and Earth Observing 1 ( EO-1 ) Advanced Land Imager (ALI) images complement the field observations to track the flow front position in time and add valuable data on lava flow advancement with which to validate the numerical simulations. Such integration at last makes timely forecasts of lava flow hazards during effusive crises possible at the great majority of volcanoes for which no monitoring exists.


A complete solid solution forms between the perovskite proton conductor BaZr0.7Ce0.2Y0.1O3−δ (BZCY72) and BaPr0.9Y0.1O3−δ (BPY) on synthesis by the Pechini method and high-temperature annealing. Phase fields of selected members of the Ba(Zr0.7Ce0.2)1−(x/0.9)PrxY0.1O3−δ series were studied as a function of composition and temperature by high-resolution neutron powder diffraction revealing symmetry changes in the sequence Pnma → Imma → → Pmm. Higher symmetry is favoured for low Pr contents and high temperatures, as consideration of tolerance factor suggests. A volume contraction, ascribed to dehydration, is observed by synchrotron X-ray diffraction on heating in air for lower x. Magnetic measurements and structural data support the presence of Pr in the IV valence state on the perovskite B site. Thermogravimetric analysis in CO2 to ∼1253 K indicates better chemical stability for x ≤ 0.445, whereas decomposition occurred for higher x. Electrical conductivity increases by over two orders of magnitude in dry air at lower temperature from x = 0.225 to 0.675; total conductivity reaches a value of 0.4 S cm−1 at 1173 K for x = 0.675. The series exhibits electron–hole transport with a positive pO2 dependence which increases with temperature, consistent with participation of oxygen vacancies in charge compensation of the Y3+ acceptor dopant. The activation energy for thermally activated hole hopping in air in the range 523–773 K decreases from ∼1 eV for BZCY72 to ∼0.4 eV for x = 0.675. Conductivity is generally lower in humidified N2 and air (pH2O ≈ 0.023 atm) than the corresponding dry atmospheres, consistent with consumption of holes by less mobile protonic species; however for x ≤ 0.225 the lower concentration of electron holes concomitant with higher oxygen-vacancy content in N2 results in slightly higher conductivity in wet conditions due to hydration of vacancies.


Since we reported a BLAST server for the mollusk in 2004, no work has reported the usability or modification of the server. To improve its usability, the BLAST server for the mollusk has been updated as version II (http://www.malacol.or.kr/blast) in the present study. The database was constructed by using the Intel server Platform ZSS130 dual Xeon 3.20 GHz CPU and Linux CentOS system and with NCBI WebBLAST package. We downloaded the mollusk nucleotide, amino acid, EST, GSS and mitochondrial genome sequences which can be opened through NCBI web BLAST and used them to build up the database. The updated database consists of 520,977 nucleotide sequences, 229,857 amino acid sequences, 586,498 EST sequences, 23,112 GSS and 565 mitochondrial genome sequences. Total database size is 1.2 GB. Furthermore, we have added repeat sequences, Escherichia coli sequences and vector sequences to facilitate data validation. The newly updated BLAST server for the mollusk will be useful for many malacological researchers as it will save time to identify and study various molluscan genes.


This paper aims to contribute to Indonesian country-level analysis of non-financial disclosures in the public sector by assessing non-financial disclosures determinants in Indonesian municipals' websites. Beginning with a content analysis of the websites of 434 Indonesian local government which data is gathered using a checklist developed based on the government regulation no. 38/2007 on the segregation of duties between central and local government, this study continues with a regression analysis to determine the impact of educational level, municipals' wealth, size and financial independence to the level of the municipals' nonfinancial disclosures on their websites. The content analysis shows that only less than 10% municipals disclose information about women and community empowerment programs, anti-corruption programs and environmental related issues, while more than 50% disclose information about the geographical area, the areas' potentials and tourism attractiveness. Observation on the independent variables reveals that educational level, municipals' wealth and size significantly affect the degree of non-financial information disclosures in the municipals' website. Based on the findings, this paper concludes with two policy recommendations. Firstly, the central government needs to establish recommendations and law to generate similar level of non-financial disclosures in the municipals' websites. Lastly, it seems necessary that in developing the recommendations, the central government needs to pay more attention to the information which is lacking of disclosures such as women and community empowerment, anti-corruption programs and environmental issues.


Propaganda is all around us, used to promote a sense of common cause and belonging, change behaviour or influence ideas, as well as to mislead, deceive, even destroy. Perhaps the greatest and most sophisticated exponent of propaganda is the modern state. Using universal themes of conflict, public education, protest and leadership, this book, which accompanies a major new exhibition at the British Library, takes a close look at the range of propaganda used by different states - and their opponents. Over the last 100 years, increased literacy, multiplying media formats, methodologies and competing messengers have required ever greater effort to persuade and influence citizens, and the book's primary focus is the 20th and 21st centuries, taking a worldwide view. But it also puts propaganda into its historical context. Different strategies are highlighted - from appeals to hearts and minds, to dictat and the cult of personality, sloganeering and news management. Posters, books, films, stamps, cartoons, music, newspapers, statistics, games, social media and the web all feature. The book concludes with a look at how the explosion in social computing is influencing the way the state attempts to persuade and control its citizens.


Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are important public health problem resulting in short-term or permanent disability and death. To determine the extent and outcome of severe TBI amongst children in Qatar medical records were reviewed retrospectively of all cases of severe TBI in children aged 14 years or less who attended the Children Rehabilitation Unit, Hamad General Hospital, Qatar, between January 2002 to December 2008. The severity of TBI was assessed by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). Of 65 children with severe TBI, most were male (73.8 %) and 91 % were older than five years of age. The leading causes of injury were road traffic accident (84.6%) and falls (10.8%). Other causes included trauma by ceiling fan blades (4.6%), sports and recreation injuries. Early sequelae included spasticity (43.1 %) and posttraumatic epilepsy (33.8%); both were significantly associated with the increased severity and need for intracranial surgery. Almost a quarter of the children had communication disorders, 17 (26.2 %) had poor cognition, 16 (24.6%) had hemiplegia and 12 (18.5 %) had abnormal behaviour. Twelve (18.5%) children died within the first month of admission to hospital. It is clear that severe TBI results in significant morbidity and mortality among children in Qatar and special efforts are needed to reduce the causes especially motor vehicle crashes and injuries. Rehabilitation programs are also needed to limit the extent of long-term complications associated with TBI.


Abstract : Three-dimensional mapping has many applications including robot navigation, medical diagnosis and industrial inspection. However, many applications remain unfilled due to the large size and complex nature of typical 3-D mapping systems. The use of fiber optics allows the miniaturization and simplification of many optical systems. This research used a fiber optic coupler to project a fringe pattern onto an object to be profiled. The two outputs fibers of the coupler were brought close together to form the pinholes of a Young's Double Pinhole Interferometer. This provides the advantages of this simple interferometer without the disadvantage of power loss by the customary method of spatially filtering a collimated laser beam with a pair of pinholes. The shape of the object is determined by analyzing the fringe pattern. The system developed has a resolution of 0.1mm and a measurement error less than 1.5% of the object's depth. The use of fiber optics provides many advantages including: remote location of the laser source (which also means remote location of heat sources, a critical requirement for many applications); easy accommodation of several laser sources, including gas lasers and high-power, low-cost fiber pigtailed laser diodes; and variation of source wavelength without disturbing the pinholes. The principal advantages of this mapping system over existing methods are its small size, minimum number of critically aligned components, and remote location of the laser sources.


Emotion plays an important role in detecting fake news online. When leveraging emotional signals, the existing methods focus on exploiting the emotions of news contents that conveyed by the publishers (i.e., publisher emotion). However, fake news often evokes high-arousal or activating emotions of people, so the emotions of news comments aroused in the crowd (i.e., social emotion) should not be ignored. Furthermore, it remains to be explored whether there exists a relationship between publisher emotion and social emotion (i.e., dual emotion), and how the dual emotion appears in fake news. In this paper, we verify that dual emotion is distinctive between fake and real news and propose Dual Emotion Features to represent dual emotion and the relationship between them for fake news detection. Further, we exhibit that our proposed features can be easily plugged into existing fake news detectors as an enhancement. Extensive experiments on three real-world datasets (one in English and the others in Chinese) show that our proposed feature set: 1) outperforms the state-of-the-art task-related emotional features; 2) can be well compatible with existing fake news detectors and effectively improve the performance of detecting fake news.1 2


This paper investigates factors behind the growth of carbon dioxide emissions over the 35 years between 1980 and 2015 in more than 100 countries, using an index decomposition technique (the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index). The results are further confirmed using an econometric technique (the general method of moments). The study finds that economic growth, measurred in per capita gross domestic product, and population growth are the main drivers of the growth of carbon dioxide emissions during 1980–2015. Although economic growth is mainly responsible for the growth of emissions in high-, upper-middle-, and lower-middle-income countries, population growth that is primarily responsilble for it in low-income countries. More than 70 percent of the global growth in carbon dioxide emissions over the past 35 years was contributed by upper-middle-income countries. Improved energy efficiency, reflected in the declining energy intensity of gross domestic product, has substantially contributed to limit global carbon dioxide emissions at the current level; otherwise, the world's current carbon dioxide emissions would have been 40 percent higher. Despite the recent rapid expansion of renewable energy, its contribution to slowing the growth of global carbon dioxide emissions is not noticeable yet, due to its small share in the global energy supply mix.


This dissertation is concerned with mathematical modeling and optimization of three-echelon capacitated supply chain network design (SCND) with suppliers, distribution centers (DCs) and customer zones. An introduction to SCND is provided followed by a literature review. Being inspired by a real world SCND problem, a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) is developed for a three-echelon SCND. The model takes into account the operational costs of a built DC based on its actual activity level rather than the assumption that a built DC operates at the maximum capacity. The suppliers and customer zones are at fixed known locations and the DCs are picked from a set of potential DC locations. Then, a well-known model on three-echelon multi-capacitated SCND [1] is studied where both suppliers and DCs and their corresponding capacity levels are picked from a set of potential supplier and DC locations and a set of predetermined discrete capacity levels, respectively. We characterize the complete set of alternate optimal solutions in [1]. We extend the model through the addition of a constraint set that eliminates certain undesirable optimal solutions and we show that the extended model requires, essentially, the same computational effort as the original. We then deploy a new set of variables and present a new formulation for three-echelon multi-capacitated SCND. We show that the new formulation is more efficient as it offers lower computational times. We then present two approaches which allow an exponential increase in available capacity levels to facilities. We demonstrate the merits of the exponentially increased flexibility. Inspired by the merits of increased flexibility in capacity assignment, we present a technology-based, variable-capacitated, supply chain design model that is unique in that it allows complete variability in the choice of capacity level. This avoids the need to determine, a priori, a set of potential capacity levels. Another merit of the model is that the built facilities do not have unused capacity. Last, the conclusions and future work are provided.


According to Daniel Kahneman, there are two systems that drive the human decision making process: The intuitive system that performs the fast thinking, and the deliberative system that does more logical and slower thinking. Inspired by this model, we propose a framework for implementing human activity recognition on mobile devices. In this area, the mobile app is usually always-on and the general challenge is how to balance accuracy and energy consumption. However, among existing approaches, those based on cellular IDs consume little power but are less accurate; those based on GPS/WiFi sampling are accurate often at the costs of battery drainage; moreover, previous methods in general do not improve over time. To address these challenges, our framework consists of two modes: In the deliberation mode, the system learns cell ID patterns that are trained by existing GPS/WiFi based methods; in the intuition mode, only the learned cell ID patterns are used for activity recognition, which is both accurate and energy-efficient; system parameters are learned to control the transition from deliberation to intuition, when sufficient confidence is gained, and the transition from intuition to deliberation, when more training is needed. For the scope of this paper, we first elaborate our framework in a subproblem in activity recognition, trip detection, which recognizes significant places and trips between them. For evaluation, we collected real-life traces of six participants over five months. Our experiments demonstrated consistent results across different participants in terms of accuracy and energy efficiency, and, more importantly, its fast improvement on energy efficiency over time due to regularities in human daily activities.


"Digital nomad" Shu Lea Cheang and friend and critic Alexandra Juhasz consider the reasons for and implications of the censorship of Cheang's 2017 film FLUIDØ, particularly as it connects to their shared concerns in AIDS activism, feminism, pornography, and queer media. They consider changing norms, politics, and film practices in relation to technology and the body. They debate how we might know, and what we might need, from feminist-queer pornography given feminist-queer engagements with our bodies and ever more common cyborgian existences. Their informal chat opens a window onto the interconnections and adaptations that live between friends, sex, technology, illness, feminism, and representation.


Abstract : A normally transparent screen is needed that can be darkened quickly enough to protect the eyes of combat pilots who may be exposed to flashes from nuclear explosions. Strong absorption of visible light from the lowest triplet level of selected aromatic compounds is a promising basis for development of the required screen for prevention of flashblindness. This triplet absorption, which may be induced by absorption of ultraviolet light from microsecond flash lamps, decays in a few seconds so that transparency is spontaneously restored. A method of measuring extinction coefficients of triplet absorption and quantum yields of triplet formation has been developed. Combinations of aromatic compounds giving strong triplet absorption of visible light over the visible spectrum with minimized excitation energy are selected on the basis of these results. Two promising compounds have been synthesized. New plastics having greater solubility for large aromatic molecules than polymethylmethacrylate have been found. A method of making large sheets of polymethymethacrylate with exceptionally high transparency to ultraviolet is described. Deleterious effects of exposure of plastics, with and without aromatic solutes, to oxygen and sunlight have been studied. It was shown that diffusion of oxygen into the plastic sheets may be greatly reduced by a polyvinyl-alcohol coating. The application of these experimental results to the design of a protection device against flashblindness is discussed. (Author)


We consider anonymous communication between pairs of nodes in the presence of an adversary who can observe all network traffic. Existing schemes involve partially trusted central servers, a large amount of cover traffic, or high latency. We propose a scheme which improves upon the trade-off, in which messages require only logarithmic time to deliver, as well as computational time to send. In this scheme, any node receiving a message applies a private decryption key to discover content, or instructions to forward the message to zero or more other nodes. Furthermore, when a node applies its decryption key to a message not encrypted with that node's encryption key, the result is indistinguishable from a message with forwarding instructions. A sender wraps a message in an onion route of logarithmic length, branching (forwarding to multiple nodes) at random points, resulting in a tree of forwarded messages. Nodes wait to initiate messages of their own until they have received a message, so it is indistinguishable whether they are sending or forwarding. Through analysis and simulation, we show this system preserves a high degree of sender and receiver anonymity, as well as unlinkability between communicating pairs.


While it has long been known that the reduction of nitrite to nitric oxide (NO) forms iron-nitrosyl-myoglobin and is the basis of meat curing, a greater biological activity of the nitrite anion has only recently been appreciated. In the stomach, NO is formed from acidic reduction of nitrite and increases mucous barrier thickness and gastric blood flow (see the related study beginning on page 106). Nitrite levels in blood reflect NO production from endothelial NO synthase enzymes, and recent data suggest that nitrite contributes to blood flow regulation by reaction with deoxygenated hemoglobin and tissue heme proteins to form NO.


The paper is about how to begin to think about the possible continuities and discontinuities in Wittgenstein's philosophy -- about where many commentators on Wittgenstein's work think the continuities are to be sought and about where else one might look for them. It attempts to lay bare some of the central exegetical assumptions common to certain standard readings of Wittgenstein's writings at three different stages of his career -- the Tractatus, the private language sections of Philosophical Investigations, and On Certainty -- and to indicate why there is reason to think that the philosophical assumptions thus standardly attributed to Wittgenstein are already under indictment in the Tractatus, and how that indictment remains in force in Philosophical Investigations and in On Certainty. I hope thereby to offer a brief overview of an alternative picture of where the continuity in Wittgenstein's philosophy might be thought to lie -- one which locates it in the opposite place from where we have been taught to look for it by much of the commentary on Wittgenstein's work.


Objectives: To determine the extent to which variation in hospital antibiotic prescribing is associated with mortality risk in acute/general medicine inpatients. Design: Ecological analysis, using electronic health records from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and antibiotic data from IQVIA. Setting: 135 acute National Health Service (NHS) hospital Trusts in England. Participants: 36,124,372 acute/general medicine inpatients ([≥]16 years old at admission) admitted between 01/April/2010-31/March/2017 (median age 66 years, 50.4% female, 83.8% white ethnicity). Main outcome measures: Random-effects meta-regression was used to investigate whether heterogeneity in the adjusted probability of death within 30-days of admission was associated with hospital-level antibiotic use, measured in defined-daily-doses (DDD)/1,000 bed-days. Models also considered DDDs/1,000 admissions and DDDs for selected antibiotics, including narrow-spectrum/broad-spectrum, inpatient/outpatient, parenteral/oral, piperacillin-tazobactam and meropenem, and Public Health England interpretations of World Health Organization Access, Watch, and Reserve antibiotics. Secondary analyses examined 14-day mortality and non-elective re-admission to hospital within 30-days of discharge. Results: There was a 15-fold variation in hospital-level DDDs/1,000 bed-days and comparable or greater variation in broad-spectrum, parenteral, and Reserve antibiotic use. After adjusting for a wide range of admission factors to reflect varying case-mix across hospitals, the adjusted probability of 30-day mortality changed by -0.010% (95% CI: -0.064 to +0.044) for each increase in hospital-level antibiotic use of 500 DDDs/1,000 bed-days. Analyses focusing on other metrics of antibiotic use, sub-populations, and 14-day mortality also showed no consistent association with the adjusted probability of death. Discussion: We find no evidence that the wide variation in antibiotic use across NHS hospitals is associated with case-mix adjusted mortality risk in acute/general medicine inpatients. Our results indicate that hospital antibiotic use in the acute/general medicine population could be safely cut by up to one-third.


Transketolases (TKTs, E.C 126.96.36.199) are ubiquitous distributed enzymes among all three domains of life. TKTs require thiamin diphosphate (ThDP) and bivalent cations as catalytic cofactors. They fulfill their catalytic function within several metabolic pathways, of which the calvin-cycle of photosynthetic plants and the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) are the most important ones. The PPP is a cell's main source of the reductive equivalent nicotine adenine dinucleotid phosphate (NADPH) and ribose 5-phosphate (R5P), the precursor for nucleotide-synthesis. By adjusting the balance of the metabolic flux within the PPP, a cell can adapt towards changing metabolic demands. This metabolic adaption is of particular interest in terms of cancerogenesis, since it has been shown, that cancerous cells seem to modify the generation of NADPH and R5P to force cell dividing capacity. In this regard TKT's central role in the PPP is of great interest since inhibition of TKT was shown to have growth-inhibitory effects on malignant cells.
Moreover, an isoenzyme of TKT has been described in higher vertebrates, whose proposed function seems to cover the question of an altered PPP-activity. This transketolase-like protein 1 (TKTL1) was shown to be overexpressed on the mRNA- as well as on the protein level in several cancer entities. TKTL1 has been described as having an intrinsic catalytic function, by which it increases the conversion of metabolites within the PPP. Since the hypothesized catalytic function of TKTL1 has not been elucidated in detail, it was the aim of this doctoral thesis to address that question.
It was suggested that TKTL1 follows a reaction mechanism similar to phosphoketolases (XFPKs), another class of ThDP-dependent enzymes of Bifidobacteria. Therefore the reaction mechanism of XFPK of Bifidobacterium breve has been investigated to serve in a comparative manner to enlighten TKTL1's way of action. XFPK shows a different catalytic activity in comparison to TKTs. Besides sugar phosphates, XFPK also uses inorganic phosphate as substrate. By use of fast kinetic methods and 1 H NMR spectroscopic measurements, it was demonstrated that within the reaction mechanism of XFPK, phosphate not only seems to serve as substrate, but also as accelerator of catalysis. This way of substrate assisted catalysis of phosphate is a unique feature of XFPK among the ThDP-dependent enzyme family.
Furthermore, native TKTL1 was recombinantly expressed and analyzed by spectroscopic methods to enlighten its putative catalytic properties. By usage of established protocols for detection of transketolase activity and mass spectrometry, it could be shown that TKTL1 has no intrinsic transketolase activity. The lack of enzymatic activity is most probably caused by the inability of TKTL1 to bind the ThDP cofactor. This assumption could be underpinned by characterization of a native TKT derived deletion construct.


In this paper, a modified shadow moiré technique is applied to measure surface topology of wafers. When a wafer is sliced, either by an inner-diameter (ID) saw or wiresaw, the surface needs to be measured to ensure the consistency of quality. Two important characteristics of the wafer surface measurements are the warpage and total thickness variation (TTV). Currently, the most commonly used method of wafer measurement employs a pair of capacitive measuring probes which sample points on the surface of a rotating wafer to obtain the contours of surface. Many sampling points on the surface are needed for more accurate measurements; however, this will require more time for the inspection of wafers during production. An innovative alternative for full-field, whole-wafer measurement is developed using a laser light source and the modified shadow moiré technique. This methodology enables one to examine the whole wafer surface quickly and simultaneously. In this study, a 1000 lines/inch reference grating is employed as the standard to create a shadow moiré pattern. In addition, the Talbot effect is utilized to adjust the gap, or the so-called Talbot distance, between the grating and the wafer surface such that a fringe pattern of good quality can be obtained. By using the phase shifting technique, the resolution (or sensitivity) can be enhanced by two order of magnitude. The results show that not only the full view of whole wafer surface can be obtained, but also enhanced surface resolution and accuracy can be realized. In addition, warpage due to excessive residual stresses can be observed distinctly with fringe patterns because of the global and interconnected moiré fringes. This process is faster, especially when dealing with wafers with diameter larger than 200mm (8″). Experimental results of both 200mm single crystalline and 100 × 90mm polycrystalline wafers are presented. The system can also be fully automated to become an on-line inspection tool.


Through close analysis of a wide array of archival sources like Foreign Office Records and War Office Records as well as diverse contemporary sources like chronicles, memoires, correspondences, and press, this article provides an investigation of the journey of the Mamluk chief Muhammad bey al-Alfi to London in 1803 on behalf of the Mamluk beys of Egypt. It seeks to illuminate the various aspects of this journey was shrouded in obscurity and left out of the prevailing historical narrative. The paper also highlights the underlying motives of this journey as well as its implications on the Mamluk institution. It also outlines the diplomatic, economic and social activities that Alfi bey conducted there. It argues that this journey was truly an eye-opening experience if not a life-altering one for Alfi bey. Evidently, it had a lasting impact on him and helped him to articulate a new political vision by its end. As a result, he returned back Egypt with a recipe for its progress and a full determination to initiate an entire political makeover. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5913/jarce.53.2017.a006


11111111111 The eHicacy of the ginkgo blloba special extract ECb 761 in outpatients with presenile and senile primary degenerative dementla of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and multi-infarct dementia (MID) according to DSM-Ill-R was Investigated in a prospective, randomlzed, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center study. After a Cweek run-in period, 216 patients were included in the randomized 24-week treatment period. These received either a daily oral dose of 240 mg ECb 761 or placebo. In accordance with the recommended multi-dimensional evaluation approach. three primary variables were chosen: the Clinical Global Impressions (CGI Item 2) for psychopathological assessment. the Syndrom-Kurztest (SKT)' for the assessment of the patient's attention and memory, and the Nurnberger Alters-Beobachtungsskala (NAB)* for behavioral assessment of activities of daily life. Clinical efficacy was assessed by means of a responder analysis. with therapy response being deftned as response in at least two of the three primary variables. The data from the 156 patients who completed the study in accordance with the study protocol were taken into account in the confirmatory analysis of valid cases. The frequency of therapy responders in the two treatment groups differed significantly in favor of EGb 761, with p < 0.005 In Fisher's Exact Test. The intent-to-treat analysis of 205 patients led to similar efficacy results. Thus. the clinical efficacy of the ginkgo biloba special extract EGb 761 In dementia of the Alzheimer type and multi-infarct dementia was confirmed. The investigational drug was found to be well tolerated.


There is a significant need for data integration capabilities in the scientific domain, which has manifested itself as products in the commercial world as well as academia. However, in our experiences in dealing with biological data it has become apparent to us that existing data integration products do not handle uncertainties in the data very well. This leads to systems that often produce an explosion of less relevant answers which subsequently leads to a loss of more relevant answers by overloading the user. How to incorporate functionality into data integration systems to properly handle uncertainties and make results more useful has become an important research question. In this paper we describe an enhanced general-purpose data integration system which incorporates uncertainty metrics within a formal probabilistic framework. Additionally, for evaluation purposes, we have implemented a use case scenario which utilizes biological data sources and performed a study which provides validation of system query results.


The paper presents an experimental investigation on the structural performance of high strength cold-formed steel angle connection stiffened with U-bracket. A total of 18 sets of specimens were tested using different U-bracket configurations. The parameters of the U-bracket studied were the width of the web and the length of the flanges. The behaviour of the connection under load was observed and the failure mode of the connection was identified. It was shown that biaxial deformation occurred in the U-bracket. It was also demonstrated that the capacity of the connection of angle and U-bracket was 4 times the capacity of plain angles. Results showed that it was more conservative to estimate the strength of the connection by taking the total elastic capacity of the sections. It was more effective to use U-bracket with a 40mm web and 15mm long flanges with the 50mm width angle connection.


We introduce the ideas of "drop ceilings", that full-time employees who switch to reduced hours thereafter face an hours ceiling such that a return to full-time employment is difficult, and of "trap-door floors", that full-time employees may be denied the opportunity to reduce their hours and instead face a choice between full-time employment and quitting the job. These ideas derive from the potential existence of norms around the ideal worker and motherhood. Relevant hypotheses are developed and tested using information on usual and preferred working time from the first two waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The key findings are that women face drop ceilings significantly more often than men; that professionals and managers confront trap-door floors significantly more often than employees in other occupations; and that trap-door floor effects are generally stronger than drop ceiling effects in the data.


The system we propose is a "personal experience capture system", which unobtrusively follows us wherever we go and knows everything that we do. Making use of computing devices ubiquitously embedded in our environment, this Shadow will be able to create a precise record of all of our actions and experiences, including audio, video, location, and time data, as well as other formats, such as logs of all of our correspondence and documents we have edited. High level semantic information such as where we have visited, who we have met, what was said by whom when, what steps were performed in accomplishing a task, will also be captured.


Mobile robots range from the teleoperated Sojourner on the Mars Pathfinder mission to cleaning robots in the Paris Metro. Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots offers students and other interested readers an overview of the technology of mobility—the mechanisms that allow a mobile robot to move through a real world environment to perform its tasks—including locomotion, sensing, localization, and motion planning. It discusses all facets of mobile robotics, including hardware design, wheel design, kinematics analysis, sensors and perception, localization, mapping, and robot control architectures. The design of any successful robot involves the integration of many different disciplines, among them kinematics, signal analysis, information theory, artificial intelligence, and probability theory. Reflecting this, the book presents the techniques and technology that enable mobility in a series of interacting modules. Each chapter covers a different aspect of mobility, as the book moves from lowlevel to high-level details. The first two chapters explore low-level locomotory ability, examining robots' wheels and legs and the principles of kinematics. This is followed by an in-depth view of perception, including descriptions of many "offthe-shelf" sensors and an analysis of the interpretation of sensed data. The final two chapters consider the higher-level challenges of localization and cognition, discussing successful localization strategies, autonomous mapping, and navigation competence. Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook for coursework or a working tool for beginners in the field.


Author(s): Inkarojrit, Vorpat | Abstract: The goal of this study was to develop predictive models of window blind control that could be used as a function in energy simulation programs and provide the basis for the development of future automated shading systems. Toward this goal, a two-part study, consisting of a window blind usage survey and a field study, was conducted in Berkeley, California, USA, during a period spanning from the vernal equinox to window solstice. A total of one hundred and thirteen office building occupants participated in the survey. Twenty-five occupants participated in the field study, in which measurements of physical environmental conditions were cross-linked to the participants' assessment of visual and thermal comfort sensations.Results from the survey showed that the primary window blind closing reason was to reduce glare from sunlight and bright windows. For the field study, a total of thirteen predictive window blind control logistic models were derived using the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) technique.


Objective The primary objective of this study was to compare between liver resection (LR) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the management of early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We are trying to provide an update that can be valuable in clinical practice for determining the most suitable first-line management option for early HCC. Patients and methods The study included 80 patients with early HCC according to the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer staging system. Patients were divided into two groups: group A included 40 (50%) patients treated through LR, whereas group B included 40 (50%) patients managed through percutaneous RFA. In this study, we used the alternation method as an allocation process in this study. Procedures in both groups were done according to conventional principles. Percutaneous RFA technique was done under the guidance of ultrasonography (US) in complete aseptic conditions. Collected data included procedure time, intraoperative bleeding, postoperative complications, pain score, ICU, and the total hospital stay days. After procedures, patients were monitored every three months throughout the follow-up period. Results A total of 80 patients with early HCC underwent treatment with LR (N=40) and with RFA (N=40). There is a significant difference between both groups regarding the mean time of the procedure: 145±19.8 versus 40.6±7.8 min for LR and RFA, respectively. Rates of recurrence significantly (P<0.05) correlated with age and tumor size in both groups. No significant difference was observed in rates of recurrence or the time of recurrence (P>0.05) between LR and RFA groups. However, the recurrence percentage was slightly higher among patients treated by RFA compared with LR group. Conclusion Our prospective comparative study offers evidence that RFA provides a novel treatment for early HCC, and it shows survival and tumor relapse rates comparable to LR.


Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a well‐recognized model for multiple sclerosis (MS) in humans. However, adjuvants used with encephalitogens to induce EAE produce non‐specific effects interfering with the mechanisms involved in the autoimmune response to the central nervous system (CNS) tissue. It is therefore important to establish a more suitable model of EAE for analysis of autoimmune phenomena resembling those operative in MS. Here we report that EAE can be induced regularly in Dark Agouti (DA) strain of rats with spinal cord tissue without any adjuvant, as judged by both clinical and histological parameters. The incidence and severity of EAE depended on the origin of the encephalitogen, the rat versus guinea pig spinal cord homogenate being more efficient. Furthermore, EAE could be reinduced in animals which had recovered from disease that had been induced actively with encephalitogen alone, suggesting the role of adjuvant‐generated non‐specific mechanisms in resistance to reinduction of EAE. Thus, EAE induced in DA rats with encephalitogen alone provides a reproducible model for defining pathogenically relevant events in CNS autoimmunity devoid of the potentially misleading effects of adjuvants.


In the assessment of art history in Qajar era, in addition to their aesthetic elements, the social, historical, and political processes influencing on the formation of the works must be taken into account. These studies never detract from the values of the artworks, but demonstrate the share of ultra-aesthetic elements in them. The historical evidence of Qajar era reveals to us some manifestations of the impact of policies, especially those of the governmental elite1, on the art of this period. The headlines of governmental offices, orders, notifications, circulars, and political themes of the artwork are evidenced. In the second half of Qajar government, the growth of modern ideas created a new discursive space, the development of which had a significant impact on the emergence of artistic styles and appearance of eclectic styles. Focus on the interaction between art and politics and analysis of the factors affecting the formation of artwork are among the topics that have been less paid attention to by the researchers in this field. Yet, from among the factors influencing on the creation of works of art, governance policies have played a decisive role. The two fundamental questions this paper was formed to answer were what relationship there has been between art and politics during the Qajar era and what factors have influenced on it. This article aimed at evaluating how the governing elite dealt with artists, artworks, and their outcomes by using a descriptive-analytical method. The article has been further theoretically inspired by the relationship between knowledge and power based on Michel Foucault's thoughts. Therefore, according to Foucault's theories and viewpoints on the relationship between knowledge and power, the relations between art and politics were analyzed. The results of this study were indicative of the interactions between politics and art in the form of politics supporting art, and in some cases, contrasting it, the manifestations of which could be found in the critical aspects of the works of art.


The considerable amount of energy spent on the construction, maintenance, and demolition of buildings draws attention to sustainable development in the construction sector. Regarded as both tools and frameworks, laws are expected to sustain and speed technological innovation. With the STS (Science and Technology Studies) theory of domestication and in-depth interviews with building researchers studying zero emission buildings in Norway, I discuss the role of research engineers in the domestication of law, that is, the translation of European Directives for building codes and technical requirements, and the mediation of these legal frameworks for industry and practitioners. I classify two main and opposing ways of domesticating the law in 'inside-the-box' and 'outside-the-box' approaches. The domestication of law accounts for numerous aspects and thus simultaneously becomes a technological, cultural, political and legislative activity. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the legislative roles of research engineers.


The essay reviews the notion of "civic science" in global environmental governance and how it is articulated in international relations, science studies, democratic theory and sustainability science. Civic science is used interchangeably with participatory, citizen, stakeholder and democratic science, which are all catch words that signify various attempts to increase public participation in the production and use of scientific knowledge. Three rationales for civic science are identified: restoring public trust in science, re-orienting science towards coping with the complexity of environmental problems and installing democratic governance of science. A central proposition is that the promotion of civic science needs to be coupled with a theoretical understanding of its institutional, normative and epistemological challenges. The science-politics interface needs to be reframed to include the triangular interaction between scientific experts, policy- makers and citizens.


This paper presents an algorithm for the subgraph isomorphism detection with support for continuous and discrete labels. This algorithm consists of three phases: first, we perform the discretization of continuous labels through unsupervised discretization methods; in the second step, the SI-COBRA algorithm is used for the subgraph isomorphism detection; finally, in the third phase, we need a simple transformation in order to show the results with a logical meaning with respect to the original data.


Background: Use of tobacco in cigarettes indeed represents a health concern of growing magnitude among cigarette smokers. As a consequence of its addictive qualities, the consumption of cigarettes often becomes a lifelong habit, with cumulative and deleterious effects on health. Smokeless tobacco has been advocated as a substitute for cigarette smoking. On the contrary, the use of smokeless tobacco is fraught with health risks and needs to be discouraged. Modernisation of life style has affected the population even in rural areas, leading to addiction. Smokeless tobacco is presumed to be less of an evil by the rural folk. Khaini addicts are likely to suffer from mental and physical exhaustion, leading to stress. Khaini is tobacco with slaked lime. This is important in view of the prevailing socio-economic as well as the healthcare system available in any developing country. Therefore, the present study is designed to measure the heart rate variability (HRV) among this special group of the population. Materials and Methods: Fifteen male subjects were enrolled from the rural farm labors′ population who regularly chew khaini. They were free from any type of physical and mental health issues and were non-smokers. A similar group of 15 male subjects anthropometrically matched, who did not chew khaini and did not use tobacco in any form, participated as controls. Each individual volunteer was subjected to an HRV analysis on three occasions: the first record was performed on the first day of their arrival in the hospital as subjects during the lean season. The second observation was recorded after 3 months. The final HRV analysis was performed after 6 months of the first recording. Two types of parameters were analyzed: time domain and frequency domain. Statistical analysis was performed using a paired t-test within the study group and the unpaired t-test between non-khaini chewing controls and subjects on Day 1 of the recording. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the controls and the study group on Day 1 of recording. Both the HRV parameters - time and frequency domain, showed decreased values during the third month and sixth month recording as compared with the first week recording. The decrease is much more during the sixth month recording as compared with the third month recording. A statistically significant decrease is observed in the mean RR interval, heart rate, very large frequency and large frequency only when the first week recording is compared with the third month recording, but when the first week recording is compared with the sixth month recording, a significant decrease in the mean RR interval and heart rate is found. Conclusion: Subjects involved in taking khaini are likely to undergo a lot of physical and mental stress thus affecting their autonomic status. This adds up to the stress induced by their occupation. HRV analysis using short-term electrocardiogram recordings was used to detect changes consequent with this stress.


In multimedia-based e-Learning systems, there are strong needs for segmenting lecture videos into topic units in order to organize the videos for browsing and to provide search capability. Automatic segmentation is highly desired because of the high cost of manual segmentation. While a lot of research has been conducted on topic segmentation of transcribed spoken text, most attempts rely on domain-specific cues and formal presentation format, and require extensive training; none of these features exist in lecture videos with unscripted and spontaneous speech. In addition, lecture videos usually have few scene changes, which implies that the visual information that most video segmentation methods rely on is not available. Furthermore, even when there are scene changes, they do not match with the topic transitions. In this paper, we make use of the transcribed speech text extracted from the audio track of video to segment lecture videos into topics. We review related research and propose a new segmentation approach. Our approach utilizes features such as noun phrases and combines multiple content-based and discourse-based features. Our preliminary results show that the noun phrases are salient features and the combination of multiple features is promising to improve segmentation accuracy.


Moringa oleifera Lam. contains many active ingredients with nutritional and medicinal values. It is commonly used in folk medicine as an antidiabetic agent. The present study was designed to investigate how an aqueous extract from the leaves of M. oleifera reveals hypoglycemia in diabetic rats. M. oleifera leaf extract counteracted the alloxan-induced diabetic effects in rats as it normalized the elevated serum levels of glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, and malondialdehyde, and normalized mRNA expression of the gluconeogenic enzyme pyruvate carboxylase in hepatic tissues. It also increased live body weight gain and normalized the reduced mRNA expression of fatty acid synthase in the liver of diabetic rats. Moreover, it restored the normal histological structure of the liver and pancreas damaged by alloxan in diabetic rats. This study revealed that the aqueous extract of M. oleifera leaves possesses potent hypoglycemic effects through the normalization of elevated hepatic pyruvate carboxylase enzyme and regeneration of damaged hepatocytes and pancreatic cells via its antioxidant properties.


The axonal initial segment (AIS) is the subcellular compartment required for initiation of the action potential in neurons. Scaffolding and regulatory proteins at the AIS cluster with ion channels ensuring the integrity of electrical signaling. Interference with the configuration of this protein network can lead to profound effects on neuronal polarity, excitability, cell-to-cell connectivity and brain circuit plasticity. As such, the ability to visualize AIS components with precision provides an invaluable opportunity for parsing out key molecular determinants of neuronal function. Fluorescence-based immunolabeling is a sensitive method for morphological and molecular characterization of fine structures in neurons. Yet, even when combined with confocal microscopy, detection of AIS elements with immunofluorescence has been limited by the loss of antigenicity caused by fixative materials. This technical barrier has posed significant limitations in detecting AIS components alone or in combination with other markers. Here, we designed improved protocols targeted to confocal immunofluorescence detection of the AIS marker fibroblast growth factor 14 (FGF14) in combination with the cytoskeletal-associated protein Ankyrin-G, the scaffolding protein βIV-spectrin, voltage-gated Na+ (Nav) channels (especially the Nav1.6 isoform) and critical cell type-specific neuronal markers such as parvalbumin, calbindin, and NeuN in the mouse brain. Notably, we demonstrate that intracardiac perfusion of animals with a commercially available solution containing 1% formaldehyde and 0.5% methanol, followed by brief fixation with cold acetone is an optimal and sensitive protocol for FGF14 and other AIS marker detection that guarantees excellent tissue integrity. With variations in the procedure, we also significantly improved the detection of Nav1.6, a Nav isoform known for its fixative-sensitivity. Overall, this study provides an ensemble of immunohistochemical recipes that permit excellent staining of otherwise invisible molecules within well-preserved tissue architecture. While improving the specific investigation of AIS physiology and cell biology, our thorough study can also serve as a roadmap for optimizing immunodetection of other fixative-sensitive proteins expanding the repertoire of enabling methods for brain studies.


Between 2007 and 2013, we were part of the Historical Memory Group (GMH), a research group comprising researchers and experts working under the auspices of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation of Colombia. The GMH was tasked under Law 975 with producing a report on the origins and causes of the armed conflict in Colombia. Despite the dominant right-wing political context and the ongoing armed conflict, the GMH enjoyed intellectual and operative autonomy in its research. This article interrogates the dynamics and reasons that served as the basis for the GMH's special sensitivity towards victims; the notion of victim implicit in the research work, with its inclusions and exclusions; and the dilemmas that arose in the group's work. We argue that the GMH can be characterized as an agent of knowledge production about a violent past that was able to articulate comprehensive and plural narratives about violence in Colombia. However, this work was limited by state and institutional dynamics that sought to domesticate and instrumentalize the voices of those who had been systematically silenced. A review of the GMH's work suggests three critical dilemmas that constrain truth-telling mechanisms: the dilemma between opening spaces for truth telling and the safety of those providing testimony; the dilemma around whose victims' voices gain authority in the documentation process; and the risks of institutionalizing a discourse around victims that bestows narrative capital to state and societal institutions.


Competitive markets provide the best conditions for producing low-priced, high-quality, and innovative goods and services, which benefit all of society. The poor especially benefit from competition through better standards of living and participation in more economic activities. With more dynamic markets, more people can engage in entrepreneurship and gain productive employment. Competition policy fosters the right environment by protecting firms and consumers from the anti-competitive behavior of firms, as well as anti-competitive regulations and inefficient business involvement of government.
SMEs are an important economic driver through which the potential of competition policy to contribute to shared prosperity can be realized. While competition policy cannot serve as the main framework for the development of SMEs, it addresses market distortions that decrease competitiveness and efficiency. Given limited resources, competition authorities must prioritize sectors in which the largest impact may be made, especially in terms of shared prosperity outcomes, namely, poverty reduction, real income growth, and the creation of productive and meaningful employment.
An effective competition regime must be supported by a culture of competition encompassing all transactions and interactions, as well as comprehensive socioeconomic and political reform that enhances business and government efficiency. This culture of competition must be underpinned by trust and confidence among people, businesses and institutions, which reinforces the dependability of transactions and forms the foundation of expanded economic interaction and cooperation.


In 1964, Ronald Graham proved that there exist relatively prime natural numbers $a$ and $b$ such that the sequence $\{A_n\}$ defined by $$ {A}_{n} =A_{n-1}+A_{n-2}\qquad (n\ge 2;A_0=a,A_1=b)$$ contains no prime numbers, and constructed a 34-digit pair satisfying this condition. In 1990, Donald Knuth found a 17-digit pair satisfying the same conditions. That same year, noting an improvement to Knuth's computation, Herbert Wilf found a yet smaller 17-digit pair. Here we improve Graham's construction and generalize Wilf's note, and show that the 12-digit pair $$(a,b)= (407389224418,76343678551)$$ also defines such a sequence.


This essay is a draft chapter for inclusion in Courtney Bender and Pamela Klassen, eds., After Pluralism (forthcoming Columbia 2009). The chapter explores the idea that a new naturalization of religion is present in U.S. legal contexts. Using recent decisions in FFRF v. Nicholson and Hein v. FFRF, the chapter argues that there is an increasingly distinct move away from the high separationism of the mid-twentieth century toward what we might call a post-pluralistic acknowledgment of religion as natural or universal. While this move is seen as establishmentarian by some, by others it is seen as a benignly so, permissible because no longer tainted by religious bigotry. A legal division between the church and the state, or between persons of faith and persons not of faith, ontologically speaking, on which separation law depends, no longer makes sense, descriptively, if it ever did. Such a division can only be made on a doctrinal basis by established religious or legal authorities who define insiders and outsiders. Such authorities no longer exist in the U.S. Virtually all Americans, however orthodox their asserted religious identities, Protestant or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim, or, claim the right to associate themselves with religious communities and practices associations at will, and to mix and match religious traditions. That right is understood to be authorized by political, legal, and theological narratives and texts. There are no churches left to establish or to disestablish. In their place, the human, every human, is now imagined by law as being in need of spiritual care.


This paper assessed the effectiveness of programs put in place to curb   absenteeism by learners in public day secondary schools in Kirinyaga County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population included 79 principals and 317 teachers in public secondary schools in Kirinyaga County. The researcher employed the Gay formula of 20 per cent to select a sample of 16 principals and 63 teachers.  Data was collected by means of a questionnaire administered to the sampled principals and teachers. Content validity of the instrument was ascertained by expert opinion, while reliability was assessed by Cronbach coefficient alpha technique which yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.71 for the instrument. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0. Data analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0 revealed that in majority of schools affordable school levies, bursaries and spot checks and roll calls were effective in reduction of students' absenteeism. However, the study further established that guidance and counseling was not an effective intervention in addressing learner absenteeism in public day secondary schools. On the basis of the findings of this study, it is recommended that schools adhere to the fees guidelines as stipulated by the ministry of education, education stakeholders should enhance the provision of bursaries to needy students and that teachers consistently mark class registers to capture students attendance to all instructional sessions in every school day. Lastly, there is need to enhance guidance and counseling programmmes in order to make them effective in addressing absenteeism among learners.


A vast array of processing technologies are available for the production of fish oil concentrates containing DHA and/or EPA enriched preparations. These include extraction and separation technologies, various filtration and refining processes, 'winterization', toxicant removal in some cases, conversion of the natural triglyceride form to ethyl esters of omega-3 fatty acids followed by molecular or vacuum distillation, subsequent transesterification, to name but a few of the approaches used in the industry. Beginning with a high quality natural fish oil is an important first step in contributing to the eventual production of a high quality omega-3 concentrates enriched in DHA, EPA, and various ratios and mixtures thereof.


This article discusses a new model for using D2D interaction and proximity services (ProSe). This model allows telecommunications operators to offer their customers a micro-positioning system that will allow users (customers) of the service to offer information services (information services) to mobile subscribers who find themselves in a certain specified area. Applications of this kind of services include retail, office centers, campuses, and transport infrastructure systems. These sorts of systems will allow telecommunications operators to compete in providing these sorts of solutions with systems using wireless network approaches in the unlicensed spectrum. This work examines the software component of such a service. The proposed approach focuses on security.


Abstract The "immunocompetence handicap" hypothesis predicts that reproductive hormones, in particular testosterone (T), are immunosuppressive and consequently increase susceptibility to diseases and parasite infections, but this prediction has not been evaluated in free-living birds and the factors mediating the immunosuppressive influence of T remain poorly known. To address these issues, we administered supplemental T via implants to free-ranging adult male Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) and characterized the effects of this treatment on infection with the two most prevalent hematozoan parasites in this species, Leucocytozoon fringillinarum and Trypanosoma avium. Males caught at the beginning of their breeding season (May) received T-filled, empty (control), or no Silastic capsules, and were recaptured five weeks later. Capsule implantation had, by itself, no effect on parasite infections, body mass, or size of an androgen-dependent secondary sexual characteristic, the cloacal protuberance. Testosterone treatment maintained physiologically high plasma levels of the steroid for the duration of the study, thus preventing the seasonal decline in these levels that occurred in control males. As predicted by the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis, the hormone treatment increased blood L. fringillinarum abundance. This increase was specific, in that implanted T did not affect (1) either the prevalence or the incidence of L. fringillinarum, (2) body mass, or (3) size of the cloacal protuberance. Trypanosoma avium prevalence was not influenced by T treatment either, but it increased between May and June, which suggests that it is regulated by factors other than the activity of the reproductive system. These findings provide the first demonstration in free-ranging birds that experimentally elevated physiological T levels increase hematozoan infection. El Tratamiento de Testosterona en Machos Silvestres de Junco hyemalis Exacerba la Infección de Hemoparásitos


Post-election disputes have become a fairly routine part of election campaigns. From Bush v. Gore to Al Franken versus Norm Coleman in Minnesota to Lisa Murkowski versus Joe Miller in Alaska, states have frequently been asked to resolve the proper winner of an election. How do states go about doing this? What processes and procedures are in place for these election contests? This article uncovers the myriad election contest provisions among the states, examining the procedural mechanisms states use to tackle these disputes. States vary widely – sometimes sending an election contest to its legislature, other times directing the challenge to its judiciary, and still in other situations creating a special tribunal to consider the case. This article provides the first comprehensive look at all fifty state election contest provisions. First, the article groups election contest codes by type of election, showing how states approach election contests for state representatives, governor and lieutenant governor, judges (for those states that have elected judiciaries), members of Congress, and presidential electors. Second, the article looks at common traits among election contest provisions, focusing on statutory deadlines, details on how state judiciaries resolve election disputes, and the appeals process. Third, the article calls on states to evaluate their election contest provisions, with a particular focus on rooting out ideology or bias in the decision maker. The article offers one possible mechanism to minimize ideological decision making: the creation of a five-member election contest tribunal with two "partisans" and three "neutrals," as well as a diversity of expertise among the panel members.


We tackle real-world problems with complex structures beyond the pixel-based game or simulator. We formulate it as a few-shot reinforcement learning problem where a task is characterized by a subtask graph that defines a set of subtasks and their dependencies that are unknown to the agent. Different from the previous meta-rl methods trying to directly infer the unstructured task embedding, our multi-task subtask graph inferencer (MTSGI) first infers the common high-level task structure in terms of the subtask graph from the training tasks, and use it as a prior to improve the task inference in testing. Our experiment results on 2D grid-world and complex web navigation domains show that the proposed method can learn and leverage the common underlying structure of the tasks for faster adaptation to the unseen tasks than various existing algorithms such as meta reinforcement learning, hierarchical reinforcement learning, and other heuristic agents.


Introduction: As survival of previously considered as lethal congenital heart disease forms is the case in our days, issues regarding quality of life including sport and daily activities emerge. In patients with Fontan circulation, there is no pump to propel blood into the pulmonary arteries since the systemic veins are directly connected to the pulmonary arteries. The complex hemodynamics of Fontan circulation include atrial function, peripheral muscle pump, integrity of the atrioventricular valve, absence of restrictive, or obstructive pulmonary lung function. Therefore, thoracic mechanics are of particular importance within the complex hemodynamics of Fontan circulation. Methods: To understand the physiology of respiratory muscles, the aim of this study was to examine the matching of auxiliary respiratory muscle oxygen delivery and utilization during incremental exercise in young male Fontan patients (n = 22, age = 12.04 ± 2.51) and healthy Controls (n = 10, age = 14.90 ± 2.23). All subjects underwent a cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) to exhaustion whereas respiratory muscle oxygenation was measured non-invasively using a near-infrared spectrometer (NIRS). Results: CPET revealed significantly lower peak power output, oxygen uptake and breath activity in Fontan patients. The onset of respiratory muscle deoxygenation was significantly earlier. The matching of local muscle perfusion to oxygen demand was significantly worse in Fontans between 50 and 90% V.O2peak. Findings: The results indicate that (a) there is high strain on respiratory muscles during incremental cycling exercise and (b) auxiliary respiratory muscles are worse perfused in patients who underwent a Fontan procedure compared to healthy Controls. This might be indicative of a more general skeletal muscle strain and worse perfusion in Fontan patients rather than a localized-limited to thoracic muscles phenomenon.


Pododermatitis is a worldwide health and animal welfare problem in captive flamingos (Phoenicopteridae). Since sub-optimal substrate or flooring has been described as a factor in the development of pododermatitis in poultry and raptors, it is also suspected to play a role in flamingo foot health. Small groups of flamingos were separated from the main group in an indoor enclosure with artificial grass carpet and, in earlier years, concrete flooring, with additional fine granular sand in the water basin for the study year. Feet were evaluated before and after the separation. Judged subjectively, foot lesions had shown a general increase in the indoor enclosure in earlier years. In contrast, lesion severity and prevalence, scored in accordance with a standardised protocol, decreased when fine granular sand was provided. Since flamingos were observed mostly standing on sand and as this represented the major differentiating factor between years, it is concluded that fine granular sand is a favourable substrate to maintain, and one that may even lead to an improvement in flamingo foot health.


Smart polymers based on covalent adaptive networks (CANs) with reversible covalent bonds have drawn tremendous attention in the past few years. The relaxation properties of CANs polymers play an important role because of their stimuli-responsive capability. Here, we elucidate the correlation between the stress relaxation dynamics and reaction thermochemistry of CANs polymers. Diels–Alder (DA) reaction based cross-linked elastomers are utilized as model CANs polymers. In situ FTIR data reveals the dynamic reaction kinetics and thermodynamics in the solid state. The influence of cross-linking density on the temperature-dependent stress relaxation time of the CANs polymers well above the gel point can be normalized by the relative distance to the gel point conversion. Combining the Semenov–Rubinstein theory and Arrhenius' law, a simple scaling relationship between normalized relaxation time and reaction kinetics is established for CANs polymers.


Community gardens are a powerful tool for improving the urban environment, and the benefits associated with them are well established in both popular publications and in academia. Unfortunately, we often see community gardens fail. Literature suggests that the considerable rate of failure may be brought upon by lack of community engagement. This thesis aims to identify ways to enhance participation in community gardens; and seeks to explore the proposition that community engagement may be fostered through participatory planning, which contributes to the long-term sustainability of the gardens. In order to explore this proposition, this thesis presents and analyzes the case study of a unique participatory planning process developed for a community garden in Chicago, La Huerta Roots & Rays.


Background and aims Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is a common bacterial infection in patients with liver cirrhosis and ascites. Cirrhotic patients frequently have vitamin D (Vit-D) deficiency. Vit-D induces the production of LL-37, an important molecule of innate immunity, in macrophages. The aim of this study is to assess Vit-D and LL-37 levels in the ascitic fluid (AF) of cirrhotic patients with SBP in comparison to patients with simple ascites. Patients and methods Forty male cirrhotic patients with ascites were included and were divided into two groups, 20 with culture-positive SBP (group I) and 20 with simple ascites (group II). AF Vit-D and LL-37 levels were measured. Results Vit-D and LL-37 levels were significantly lower in patients with SBP than those with simple ascites. In univariate analysis, the risk factors for SBP were lower platelet count, higher leukocytic count, higher serum bilirubin, lower prothrombin activity, lower serum albumin, higher Child–Pugh and model for end-stage liver diseases scores, and lower AF Vit-D and LL-37 levels, while in multivariate analysis, a lower AF Vit-D level was the only risk factor for SBP. Conclusion Patients with SBP have lower levels of AF Vit-D and LL-37 than simple ascites, where an inadequate expression of LL-37 in AF due to the low Vit-D level may increase the susceptibility to SBP.


Environmental conditions and poor personal hygiene as one of the causes of the high incidence of helminthiasis in Indonesia, affectingthe status of health, nutrition, intelligence and economic productivity. This study aims to determine the relationship between personal hygieneand the incidence of helminthiasis among primary school students. A cross sectional research was conduct at Omben Regency, District ofSampang, Madura island. Study sample were 57 students at 4th, 5th, and 6th grade from Rapadaya Elementary School. The observed variableswere age and sex characteristic, personal hygiene knowledge and practice, incidence of worm investation, nutritional and anemia status amongstudents. Data was obtained by using questionnaires, laboratory test of fecal for identifi cation of worm investation. Hb level was measure byusing cyanmethemoglobin method. Nutritional status was obtained by measuring body weight and stature. All the data were analyzed by usingChi square formula. According to Chi-square analysis there are signifi cant correlation between personal hygiene with occurrence of wormy(p = 0.045); signifi cant correlation between personal hygiene with occurrence of anemia (p = 0.024), but not signifi cant between personalhygienic with nutritional status (p=0.570). Results showed that personal hygiene behavior mostly student was good and there was signifi cantrelationship between personal hygiene behavior of students with helminthiasis.

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An influential theoretical hypothesis holds that if aggregate productivity growth accelerates, then so does the decline in energy intensity. Whether faster growth is greener in this sense is crucial for modeling future growth and climate change mitigation, but empirical evidence is lacking. This paper characterizes the global, long-run historical relationship between changes in energy intensity and labor productivity growth rates. Basing estimates on an unbalanced panel of 180 countries for the period 1950-2014 and the world as a whole, it captures a significantly larger historical window than previous studies. The paper finds a stylized fact whereby the rate at which energy intensity changes is constant or even increases as labor productivity accelerates. Faster growth is not greener. This provides important new information for calibrating integrated assessment models, many of which make a green growth assumption in near term projections.


Two remarkable developments mark this time in Mexican criminal justice as profoundly different. First, the country is suffering through wrenching violence connected with the drug trade. Second, Mexico has embarked on procedural changes both at the federal and state levels. Many characterize this procedural transformation as a shift from an inquisitorial to an adversarial model of criminal procedure. I suggest, however, that the reforms do not simply endorse the strengths of a particular adversarial fact-finding method. Rather, the codes create meaningful competition for the public prosecutors in Mexico during the investigation, trial, and punishment of alleged criminals. This essay considers the connections between these two events, both in the past and the future. Did one development cause the other, or did they both flow from a single cause? First, I consider the "inevitability hypothesis." According to this view, procedural reform would have happened with or without the drug violence, and the fact that they occurred at the same moment is simply a coincidence. I believe the stronger account, however, is the "violence-as-causation" hypothesis. According to this account, the extraordinary drug violence of 2007 made possible a sweeping set of procedural changes. The violence was necessary to motivate actors to embrace major institutional change.


The predictive value of work ability for several health and occupational outcomes is well known. Maintaining the ability to work of all employees has become an important topic in research although some evidence suggests that some groups of workers need greater attention than others. Healthcare workers (x¯ = 54.46 ± 5.64 years) attending routine occupational health checkups completed their work ability, occupational risk and sociodemographic measures. An analysis examined whether work ability differed according to gender, age and professional category. Mediation of these relationships by occupational risk variables, such as work–family conflict, was examined. Females and older adults had worse work ability than their counterparts. Professional group was not independently associated. Gender-related differences were mediated by current and historic ergonomic risk, psychosocial risk and work–family conflict. Age-related differences were mediated by violence/discrimination at work. All job risk variables, apart from current ergonomic risk, mediated associations between professional category and work ability. The present study identified the importance of risk variables for the work ability of health workers according to gender, age and professional job type. Perceptions of work–family conflict and violence–discrimination seem particularly important and should be considered when targeting improvements in work ability.


This research reports a novel investigation into the comparative effects of positive and negative direct and extended intergroup contact on intergroup orientations. It tested the generality of the positive-negative asymmetry effect among majority (N = 357) and minority (N = 101) group members in Iceland. Little evidence of asymmetry was observed: the beneficial effects of positive contact were mostly as strong as the detrimental effects of negative contact, for both direct and extended contact. However, evidence was found for alternative interaction models in which positive contact buffers the negative effects of negative contact, and negative contact enhances the benefits of positive contact. These interaction effects were found only for direct contact and principally in the majority group, but were also found for the minority group, though more weakly. No interaction was observed for extended contact. It appeared that differential group salience elicited by positive and negative contact could partly contribute to the explanation of the observed effects, at least in the majority sample.


Research Question: The aim of this paper is to construct a numerical measure of EPL which takes into consideration the implementation of legislation and employment structure. Motivation: It is recognized in the literature that in countries with a significant share of the shadow economy the labour market flexibility is de facto higher than the original EPL index based on de iure conditions implies. Since the sub-index which refers to the workers with permanent contracts has the largest weight in the EPL index calculation, taking into consideration the share of workers with regular contracts in total employment would give a clearer picture about the real influence of individual sub-indices. Idea: For international comparisons of de iure strictness of the employment protection legislation, we use the latest official OECD data on EPL index and its sub-indices. The OECD data for Serbia shows only the values for EPR, EPC and EPRC sub-indices. After calculation of EPT sub-index and EPL index for Serbia, three adjusted indices are developed in order to capture the effective (i.e., de facto) strictness of the employment protection legislation in different countries. Data: The analysis was based on the latest available official OECD data on the EPL indices (2012 to 2015, depending on a country). For the calculation of missing sub-indices for Serbia, the main source of information was the Labour Law. Data on shadow economy are based on Krstic et al. (2013) and Schneider (2016), while the data regarding employment structure stem from Labour Force Surveys. Tools: Calculation of EPT and EPL indices was conducted in accordance with the official OECD methodology for calculating summary indicators of EPL strictness. The methodology for calculation of adjusted indices is developed on the initial basis of the previous research from Berger et al. (2016), Eamets & Paas (2007a), Boeri & van Ours (2008), Rutkowski & Scarpetta (2005) and Jandric (2014). Findings: The analysis was performed for 26 European countries. Rankings of European countries according to de facto strictness of the employment protection legislation differ significantly from the rankings made upon de iure strictness of the EPL. De facto external numerical flexibility of the labour market in Serbia is higher than when measured by the original unadjusted indices. Contribution: The main contribution of the paper is the development of the method for international comparisons of EPL, which provides a way to distinguish between de facto and de iure rigidity of employment protection legislation.


Tre Marie is an interactive audio-visual dance improvised performance. The system in progress is a RF-ID (radio-frequency identification) technology for dance performance, which improvises, live visuals on stage. The performance is a reconstructed architecture of space that encodes the spatial aesthetics of the interaction between human, theatrical and cinematic space.


The aim of the study is to determine the existing correlation between high-resolution 3D imaging technique obtained through Micro Computed Tomography (mCT) and histological-histomorphometric images to determine in vivo bone osteogenic behavior of bioceramic scaffolds. A Ca-Si-P scaffold ceramic doped and non-doped (control) with a natural demineralized bone matrix (DBM) were implanted in rabbit tibias for 1, 3, and 5 months. A progressive disorganization and disintegration of scaffolds and bone neoformation occurs, from the periphery to the center of the implants, without any differences between histomorphometric and radiological analysis. However, significant differences (p < 0.05) between DMB-doped and non-doped materials where only detected through mathematical analysis of mCT. In this way, average attenuation coefficient for DMB-doped decreased from 0.99 ± 0.23 Hounsfield Unit (HU) (3 months) to 0.86 ± 0.32 HU (5 months). Average values for non-doped decreased from 0.86 ± 0.25 HU (3 months) to 0.66 ± 0.33 HU. Combination of radiological analysis and mathematical mCT seems to provide an adequate in vivo analysis of bone-implanted biomaterials after surgery, obtaining similar results to the one provided by histomorphometric analysis. Mathematical analysis of Computed Tomography (CT) would allow the conducting of long-term duration in vivo studies, without the need for animal sacrifice, and the subsequent reduction in variability.


The earthquake disaster was a vast risk for a sustainable and harmonious societal and economic development, so, it was effective methods to build a decision supporting system for earthquake disaster mitigation and preparation stratagem. A typical decision support system for Earthquake disaster mitigation was introduced in this paper. The principle, design criteria, structure, functions and application of the system were described herein. This system based on Geographical Information System and Artificial Intelligence, consists of below several parts: earthquake hazard analysis, lifeline system performance analysis, kinds of building earthquake damage forecasting, post-earthquake emergency response aided-decisions and earthquake information instant publishing. In this system, there were more than 100 coverages and 36 analytical models. These coverages covered almost all related data to meet the needs of earthquake disaster mitigation and risk assessment, including recorded earthquakes, seismic tectonic zones, intensity distribution of historic earthquake, soil profiles, characteristics of buildings, distribution of citizens, important lifeline systems, earthquake rescuing experience and knowledge, etc. These analytical modules could be used to generate isoseismals of earthquake, estimate site effects, forecast the failure possibility of slope and the damage bound of landslide triggered by earthquake, evaluate performance, damage and losses of building and lifeline system, assess the toll of death and injured, and provided the decision-making for rescue, relief, evacuation.


The treatment of immature necrotic permanent teeth with wide open apices often poses a significant challenge for the clinician. The lack of an apical stop complicates the obturation and achievement of good apical seal in such teeth. The treatment of choice for necrotic teeth with immature root is apexification, which is induction of apical closure to produce more favorable conditions for conventional root canal filling. The most commonly advocated medicament is calcium hydroxide. But the disadvantages of long treatment time, tooth fracture risk and incomplete calcification of apical bridge have led to the development of newer biocompatible materials which can complete apexification in a single visit. Although different materials are available, Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA) remains the material of choice for forming an immediate apical barrier because of its superior clinical properties and high success rate. This case series highlights the use of MTA for formation of hard tissue barrier in nonvital permanent teeth with open apices with demonstrated clinical and radiographic success.