While several studies have found evidence for conditional-dependent effect on women's preferences for male masculinity, others have questioned the relative importance of these effects. In this study, we evaluated variation in women's preference for male facial masculinity in a forced-choice experiment. Nearly 1200 participants scored preference for manipulated photos and surface scans. Between-individual variation in preferences were relatively small, especially for the evaluation of the surface scans. Nevertheless, preferences from the evaluations of photos and scans correlated positively, indicating that both stimuli provide similar biological information. Only few condition-dependent variables correlated significantly with preference for masculinity, and not all in predicted directions. Stronger preference for masculine male faces – albeit only significant for the photos – with higher own women attractiveness was observed as expected. Yet, for perceived infectability, consistently across the photos and scans, a negative association with preference for masculine faces was observed, which is opposite to theoretical predictions. In addition, no effects of pathogen exposure, germ aversion (a correlate of disgust), relational status, preference for short term relationships and sociosexuality were detected. Thus, overall, our study is in line with recent large studies that also find only very weak condition-dependent effects, if any.


We prove an existence, uniqueness, and regularity result for the motion of a self-propelled micro-swimmer in a particulate viscous medium, modelled as a Brinkman fluid. A suitable functional setting is introduced to solve the Brinkman system for the velocity field and the pressure of the fluid by variational techniques. The equations of motion are written by imposing a self-propulsion constraint, thus allowing the viscous forces and torques to be the only ones acting on the swimmer. From an infinite-dimensional control on the shape of the swimmer, a system of six ordinary differential equations for the spatial position and the orientation of the swimmer is obtained. This is dealt with standard techniques for ordinary differential equations, once the coefficients are proved to be measurable and bounded. The main result turns out to extend an analogous result previously obtained for the Stokes system.


The main objective of this work was to study the three Arctic Provinces: the Timan-Pechora Basin, the Sverdrup Basin and the Barents Sea, and make a comparison between them with a focus on the Paleozoic sediments and their potential as reservoirs based on published literature. The Upper Paleozoic carbonate reefal structures of the Timan-Pechora Basin have been proven as good reservoirs for hydrocarbon accumulation, while similar carbonate buildups of the Sverdrup Basin and the Barents Sea are still considered to be prospective. All the three provinces were at similar latitudes in Late Paleozoic time; and they included similar paleoenvironment with similar biota that were the main constructors of the carbonate buildups. However, considering the reservoir potential, another important process must be taken into account – diagenesis. Paleozoic carbonate buildups in the selected provinces experienced prolonged or repeated periods of subaerial exposure that resulted in leaching, karstification and dolomitization, which are processes that enhance the porosity. It can be concluded that the Paleozoic carbonate reefal structures are important targets for future petroleum exploration in the Arctic.


UNLABELLED
The platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is an autologous biotherapy commonly used for its healing properties. Once activated, platelets released a real "cocktail" of growth factor and cytokines implied in numerous regenerative processes. However the impact of medical practices associated to PRP therapeutic use on platelets functionality remains poorly known.

OBJECTIVES
we evaluated the in vitro effects of two commonly used local anesthetics (Xylocaine(*) and Naropin(*)) on PRP functionality. We also investigated the quantity and quality of PRP that passed through the smallest gauge needle commercialized.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
PRP from 9 healthy volunteers were prepared using our previously described home made purification protocol. Platelet aggregation capacity was evaluated by aggregometry assays and the growth factor release was determined by ELISA after platelet activation. We also evaluated the platelet activation status, reactivity and stability of platelets by flow cytometry using the P-selectin expression marker.

RESULTS
the association of local anaesthetics with PRP injections resulted in a significant decrease of platelets functionality, assessed by their capacity of aggregating. Local anaesthetics did not interfere with the growth factor release. The different needle sizes and calibres tested for PRP injections did not influence the platelet functionality.

CONCLUSIONS
the use of local anaesthetics to prevent pain during PRP injections could compromise the therapeutic potential of PRP. These results suggest using carefully local anaesthetics or limiting their use as often is possible. To minimize injection pain, we recommend using 30 G needles. These data will lead to clinical recommendations for painless and controlled PRP injections.


Background and aim: Leaflet augmentation to treat restrictive mitral leaflet motion in type IIIB mitral regurgitation is well-known. Leaflet augmentation of the tricuspid valve is less well described. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess short- and long-term valve function and patient outcome in all patients receiving tricuspid valve leaflet augmentation with either Cormatrix or bovine/autologous pericardium in our institution from 2007 to 2016.
Materials and methods: NYHA class, diagnosis, type of surgery and health state were found through chart review. Echocardiography exams before surgery, 1 month after, 6 months after, and latest exam were analyzed regarding biventricular function, valve function, leaflet mobility and –thickness.
Results: In eight patients; Cormatrix (n=4), bovine pericardium (n=3), and autologous pericardium (n=1) were used for 7 anterior leaflet extensions and 1 septal leaflet extension. Follow-up ranged from 6 to 132 months. Three patients had died, two in the Cormatrix group, and one in the pericardial group. Over time, coaptation length (12 ± 5 mm vs. 8 ± 3 mm, p=0.03) decreased significantly in the Cormatrix group, while none of the other parameters differed significantly. A tendency towards reduced leaflet mobility and thickening of the pericardialextended leaflets were seen over time.
Conclusion: Cormatrix and pericardium as patch material for tricuspid leaflet extension are comparable regarding valve performance and durability of the repair in this study, though resorption of Cormatrix material seems to take place leading to decreasing coaptation height. This is a sign of tissue remodelling. Leaflet mobility was reduced in the pericardial repair group and may likely be related to thickening of pericardial patch material that occurred over time.


How to promote local order and property rights under weak rule of law? States commonly use education campaigns to influence citizen behavior and, ultimately, change generalized practices and norms (or informal institutions). But can education alone influence behavior, let alone "institutions"? In Liberia, property disputes are endemic, but access to formal legal institutions is scant. An intervention trained residents of 68 towns in mediation and advocated informal resolution practices and forums. We compare them to 179 randomized control towns a year later. We see little short-term impact on dispute levels or ferocity, but observe dramatically higher land dispute resolution and satisfaction. Spillovers within towns indicate generalized change - perhaps an early indication of institutionalization. Qualitative work suggests the intervention imparted superior mediation skills, enhanced the legitimacy of informal practices, and deterred defection to competing forums. We argue education can shift practices and norms by helping citizens coordinate on procedures and institutions.


An alternative technique for wavelet packet decomposition of signals is introduced. This technique allows a time- (space-) variant partitioning of the joint domain while being efficient in both computational performance and memory requirements. The proposed wavelet packet decomposition is then applied on two codecs based on motion compensated 2-D wavelet packet decomposition and 3-D wavelet packet decomposition with adaptive subband selection. The performances of these codes in terms of the quality of the reconstructed signals are compared in the frame work of video compression. Simulations show that good quality results can be obtained with both systems, while the latter offers slightly better efficiency, in terms of the PSNR and the visual quality.


Two Decades after the birth of the World Wide Web, more than two billion people around the world are Internet users. The digital landscape is littered with hints that the affordances of digital communications are being leveraged to transform life in profound and important ways. The reach and influence of digitally mediated activity grow by the day and touch upon all aspects of life, from health, education, and commerce to religion and governance. This trend demands that we seek answers to the biggest questions about how digitally mediated communication changes society and the role of different policies in helping or hindering the beneficial aspects of these changes. Yet despite the profusion of data the digital age has brought upon us — we now have access to a flood of information about the movements, relationships, purchasing decisions, interests, and intimate thoughts of people around the world — the distance between the great questions of the digital age and our understanding of the impact of digital communications on society remains large. A number of ongoing policy questions have emerged that beg for better empirical data and analyses upon which to base wider and more insightful perspectives on the mechanics of social, economic, and political life online. This paper seeks to describe the conceptual and practical impediments to measuring and understanding digital activity and highlights a sample of the many efforts to fill the gap between our incomplete understanding of digital life and the formidable policy questions related to developing a vibrant and healthy Internet that serves the public interest and contributes to human wellbeing. Our primary focus is on efforts to measure Internet activity, as we believe obtaining robust, accurate data is a necessary and valuable first step that will lead us closer to answering the vitally important questions of the digital realm. Even this step is challenging: the Internet is difficult to measure and monitor, and there is no simple aggregate measure of Internet activity — no GDP, no HDI. In the following section we present a framework for assessing efforts to document digital activity. The next three sections offer a summary and description of many of the ongoing projects that document digital activity, with two final sections devoted to discussion and conclusions.


In recent years, pretrained language models have revolutionized the NLP world, while achieving state of the art performance in various downstream tasks. However, in many cases, these models do not perform well when labeled data is scarce and the model is expected to perform in the zero or few shot setting. Recently, several works have shown that continual pretraining or performing a second phase of pretraining (inter-training) which is better aligned with the downstream task, can lead to improved results, especially in the scarce data setting. Here, we propose to leverage sentiment-carrying discourse markers to generate large-scale weakly-labeled data, which in turn can be used to adapt language models for sentiment analysis. Extensive experimental results show the value of our approach on various benchmark datasets, including the finance domain. Code, models and data are available at https://github.com/ibm/tslm-discourse-markers.


The present study investigated the combined and individual effects of emotional testimony and gruesome photographs on mock jurors' verdict decisions and emotions. Participants (n = 127) were provided with a murder trial transcript and then rendered verdicts in a 2 (emotional testimony: present, absent) × 2 (gruesome photographs: present, absent) between-groups design. They also rated their negative emotions before and after the transcript. The results indicated a combined effect of emotional testimony and gruesome photographs on verdict decisions: the emotional testimony alone had a significant effect on guilty verdicts while the gruesome photographs had only a marginally significant effect. Negative emotions were aroused by the emotional testimony when the gruesome photographs were not presented. The impact of emotional evidence on verdict decisions is discussed.


This paper examines financial instability associated with bank credit expansion in a set of 23 developed countries over the years 1920-2012. We find that credit expansion, measured by the three-year change in bank credit to GDP ratio, predicts a significantly increased crash risk in the returns of the bank equity index and equity market index in the subsequent one to eight quarters. Despite the increased crash risk, credit expansion predicts both lower mean and median returns of these indices in the subsequent quarters, even after controlling for a host of variables known to predict the equity premium. Furthermore, conditional on credit expansion of a country exceeding a modest threshold of 1.5 standard deviations, the predicted excess return for the bank equity index in the subsequent four quarters is significantly negative, with a magnitude of nearly -20%, while the positive predicted excess return subsequent to a credit contraction of the same size is substantially more modest. These findings present a challenge to the views that credit expansions are simply caused by either banks acting against the will of shareholders or by elevated risk appetite of shareholders, and instead suggest a role for optimism of bankers and stock investors.


Arterial hypertension is a common finding in patients with end stage renal disease (80% patients are hypertensive). Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death in haemodialysis. The present study was performed to asses' successful treatment in hypertensive chronic haemodialysis patients by ultra filtration only and ultra filtration combined with medics. We studied 80 hypertensive adult patients who had been on regular haemodialysis treatment for at least 12 months (average duration of 41 months). All subjects were divided in two different antihypertensive treatment groups including 40 subjects each. The first group of patients were treated with trandolapril and ultra filtration, and the second group of patients were only treated with ultra filtration (control group). Blood pressure measurements before and after HD sessions were performed for each patient. Blood pressure control was defined using World Health Organization criteria 140/90 mm Hg. Average systolic blood pressure levels, after haemodialysis, were in the first group of patients 146.33 +/- 9.7 mm Hg, and in the control group 157,86 +/- 10.33 mm Hg. Average diastolic blood pressure was 87.83 +/- 8.11 mm Hg in the first group of patients and, in the control group it was 91.03 +/- 10.67 mm Hg. There were significant differences between systolic blood pressure level in the first group of patients and the control group of patients as well as in diastolic blood pressure (p < 0.05). We conclude that an antihypertensive therapy by trandolapril is more effective than ultra filtration alone in hypertensive patients on chronic haemodialysis.


Pumps are major consumers of electricity in the process industries and filters are an integral part of the pumping process. This paper discusses the reduction in energy consumption in the filtration process by using additive manufactured, geometrically optimised, conical, in-line filter supports. These are then compared with those currently fabricated by more conventional means. Based on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, a new filter support was designed and fabricated using Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. The comparison was achieved by testing both types of filter supports of similar dimensions with filter mesh in a bespoke test rig at Croft Engineering Services. A 20 gauge, 900 µm filter mesh was used to test the two filter supports with flow rates between 0.0018 m3/s to 0.0062 m3/s. Comparison of the experimental results revealed that the AM filter support mesh arrangement was superior to the conventional filter support mesh arrangement. In comparison to the conventional approach, the AM filter support was 0.443 kPa pressure drop lower when operated in the forward flow direction and 1.852 kPa lower in reverse flow. The reduction in pressure drop correspondingly reduced the energy consumption by 10 kW/h in forward flow and 29 kW/h in reverse flow.


Atomizing liquids by injecting them into crossflows is a common approach in gas turbines and augmentors. Much of our current understanding of the processes resulting in atomization of the jets, the resulting jet penetration and spray drop size distribution have been obtained by performing laboratory experiments at ambient conditions. Yet, operating conditions under which jets in crossflows atomize can be far different from ambient. Hence, several dimensionless groups have been identified that are believed to determine jet penetration and resulting drop size distribution. These are usually the jet and crossflow Weber and Reynolds numbers and the momentum flux ratio. In this paper, we aim to answer the question of whether an additional dimensionless group, the liquid to gas density ratio must be matched. We perform detailed simulations of the primary atomization region using the refined level set grid (RLSG) method to track the motion of the liquid/gas phase interface. We employ a balanced force, interface projected curvature method to ensure high accuracy of the surface tension forces, use a multiscale approach to transfer broken off, small scale nearly spherical drops into a Lagrangian point particle description allowing for full two-way coupling and continued secondary atomization, and employ a dynamic Smagorinsky large eddy simulation (LES) approach in the single phase regions of the flow to describe turbulence. We present simulation results for a turbulent liquid jet (q=6.6, We =330, and Re=14,000) injected into a gaseous crossflow (Re =740,000) analyzed under ambient conditions (density ratio 816) experimentally by Brown and McDonnell [2006, "Near Field Behavior of a Liquid Jet in a Crossflow, " Proceedings of the ILASS Americas, 19th Annual Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems]. We compare simulation results obtained using a liquid to gas density ratio of 10 and 100. The results show that the increase in density ratio causes a noticeable increase in liquid core penetration with reduced bending and spreading in the transverse directions. The post-primary atomization spray penetrates further in both the jet and transverse direction. Results further show that the penetration correlations for the windward side trajectory commonly reported in the literature strongly depend on the value of threshold probability used to identify the leading edge. Correlations based on penetration of the jet's liquid core center of mass, on the other hand, can provide a less ambiguous measure of jet penetration. Finally, the increase in density ratio results in a decrease in wavelength of the most dominant feature associated with a traveling wave along the jet as determined by proper orthogonal decomposition.


Focusing on political parties, this article highlights divergent conceptualizations of key elements of transitional justice that are part of the current contestation of the dealing-with-the-past process in Burundi. Speaking to the emerging critical literature on transitional justice, this article attempts to look beyond claims that there is a lack of political will to comply with a certain global transitional justice paradigm. In this article, transitional justice is conceived of as a political process of negotiated values and power relations that attempts to constitute the future based on lessons from the past. This paper argues that political parties in Burundi use transitional justice not only as a strategy to protect partisan interests or target political opponents, but also as an instrument to promote their political struggles in the course of moulding a new, post-conflict society and state.


In recent years, ecological issues have grown to become some of the most significant sociopolitical concerns of our time – something which has been reflected by an explosion in engagement with such issues across every area of arts and culture. Across most major art forms, this trend has been identified, analysed and promoted both by critical studies in the growing field of ecocriticism, and by the curatorial recognition of new 'ecological' genres; however, to date there has been no equivalent ecologically-focused engagement within sound art. This can be recognised as the product of two significant gaps in sound art scholarship: the first critical in nature, regarding the lack of ecocritical engagement with sound art; and the second curatorial, regarding the failure to recognise the growing number of ecologically-engaged works of sound art as a distinct genre in their own right.

The research detailed within this thesis will address each of these gaps by conducting a comprehensive investigation into ecology and environmentalism in contemporary sound art. The critical gap will be tackled by coupling a thorough analysis of the field of ecocriticism with an investigation into the ways in which ecological principles manifest within sound as a medium and listening as a means of engagement. This will then be used to develop a new ecocritical framework specifically designed for sound art, which will be employed to conduct ecocritical listenings to a selection of canonical and contemporary sound works. To address the curatorial gap, meanwhile, a new genre of 'ecological sound art' will be proposed, with a second set of ecocritical listenings focused upon a selection of ecological sound works in order to determine the precise nature of their ecological engagement, and to develop both a comprehensive definition and an initial catalogue of works for this important and timely contemporary movement.


Many species of parasitoid wasps inject polydnavirus particles in order to manipulate host defenses and development. Because the DNA packaged in these particles encodes almost no viral structural proteins, their relation to viruses has been debated. Characterization of complementary DNAs derived from braconid wasp ovaries identified genes encoding subunits of a viral RNA polymerase and structural components of polydnavirus particles related most closely to those of nudiviruses—a sister group of baculoviruses. The conservation of this viral machinery in different braconid wasp lineages sharing polydnaviruses suggests that parasitoid wasps incorporated a nudivirus-related genome into their own genetic material. We found that the nudiviral genes themselves are no longer packaged but are actively transcribed and produce particles used to deliver genes essential for successful parasitism in lepidopteran hosts.


With climate change prevailing around the world, understanding the changes in long-term annual and seasonal rainfall at local scales is very important in planning for required adaptation measures. This is especially true for areas such as the Awash River basin where there is very high dependence on rain- fed agriculture characterized by frequent droughts and subsequent famines. The aim of the study is to analyze long-term trends of annual and seasonal rainfall in the Awash River Basin, Ethiopia. Monthly rainfall data extracted from Climatic Research Unit (CRU 4.01) dataset for 54 grid points representing the entire basin were aggregated to find the respective areal annual and seasonal rainfall time series for the entire basin and its seven sub-basins. The Mann-Kendall (MK) test and Sen Slope estimator were applied to the time series for detecting the trends and for estimating the rate of change, respectively. The Statistical software package R version 3.5.2 was used for data extraction, data analyses, and plotting. Geographic information system (GIS) package was also used for grid making, site selection, and mapping. The results showed that no significant trend (at α = 0.05) was identified in annual rainfall in all sub-basins and over the entire basin in the period (1902 to 2016). However, the results for seasonal rainfall are mixed across the study areas. The summer rainfall (June through September) showed significant decreasing trend (at α ≤ 0.1) over five of the seven sub-basins at a rate varying from 4 to 7.4 mm per decade but it showed no trend over the two sub-basins. The autumn rainfall (October through January) showed no significant trends over four of the seven sub-basins but showed increasing trends over three sub-basins at a rate varying from 2 to 5 mm per decade. The winter rainfall (February through May) showed no significant trends over four sub-basins but showed significant increasing trends (at α ≤ 0.1) over three sub-basins at a rate varying from 0.6 to 2.7 mm per decade. At the basin level, the summer rainfall showed a significant decreasing trend (at α = 0.05) while the autumn and winter rainfall showed no significant trends. In addition, shift in some amount of summer rainfall to winter and autumn season was noticed. It is evident that climate change has shown pronounced effects on the trends and patterns of seasonal rainfall. Thus, the study contribute to better understanding of climate change in the basin and the information from the study can be used in planning for adaptation measures against a changing climate.


The scarcity of established input methods for augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays (HMD) motivates us to investigate the performance envelopes of two easily realisable solutions: indirect cursor control via a smartwatch and direct control by in-air touch. Indirect cursor control via a smartwatch has not been previously investigated for AR HMDs. We evaluate these two techniques for carrying out three fundamental user interface actions: target acquisition, goal crossing, and circular steering. We find that in-air is faster than smartwatch (p < 0.001) for target acquisition and circular steering. We observe, however, that in-air selection can lead to discomfort after extended use and suggest that smartwatch control offers a complementary alternative.


A scheme is proposed to generate multiatom entanglement among remote nodes connected by noisy channels. The noisy parameters are independent of the fidelity of the intended maximal entangled state. We show that those nonmaximal entangled states prepared in the present scheme can be used to implement quantum communication. Moreover, the scheme can be generalized to generate entanglement in N quantum nodes.


SBI interest rate is yield of investment in the form of Sertifikat Bank Indonesia (SBI) which is determined by Bank Indonesia. Dollar exchange rate is relative price of Dollar against Rupiah.

Certificates of Bank Indonesia as free risk investment instrument and Dollar exchange rate are consideration factors before investing in stock market in the form of shares so that stock prices will be influenced by those two variables.
This study used the monthly data of SBI Interest Rates and semimonthly Dollar Exchange Rates and they are officially recorded in Bank Indonesia. The monthly closing price of IHSG was used as stock price data. This study used data of 2006 – 2010 and was processed by utilizing SPSS 17.0.

From this study it can be concluded that SBI interest rate has strong correlation, has negative and significant influence, on stock prices. SBI interest rate has weak correlation, has negatif but not significant influence, on Dollar exchange rate.

From the study of other factors that affect Dollar exchange rate, it can be found out that Dollar exchange rate is significantly affected by the balance of payments. Dollar exchange rate has moderate correlation, has negativeand significant influence, towards stock prices. SBI interest rate and Dollar exchange rate simultaneously have strong correlation, have negative and significant influence, towards stock prices.


Kola nut (Cola nitida) is one of the foods consumed for socio-cultural reasons in West Africa sub-region. The caffeine contents are alleged to be of benefit to many people of different occupations. In this study, the perceived benefits of kola nut were assessed among long distance driver in Ojoo Motor Park, Ibadan, Nigeria. One hundred and one respondents were selected through stratified sampling method and were given questionnaires. Ages of the respondents ranged from 18 – 65 years. The results showed that 69% of respondents consumed kola nut daily, especially when driving. Majority(75%) of the subjects believed kola nut consumption reduced fatigue, stress and stimulates body function to perform better. In addition, 73% believed kola nut increased mental activities, dispels sleep and hunger (86%), suppresses hunger and makes journey faster (85%), and makes one see clearly (80%). However, the majority of them (63%) agreed that kola nut consumption gives an unsightly dull brown colour to the teeth, caused teeth ache and decay (33%), causes insomnia and therefore general body discomfort (50%) and 66% believed it frequent consumption caused high body temperature. It was discovered that the perceived discomforts associated with kola nut consumption could not deter the subjects from consuming kola nut as 63% of them said kola nut staining of teeth could be prevented by brushing teeth immediately after consumption or brushing three times daily. But there was no evidence to show that the drivers did brush teeth immediately after consuming kola nut or three times as claimed, as up to 83% of them did stop only once in restaurants in their usual 8 to 11 hour journey. It was suggested that health education on regular basis should be organized to enlighten the drivers on the need to drive without the influence of stimulants.


Background: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic autoimmune illness, which is consider by three main features: Sclerotic changes in the skin and internal organs, Vasculopathy of small blood vessels, Particular autoantibodies (1). The most important autoantibodies appeared significantly in SSc patients are anti-topoisomerase I autoantibody (Scl-70), anti-centromere autoantibody (ACA), and anti-RNA polymerase III autoantibody (RNAP3) (2). Anti-centromere antibodies (ACA) are infrequent in rheumatic conditions and in healthy persons but occur commonly in limited systemic sclerosis (CREST syndrome), and rarely appeared in the diffuse form of systemic sclerosis (3). Anti-Ro/SSA and antiLa/SSB, antibodies directed against Ro/La ribonucleoprotein complexes, can serve as a diagnostic hallmark of autoimmune disease specially Sjogren's syndrome (4). Materials and methods: This study was carried out during the period from the middle of November 2015 until the end of November 2016 in Baghdad city. The sample of this study was divided into two groups : Forty systemic sclerosis patients: Those patients were treated at Rheumatology department in Baghdad teaching hospital in Baghdad city as well as Forty healthy control subjects, age matched with no signs and symptoms of any systemic diseases. Results: The serum anti-SSA in SSc patient was significant increased as well as the salivary anti-SSA in SSc patient was highly significantly increased than in the control subjects by using t-test. The present study found that there no statically difference in salivary ACA, anti-SSB and serum anti-SSB while serum ACA was significantly increased. Conclusions: autoantibodies play a role in pathogenesis of SSc patients represented by increased serum (ACA and anti-SSA) that it considered reliable indicator for SSc patients while unpredicted marker in saliva except anti-SSA. Anti-La/SSB is unreliable marker in both serum and saliva SSc patients. The presence of Anti-Ro/SSA antibodies in serum and saliva of SSc patient has been predictive marker for SSc overlapped Sjogren's syndrome.


Interpolative reasoning methods do not only help reduce the complexity of fuzzy models but also make inference in sparse-rule based systems possible. This paper presents an interpolative reasoning method by exploiting the center of gravity (COG) property of the fuzzy sets concerned. The method works by first constructing a new inference rule via manipulating two given adjacent rules, and then by using similarity information to convert the intermediate inference results into the final derived conclusion. Two transformation operations are introduced to support such reasoning, which allow the COG of a fuzzy set to remain unaltered before and after the transformation. Results of experimental comparisons are provided to reflect the success of this work.


This paper describes a 3D measurement algorithm based on Multi-Frequency Phase Stepping, using a single period pattern and a higher frequency pattern. An experimentally verified analytical expression for depth precision enables adaptive selection of the high frequency. The algorithm has several advantages compared with Gray Code Phase Stepping (GCPS): In high signal situations, depth precision improves. In low signal situations, Gray Coding errors are avoided. Additionally, robust estimates of measurement precision will be available on a per pixel basis.


The quote in the title to this article reflects legal and social attitudes towards fatherhood. Fathers are generally perceived to be inherently deficient in parenting skills. For example South African law does not recognise the biological relationship between an unwed father and his natural child as giving rise to parental authority over the child or to an inherent right of access. The unwed father has to approach the court and demonstrate on a balance of probabilities that access would be in the child's best interests. The problems inherent in denying unwed fathers parenting rights were brought to the fore in Fraser v Naude.


Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set the agenda for the attainment of universal literacy by 2015 primarily to be delivered by the state sector. This agenda tends to ignore the significant private school growth around the world since early 1990s, thus initiating the policy debate as to whether private school growth may foster 'education for all'. Despite growing literature on the difficulties of attaining MDGs, there is hardly any attempt to assess the role of private sector in this respect. Using India as an important case in point, we intend to bridge this gap of the literature. Results using a unique district-level panel data-set from 17 major states of India for the period 1992-2002 that we compile highlight a significant positive impact of private school growth on literacy while its effect on gender gap in literacy remains rather limited in our sample. Compared to 15-19 year olds, private school effect of literacy is stronger among 10-14 year old children. Interesting variations across the regions and also among the marginalised ethnic groups are noted. The paper offers explanations for the findings.


Fatigue analysis of welded joints often requires the handling of large structures, since typical weld seams are small details in large assemblies. FE models deduced from the global structure require idealization and are not well suited for fatigue concepts that are based on the local stress state. The model of the global structure is used to locate hot spots and to transfer the applied loads to a local deformation. The analysis concepts proposed by the IIW and other organizations require a very detailed and specific representation of the welded joints. ANSYS Workbench preprocessing capabilities combined with ANSYS submodeling technology allow demonstrating a fast and reliable workflow. The ANSYS Workbench Fatigue tool performs the high cycle fatigue life calculation.


A surprising number of recent Bayesian phylogenetic analyses contain branch-length estimates that are several orders of magnitude longer than corresponding maximum-likelihood estimates. The levels of divergence implied by such branch lengths are unreasonable for studies using biological data and are known to be false for studies using simulated data. We conducted additional Bayesian analyses and studied approximate-posterior surfaces to investigate the causes underlying these large errors. We manipulated the starting parameter values of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analyses, the moves used by the MCMC analyses, and the prior-probability distribution on branch lengths. We demonstrate that inaccurate branch-length estimates result from either 1) poor mixing of MCMC chains or 2) posterior distributions with excessive weight at long tree lengths. Both effects are caused by a rapid increase in the volume of branch-length space as branches become longer. In the former case, both an MCMC move that scales all branch lengths in the tree simultaneously and the use of overdispersed starting branch lengths allow the chain to accurately sample the posterior distribution and should be used in Bayesian analyses of phylogeny. In the latter case, branch-length priors can have strong effects on resulting inferences and should be carefully chosen to reflect biological expectations. We provide a formula to calculate an exponential rate parameter for the branch-length prior that should eliminate inference of biased branch lengths in many cases. In any phylogenetic analysis, the biological plausibility of branch-length output must be carefully considered.


During the Devonian Nekton Revolution, ammonoids show a progressive coiling of their shell just like many other pelagic mollusk groups. These now extinct, externally shelled cephalopods derived from bactritoid cephalopods with a straight shell in the Early Devonian. During the Devonian, evolutionary trends toward tighter coiling and a size reduction occurred in ammonoid embryonic shells. In at least three lineages, descendants with a closed umbilicus evolved convergently from forms with an opening in the first whorl (umbilical window). Other lineages having representatives with open umbilici became extinct around important Devonian events whereas only those with more tightly coiled embryonic shells survived. This change was accompanied by an evolutionary trend in shape of the initial chamber, but no clear trend in its size. The fact that several ammonoid lineages independently reduced and closed the umbilical window more or less synchronously indicates that common driving factors were involved. A trend in size decrease of the embryos as well as the concurrent increase in adult size in some lineages likely reflects a fundamental change in reproductive strategies toward a higher fecundity early in the evolutionary history of ammonoids. This might have played an important role in their subsequent success as well as in their demise.


It is known that gas atomized powders as well as high alloyed metal powders are difficult to press into green bodies using conventional quasi static pressing techniques. However, the development of the high velocity compaction (HVC) technique has expanded the possibility to compact a larger spectrum of metal powders. Although the HVC technique has many similarities with conventional pressing techniques, the high energy impact makes it an interesting technique not only for the pressing of conventional metal powders to green bodies of high density but also for the pressing of "difficult to press metal powders". Today, high speed steel (HSS) is increasingly being used in different types of components. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in the near net shape manufacturing of HSS components. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the possibility to utilize HVC to press green bodies from different types of HSS powder covering both gas and water atomized HSS powders. The results show that the HSS powders investigated differ with respect to compaction properties, i.e. compressibility and green body quality. While the water atomized powders exhibit very good compaction properties, resulting in green bodies of high density, good surface finish and high strength, the gas atomized powders cannot be pressed in the as-atomized condition using HVC. However, agglomerated as well as milled gas atomized HSS powders show significant improved compaction properties compared to the as-atomized powders, although all showed defects of varying sizes depending on the applied energy during compaction.


The objective of this study was to determine the Vrn-1 allelic composition of spring wheat germplasm from the Pacific Northwest region of the USA. Individual plants from 56 spring wheat lines were crossed to near-isogenic tester lines carrying the dominant allele VrnA1, Vrn-B1 or Vrn-D1 .F 2 progeny were evaluated for growth habit in the field and Vrn-1 allelic composition was determined through chisquare analysis. Lines also were analysed with DNA sequence-based Vrn-1 allele-specific markers. A majority of the germplasm carried the dominant allele Vrn-A1a alone or in combination with Vrn-B1, Vrn-D1 or Vrn-B3 alleles. Vrn-B1 and Vrn-D1 were almost always associated with other dominant Vrn-1 allele(s). Based on DNA sequence analysis, a novel Vrn-B1 allele referred to as Vrn-B1b, which carried a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and a 36 bp deletion, was identified in cultivar Alpowa. These results will be useful to wheat breeders for choosing parents with different Vrn-1 alleles for crossing to maximize diversity at the Vrn-1 loci with an expectation of identifying superior Vrn-1 allelic combinations for cultivar improvement.


The Virtu academic expertise finder system is presented. Virtu is built on the Apache Solr platform using data from Mendeley, a social network and bibliographic management system. Virtu takes a task-based approach to expertise, exposing and giving the user control over dimensions of expertise that are more or less desirable depending on the type of expert-finding task. The search interface supports information interaction and exploration through a number of browsing and filtering tools, including facets and sliders. Author


The paper outlines enterprise wide information management as a means of business IT alignment. It is based on an enterprise architecture approach. The domains of architecture, the business -, applications -, and infrastructure architecture are sketched and three basic views on architecture are introduced. The component view describes the elements of architecture and their relationships. The communication view shows how the elements interact with one another. The distribution view describes how the elements are distributed in terms of location or organizational assignment. Key element of architecture design is to account for interdependencies among the building blocks of architecture. Blueprints are introduced as a means in planning the deployment of architecture on a large scale. Blueprints give a comprehensive view on the building blocks and how the interact. They show the effects of architecture design between business, application, and infrastructure architecture. The main stakeholders for information management and their respective usage of the design techniques are outlined.


Replication-selective oncolytic adenoviruses are being developed for the treatment of cancer, but the safety and feasibility of repeated adenovirus delivery to tumors via the bloodstream was unknown, particularly in light of a patient death after hepatic artery infusion of a replication-defective adenovirus vector. We performed a Phase II trial of an oncolytic replication-selective adenovirus (dl1520, also known as Onyx-015) administered by hepatic artery infusion in patients with gastrointestinal carcinoma metastatic to the liver (n = 27). dl1520 was infused into the hepatic artery (2 x 10(12) particles) on days 1 and 8 as a single agent, and thereafter starting on day 22 in combination with i.v. 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin every 28 days. Repeated viral infusions were feasible, and no deaths occurred on study; reversible grade 3/4 hyperbilirubinemia occurred in 2 patients. Systemic inflammatory cytokine responses varied greatly between patients and even between cycles within a given patient. Proinflammatory cytokines [e.g., tumor necrosis factor, IFN-gamma, and interleukin (IL) 6] typically rose within 3 h and were followed at 18 h by a rise in IL-10. However, in the single patient who suffered a severe but reversible systemic inflammatory response, a unique cytokine profile was detected: marked acute increases of IL-6 (20-fold higher than average for all of the patients) and inhibition of IL-10 production. Delayed secondary peaks of viremia were reproducibly detected 3-6 days after treatment, even in the presence of high level neutralizing antibody titers and antiviral cytokines. Mathematical modeling was used to calculate the number of virus particles produced and shed into the blood with each replication cycle. The combination of virotherapy and chemotherapy had antitumoral activity in some chemotherapy-resistant colorectal tumors. The intra-arterial infusion of oncolytic adenoviruses warrants additional study.


Few other cultural issues alarm conservative Protestant families and communities more than the seemingly ubiquitous threat of pornography. Thanks to widespread access to the internet, conservative Protestants now face a reality in which every Christian man, woman, and child with a smartphone can access limitless pornography in his or her bathroom, at work, or at a friend's sleepover. Once confident of their victory over pornography in society at large, conservative Protestants now fear that "porn addiction" is consuming even the most faithful. How are conservative Protestants adjusting to this new reality? And what are its consequences in their lives? Drawing on over 130 interviews, as well as numerous national surveys, Addicted to Lust shows that, compared to other Americans, pornography shapes the lives of conservative Protestants in ways that are uniquely damaging to their mental health, spiritual lives, and intimate relationships. Samuel Perry demonstrates how certain pervasive beliefs within the conservative Protestant subculture unwittingly create a context in which those who use pornography are often overwhelmed with shame and discouragement, sometimes to the point of depression or withdrawal from faith altogether. Conservative Protestant women who use pornography feel a "double shame," both for sinning sexually and for sinning "like a man," while conflicts over pornography in marriages are escalated with patterns of lying, hiding, blowing up, or threats of divorce. Addicted to Lust shines new light on one of the most talked-about problems facing conservative Christians.


The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the perspectives of a professor emeritus regarding his life experiences in the discipline of chemistry and in a career dedicated to research, service and teaching. Another purpose, interwoven within the perspective of this one individual, was to explore the potential influence a professor emeritus can have on his institution, and the impact the institution, its changing culture, and its shifting priorities may have on a member of the professoriate dedicated to this chosen career path. The research guiding questions for this study were: (a) What elements of this professor emeritus' example constitute his perspective on his life as a professor? (b) What elements in his social context contributed to this perspective? And (c) What elements in his life have detracted from this perspective? The literature reviewed for this study focused on organization theory and identity theory as a lens for understanding the perspectives of a professor emeritus. Further, the specific environment of higher education was examined including the professoriate, shared governance and changes in higher education over the last couple of decades. These topics were also explored as they converge in the life of an emeritus professor. The experiences of an emeritus professor were gathered through topical interviews in both unstructured and semi-structured formats, continuing dialog between the researcher and the participant, a researcher reflective journal, and the life artifacts and site documents related to the participant. The presentation of data for this study includes a short narrative of the history and mission of the University of South Florida as well as that of the Department of Chemistry within the College of Arts and Sciences, which is the tenure home of the participant. The data also includes biographical information on the participant, Dr. Dean Martin, and presents data that relate to Dr. Martin's perspective regarding his career through the lens of self-identity via the theoretical concepts of social and salient identity. The data illustrate the elements that Dr. Martin believes contributed to and detracted from his perspective as an emeritus professor. The data also looks at Dr. Martin's viewpoint on the various components of the University of South Florida's landscape. Its environment and how it has changed … or not changed through its history. Finally, this inquiry explores the idea that can we garner ideas from Dr. Martin's experiences that will direct current and future members of the professoriate towards an engaged and mutually beneficial path. The study presents a discussion of the intersection of personal identity and organizational affiliation. The major findings include three components that are significant in the life of this professor emeritus: a commitment to his continuing career as evidence through ongoing writing, mentoring and philanthropy; the importance of having the opportunity to have an impact in the current and future discipline of chemistry and academia,…


[1] A comprehensive numerical study of oscillatory wave boundary layers on spatially varying bottom roughness is presented. The study utilizes a model solving incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations coupled with k-ω turbulence closure, modified in a simple way to incorporate anisotropy in turbulent normal stresses. The model is first validated via comparison with existing oscillating tunnel measurements involving sudden bottom roughness transitions. It is then used to parametrically study oscillatory boundary layer flows, wherein the bed shear stress amplifications and period-averaged streaming characteristics induced by bottom roughness variations are systematically assessed. The effects of variable roughness ratio, gradual roughness transitions, as well as changing flow orientation in plan are all considered. As part of the latter, roughness-induced secondary flows are predicted to occur as the oscillatory flow becomes oriented parallel to a line of roughness transition. This phenomenon is proposed as a natural transverse grain sorting mechanism for coastal flows over graded sediments. Subsequent model testing demonstrates potential generation of secondary circulation cells having characteristic size the order of the wave boundary layer thickness. Analogy is made to similar features known to develop within steady flows, having characteristic size the order of the flow depth.


I describe an approach to compiling common idioms in R code directly to native machine code and illustrate it with several examples. Not only can this yield significant performance gains, but it allows us to use new approaches to computing in R. Importantly, the compilation requires no changes to R itself, but is done entirely via R packages. This allows others to experiment with different compilation strategies and even to define new domain-specific languages within R. We use the Low-Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) compiler toolkit to create the native code and perform sophisticated optimizations on the code. By adopting this widely used software within R, we leverage its ability to generate code for different platforms such as CPUs and GPUs, and will continue to benefit from its ongoing development. This approach potentially allows us to develop high-level R code that is also fast, that can be compiled to work with different data representations and sources, and that could even be run outside of R. The approach aims to both provide a compiler for a limited subset of the R language and also to enable R programmers to write other compilers. This is another approach to help us write high-level descriptions of what we want to compute, not how.


If and when the first human settlement arrives on Mars, it may be with the intention of staying on permanently. Progress and the spirit of adventure being what they are, the first group of settlers may be joined some time thereafter by a second. In anticipation of two groups of settlers on Mars who may compete over scarce suitable landscapes for sustaining the basic human needs of oxygen, energy, water, shelter and food, a framework of private property rights is necessary. In crafting possible frameworks, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty's (OST) governing provisions regarding property law must be considered. Existing scholarship has largely failed to properly account for the application of common law precepts to realistic property disputes governed by OST provisions, to fully acknowledge the non-appropriation and common use commands of the OST, which sound, arguably, in quasi-Marxist tones, and to explicate the types of unique property demands of permanent extraterrestrial human settlements. This article maps out two basic common law frameworks for two anticipated varieties of property disputes which adhere to the general and more specific principles contained within the OST while encouraging economically efficient decision-making and sustainable uses of the planet surface.


Pesticide has been imported to Thailand for several years including insecticide, herbicide, and others coinciding with the expansion of the country's agricultural system. Among these chemicals are organophosphate and carbamate the groups of chemicals primarily used in agriculture. Exposure to these pesticides can cause harmful effect on human health. This study aims to find health effects of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides exposure and to assess to blood cholinesterase levels of acetyl cholinesterase (AChE) and plasma cholinesterase (PChE) in dry-season crops, among rice farmers (n=33) in Tarnlalord Sub-District, Phimai District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand. The design of this study was a cross-sectional study with questionnaire by face to face interview and blood-tests by Test-mate ChE (Model 400) instruments. The average age (± SD) of the study was 46 ± 9.38 years old. The results showed the ChE levels in rice farmers including (1) the first blood collection, 24 hours after application, 72.70% of the farmers were abnormal (2). The farmers reported their adverse health effects related to gastrointestinal system, urinary system, eye, skin, and central nervous system. Additionally, the AChE level within 24 hours after first application was significantly associated to eye symptoms (Chi-square, p<0.05). This study showed that after the rice farmers applied pesticides at the beginning, both AChE and PChE levels were abnormal with self-recovery to normal levels by time. The appropriated self-practices and prevention from pesticides exposure should be recommended to rice farmer regarding proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and pesticides handling to reduce adverse health effects from pesticides exposure. Index Terms Health Effects / Cholinesterase / Organophosphate (OPs) And Carbamate / Male


While it is widely recognized that the development of a sound financial system may contribute to foster economic growth, the relation between economic growth and financial activities is complex. In this perspective, our contribution investigates the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between economic growth and bank credit. Our sample of ASEAN countries is examined over the period spanning from 1993 to 2019. We use the approach of Kremer et al. (2013) to estimate threshold effects in a dynamic panel where a group of explanatory variables can be endogenous. Our results do not confirm the vanishing effect of finance on economic growth. We found a threshold of 96.5% (significant at the 5% level) for the credit-to-GDP ratio, the threshold variable. In the short run, for observations inferior or equal to the threshold, the positive effect of bank credit expansion on economic growth is around 0.08 (significant at the 1% level). Whereas, for observations superior to the threshold, the positive effect of bank credit expansion on economic growth is around 0.02 (significant at the 1% level). The role of exporting firms is essential in ASEAN countries as they are more export-oriented than other regions in the world economy. Our results may indicate that the beneficiary of the credit (firms versus households), the structural features (export-led growth), and the regional heterogeneity have to be considered in empirical investigations of threshold effects in the relation between economic growth and bank credit. This empirical evidence may help to formulate sound policy recommendations.


The Companion to Development Studies contains over a hundred chapters written by leading international experts within the field to provide a concise and authoritative overview of the key theoretical and practical issues dominating contemporary development studies. Covering a wide range of disciplines the book is divided into ten sections, each prefaced by a section introduction written by the editors. The sections cover: the nature of development, theories and strategies of development, globalization and development, rural development, urbanization and development, environment and development, gender, health and education, the political economy of violence and insecurity, and governance and development. This third edition has been extensively updated and contains 45 new contributions from leading authorities, dealing with pressing contemporary issues such as race and development, ethics and development, BRICs and development, global financial crisis, the knowledge based economy and digital divide, food security, GM crops, comparative urbanism, cities and crime, energy, water hydropolitics, climate change, disability, fragile states, global war on terror, ethnic conflict, legal rights to development, ecosystems services for development, just to name a few. Existing chapters have been thoroughly revised to include cutting-edge developments, and to present updated further reading and websites. The Companion to Development Studies presents concise overviews providing a gateway to further reading and a flexible resource for teaching and learning. It has established a role as essential reading for all students of development studies, as well as those in cognate areas of geography, international relations, politics, sociology, anthropology and economics. [Book Synopsis]


The Sultanate of Oman has a shoreline of 3,165 km and offers a diverse range of natural resources and promising circumstances for social and economic development According to the Oman general census of 2010, 80% of the Omani population lives in low-lying areas such as coastal plains and could be threatened by Sea Level Rise (SLR). During the last five years the country witnessed two strong tropical cyclones, Gonu 2007 and Phet 2010 revealed the extreme vulnerability of the populated Omani coast to storm surge and flooding. The impact of SLR on the entire Omani coastal zone was assessed to develop estimates of inundated land area relative to a set of SLR scenarios. The impact of SLR was evaluated through the use of a GIS framework. A total of 7 SLR scenarios were considered: 0.2 meters, 0.5 meters, 1 meter, 2 meters, 3 meters, 4 meters and 5 meters. The sea level scenarios were overlain on land use/elevation datasets to estimate the inundation risk among all land use categories. All the grid cells that would be inundated based on a user-defined horizontal spatial resolution of 0.5 meters for the entire coastline. The results of the assessment show that Oman is highly vulnerable to climate change-induced SLR. At the national scale, nearly 400 km2 of total land area is projected to be inundated under the smallest SLR scenario. Under the highest SLR scenario, over 900 km2 is potentially inundated. An assessment of the vulnerability of productive land use shows that the Al-Batinah and Muscat governorates are the most vulnerable under all SLR scenarios. The findings of this study, shows that an urgent need to develop a strategic coastal management plan to face the challenges of the climate change, and to provide a clear outlook of the Omani coastal areas for better adaptive resilience and responses.


This is a paper on the transformation of campus activism in Japan since the 1990's. Japan's so-called freeter movements (movements of young men and women lacking regular employment) are often said to have emerged as young people shifted their base of activism from campuses to the "street". However, campuses have continued to play a role in activism. Although the radical student organisations of the New Left have waned, new movements are forming among students and precarious university employees in response to neoliberalization trends in society and the precarization of their conditions. This transformation has gone hand in hand with a shift of action repertoire towards forms of direct action such as squatting, sit-ins, hunger strikes, and opening "cafés". In this paper I focus on the development of campus protest in Kyoto from the mid-1990s until today to shed light on the following questions: How have campus-based activists responded to the neoliberalization of Japanese universities? What motivates them to use art or art-like forms of direct action and how are these activities related to space? I investigate the notions of space towards which activists have been oriented since the 1990's, focusing on three notions: official public space, counter-space and noman's-land. These conceptions of space, I argue, are needed to account for the various forms campus protest has taken since the 1990s.


Nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP) has recently been shown to act as a second messenger controlling intracellular Ca(2+) responses in mammalian cells. Many questions remain regarding this signaling pathway, including the role of the ryanodine receptor (RyR) in NAADP-induced Ca(2+) transients. Furthermore, the exact metabolic pathway responsible for the synthesis of NAADP in vivo has not been determined. Here, we demonstrate that the NAADP mediated Ca(2+) release system is present in human myometrial cells. We also demonstrate that human myometrial cells use the NAADP second messenger system to generate intracellular Ca(2+) transients in response to histamine. It has been proposed in the past that the NAADP system in mammalian cells is dependent on the presence of functional RyRs. Here, we observed that the histamine-induced Ca(2+) transients are dependent on both the NAADP and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate signaling pathways but are independent of RyRs. The enzyme CD38 has been shown to catalyze the synthesis of NAADP in vitro by the base-exchange reaction. Furthermore, it has been proposed that this enzyme is responsible for the intracellular generation of NAADP in vivo. Using CD38 knockout mice, we observed that both the basal and histamine stimulated levels of NAADP are independent of CD38 and the base-exchange reaction. Our group is the first to demonstrate that NAADP is a second messenger for histamine-elicited Ca(2+) transients in human myometrial cells. Furthermore, the NAADP mediated mechanism in mammalian cells can be independent of RyRs and CD38. Our data provides novel insights into the understanding of the mechanism of action and metabolism of this new second messenger system.


The Internet is almost synonymous with change--that's one of its charms, and one of its headaches. You may think you know the Internet, but are you really up to speed on internet telephones, movie and TV downloading, blogging, gaming, online banking, dating, and photosharing? This utterly current book covers: Getting Online: Readers will have all the information they need to decide what kind of broadband connection works best for them, which browser they should use, and what kind of spyware-fighting and virus-and spam-protection measures they need to protect themselves. Finding Information: Google may be the leading search site, but it's certainly not the only game in town. This book introduces a diverse and useful collection of sites that help uncover everything from health care information, to shopping, travel and finance, to dependable reviews and ratings. Movies, music, and photos: The Web's teeming with entertainment--and not just the sort of postage-stamp sized videos that only a geek could love. Learn where to download movies, watch TV online, listen to music, play games, and post and share photos with friends. Keeping in touch: Email's only the beginning. This book introduces readers to the many tools that make the modern Internet such a great way to stay connected. From Web-based discussion groups to instant messaging programs, and from blogs and podcasts to Internet-based phone calls, this book will help you join the conversation. Ideal for anyone just venturing into cyberspace, this book is also perfect for more experienced users who could use an update to today's most exciting internet applications.


ABSTRACT Neutralizations are important explanations for the rise and persistence of deviant behavior. We can find many different and overlapping techniques of neutralizations in the literature, which may be a reason for inconsistent research findings on the use and influence of neutralization techniques. Therefore, by following both a deductive and an inductive approach, this article develops a model that covers these techniques in a logical way. This is a novel approach in studying neutralization techniques. We distinguish four categories of neutralizations: distorting the facts, negating the norm, blaming the circumstances, and hiding behind oneself. Based on a broad inventory of neutralizations that are identified in the literature – something that has not been done before – we operationalized each of the four categories into three techniques, each of which consists of five subtechniques. The resulting model aims to reduce the risk of arbitrariness in the selection of techniques for empirical research and thereby facilitates more consistent future research findings. The model also aims to help better understand how neutralizations work.


High calf mortality rate is a significant problem facing semi-domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) production around the world. Mortality rates, commonly due to predation, can range from 5 to 70%, which constitutes a great welfare concern. This study examined the influence of quantifiable maternal characteristics on reindeer calf survival. Data were compiled from 18 years' worth of records on the survival of calves in the Cairngorm reindeer herd (Scottish Highlands, UK). Overall, mortality rate of calves (n = 635) in the herd was 34.9% to six months old, rising to 47.8% by one year old. For both Total Calf Survival (including perinatal losses) and Postnatal Calf Survival (excluding perinatal losses) of calves up to six months old, the only maternal trait found to significantly influence calf survival was the age of the cow at calving. Calves of very young and old cows showed higher mortality rates. Only 40% of the cows were associated with 77% of calf deaths and it was demonstrated that there were significant individual differences between cows in relation to their ability to consistently rear calves successfully. These findings can be applied to reduce calf mortality within herds, guiding selection towards females with successful reproductive histories and with ages falling in the prime productive range (3–11 years old). Additionally, annual variation had a highly significant influence on calf survival with rising mortality over the recorded period, indicating a role of environment on survival and an avenue for further research to investigate the impact of external factors, such as climate and pathogen load on post-natal loss.


Studies of the Sagnac effect carried out during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century are reviewed. A discussion of the chronology issue shows, in particular, that O. Lodge was the first to recognize the possibility of the effect. It is also shown that, apart from detecting rotation, in most studies the improvement of the Fresnel–Fizeau drag coefficient in rotating reference frame was the primary concern. As possible directions for the development of Sagnac interferometry, a wider operational range for electromagnetic waves, the interference of material de Broglie waves, and the interference of acoustic and magnetic surface waves are considered.


The idea of autonomy of law applies in distinct but related ways to legal reasoning, judicial reasoning, legal scholarship, and legal education. Additionally, claims about the autonomy of law can be understood as descriptive, analytical, or prescriptive. In this article, the different permutations of autonomy of law claims are considered in the context of various approaches to law, including American legal realism, the legal process school, law and economics, and critical legal studies. American legal scholarship has gone through a period of overestimating the autonomy of legal reasoning, at the time of the legal formalists, to today, when the autonomy of legal reasoning is generally underestimated. Law's distinctive approach to reasoning and decision-making derives from the type of practice law is: a behavior-guiding practice, where the guidance is done primarily through general rules, and the rules are interpreted and applied by a hierarchical court system that gives precedential weight to earlier decisions. Within this sort of structure, legal discourse is distinctive, but can also be seen as merely a particular application of moral and political reasoning, rather than entirely abstracted from such reasoning.


When a thin film that is prepared in a step form on a substrate and coated uniformly with a reflective material is illuminated by a parallel coherent beam of monochromatic light, the Fresnel diffraction fringes are formed on a screen perpendicular to the reflected beam. The visibility of the fringes depends on film thickness, angle of incidence, and light wavelength. Measuring visibility versus incident angle provides the film thickness with an accuracy of a few nanometers. The technique is easily applicable and it covers a wide range of thicknesses with highly reliable results.


The service sector being the leading part of any country's economic growth, demands an increasingly growing attention. The literature related to services discusses several aspects of the service sector but lacks in explaining the role of technology in the service development process. This paper analyses the literature pertinent to services, and establishes the important relationship of technology to the service development process. This discussion prepares a platform to study the service development process from a different perspective, which raises the need to revise the generic service development models to match the current and variable needs of the market. Recommendations are posed to enhance the service development experience by including technology as an important (driving) dimension in the service development process by categorising them for different service segments.


Wireless communications and networks are developing at an accelerated rate. This rapid development has provided individuals with new opportunities for ubiquitous communication accessibility as well as enabled real-time multimedia technologies and their supporting applications.Wireless Communications and Networking: Theory and Practice brings together advanced research on diverse topics in wireless communications and networking, including the latest developments in broadband technologies, mobile communications, wireless sensor networks, network security, and cognitive radio networks. This book serves as a comprehensive reference for upper-level students, academicians, and industry professionals interested in uncovering recent advancements in wireless communications and networking.


This paper focuses on the potential applications of hybrid reality in the cultural sphere, where media and technologies can be used for multisensory stimulation and interaction. We investigate the capacity of hybrid spaces to incite alternative states of consciousness, similar to what mystics, alchemists and shamans describe as a journey towards rapture (a state of overwhelming emotion). The two projects that we discuss here, GoToØ and T-Garden, explore the notion of sensual communication that occurs when the virtual and the physical intermingle in the same reality. The media become tangible and the senses distributed. Distancing ourselves from the modernist ideals of an independent mind, we strive towards embodied, actualised imaginaries, through which people navigate following a corporeal language.


This paper explores how the wage and career consequences of motherhood differ by skill and timing. Past work has often found smaller or even negligible effects from childbearing for high-skill women, but we find the opposite. Wage trajectories diverge sharply for high scoring women after, but not before, they have children, while there is little change for low-skill women. It appears that the lifetime costs of childbearing, especially early childbearing, are particularly high for skilled women. These differential costs of childbearing may account for the far greater tendency of high-skill women to delay or avoid childbearing altogether.


Purpose of the article: The present manuscript summarizes benefits of the use of computer-based content analysis in a generation phase of foresight initiatives. Possible advantages, disadvantages and limitations of the content analysis for the foresight projects are discussed as well.
Methodology/methods: In order to specify the benefits and identify the limitations of the content analysis within the foresight, results of the generation phase of a particular foresight project performed without and subsequently with the use of computer based content analysis tool were compared by two proposed measurements.
Scientific aim: The generation phase of the foresight is the most demanding part in terms of analysis duration, costs and resources due to a significant amount of reviewed text. In addition, the conclusions of the foresight evaluation are dependent on personal views and perceptions of the foresight analysts as the evaluation is based merely on reading. The content analysis may partially or even fully replace the reading and provide an important benchmark.
Findings: The use of computer based content analysis tool significantly reduced time to conduct the foresight generation phase. The content analysis tool showed very similar results as compared to the evaluation performed by the standard reading. Only ten % of results were not revealed by the use of content analysis tool. On the other hand, several new topics were identified by means of content analysis tool that were missed by the reading.
Conclusions: The results of two measurements should be subjected to further testing within more foresight projects to validate them. The computer based content analysis tool provides valuable benchmark to the foresight analysts and partially substitute the reading. However, a complete replacement of the reading is not recommended, as deep understanding to weak signals interpretation is essential for the foresight.


Research on the Chinese language from the perspective of Government-Binding Theory requires the satisfactory execution of the GB modules in Chinese syntax. This thesis investigates a number of aspects of Mandarin Chinese syntax from this point of view. Chapter 1 outlines the GB framework and raises the issue of constituency in Chinese. Chapter 2 discusses a number of GB theorems with reference to Chinese. They include X-bar syntax and head ordering, the governing function of INFL, distribution of PRO and pro, 0- and Case-marking, Case-adjacency, the notion of accessible SUBJECT, empty-topic binding, the ECP and its rival approach, generalised binding. Chapter 3 examines the structural process of BA-insertion (object-marking) and BEI-insertion (passive-marking). It is argued that Move a should apply to [vp...NP...] where NP = [NP, VP/PP] and VP = a quanti-ficational phrase (QP), but restructuring to [NP, PP] which is at the same time a member of a higher argument structure. Chapter 4 investigates wh-quantifier constructions. A new COMP-marking system, Ett4H, +/-QUANO, is introduced to license syntactic wh-quantifier movement, whose trace needs to be locally bound if the moved wh-quantifier is an adjunct, but need not be locally bound if the moved wh-quantifier is a non-adjunct. Chapter 5 considers descriptive clause constructions. It is argued that there is an empty operator movement in descriptive clauses which display undounded dependency, and that descriptive clauses are not within the NPs they modify, as they differ from relative clauses in distribution and in escaping the CNPC. Chapter 6 analyses serial verb constructions. The long-standing issue of whether a V-V series is of coordinate or subordinate structure is re-examined. A subject-control analysis is proposed for these constructions, as they are more likely to be of a subordinate structure. Evidence for empty operator movement in some purposive constructions is also studied. Chapter 7 deals with the so-called pivotal constructions. It shows that determining the constituent structure of these constructions is the key to treating them as object-control, as there is no distinction between finite verbs and infinitives in Chinese. Chapter 9 attempts to treat subordinate clause constructions. It is shown that raising is not possible in these constructions containing the item BA, whose occurrence (in these constructions) is to Case-mark the object of the matrix verb, which becomes defective after suffixed with the particle 'De'. Other alternatives to BA-insertion are verb-reduplication, NP-movement (of the object of the matrix verb into the subject position of the subordinate clause), or the attachment of an additional verb to the matrix verb (hence the so-called "resultative verb-complement"). Evidence for not treating 'De' as a complementiser is independently produced. Chapter 9 summarises the findings of this thesis.


PURPOSE
To assess the comparative antiemetic efficacy of single-dose intravenous (IV) dolasetron mesylate and ondansetron in preventing cisplatin-induced nausea and vomiting.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Cancer patients (n = 609) receiving first-course cisplatin chemotherapy were randomized to one of three treatments: 1.8 or 2.4 mg/kg dolasetron mesylate salt (equivalent to 1.3 and 1.8 mg/kg dolasetron base, respectively) or 32 mg ondansetron. Each treatment was infused over 15 minutes, 30 minutes before cisplatin administration. Patients were stratified to cisplatin doses of > or = 70 and less than 91 mg/m2 (n = 368) or > or = 91 mg/m2 (n = 241), administered over < or = 3 hours. Protocol-defined efficacy criteria included complete response (zero emetic episodes and no rescue medication), major response (1 to 2 emetic episodes and no rescue medication), and patients' report of nausea severity and satisfaction recorded on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS).

RESULTS
The three treatments met protocol-specified criteria for equivalence. Complete response rates for dolasetron mesylate 1.8 mg/kg, 2.4 mg/kg, and ondansetron, respectively, were 49.2%, 45.6%, and 50.4% for patients in the lower cisplatin stratum (mean, 74.7 mg/m2) and 36.8%, 31.3%, and 31.8% in the higher cisplatin stratum (mean, 100.6 mg/m2). No significant differences were observed in the extent of nausea with either dolasetron dose compared with ondansetron. Less nausea was noted with 1.8 mg/kg dolasetron compared with the 2.4 mg/kg dose (P = .044) All three antiemetic treatments were well tolerated. Asymptomatic electrocardiogram changes were recorded with both dolasetron and ondansetron.

CONCLUSION
A single IV dose of dolasetron mesylate (1.8 or 2.4 mg/kg) has comparable safety and efficacy to a single 32-mg IV dose of ondansetron in patients receiving cisplatin chemotherapy.


We consider an isotropic Lame system for an elastic medium consisting of finitely many imperfections of small diameter, embedded in a homogeneous reference medium. The Lame coefficients of the imperfections are different from those of the background medium. First, we establish an asymptotic formula for the displacement vector in terms of the reference Lame coefficients, the location of the imperfections, and their geometry. Second, we use this asymptotic expansion to establish continuous dependence estimates for certain characteristics of the imperfections in terms of the boundary data and to derive integral boundary formulae that yield to a very effective identification procedure.


Thirteen experiments investigated the dynamics of stream segregation. Experiments 1-6b used a similar method, where a same-frequency induction sequence (usually 10 repetitions of an identical pure tone) promoted segregation in a subsequent, briefer test sequence (of alternating low- and high-frequency tones). Experiments 1-2 measured streaming using a direct report of perception and a temporal-discrimination task, respectively. Creating a single deviant by altering the final inducer (e.g. in level or replacement with silence) reduced segregation, often substantially. As the prior inducers remained unaltered, it is proposed that the single change actively reset build-up. The extent of resetting varied gradually with the size of a frequency change, once noticeable (experiments 3a-3b). By manipulating the serial position of a change, experiments 4a-4b demonstrated that resetting only occurred when the final inducer was replaced with silence, as build-up is very rapid during a same-frequency induction sequence. Therefore, the observed resetting cannot be explained by fewer inducers being presented. Experiment 5 showed that resetting caused by a single deviant did not increase when prior inducers were made unpredictable in frequency (four-semitone range). Experiments 6a-6b demonstrated that actual and perceived continuity have a similar effect on subsequent streaming judgements promoting either integration or segregation, depending on listening context. Experiment 7 found that same-frequency inducers were considerably more effective at promoting segregation than an alternating-frequency inducer, and that a trend for deviant-tone resetting was only apparent for the same-frequency case. Using temporal-order judgments, experiments 8-9 demonstrated the stream segregation of pure-tone-like percepts, evoked by sudden changes in amplitude or interaural time difference for individual components of a complex tone, Active resetting was observed when a deviant was inserted into a sequence of these percepts (Experiment 10). Overall, these experiments offer new insight into the segregation-promotIng effect of induction sequences, and the factors which can reset this effect.


The past fifteen years or so have witnessed considerable progress in our understanding of how the human brain works. One of the objectives of the fast-growing field of neuroscience is to deepen our knowledge of how the brain perceives and interacts with the external world. Advances in this direction have been made possible by progress in brain imaging techniques and by clinical data obtained from patients with localized brain lesions. A relatively new field within neuroscience is neuroeconomics, which focuses on individual decision making and aims to systematically classify and map the brain activity that correlates with decision-making that pertains to economic choices. Neuroeconomic studies rely heavily on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures the haemodynamic response (that is, changes in the blood flow) related to neural activity in the brain.


We study the problem of change-point detection and localisation for functional data sequentially observed on a general d-dimensional space, where we allow the functional curves to be either sparsely or densely sampled. Data of this form naturally arise in a wide range of applications such as biology, neuroscience, climatology, and finance. To achieve such a task, we propose a kernel-based algorithm named functional seeded binary segmentation (FSBS). FSBS is computationally efficient, can handle discretely observed functional data, and is theoretically sound for heavy-tailed and temporally-dependent observations. Moreover, FSBS works for a general d-dimensional domain, which is the first in the literature of change-point estimation for functional data. We show the consistency of FSBS for multiple change-point estimations and further provide a sharp localisation error rate, which reveals an interesting phase transition phenomenon depending on the number of functional curves observed and the sampling frequency for each curve. Extensive numerical experiments illustrate the effectiveness of FSBS and its advantage over existing methods in the literature under various settings. A real data application is further conducted, where FSBS localises change-points of sea surface temperature patterns in the south Pacific attributed to El Nino.


This study explores the life of Nella Larsen, investigating how her unusual childhood and early adulthood provided substance for her to make critical and unique views on race relations and racially dichotomized communities. The study shows how the Harlem Renaissance was essential in providing this outlet to Larsen; it was an era where African American art was lauded.
 The investigation required research into Larsen's childhood and early adult life using several different pieces of biographical works. After detailing impactful events in her early life, the study developed further with critical analyzation of her fictional short stories and novels. Additional research was required to depict the Harlem Renaissance and explain its potential significance to individuals like Nella Larsen.
 The results of this academic work find that Larsen developed a sole critical view of interracial relations based on her personal observances and experiences that she described in her various literary productions. She critiqued the strict racial binary that provided limited life opportunities for blacks, especially black women. Larsen also used her status as a novelist to condemn exclusive or divisive environments, similar to those she experienced as an adult and her encounters during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was important because its uniqueness as an era of artistic expression and progression is what fueled Larsen's desire to pursue her literary interests.
 The conclusion drawn from this investigation is that Nella Larsen was a woman who, because of her biracial background, never truly assimilated into any environment. Being raised, although for a short period of time, in a white household prevented her from fully adapting to a predominantly black community. She had previously been rejected from an all-white community as a teenager. The Harlem Renaissance provided Larsen the opportunity to show the effects these highly divisive and exclusive environments have on mulatto individuals, particularly women. The conclusion shows that Larsen's innovative approach to race allowed her fictional works to stand out from other literary works of the Renaissance. Her later life of reclusiveness only emphasizes the detrimental effects that encounters with several racially dichotomized environments can have on an individual.


Background/Aims: We report on the rates of hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1,313 clients entering heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) in Switzerland from 2003 to 2013. We identify predictors of HCV infection. Methods: Data were collected using questionnaires within 2 weeks of clients' first entry into HAT. Prevalence of HAV, HBV, HCV and HIV was calculated using laboratory test results collected at entry or using reports of older test results. Predictors of HCV status were identified through multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Results show stable rates of HIV-positive clients and decreasing proportions of HAV- and HBV-infected clients. In 2013, there were 12% (n = 8) HIV-, 20% (n = 12) HAV-, 20% (n = 12) HBV- and 52% HCV- (n = 34) positive clients. Vaccination against HAV and HBV had become more frequent. Predictors of positive HCV status included older age, female gender, earlier year of entry, having spent 1 month or more in detention or prison, use of injected heroin and more years of intravenous use. Conclusion: Our results highlight the fact that efforts to prevent and test for infections and to promote vaccination against HAV and HBV in heroin users need to be continued.


An approach whereby conflict-free access of any constant stride can be made by selecting a storage scheme for each vector based on the accessing patterns used with that vector is considered. By factoring the stride into two components, one a power of 2 and the other relatively prime to 2, a storage scheme that allows conflict-free access to the vector using the specified stride can be synthesized. All such schemes are based on a variation of the row rotation mechanism proposed by P. Budnik and D. Kuck (ibid., vol.C-20. no.12, pp.1566-9, Dec. 1971). Each storage scheme is based on two parameters, one describing the type of rotation to perform and the other describing the amount of memory to be rotated as a single block. The performance of the memory under access strides other than the stride used to specify the storage scheme is also considered. Modeling these other strides represents a vector being accessed with multiple strides as well as situations when the stride cannot be determined prior to initializing the vector. Simulation results show that if a single buffer is added to each memory port, then the average performance of the dynamic scheme surpasses that of the interleaved scheme for arbitrary stride accesses. >


The concentration of Cu, Cd, Ni and Zn in intertidal sediments and Emerita analoga (Stimpson, 1857) in eight sectors of south Mejillones Bay, Chile was determined. Only Zn showed a certain degree of contamination in the sediments of the bay with a rate of geoaccumulation of 2.8. In analyzing the content of metals in E. analoga, we determined that this species would bioaccumulate some of the metals analyzed but low magnitude, with the exception of Zn bioaccumulation factor of 2.07. The similarity dendrogram performed with bioaccumulation index data related the values of this index with the spatial distribution of major industries and urban areas. This concordance allows establishing that E. analoga be responding as an indicator of environmental health for this system. It is also important to note that this bay is experiencing the first signs of a moderately impacted industrial area. Therefore it is necessary to generate consistent measurements, covering more than an environmental matrix, in order to control the human impact in this highly productive coastal marine ecosystem.


Growing evidence indicates that the tumor microenvironment has suppressive immune system and immune evasion is emerging as one of the cancer hallmarks. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is an important component of human adaptive immunity in removing pathological cells including tumor cells. Recently, we reported that the cancer therapeutic antibody trastuzumab, a humanized IgG1, can be cleaved at the hinge region by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in vitro, and the hinge cleaved trastuzumab (scIgG-T) showed significant loss of immune effector functions such as antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and anti-tumor efficacy in vivo (Fan et al., Breast Cancer Research 2012). The objectives of this study are 1) to investigate if the Fc hinge cleavage of IgG occurs in tumor tissues of breast cancer patients; 2) to understand the relationship among IgG Fc hinge cleavage, MMP expression, and anticancer immunity. Methods: Surgically removed fresh tumor tissues (n=23, 11 with upfront surgery and 12 with neoadjuvant therapies) from breast cancer patients with informed consent (protocol # HSC-MS-10-0580) were snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored in a -80oC freezer until analysis. Normal breast tissues (n=20) were obtained from an outside vendor (Cureline Inc., CA) as snap frozen tissues. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were freshly prepared from patient blood samples collected before surgery and were preserved in liquid nitrogen storage tank until analysis. Hinge cleaved IgGs were quantified by ELISA and immuno-histochemistry (IHC) detection with a panel of anti-hinge specific antibodies developed at Johnson & Johnson. MMP expression was profiled using a reverse phase protein array method (Ray Biotech Inc., CA) and populations of immune effector cells in patient PBMCs were determined by multi-color flow cytometry. Results: Levels of single hinge cleaved IgGs (scIgGs) were significantly higher in breast cancer tumor tissue than in normal breast tissue. The elevated Fc hinge cleavage of IgGs in breast tumor tissues was positively correlated with high levels of MMPs and expression of MMP-9 showed linear correlation (R=0.78) with the level of scIgGs in the tumor tissues. Notably, Fc hinge cleavage of IgGs in residual tumor tissues from patients treated with neoadjuvant therapies was similar to the levels in the normal breast tissues, while tumor tissues from patients with up-front surgery had significantly higher Fc hinge cleavage than both normal and neoadjuvant treated tumor tissues. In comparison with PBMCs from patients with the up-front surgery, PBMCs from patients with neoadjuvant therapies had an increased percentage of NK cells (CD56+) and immune cells with Fc gamma receptor IIa (CD32a) expression. In addition, percentages of immune effector cells with CD56+/CD16+ (Fc gamma receptor RIII), CD56+/CD64+ (Fc gamma receptor RI), and CD14+/CD16+ were also higher in PBMCs from patients treated with neoadjuvant therapies than those from patients with up-front surgery. Taken together, our results suggest that the reduced scIgG levels in neoadjuvant treated tumor tissue correlated with the better profiles of immune effector cells, while the increased Fc hinge cleavage in breast tumor tissue before therapeutic intervention is linked with immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. Citation Format: Ningyan zhang, Anneliese Gonzalez, Hui Deng, Xuejun Fan, Luis Baez Vallecillo, songlin zhang, Randall Brezski, Emily Roberson, Robert Jorden, William Strohl, Zhiqiang An. Elevated hinge cleavage of immunoglobulin G correlates with immune suppression and increased matrix metalloproteinases in breast tumor tissues. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Breast Cancer Research: Genetics, Biology, and Clinical Applications; Oct 3-6, 2013; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2013;11(10 Suppl):Abstract nr A107.


Four members spanning three generations of one family have phenylketonuria of varying degrees of severity. Two first cousins were screened in the neonatal period and have had dietary phenylalanine restriction since diagnosis, the older patient having been classified as having more severe PKU and the younger one as having mild PKU. Their mutual grandfather and his older brother also have a significant hyperphenylalaninaemia and are of normal intelligence despite never having had restricted phenylalanine intake. Mutation analysis of the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene has established that there are four different mutations, two in exon 2 (F39L and L48S) and two in exon 3 (R111X and S67P), which give rise to PKU in this family. In order to establish their relative severity, we screened the PKU populations of western Scotland and the south west of England for these mutations. The exon 3 mutations are rare; however, F39L is relatively common in Scotland and L48S in England. A comparison of diagnostic blood phenylalanine concentrations in subjects carrying L48S/null or F39L/null mutations with those carrying two null mutations suggest that these exon 2 mutations are less deleterious. Thus, in this family, the different biochemical phenotypes can be explained, in part, by different genotypes at the PAH locus but our results show that the relationship between genotype and clinical outcome is more complex and is a function of multiple effects.


"Drug Reaction with Eosinophilia and Systemic Symptoms'' (DRESS) syndrome, is characterized with fewer, extensive mucocutaneous rash, facial oedema, lymphadenopathy, eosinophilia and/or other hematological abnormalities and internal organ involvement that typically emerge following the latent period that varies between 2-6 weeks aft er the beginning of drug treatment. It is known that this syndrome, which is assessed among severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions, is less common in children than adults. Although many defi ning adult studies about DRESS syndrome exist, a limited number of studies in which child cases have been evaluated are available. Th erefore, we off ered four child cases that fi rst of which is correlated with sulfonamide derivate use of antibiotics and the others of which are diagnosed with use of anticonvulsant dependent DRESS syndrome in our clinic. We aimed to discuss DRESS syndrome in children with clinical and laboratory characteristics, diagnosis and treatment of those cases whose ages vary between 7 and 14 years old.