Global warming is currently a much discussed topic with as yet largely unexplored consequences for agro-ecosystems. Little is known about the warming effect on the bacterial microbiota inhabiting the plant surface (phyllosphere), which can have a strong impact on plant growth and health, as well as on plant diseases and colonization by human pathogens. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of moderate surface warming on the diversity and composition of the bacterial leaf microbiota of the herbaceous plant Galium album. Leaves were collected from four control and four surface warmed (+2°C) plots located at the field site of the Environmental Monitoring and Climate Impact Research Station Linden in Germany over a 6-year period. Warming had no effect on the concentration of total number of cells attached to the leaf surface as counted by Sybr Green I staining after detachment, but changes in the diversity and phylogenetic composition of the bacterial leaf microbiota analyzed by bacterial 16S rRNA gene Illumina amplicon sequencing were observed. The bacterial phyllosphere microbiota were dominated by Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. Warming caused a significant higher relative abundance of members of the Gammaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes, and a lower relative abundance of members of the Alphaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Plant beneficial bacteria like Sphingomonas spp. and Rhizobium spp. occurred in significantly lower relative abundance in leaf samples of warmed plots. In contrast, several members of the Enterobacteriaceae, especially Enterobacter and Erwinia, and other potential plant or human pathogenic genera such as Acinetobacter and insect-associated Buchnera and Wolbachia spp. occurred in higher relative abundances in the phyllosphere samples from warmed plots. This study showed for the first time the long-term impact of moderate (+2°C) surface warming on the phyllosphere microbiota on plants. A reduction of beneficial bacteria and an enhancement of potential pathogenic bacteria in the phyllosphere of plants may indicate that this aspect of the ecosystem which has been largely neglected up till now, can be a potential risk for pathogen transmission in agro-ecosystems in the near future.


Flavonoids occur in most plant species, and account for a significant percentage of the chemical constituents of some; e.g. dried green tea leaves contain approximately 30% flavonoids by weight. Flavonoids have been shown to have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiallergic, antimutagenic, antiviral, antineoplastic, anti-thrombotic, and vasodilatory activity. The potent antioxidant activity of flavonoids—their ability to scavenge hydroxyl radicals, superoxide anions, and lipid peroxy radicals—may be the most important function of flavonoids, and underlies many of the above actions in the body. Oxidative damage is implicated in most disease processes, and epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory research on flavonoids and other antioxidants suggest their use in the prevention and treatment of a number of these. Catechin and its derivatives, oligomeric proanthocyanidins, quercetin and quercetin chalcone, Ginkgo flavone glycosides, silymarin, and others can be utilized in preventative and treatment protocols for cardiovascular disease, cancer, inflammatory conditions, asthma, periodontal disease, liver disease, cataracts and macular degeneration. (Alt Med Rev 1996;1(2):103-111)


Author(s): Chan, Wanyu R.; Maddalena, Randy L; Stratton, Chris; Hotchi, Toshifumi; Singer, Brett C.; Walker, Iain S.; Sherman, Max H. | Abstract: The Healthy Efficient New Gas Homes (HENGH) is a field study that will collect data on ventilation systems and indoor air quality (IAQ) in new California homes that were built to 2008 Title 24 standards. A pilot test was performed to help inform the most time and cost effective approaches to measuring IAQ in the 100 test homes that will be recruited for this study. Two occupied, single-family detached homes built to 2008 Title 24 participated in the pilot test. One of the test homes uses exhaust-only ventilation provided by a continuous exhaust fan in the laundry room. The other home uses supply air for ventilation. Measurements of IAQ were collected for two weeks. Time-resolved concentrations of particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and formaldehyde were measured. Measurements of IAQ also included time-integrated concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), volatile aldehydes, and NO2. Three perfluorocarbon tracers (PFTs) were used to estimate the dilution rate of an indoor emitted air contaminant in the two pilot test homes. Diagnostic tests were performed to measure envelope air leakage, duct leakage, and airflow of range hood, exhaust fans, and clothes dryer vent when accessible. Occupant activities, such as cooking, use of range hood and exhaust fans, were monitored using various data loggers. This document describes results of the pilot test.


Exact Max-SAT solvers, compared with SAT solvers, apply little inference at each node of the proof tree. Commonly used SAT inference rules like unit propagation produce a simplified formula that preserves satisfiability but, unfortunately, solving the Max-SAT problem for the simplified formula is not equivalent to solving it for the original formula. In this paper, we define a number of original inference rules that, besides being applied efficiently, transform Max-SAT instances into equivalent Max-SAT instances which are easier to solve. The soundness of the rules, that can be seen as refinements of unit resolution adapted to Max-SAT, are proved in a novel and simple way via an integer programming transformation. With the aim of finding out how powerful the inference rules are in practice, we have developed a new Max-SAT solver, called MaxSatz, which incorporates those rules, and performed an experimental investigation. The results provide empirical evidence that MaxSatz is very competitive, at least, on random Max-2SAT, random Max-3SAT, Max-Cut, and Graph 3-coloring instances, as well as on the benchmarks from the Max-SAT Evaluation 2006.


Signals detected with functional brain imaging techniques are based on the coupling between neuronal activity and energy metabolism. Positron emission tomography signals detect blood flow, oxygen consumption and glucose utilization associated with neuronal activity; the degree of blood oxygenation is thought to contribute to the signal detected with functional magnetic resonance imaging, whereas magnetic resonance spectroscopy identifies the spatiotemporal pattern of activity-dependent appearance of metabolic in termediates, such as glucose or lactate. Despite the technological sophistication of these brain imaging techniques, the precise mechanisms and cell types involved in coupling and in generating metabolic signals are still debated. Indeed, given the level of resolution achieved with these brain imaging techniques, it has not been feasible to monitor met abolic fluxes between the highly intermingled neuronal, glial, and vascular elements in the intact brain. This obstacle has been overcome in recent years by using purified cellular preparations of neurons and glia. These approaches have suggested a critical role for astrocytes in coupling neuronal activity to energy metabolism. Indeed, astrocytes possess receptors and reuptake sites for a variety of neurotransmitters, including glu tamate. In addition, astrocytic end-feet, which surround capillaries, are enriched in the specific glucose transporter GLUT-1. These features would be expected to allow astro cytes to sense synaptic activity and to couple it with energy metabolism. During activa tion, glutamate is the predominant neurotransmitter released by modality-specific excitatory pathways to a given cortical area; in vitro and in vivo data support a model in which glutamate would stimulate, during activation, an initial glycolytic processing of blood-borne glucose by astrocytes; this glutamate-dependent process would result in a transient lactate overproduction, followed by a recoupling phase during which lactate would be oxidized by neurons. Such a model is consistent with data recently obtained with functional brain imaging techniques. NEUROSCIENTIST 3:361-365, 1997


Evaluating respiratory mechanics during dynamic conditions without interrupting ongoing ventilation and flow, adds to the information obtained from the mechanics derived from static (= no flow) conditions, i.e., the flow signal has the potential to provide information on the properties of the respiratory system (including the tubing system). Hence monitoring the changes in the flow signal during ongoing mechanical ventilation would give information about the dynamic mechanics of the respiratory system. Any change in the mechanics of the respiratory system including the endotracheal tube (ETT) and the ventilatory circuit would affect the shape of the flow signal. Knowledge of the airway pressure distal to the ETT at the carina level (= tracheal pressure) is required for calculating the extra resistive load exerted by the endotracheal tube in order to compensate for it. In a porcine model, the flow signal was used to non-invasively calculate tracheal pressure. There was good agreement between calculated and measured tracheal pressure with different modes of ventilation. However, calculation of tracheal pressure assumes that the inner diameter of the ETT is known, and this assumption is not met if the inner diameter is narrowed by secretions. Flow that passes a narrowed tube is decelerated and this is most pronounced with the high flow of early expiration, yielding a typical time constant over expiratory volume pattern that is easy to recognize during mechanical ventilation. This pattern reliably detected partial endotracheal obstruction during volume and pressure controlled mechanical ventilation. A change in compliance of the respiratory system modifies the elastic recoil and this also affects the rate of the expiratory flow and the shape of its signal. In a porcine model, lung volume gains on the flow signal generated by the heartbeats (cardiogenic oscillations) provided information about the compliance of the respiratory system during ongoing mechanical ventilationIn conclusion analyzing the flow signal during ongoing ventilation can be a cheap, non-invasive and reliable tool to monitor the elastic and resistive properties of the respiratory system including the endotracheal tube.


The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) of the Republic of Ireland and the NorthernIreland Authority for Utility Regulation (NIAUR) - the Regulatory Authorities (RAs) - havedeveloped a single all-island gross pool electricity market known as the Single ElectricityMarket (SEM). The demand profile in the SEM is such that some power plants have changedfrom base load operation to two-shifting and load following. These patterns of operationimpose extra costs in term of additional damage to components associated with the nonsteadyload operation (due to mechanisms such as creep-fatigue interaction, thermal fatigue,corrosion fatigue, stress corrosion cracking etc.) in components especially in older plantdesigned for base-load operation. Extra costs are also incurred in staff re-training tounderstand and deal with the issues of cyclic operation and associated problems, deal withmore frequent component repair and replacement, lower availability rates, higher outagerates, extra plant monitoring and inspection etc. However, with experience and knowledge,well-advised utilities have been able to manage plant cyclic operation more efficiently, andwith plant modifications have been able to reduce damage and, therefore, costs.This Report discusses the impact and costs imposed on generators by following a cyclicpattern of operation. It furthermore provides advice on good practice for plant operation,monitoring and maintenance, and on modifications to the plant (for example the introductionof extra drains etc.) that need to be carried out to mitigate the effect of plant cycling, thusextending component life and increasing plant efficiency - with consequent reduction ofcarbon emissions, and reduced plant operation and maintenance costs.


An alternative for biodiesel production is the use of lipids from microalgae. Although all steps to obtain this biofuel are important, harvesting and extraction are the most important. Advances in these areas are necessary in order to obtain third-generation fuels. The purpose of the present study is to compare different methods of lipids extraction and harvesting for freshwater Selenastrum Capricornutum microalgae. The method used for harvesting was flocculation with inorganic agent. Copper (II) Sulphate (CuSO4) was used as flocculant, resulting in the best percentage of recovery (76%) for a dose of 2 g/L. Previously oil extraction, the collected samples were homogenized and their moisture content was analysed obtaining values of 55-96%. Two extraction methods were used: Soxhlet and ultrasound. The use of ultrasound favours cell disruption and increases the extraction yield. In extraction methods, polar, non-polar solvents, and mixes of solvents were used. N-hexane and acetone were used as solvents for Soxhlet extraction, and ethanol, acetone, methanol, chloroform, and a mixture of chloroform and methanol in 1:2 and 2:1 ratios, for extraction ultrasound assisted method. The use of the methanol-assisted ultrasound is the most efficient method for lipids extraction for Selenastrum Capricornutum biomass. Keywords: microalgae, extraction, ultrasound, Soxhlet, solvent, harvesting


The economic analysis of property has made progress in areas of property closest to contracts and torts, where the assumption that legal rules can be studied in isolation has some plausibility. Property law is a system, and economic analysis can be used to capture the role of traditional notions of things, possession, and ownership. The theme in all of property law is the separation of clusters of resource related activities for treatment in partial isolation of their context. The very treatment of resource-related activities through rights to things serves to chunk together attributes, activities, and duty bearers for wholesale treatment. These modular things of property law emerge from basic possession and accession. The separation of parts of the world for semi-formal treatment extends through sophisticated forms of entity property, asset partitioning, and mixed systems. All these forms of separation promote specialization and investment, but separation comes at the cost of potential strategic behavior: actors will favor parts of the system from which they benefit more, to the detriment of others. To curtail such strategic behavior around the fault lines of the property system, property law uses a variety of exclusion and governance strategies, equitable interventions, and remedies.


The ocean is electromagnetically coupled with the Earth System. This results in momentum transfer, as well as a participation by the ocean in the Earth's observable electric and magnetic fields. The coupling is typically quite weak and quantitative analyses indicate that many of these connections may be discounted when considering the transfer of momentum. But because of systematic effects there are also cases where an immediate discount is not justified and electromagnetic transfer of ocean momentum should remain within the realm of consideration. For practical considerations, even if the coupling is weak these effects are phenomenologically important because the electric and magnetic fields associated with this coupling offer an observational means for inferring the ocean flow. While in situ measurements of the electric field have long been used to measure ocean transport, new opportunities for remote sensing ocean flow through ground and space magnetic observatories are now being considered. In this article a brief update of the status of these observational methods is given. Extending beyond these established elements of the ocean's electromagnetic involvement, an attempt is made to provide a quantitative discussion of lesser considered elements of the ocean's electromagnetic coupling with the mantle and fluid core.


Allogromiid foraminiferans are distributed over a wide range of marine habitats, but some are also reported from freshwater environments. Most of these descriptions date back to the 19 th century. Among them, five species of freshwater foraminiferans have been described and redescribed from Lake Geneva by the Swiss protozoologist Eugene Penard. The different foraminiferal species were classified by Penard in the genus Gromia , which at that time included both, filosean and granuloreticulosan species and were later grouped by De Saedeleer in two allogromiid genera, Allelogromia and Diplogromia . We collected several sediment samples from Lake Geneva and from two other bodies of freshwater in Switzerland and investigated them subsequently under a stereomicroscope. None of the forms described by Penard were observed. On the other hand, we have obtained foraminiferal DNA sequences from DNA extracts of the same sediment samples. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences shows that they branch with a clade of saccamminid foraminiferans, represented by the genera Ovammina and Cribrothalammina . This is in agreement with the observed morphological similarity between Penard's species and the marine saccamminids used in our study. The possibility that our sequences belong to some undetermined naked foraminiferans, however, cannot be excluded and the molecular identification of the species described by Penard must await the confirmation by sequencing DNA of isolated specimens.


When applying the method of manufactured solutions (MMS) on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software, it is traditionally a requirement that all solutions be continuous on the computational domain. This stipulation is limiting for the verification and validation of CFD solutions where discontinuities are frequent. This work details the development of a discontinuous MMS method for finite volume codes. The CFD code used throughout this research is a cell centered, finite volume, 1 order, Eulerian scheme within the software AVUS (Air Vehicles Unstructured Solver) which is combined with uniform structured grids. This code is used as a representative testing platform with the convenience of accessible source code. A piecewise technique is used for defining manufactured solutions which simulate discontinuities. Since source terms which allow arbitrary solutions in continuous MMS do not exist within Riemann solvers, conditions at the shock boundary are physically constrained by the Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions. Upwind manufactured solutions are first initialized and a regression technique is then used to solve for solutions downwind of the discontinuity. It is shown that a change in regression error of four order of magnitude has no significant effect on an order of convergence test. When applying MMS on finite volume CFD codes, determining the exact solutions and source terms when the stored value is the integrated average over the control volume is a non-trivial and frequently ignored problem. MMS with discontinuities further complicates the problem of determining these values. To obtain low error and high convergence rates, linearly and quadratically exact transformations are proposed for cells split by discontinuities. These transformations are combined with a nine point Gauss quadrature method to achieve 4th order accuracy for fully general solutions and shock shapes. To begin testing, continuous MMS is first performed to ensure a verified code. AVUS is verified for 1 order solutions but retains lower order boundary conditions when solving 2 order. ii The error is verified using a second academic CFD solver but is left unchanged for shock solutions which are inherently 1 order. Constant primitive, oblique shock solutions are then used to demonstrate a solution's error dependence on grid alignment. Grid alignment is shown to play a vital role in the error surrounding a shock. Constant oblique solutions with a grid aligned shock result in no discretization error while a shock that passed through the interior of cells yields error upwards of 4% for the u-component velocity. A semi one-dimensional problem combined with a grid aligned shock is then used to demonstrate the error magnitude (< 1%) due to the cell averaging on both sides of the discontinuity. Fully generic primitives and discontinuities are then introduced and grid convergence studies yielding 1 order results typically associated with shocks are used to verify the correctness of the code. Despite high errors near the region of the shock, similar patterns and orders of convergence are shown for both physical and mathematical shock shapes. Sub-linear convergences near 0.9, especially in the u-component velocity, indicate the presence of linearly degenerate characteristics which are typical of shock capturing schemes. The fully general solutions are used to show that errors in the Riemann solver can be identified with discontinuous MMS. Three coding errors are introduced which are not identified by continuous MMS. In two cases the discontinuous procedure indicates a coding error in the convergence test and the final error is classified as a efficiency mistake and is missed by all methods. Lastly, the method is replicated on an academic CFD code for a final validation procedure. Identical behavior and near identical errors suggest the robustness of the developed method despite fundamental differences in the shock capturing schemes of the two codes.


Objective: To evaluate the surgical technique with bifrontal interhemispheric approach for total removal of tumor in olfactory groove meningioma (OGM). Methods: This study described a case of a 38-year-old woman with bilateral blindness, anosmia, and behaviour changes. Imaging studies show a tumor mass in midfrontal base. Surgery using a bifrontal interhemispheric approach was performed and total removal was achieved and postoperative computed tomography (CT) scan was performed to confirm the result. Histopathological findings established a diagnosis of meningioma. Results: A coronal skin incision behind the hairline was utilized. The scalp was elevated, taking care to reserve the vascularized pericranium medial to the linea temporalis of each side, and preserving the 2 supraorbital nerves. Eight burr holes were used, with the two initial holes made on each side of the orbitotemporal region, and the other four holes at the midline. A bifrontal craniotomy was performed. The tumor was first detached from its attachment with bipolar cautery and debulked. During this step, the main tumor feeder arteries from the anterior and posterior ethmoidal artery were interrupted, and the tumor devascularized. Total tumor removal through surgical intervention was achieved and confirmed by head CT-scan postoperatively. Conclusions: This case report supports the suitability of the bifrontal interhemispheric approach for OGM resection with additional radiation therapy. Keywords: Anterior interhemispheric approach, olfactory groove meningioma DOI: 10.15850/ijihs.v4n2.838


H ow can we continue to behave ethically within a wider culture in which so many forces prod us to use others for our own satisfaction or self-advancement? It's an always-vexing question that Aryeh Cohen's essay on "Justice in the City" raises in a fresh way. There have always been unscrupulous individuals who operate in this way, seeking out others' vulnerabilities in order to exploit them. But now we have entire industries devoted, in essence, to harvesting heretofore personal information for the sake of prompting particular consumer and political choices. We have people on the left, not just on the right, who "network" systematically with an intent that is flagrantly self-interested. My point is the obvious one, that the wider society grows ever more oblivious to the problem of instrumental relationships: relationships based on what good I can get out of the Other rather than what good I can provide to benefit the Other. For many of our contemporaries, whether we should be using other human beings to our personal advantage is not even a question — it's just the way things are.


Abstract. This paper approaches the new subject of major special events. With an extended international evolution, major events are visible in the world economy but they form a controversial theoretical subject due to the lack of common accepted meanings, the reduced number of research papers concerning this subject, their inclusion in holistic or applicative research and their subjective analysis. The paper then reviews the existing literature as well as the cultural evidence in order to identify the reference perspectives in defining the concept of major special events. Thus, the research aims to bring an integrated vision starting from the meanings given in different cultural backgrounds and continuing with the analysis of the definitions and typologies in order to identify common and distinct elements. The research has a qualitative approach realized through comparative analysis method having as instruments the table and the figure. As result of the analysis and the interpretation, the paper finds out the cultural meanings of the event, the managerial perspective of defining special events and the accepted perspective of defining major event.Keywords: special events, major events, management, definition, reference perspective.1. Theoretical controversies and the integration of ideasMajor special events represent an economic phenomenon of the XXI century with an unprecedented global expansion underlined by the amplification of the international competition between countries for their hosting, by the intense stakeholders' implication and by their dimensional growth. If economically their development is visible, theoretically major special events are a controversial subject due to the lack of common accepted meanings, less studied due to a reduced number of research papers and tangential analyzed due to their inclusion in holistic and applicative research.The reasons which explain the missing of an integrated theoretical background include the differences between societies, organizations, individuals implicated, special events being organized in all sections of a society, in all sorts of organizations, with the support of professionals from different fields who bring their contribution according to their culture, education and status. Moreover, the event is perceived differently at local, national or international level. Furthermore, another reason derives from the researchers' subjectivity who, in general, analyze and define events in the context of their own area of study. In addition, events are not static phenomena, their signification, goal and management evolved in time, affecting the field terminology.However, the standardization in defining major special events and the identification of a clear accepted typology is necessary for the research to bring its contribution to the establishment of the special events industry. Moreover, this standardization allows the recognition of particularities and the understanding of the aspects of organization which have a strong impact on the goal, objectives, processes and procedures on which the event manager must focus.From this point of view, the purpose of this paper was to identify the reference perspectives in defining the concept of major special event. Thus, the research aims to bring an integrated vision starting from the meanings given in distinct cultural backgrounds and continuing with the analysis of the definitions and typologies in order to identify common and distinctive elements. The cultural contexts were correlated to the origin of the literature, research papers being offered mainly by the American and British literature with the mention that the Romanian literature does not offer any research papers in the field of major events, and, in general, practical approaches concerning special events. As a consequence, the paper brings this subject of study in the autochthon management literature and offers a starting point in creating a theoretical framework. …


Objective: The layer of fat that accumulates around the heart, called cardiac adipose tissue (CAT), can influence the development of coronary disease and is indicative of cardiovascular risk. While volumetric assessment of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can quantify CAT, volume alone gives no information about its distribution across the myocardial surface, which may be an important factor in risk assessment. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) modeling technique is developed and used to quantify the distribution of the CAT across the surface of the heart. Methods: Dixon MRI scans, which produce a registered 3D set of fat-only and water-only images, were acquired in 10 subjects for a study on exercise intervention. A previously developed segmentation algorithm was used to identify the heart and CAT. Extracted contours were used to build 3D models. Procrustes analysis was used to register the heart models and an iterative closest point algorithm was used to register and align the CAT models for calculation of CAT thickness. Rays were cast in directions specified by a spherical parameterization of elevation and azimuthal angles, and intersections of the ray with the CAT surface were used to calculate the thickness at each location. To evaluate the effects of the spherical parameterization on the thickness estimates, a set of synthetic models were created with increasing major-to-minor axis ratios. Results: Based on the validation in the synthetic models, the average error in CAT thickness ranged from 1.25% to 17.3% for increasing major-to-minor axis ratio. Conclusions: A process was developed, based on Dixon MRI data, to provide 3D models of the myocardial surface and the cardiac fat. The models can be used in future segmentation algorithm development and for studies on changes in cardiac fat as a result of various interventions.


Caspases play important roles during apoptosis, inflammation and proliferation. The high homology among family members makes selective targeting of individual caspases difficult, which is necessary to precisely define the role of these enzymes. We have selected caspase-7-specific binders from a library of DARPins (designed ankyrin repeat proteins). The DARPins D7.18 and D7.43 bind specifically to procaspase 7 and active caspase 7, but not to other members of the family. Binding of the DARPins does not affect the active enzyme, but interferes with its activation by other caspases. The crystal structure of the caspase 7-D7.18 complex elucidates the high selectivity and the mode of inhibition. Combining these caspase-7-specific DARPins with the previously reported caspase-3-inhibitory DARPin D3.4S76R reduces the activity of caspase 3 and 7 in double-transfected HeLa cells during apoptosis. In addition, these cells showed less susceptibility to TRAIL (tumour-necrosis-factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand)-induced apoptosis in living cell experiments. D7.18 and D7.43 are therefore novel tools for in vitro studies on procaspase 7 activation as well as for clarifying the role of its activation in different cellular processes. If applied in combination with D3.4S76R, they represent an excellent instrument to increase our understanding of these enzymes during various cellular processes.


Many computationally expensive problems are solved by a divide-and-conquer algorithm: a problem over a big dataset can be recursively divided into independent tasks over smaller subsets of the dataset. We present a distributed general-purpose framework called T-thinker which effectively utilizes the CPU cores in a cluster by properly decomposing an expensive problem into smaller independent tasks for parallel computation. T-thinker well overlaps CPU processing with network communication, and its superior performance is verified over a re-engineered graph mining system G-thinker available at http://cs.uab.edu/yanda/gthinker/.


This article forms the fifth part of the series on the role of lifestyle modification in general practice with specific reference to cancer. It is recognised that cancer is not a single disease entity but rather a collection of diseases with the common feature of excessive uncontrolled cellular proliferation with the potential of cellular spread to distant anatomical sites. Whilst an in-depth discussion of the various types of cancer and the interaction with various lifestyle related factors is beyond the scope of this article, the concept of cancer in general will be discussed and where relevant, comment will be addressed to individual forms of cancer. The major risk factors which constitute an unhealthy lifestyle have been discussed in Part 1 of this series, thus the focus of Part 5 will be to give specific practical guidelines which the general practitioner may incorporate into their practice when counselling patients with cancer.


A common methodology for evaluating text entry methods is to ask participants to transcribe a predefined set of memorable sentences or phrases. In this article, we explore if we can complement the conventional transcription task with a more externally valid composition task. In a series of large-scale crowdsourced experiments, we found that participants could consistently and rapidly invent high quality and creative compositions with only modest reductions in entry rates. Based on our series of experiments, we provide a best-practice procedure for using composition tasks in text entry evaluations. This includes a judging protocol which can be performed either by the experimenters or by crowdsourced workers on a microtask market. We evaluated our composition task procedure using a text entry method unfamiliar to participants. Our empirical results show that the composition task can serve as a valid complementary text entry evaluation method.


Urinary protein excretion is considered abnormal in pregnant women when it exceeds 300 mg/24 hours at anytime during gestation, a level that usually correlates with 1+ on urine dipstick. Proteinuria documented before pregnancy or before 20 weeks' gestation suggests preexisting renal disease. The National High Blood Pressure Education Program Working Group recommended that that the diagnosis of proteinuria be based on the 24-hour urine collection. Preeclampsia is the leading diagnosis that must be excluded in all women with proteinuria first identified after 20 weeks of gestation. Given the vasospastic nature of this condition, when it is present, the degree of proteinuria may fluctuate widely from hour-to-hour. Hypertension or proteinuria may be absent in 10–15% of patients with HELLP syndrome and in 38% of patients with eclampsia. The acute onset of proteinuria and worsening hypertension in women with chronic hypertension is suggestive of superimposed preeclampsia, which increases adverse outcomes. However, because proteinuria is not independently predictive of adverse outcome, an exclusive proteinuric criterion as an indication for preterm delivery in preeclampsia should be discouraged. Target Audience: Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Family Physicians Learning Objectives: After completion of this article, the reader should be able to state that measurement of urinary protein levels by simple techniques are not sensitive or specific, recall that both hypertension and proteinuria may be absent in patients with preeclampsia, and explain that proteinuria is not predictive of adverse outcomes and that delivery should not be based on protein excretion alone.


In the fall of 2006, the Center for Rural Studies (CRS) and Women's Agricultural Network (WAgN) piloted a curriculum for agricultural entrepreneurs interested in incorporating e-commerce features – e.g. email lists, Web sites, online marketing, online ordering – into their operations. This broad definition of e-commerce reflects the integration of information technology and the Internet into business and marketing planning. The workshops were held from 2006 to 2009. Each of the cycles provided insight into how to make future sessions more beneficial to participants. Offering the course even once/year during a period of rapid change in the available technology guaranteed that significant adjustments had to be made to the content each session. This working paper addresses why we took on this challenge, why women farmers became the target audience, how the course was structured, and an overview of the results of the classes to date. Also included are lessons learned from the experience and next steps.


The iteratively reweighted least squares method (IRLS) is a popular technique used in practice for solving regression problems. Various versions of this method have been proposed, but their theoretical analyses failed to capture the good practical performance.
In this paper we propose a simple and natural version of IRLS for solving $\ell_\infty$ and $\ell_1$ regression, which provably converges to a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximate solution in $O(m^{1/3}\log(1/\epsilon)/\epsilon^{2/3} + \log m/\epsilon^2)$ iterations, where $m$ is the number of rows of the input matrix. Interestingly, this running time is independent of the conditioning of the input, and the dominant term of the running time depends sublinearly in $\epsilon^{-1}$, which is atypical for the optimization of non-smooth functions.
This improves upon the more complex algorithms of Chin et al. (ITCS '12), and Christiano et al. (STOC '11) by a factor of at least $1/\epsilon^2$, and yields a truly efficient natural algorithm for the slime mold dynamics (Straszak-Vishnoi, SODA '16, ITCS '16, ITCS '17).


The evolution in mobile access technology improves radio resources utilization. In a wireless network, power constraints are observed at both links of communication, uplink (UL) towards the base station and downlink (DL) towards user equipment (UE). In DL, there are multiple sources of power available, but towards UL, there are limited power sources, that is, batteries. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of an open-loop and a closed-loop power control for LTE, through a comprehensive simulation with the help of key performance indicators (KPIs), and identify an optimum solution. We measure different KPIs such as inter-cell interference, signal-to-interference noise ratio (SINR), reference signal received power (RSRP), throughput, spectral efficiency and power spectral density (PSD) for typical networks. As per our results, the performance of open-loop uplink power control (OLUPC) is better for an edge or boundary UE in comparison with closed-loop uplink power control (CLUPC). Furthermore, for the optimal solution in CLUPC, we tuned the value of the compensation factor ( α ) to meet the trade-off between high UL throughput and SINR. The conclusion of this work is that the best optimum solution can be obtained by selecting values of α near 0.95 for CLUPC and that this optimum solution gives better results in terms of good radio signal condition and UL throughput.


Omen discourse, the investigation of aberrant natural disasters and miraculous celestial phenomena, provided a sophisticated ideological model that could be exploited to expostulate with the sovereign for his transgressions, and to denounce the misgovernment of the imperial bureaucracy. The first of this political model is the personification of the supreme Heaven and the elevation of Heaven's status. From the perspective of ru 儒 (Confucians) scholars, the establishment of Heaven's supreme authority upon the human realm and the restriction of the sovereign in power guarantee the rectification of political mistakes as well as an applicable way for ru scholars to actively participate in real politics at court. The rise of omen discourse in the Western Han dynasty 西漢 (202 BCE 8 AD) unveils the development of a significant political theory that aimed at checking the absolute power of the sovereign through Heaven's reprimand. However, its theoretical efficacy is questioned by Wang Chong 王充 (27 97 AD) in the chapter "Qian Gao" 譴告 in his monograph Balanced Argument (Lun Heng 論衡). The focal point of this paper is the intrinsic logic of Wang Chong's arguments in his radical rejection of the philosophical ideas of the Han omen discourse. By indicating the false methodology of the principle of Heaven's reprimand, not only had Wang Chong thoroughly repudiated the Confucian model for punishing, as well as admonishing, the sovereign's misconduct in politics, but also he undermined the active nature of Heaven as an anthropomorphic deity, eventually reverting to the initiatives of the sages and worthies in the mundane world.


The role of middle leaders in New Zealand secondary schools is a complex one, fraught with many challenges. Educational reforms that began in the 1980s have increased pressure on top-level educational leaders, resulting in the delegation of responsibilities to other levels in the school hierarchy, with a considerable intensification of management work for middle leaders. As a result, the scope and volume of tasks they are now expected to carry out has led to an increasingly challenging role for these practitioners. This study set out to examine middle leadership development practices in New Zealand secondary schools. A qualitative questionnaire was administered to boards of trustees, senior leaders and middle leaders in five large urban secondary schools. Findings reveal strong agreement between Boards of Trustees, senior leaders and middle leaders regarding the expectations of the role of middle leaders and the challenges they face. Middle leaders have responsibility for a variety of leadership functions which significantly impact on student learning outcomes. However, the complexity of middle leaders' role is overwhelming for many practitioners, they feel unprepared to cope with their increasing workload and associated challenges. It is concluded that middle leaders undertake a pivotal role in the centre of the school hierarchy, mediating between senior leaders and the staff within their departments. However, if middle leaders are to effectively fulfil their role as pedagogical leaders, it is imperative they are provided with the essential training and support to build their leadership capabilities.


Introduction: Both osmolality and water intake are considered key biomarkers of the hydration status, which is necessary for adequate cellular homeostasis and wellbeing. However, alcohol intake has been shown to affect the hydration status due to an elevated
diuresis effect.
Objective: To evaluate the influence of alcohol consumption on the hydration status of healthy adults.
Method: This study was performed in 123 adults (25-45 y, 69% women). Blood samples were collected to analyze osmolality levels and a 72 h-recall food questionnaire was used to assess total water intake (TWI): drinking water, liquids (soft drinks, juices, milk, beer, wine and spirits) and solid foods, along with alcohol intake (grams). Mann-Whitney U test was performed to analyze sex differences and correlations were performed by the Spearman test adjusted by sex.
Results: No significant differences were found for TWI in men (2.19 L/d) and women (2.21 L/d). Men consumed insufficient TWI according to EFSA recommendations (men=2.5 L/d). Osmolality and liquids intake were significantly higher in men (P<0.05), as well as the general intake of alcoholic beverages (P<0.05). A positive correlation between osmolality and alcohol consumption was found in men (P<0.05), but not in women.
Conclusion: A shift in the liquid intake pattern in men, by decreasing alcohol intake and promoting water drinking might be advisable in order to lower osmolality levels and achieve a better hydration status.


We consider the problem of efficient randomized dimensionality reduction with norm-preservation guarantees. Specifically we prove data-dependent Johnson-Lindenstrauss-type geometry preservation guarantees for Ho's random subspace method: When data satisfy a mild regularity condition -- the extent of which can be estimated by sampling from the data -- then random subspace approximately preserves the Euclidean geometry of the data with high probability. Our guarantees are of the same order as those for random projection, namely the required dimension for projection is logarithmic in the number of data points, but have a larger constant term in the bound which depends upon this regularity. A challenging situation is when the original data have a sparse representation, since this implies a very large projection dimension is required: We show how this situation can be improved for sparse binary data by applying an efficient `densifying' preprocessing, which neither changes the Euclidean geometry of the data nor requires an explicit matrix-matrix multiplication. We corroborate our theoretical findings with experiments on both dense and sparse high-dimensional datasets from several application domains.


These guidelines for best practice for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV-1 are intended to provide health workers with information to enable an informed decision on the most appropriate management regimen for HIV-positive pregnant women. Resources and circumstances differ across different practice settings. These guidelines recognise the need for any management strategy to be adapted to the available infrastructure and finance and to the stage of pregnancy and clinical condition of the mother. The various strategies and treatment recommendations for HIV-positive pregnant women are constantly evolving. The guidelines will be updated as and when new information becomes available.


We introduce a theoretical framework for performing statistical hypothesis testing simultaneously over a fairly general, possibly uncountably infinite, set of null hypotheses. This extends the standard statistical setting for multiple hypotheses testing, which is restricted to a finite set. This work is motivated by numerous modern applications where the observed signal is modeled by a stochastic process over a continuum. As a measure of type I error, we extend the concept of false discovery rate (FDR) to this setting. The FDR is defined as the average ratio of the measure of two random sets, so that its study presents some challenge and is of some intrinsic mathematical interest. Our main result shows how to use the $p$-value process to control the FDR at a nominal level, either under arbitrary dependence of $p$-values, or under the assumption that the finite dimensional distributions of the $p$-value process have positive correlations of a specific type (weak PRDS). Both cases generalize existing results established in the finite setting, the latter one leading to a less conservative procedure. The interest of this approach is demonstrated in several non-parametric examples: testing the mean/signal in a Gaussian white noise model, testing the intensity of a Poisson process and testing the c.d.f. of i.i.d. random variables. Conceptually, an interesting feature of the setting advocated here is that it focuses directly on the intrinsic hypothesis space associated with a testing model on a random process, without referring to an arbitrary discretization.


The 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-3-thioxocyclobutanone S-methylide (2a), generated in situ by thermal extrusion of N2 from the corresponding 2,5-dihydro-1,3,4-thiadiazole 1a, with electron-deficient acetylenic compounds yields spirocyclic 2,5-dihydrothiophene derivatives of type 4 (Scheme 2). Mixtures of diastereoisomers are obtained in the case of propiolates. The strained cyclooctyne also undergoes smooth cycloadditions with thioketone S-methylides (Scheme 3). Under acidic conditions, the spirocyclic products of type 4 and 6a isomerize, via opening of the cyclobutanone ring and aromatization of the five-membered ring, to thiophene derivatives of type 7 (Scheme 4).


The paper deals with the dimensional reduction from 2D to 1D in magnetoelastic interactions. We adopt a simplified, but nontrivial model described by the LandauLifshitz-Gilbert equation for the magnetization field coupled to an evolution equation for the displacement. We identify the limit problem by using the so-called energy method.


Abstract This article presents a high-performance model for indexing database content. The model involves retrieving database content and indexing it into searchable indexes within acceptable indexing time complexity. Indexing time is crucial to selecting from the available commercial indexing utilities. The main objective of this model is to speed up indexing by running several indexing agents simultaneously. Each agent retrieves and indexes a distinct block of the database content into a distinct searchable index. After all agents complete their indexing tasks, a merger script can collapse the distinct searchable indexes into one or more larger indexes depending on the business needs. A simple comparison of the indexing times of our model with the indexing time of the typical sequential indexing model indicates a speedup factor of up to 5.


Airborne wind energy systems use tethered flying devices to harvest wind energy beyond the height range accessible to tower-based wind turbines. Current commercial prototypes have reached power ratings of up to several hundred kilowatts, and companies are aiming at long-term operation in relevant environments. As consequence, system reliability, operational robustness, and safety have become crucially important aspects of system development. In this study, we analyze the reliability and safety of a 100-kW technology development platform with the objective of achieving continuous automatic operation. We first outline the different components of the kite power system and its operational modes. In the next step, we identify failure modes, their causes, and effects by means of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA). Potentially hazardous situations and mechanisms which can render the system nonoperational are identified, and mitigation measures are proposed. We find that the majority of these measures can be performed by a failure detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) system for which we present a hierarchical architecture adapted from space industry.


Biotic changes in nannofossils and radiolarians associated with the Valanginian δ 1 3 C anomaly are documented at Ocean Drilling Program Hole 1149B in the Pacific Ocean: they are coeval and similar to those previously documented in the Tethys, suggesting a global perturbation of marine ecosystems. A marked increase in abundance of Diazomatolithus, absence of nannoconids, and a Pantanellium peak characterize the Valanginian δ 1 3 C excursion. Such changes are interpreted as being due to global enhanced fertility and a biocalcification crisis under conditions of excess CO 2 . The occurrence of organic C-rich black shales in the Southern Alps and in the Pacific in the interval corresponding to the δ 1 3 C excursion suggests a Valanginian oceanic anoxic event (OAE). Volcanism of the Parana-Etendeka large igneous province (ca. 132 Ma) was presumably responsible for an increase of CO 2 , triggering a climate change and accelerated hydrological cycling, possibly causing an indirect fertilization of the oceans. Widespread nutrification via introduction of biolimiting metals at spreading ridges could have significantly increased during the Gondwana breakup and simultaneous tectonic events in three separate oceans. There is no paleontological or δ 1 8 O evidence of warming during the Valanginian OAE. On the contrary, both nannofossils and oxygen isotopes record a cooling event at the climax of the δ 1 3 C excursion. Weathering of basalts and burial of organic C-rich black shales were presumably responsible for CO 2 drawdown and establishment of reversed greenhouse conditions.


A sampling theorem on the sphere has been developed recently, requiring half as many samples as alternative equiangular sampling theorems on the sphere. A reduction by a factor of two in the number of samples required to represent a band-limited signal on the sphere exactly has important implications for compressed sensing, both in terms of the dimensionality and sparsity of signals. We illustrate the impact of this property with an inpainting problem on the sphere, where we show the superior reconstruction performance when adopting the new sampling theorem compared to the alternative.


Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of procalcitonin and C-reactive protein (CRP) for bacterial infection in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases. Methods: We searched Medline, Embase, and the Cochran library, and performed two meta-analyses on the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin and CRP for bacterial infection in systemic rheumatic disease patients. Results: A total of eight studies including 668 patients in whom the patients with bacterial infection were 208 were available for the meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specifi city of procalcitonin were 66.8% (95% confi dence interval [CI] 60.0- 73.2) and 89.8% (86.6-92.4), respectively, and those of CRP were 81.3% (75.3-86.3) and 63.0% (58.5-67.5). Procalcitonin PLR, NLR, and DOR were 5.930 (3.593-9.786), 0.352 (0.229-0.539), and 19.33 (10.25-36.45), respectively, and those for CRP were 2.228 (1.376-3.608), 0.367 (0.252-0.534), and 7.066 (3.559-14.03), respectively. The AUC of procalcitonin was 0.884 and the Q* index was 0.814, while the AUC of CRP was 0.789 and the Q* index was 0.726, which indicated that the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases is higher than that of CRP (difference of AUC 0.095, 95% CI 0.004 - 0.185, p = 0.039). When the data were limited to SLE, the specifi city of procalcitonin was also signifi cantly higher than that of CRP (difference 0.219, 95% CI 0.127 - 0.310, p <0.0001). Conclusions: Our meta-analysis of published studies demonstrates that procalcitonin is more specifi c and has better diagnostic accuracy than CRP for bacterial infection in systemic rheumatic diseases.


The Riemann hypothesis concerns the prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47 ...Ubiquitous and fundamental in mathematics as they are, it is important and interesting to know as much as possible about these numbers. Simple questions would be: how are the prime numbers distributed among the positive integers? What is the number of prime numbers of 100 digits? Of 1,000 digits? These questions were the starting point of a groundbreaking paper by Bernhard Riemann written in 1859. As an aside in his article, Riemann formulated his now famous hypothesis that so far no one has come close to proving: All nontrivial zeroes of the zeta function lie on the critical line.Hidden behind this at first mysterious phrase lies a whole mathematical universe of prime numbers, infinite sequences, infinite products, and complex functions. The present book is a first exploration of this fascinating, unknown world. It originated from an online course for mathematically talented secondary school students organized by the authors of this book at the University of Amsterdam. Its aim was to bring the students into contact with challenging university level mathematics and show them what the Riemann Hypothesis is all about and why it is such an important problem in mathematics.


"...in a class by itself...sensitive, moving, and powerful jazz imagery...the perfect companion to listening to good jazz." -Jazziz Magazine "In the course of the history of jazz, there have been only a few articles that get to the core of the meaning of jazz. These poems hit it right on the head, and the book is certainly essential for anyone who is interested in our music." -Dizzy Gillespie "To those interested in the impact of jazz upon the poetry of our century I recommend this anthology altogether without reservation." -John Lucas, JazzTimes "...essential...Its virtues are varied and copious, and not the least among them is discovering a writer whose work is new to you." -Los Angeles Reader "What makes this work most enjoyable is knowing the music and musicians and using that knowledge to understand and judge the poets' reactions to the elements in the music that please and inspire us." -MultiCultural Review "Filled with a variety of form, rhythm, and sound, this anthology is an absolute MUST for anyone who is even remotely interested in jazz and modern literature." -David Baker Since the turn of the century, poets have responded to jazz in all its musical and cultural overtones. The poems here cover the range of jazz itself: from early blues to free jazz and experimental music. Among the 132 poets included are James Baldwin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Mina Loy, Ishmael Reed, and Sonia Sanchez. This anthology represents the broad appreciation for jazz as poetic inspiration, not only from the Beat movement but from writers across the decades and around the world.


Objectives To evaluate the periprocedural characteristics and outcomes of patients supported with Impella 2.5 prior to percutaneous coronary intervention (pre-PCI) versus those who received it after PCI (post-PCI) in the setting of cardiogenic shock (CS) complicating an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Background Early mechanical circulatory support may improve outcome in the setting of CS complicating an AMI. However, the optimal timing to initiate hemodynamic support has not been well characterized. Methods Data from 154 consecutive patients who underwent PCI and Impella 2.5 support from 38 US hospitals participating in the USpella Registry were included in our study. The primary end-point was survival to discharge. Secondary end-points included assessment of patients' hemodynamics and in-hospital complications. A multivariate regression model was used to identify independent predictors for mortality. Results Both groups were comparable except for diabetes (P = 0.02), peripheral vascular disease (P = 0.008), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (P = 0.05), and prior stroke (P = 0.04), all of which were more prevalent in the pre-PCI group. Patients in the pre-PCI group had more lesions (P = 0.006) and vessels (P = 0.01) treated. These patients had also significantly better survival to discharge compared to patients in the post-PCI group (65.1% vs.40.7%, P = 0.003). Survival remained favorable for the pre-PCI group after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Initiation of support prior to PCI with Impella 2.5 was an independent predictor of in-hospital survival (Odds ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval: 0.17–0.79, P = 0.01) in multivariate analysis. The incidence of in-hospital complications included in the secondary end-point was similar between the 2 groups. Conclusions The results of our study suggest that early initiation of hemodynamic support prior to PCI with Impella 2.5 is associated with more complete revascularization and improved survival in the setting of refractory CS complicating an AMI.


This paper presents a holographic approach to embedding hidden watermarks in photographic images. A physical interpretation is given of the processes of embedding and visualizing hidden watermarks. It is established that a Fourier transformation of watermarks embedded in the frequency domain with a shift relative to the coordinate origin is a digital Fourier hologram. An optimized method is developed for introducing watermarks, based on a Fourier hologram with a single sideband. Experimental studies on typical photographic equipment showed stable reconstruction of watermarks for Fourier holograms. © 2005 Optical Society of America


Sequencing technology has been developed for more than decades. In all methods applied, however, sequencing quality remains a problem. In most cases, raw DNA sequences obtained from automatic sequencing machines are not reliable, and the output sequence might contain errors, vector contamination might occur, Dye-terminator reaction might not occur, and segment migration might be abnormal in gel electrophoresis. In order to trim low quality regions and sequences, to remove contamination and to build reliable assembled contigs, we constructed the pipeline, which uses Phred, Lucy and Phrap tools together. Phred takes chromatogram data as input, then makes base calls and assigns quality values and finally generates sequence and quality files in FASTA format. In a subsequent step, Lucy trims vectors and low quality sequences, makes a clean range of each sequence. At the end Phrap will assemble these sequences using pairwise alignment information from the Smith-Waterman algorithm. The consensus sequences of the assemblies built by the pipeline are assumed to be reliable genes that can be used for gene annotation. Furthermore, we compared two pipelines, with and without the use of Lucy. The output clearly indicates that applying Lucy in the sequencing process generates more reliable consensus sequences.


Quantum communication and quantum computation are anticipated quantum technologies which enable us to tackle problems which are hard or even impossible to solve by classical means. A major challenge in implementing real life applications for quantum communication and quantum computation is to implement efficient interfaces between different kinds of quantum systems which serve as carriers of quantum information, such as single photons and single material quantum systems (i.e. atoms, ions ...).
These different kinds of quantum systems have different advantages and disadvantages if it comes to practical applications.
Single photons, which may serve as flying qubits, can be transmitted over larger distances without suffering
from too much decoherence while single material quantum systems may be used as matter qubits to store and process quantum information locally.
For many applications, the particular advantages of both kinds of systems are needed. Hence, we require interfaces between flying qubits and matter qubits.

In the first part of this thesis, we develop suitable protocols for implementing interfaces between these flying qubits and matter qubits.
The key challenge is to design the interactions to allow the efficient coupling of single photons to single material quantum systems, such as atoms and ions.
This is not only of interest for possible practical
applications of quantum mechanics but also drives fundamental research, as it is directly connected to a precise control and enhancement of matter-field interactions.

The second part of this thesis
is concerned with the applications of quantum technologies for simulating complex quantum systems, which cannot be treated by classical means.
In many cases, the simulation of complex quantum systems turns out to be a difficult task due to the basic structure of
quantum mechanics. The same aspects of quantum mechanics, which allow us to tackle
computationally hard problems by using quantum algorithms, create difficulties in
understanding the behavior of complex quantum systems.
However, the understanding of complex quantum systems is not only of fundamental importance
but might also enable us to give answers to problems of practical significance,
such as an explanation for high-temperature superconductivity.
Here, we develop protocols for implementing such quantum simulations based on ions trapped in state of the art ion traps.
The applications of these kinds of quantum simulations are ranging from fundamental research to
process design, control, and optimization.


Autonomous vehicles are expected to play an important role in handling the last mile logistics in intelligent transportation systems thanks to their unmanned nature and full-fledged controllability. Recently, an autonomous vehicle logistic system (AVLS) was proposed, which employs autonomous vehicles to serve logistic requests and utilize the excessive renewable energy generated by distributed generations. In this paper, we propose an optimization problem for AVLS to develop schedules for request allocation, vehicle routing, and battery charging. By considering the unique characteristics of AVLS, the proposed scheduling problem can exploit its advantages in goods delivery and renewable energy utilization over existing logistic request allocation algorithms. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer non-linear program. To improve its scalability, we also devise a two-stage scheduling methodology to approach the optimal solutions of the original problem. We conduct comprehensive simulations to assess the performance of the proposed request scheduling problem and two-stage scheduling methodology. The results indicate that the proposed problem can improve the efficacy of AVLS in terms of total travel distance and utilized renewable energy, and the two-stage methodology can develop near-optimal solutions with notably reduced computation time.


This book brings together some of the best known experts in their fields to offer a cross-disciplinary summary of current research on human memory. More than this however, the book pays tribute to the work of Lars-Goran Nilsson and his many contributions to the psychology of human memory.The book is divided into three subsections: General Issues in Human Memory, Memory and Aging, and Memory and the Brain. These sections represent the three cornerstones in Lars-Goran's scientific career and comprise contributions from senior collaborators, colleagues and former students.Areas of discussion include: long-term and working memory: how do they interact? an epidemiological approach to cognitive health in aging the cognitive neuroscience of signed languageCovering a broad range of topics, Memory, Aging and the Brain will be of great interest to all those involved in the study and research of human memory.


This article looks at the operation of the rules of professional conduct intended to ensure that money held by solicitors on behalf of their clients is properly and honestly accounted for. Significant trust is placed in solicitors with regard to clients' funds, with sums ranging from a few pounds to many millions of pounds passing through solicitors' hands. The Solicitors' Accounts Rules, and the enforcement mechanisms which underpin them, are the means by which the Law Society attempts to satisfy the public that their money is safe in solicitors' hands.

The primary purpose of this article is not to detail the minutiae of the Accounts Rules, nor to chart the long and often difficult historical path to their introduction. These avenues have already been explored elsewhere. What this article does attempt to do is to assess the operation of the Accounts Rules in practice by looking at failures on the part of solicitors to comply. The greatest difficulty with this task is the lack of publicly available information regarding the way in which solicitors actually handle clients' money. The Law Society requires solicitors to certify their compliance with the rules and has an Investigation Unit to inspect the records of, inter alia, those suspected of default. However, these processes are not subject to public scrutiny. Similarly, the operation of the first line of disciplinary action against solicitors, the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS), is not subject to open scrutiny. The only readily available source of information regarding Accounts Rule breaches comes from the hearings and Findings of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). A total of 270 cases heard by the SDT were studied. These contained a total of 974 individual matters of misconduct: 425 of these (43.6 per cent) involved breaches of the Accounts Rules; a further 80 matters (8.2 per cent) involved the more specific allegation that the solicitor had misappropriated client funds. Misconduct involving the Accounts Rules was by far the largest single category before the Tribunal.

The limited availability of information inevitably poses the risk that the results presented in this article are an incomplete analysis of Accounts Rules compliance, or even constitute an analysis which is skewed in some way. Unless solicitors' handling of clients' money, and the corresponding regulatory mechanisms, become more transparent, this is an unavoidable risk, but nevertheless a risk of which the reader should be aware.

The information presented in the article is primarily qualitative. The first part will briefly outline the historical development of the Solicitors' Accounts Rules. Consideration will then be given to information obtained from SDT Findings in relation to various aspects of Accounts Rule breaches and the way in which the Law Society investigates and deals with these. The final part of the article will look at problems specifically faced by sole practitioners and then more generally at the way in which the Tribunal deals with solicitors who repeatedly appear before it for breaches of the Accounts Rules. Discussion of each of these areas is largely descriptive, presenting and classifying findings and providing discussion where appropriate. Constraints of space prevent engagement here with the wider ethical issues raised by the study. Rather, the present article sets as its goal the aim of adding to the stock of information about legal practice and conduct, around which ethical theory can be built.


Abstract. Derivation of probability estimates complementary to geophysical data sets has gained special attention over the last years. Information about a confidence level of provided physical quantities is required to construct an error budget of higher-level products and to correctly interpret final results of a particular analysis. Regarding the generation of products based on satellite data a common input consists of a cloud mask which allows discrimination between surface and cloud signals. Further the surface information is divided between snow and snow-free components. At any step of this discrimination process a misclassification in a cloud/snow mask propagates to higher-level products and may alter their usability. Within this scope a novel probabilistic cloud mask (PCM) algorithm suited for the 1 km × 1 km Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data is proposed which provides three types of probability estimates between: cloudy/clear-sky, cloudy/snow and clear-sky/snow conditions. As opposed to the majority of available techniques which are usually based on the decision-tree approach in the PCM algorithm all spectral, angular and ancillary information is used in a single step to retrieve probability estimates from the precomputed look-up tables (LUTs). Moreover, the issue of derivation of a single threshold value for a spectral test was overcome by the concept of multidimensional information space which is divided into small bins by an extensive set of intervals. The discrimination between snow and ice clouds and detection of broken, thin clouds was enhanced by means of the invariant coordinate system (ICS) transformation. The study area covers a wide range of environmental conditions spanning from Iceland through central Europe to northern parts of Africa which exhibit diverse difficulties for cloud/snow masking algorithms. The retrieved PCM cloud classification was compared to the Polar Platform System (PPS) version 2012 and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collection 6 cloud masks, SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) weather reports, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) vertical feature mask version 3 and to MODIS collection 5 snow mask. The outcomes of conducted analyses proved fine detection skills of the PCM method with results comparable to or better than the reference PPS algorithm.


There are various risk factors, some modifiable and others not, that have the potential to increase the likelihood of a person developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). It is not possible to control all the risk factors that contribute to the development of CVD, but informing patients of the factors that are within their control can help reduce the occurrence of serious cardiovascular events, such as myocardial infarction and stroke.

People with risk factors may not always develop CVD, but the more risk factors a person has, the greater the likelihood that the person will eventually suffer from CVD.


Background: In a previous study, we demonstrated that narratives containing direct speech constructions were easier to comprehend than narratives with indirect speech constructions for Dutch listeners with and without aphasia. There were two possible explanations for this finding: either that direct speech has increased liveliness compared to indirect speech or that direct speech is less grammatically complex. Aims: This study aimed to provide further insight into the mechanisms underlying the differences between direct and indirect speech constructions on discourse comprehension in Dutch. More specifically, it aimed to examine the role that the grammatical characteristics of direct and indirect speech play in discourse comprehension success by comparing English- and Dutch-speaking individuals with and without aphasia. Methods & Procedures: An English version of the Dutch iPad-based Direct Speech Comprehension (DISCO) test was developed. Twenty individuals with aphasia and 19 neurologically healthy control participants were presented with spoken narratives that contained either direct or indirect speech constructions. Their performance was compared to that of the participants of the Dutch DISCO study. To assess the effect of language on performance, we conducted a single analysis in which we contrasted the English data with the Dutch data. Outcomes & Results: Control participants performed better than participants with aphasia; English-speaking participants performed worse than Dutch participants, and narratives containing direct speech were easier to comprehend than narratives with indirect speech constructions. However, a subsequent analysis including only individuals with aphasia showed that the Dutch group differed from the English-speaking group: direct speech was only beneficial for the Dutch participants with aphasia. Conclusions: This study expanded on the findings of a previous study, in which a facilitating effect of direct over indirect speech constructions for audiovisual discourse comprehension was found. The differential effects of direct speech on comprehension in Dutch and English showed that rather than one or other explanation being "correct", both liveliness and grammatical characteristics play a role in discourse comprehension success. Grammatically less complex constructions (direct speech) are not necessarily always easier to comprehend than grammatically more complex constructions (indirect speech) for individuals with aphasia. In our study grammatically simple constructions introduced grammatical ambiguity and therefore possible interpretation difficulties for the English-speaking participants with aphasia.


ABSTRACT Natural earthquakes in western North America can be reasonable proxies for induced earthquakes in central and eastern North America because of the opposing effects that source depth and tectonic setting have on the stress parameter that scales high‐frequency ground‐motion amplitudes. It is critical that ground‐motion prediction equations selected as induced‐event proxies have appropriate near‐distance scaling behavior for small‐to‐moderate shallow events. In this article, we describe the conditions under which natural‐earthquake models are suitable for induced‐seismicity applications. Using examples from Oklahoma and Alberta, we identify at least three models (Abrahamson et al. , 2014; Atkinson, 2015; Yenier and Atkinson, 2015b) that are reasonable proxy estimates of median motions from induced earthquakes in the east for the magnitude–distance range of most concern to hazard estimation from such events: M  3.5–6 at distances to 50 km.


Abstract "The story of the private individual destiny," declares Fredric Jameson, "is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society." Using the case of China's involvement in the cultural politics of postcolonial Indonesia, this essay examines the transnational dynamisms of the making of a national allegory and discusses the production and reception of the China images in Sukarno's Indonesia (1949–65), with a focus on the PRC's cultural diplomacy and how Chinese literary principles were appropriated and domesticated, subsequently constituting an integral component of Indonesian cultural politics. Arguing that the narratives about China (both as a sociopolitical entity and a cultural symbol) served as an important transnational inspiration to public deliberations and cultural polemics—thus contributing to the formation of national allegories in postcolonial Indonesia, this essay takes the Jamesonian thesis a step further by suggesting that a transnational imaginary within Third World countries plays a significant part in the making of domestic literary politics. This essay may also be taken as an exercise in going beyond the nation-state-centric historiography that has been the defining characteristic of Asian Studies and pointing to the need to study Sino-Southeast Asian relations from the angle of cultural politics and its intertwining ambiguities with conventional diplomacy.


Abstract Fatal flaws in the recent report from Badgley et al. claiming that organic agriculture 'could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base'. Among the serious problems identified: over 100 non-organic yield studies were claimed as organic; organic yields were misreported; false comparisons were made to unrepresentative low non-organic yields; high organic yields were counted 2, 3, even 5 times by citing different papers that referenced the same data; favorable and unverifiable 'studies' from biased sources were given equal weight to rigorous university studies. This report is being submitted to the Editor of the journal, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, for publication and response. It is only being released in the interest of public debate and discussion during the much-touted 'organic fortnight'.


Context and purpose: The roots of B. ferruginea are used in traditional Togo medicine in the treatment of diabetes. Studies have shown that leaves have a low antihyperglycemic effect. This study aims to improve the effect of leaves. Methods: The hydroalcoholic extract of the leaves underwent a fractionation (separation in cold alcohol) and an OGTT (Oral Glucose tolerance test) on healthy mice, a phytochemical screening and antioxidant tests (in vitro: DPPH and ex vivo: AAPH) were performed on the extract and its fractions. Results: Phytochemical screening of the extract showed the presence of phenols, flavonoids and condensed tannins as well as the absence of condensed tannins, alkaloids, saponosides and anthracene derivatives. The extract also showed antioxidant activity. The supernatant fraction showed antihyperglycemic activity at 100 mg / kg in the 30th and 60th after glucose administration. Phytochemical screening of the supernatant revealed the presence of phenols, flavonoids and condensed tannins. The supernatant also showed more pronounced antioxidant activity than the total extract. Conclusion: In view of these results, the most active fraction obtained by the separation technique in cold alcohol is the supernatant.


The integration of new technology and global collaboration has undoubtedly transformed learning in higher education from the traditional classroom setting into a domain of support services, academic programmes, and educational products which are made available to learners. The Handbook of Research on Transnational Higher Education is a unique compilation of the most recent research done by higher education professionals in the areas of policy, governance, technology, marketing, and leadership development. This publication succeeds in highlighting the most important strategies and policies for professionals, policymakers, administrators, and researchers interested in higher education management.


This paper examines the representation of the history of the language sciences as transmitted through introductory textbooks on linguistics published in the United States in the past sixty years. I analyze the role that textbooks assign to the history of the discipline, the value they invest in it, and the orientations toward earlier language scholarship that these texts implicitly model for students. The goal is to discover, in the context of U.S. higher education, what it is that we have talked about when we talk about the history of linguistics, and what modern students take away from that discussion.


The distribution of allochthonous versus parautochthonous carbonate platforms, combined with the timing of initial continental-rift magmatism versus the timing of subsequent rifting of the continental margin, provides tectonostratigraphic evidence for the formation and isolation of the oldest documented microcontinent, perhaps as a consequence of the impingement of a mantle plume onto a cratonic margin during the Paleoproterozoic. Initial rifting of the Archean nucleus of North America in eastern Canada is constrained to have been diachronous between 2.17 and 2.03 Ga. Renewed rifting of a segment of the continental margin, 292 to 120 m.y. later, was accompanied by the emplacement of ultramafic layered sills, the accumulation of komatiitic and alkalic basalts, the deposition of banded iron formations and the isolation of a microcontinent and its 1.93 Ga continental shelf succession (subsequently accreted to the telescoped continental margin during collisional orogenesis).


This research was conducted in the planting area of pineapple (Ananas comosus) PT. GGP Terbanggi Besar Central Lampung indicated attacked by pests simphylid in March 2014 until May 2014. Analysis of soil physical properties carried out in the Laboratory of Soil Science, Department of Agrotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Lampung. The method used in this study is a survey method. Soil sampling conducted at three locations indicated simphylid pests. Soil sampling done at some point and some depth. Results from this research that pest symphilid most numerous in one location with a number of acquisition 172 tail where the location of the physical properties of good land which the density value of the content is low, the total pore low, macropores and high hardness low ground , allowing sinphylid be able to live and thrive. While at the location of two and three with the condition density value of the content is high, the total pore high, macropores low, and violence high soil pests simphylid not so much discovered as simphylid can not multiply and survive on the physical condition of poor soil


OF THE DISSERTATION Learning with Scalability and Compactness by Wenlin Chen Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science Washington University in St. Louis, 2016 Professor Yixin Chen, Chair Artificial Intelligence has been thriving for decades since its birth. Traditional AI features heuristic search and planning, providing good strategy for tasks that are inherently searchbased problems, such as games and GPS searching. In the meantime, machine learning, arguably the hottest subfield of AI, embraces data-driven methodology with great success in a wide range of applications such as computer vision and speech recognition. As a new trend, the applications of both learning and search have shifted toward mobile and embedded devices which entails not only scalability but also compactness of the models. Under this general paradigm, we propose a series of work to address the issues of scalability and compactness within machine learning and its applications on heuristic search. We first focus on the scalability issue of memory-based heuristic search which is recently ameliorated by Maximum Variance Unfolding (MVU), a manifold learning algorithm capable of learning state embeddings as effective heuristics to speed up A∗ search. Though achieving unprecedented online search performance with constraints on memory footprint, MVU is notoriously slow on offline training. To address this problem, we introduce Maximum Variance x Correction (MVC), which finds large-scale feasible solutions to MVU by post-processing embeddings from any manifold learning algorithm. It increases the scale of MVU embeddings by several orders of magnitude and is naturally parallel. We further propose Goal-oriented Euclidean Heuristic (GOEH), a variant to MVU embeddings, which preferably optimizes the heuristics associated with goals in the embedding while maintaining their admissibility. We demonstrate unmatched reductions in search time across several non-trivial A∗ benchmark search problems. Through these work, we bridge the gap between the manifold learning literature and heuristic search which have been regarded as fundamentally different, leading to cross-fertilization for both fields. Deep learning has made a big splash in the machine learning community with its superior accuracy performance. However, it comes at a price of huge model size that might involves billions of parameters, which poses great challenges for its use on mobile and embedded devices. To achieve the compactness, we propose HashedNets, a general approach to compressing neural network models leveraging feature hashing. At its core, HashedNets randomly group parameters using a low-cost hash function, and share parameter value within the group. According to our empirical results, a neural network could be 32x smaller with little drop in accuracy performance. We further introduce Frequency-Sensitive Hashed Nets (FreshNets) to extend this hashing technique to convolutional neural network by compressing parameters in the frequency domain. Compared with many AI applications, neural networks seem not graining as much popularity as it should be in traditional data mining tasks. For these tasks, categorical features need to be first converted to numerical representation in advance in order for neural networks to process them. We show that a naive use of the classic one-hot encoding may result in gigantic weight matrices and therefore lead to prohibitively expensive memory cost in neural


Research FundingBritish researchers warned to expect funding cuts of 20%, 30%, or even 40% mobilized by writing letters to newspapers, signing petitions, demonstrating outside government buildings, and—for the well-connected—having a quiet word with departmental officers and ministers about the importance of science to Britain's future. Something worked. Even though the Comprehensive Spending Review outlines average cuts of 19% across all government departments, the main part of civil research spending, the science budget, was fixed for the next 4 years at this year's amount, £4.6 billion ($7.2 billion). Inflation will chip away at that between now and 2015, possibly by as much as 10%, but many believe much worse scenarios were being considered until recently.


In order to obtain high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) images, the multichannel in azimuth synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system has been adopted to deal with the contradiction problem between high resolution and low pulse repetition frequency (PRF). In this paper, a novel channel-calibration method is proposed for the multichannel in azimuth HRWS SAR imaging system. During the channel calibration, the mismatch between the channels, which results from the gain-phase error and the range sampling time error, is first corrected by the coarse-calibration processing in the range frequency domain. Then, the along azimuth baseline measurement error is estimated. Considering the range variance in the residual phase error, the data are processed in blocks along the range time domain, and the error of every subblock data is estimated. After that, a fitting and filtering is implemented along the range to the estimated values of the phase error of all subblocks. The range-variant phase error is then compensated using their estimated values. After channel calibration, this paper also presents a new Doppler ambiguity suppression algorithm which nulls the ambiguity components in the Doppler domain. The newly proposed algorithm outperforms the post-Doppler ambiguity suppression algorithm. The airborne real measured scan synthetic aperture radar data, which are acquired by a seven-channel in azimuth SAR imaging system with the system working at X-band, are utilized to demonstrate the performance of the newly proposed channel-calibration method and the new Doppler ambiguity suppression algorithm.


Abstract Hauser (1978) succinctly expressed a long-standing desideratum for the analysis of mobility regimes: to separate "rules of access" to social positions from "the interplay of supply and demand." When an explicit, random matching model of opportunity is constructed from rules of access, with provisions for demand effects, it appears that log-linear models, as functions of odds ratios, do not in general satisfy Hauser's requirement. Analysis and simulation show that the two-sided logit model proposed in Logan (1996a) is superior to log-linear and related models in this respect.


The modeling of human concussive brain injury (CBI) in the laboratory has been challenging. In the present study, we developed an experimental CBI model in mice using a novel weight-drop device. Various injury levels were examined by adjusting the height of the falling weight (diameter 10 mm, length 20 cm, weight 21 g). At a height of 50 cm, the impact resulted in a mortality rate of 46.7% with a skull fracture rate of 28.6%. At a height of 25 cm, however, the impact produced a concussive-like brain injury (CLBI) to the mice without skull fracture. A series of pathophysiological and neurobehavioral responses was evaluated at this injury level. The CLBI mice lost muscle tone and righting reflex response immediately following the trauma and recovered from the latter within a short duration of 1.6 +/- 0.32 min (mean +/- SE). Brain edema formation started at 12 h, reached a maximum at 24 h and recovered 48 h. Typically edema was found in the neocortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum, but not in the brain stem. Deficits in the feeding behaviors lasted for 2 days, accompanied by lower body weight persisting for 5 days. The body weight growth rate for 24 h returned to the control levels by the third day postinjury. Learning and memory were evaluated at the end of 1-3 weeks after the trauma using a water-finding task. At 1 week, exploratory behaviors were slightly inhibited while learning and memory were profoundly impaired. Interestingly, the learning and memory deficits lasted for 2 weeks while recovering to the control levels by 3 weeks. No motor disability was found in the CLBI mice during the 3-week evaluations. These results indicate that the weight-drop impact produced graded injury to the brain, and at the injury level of 25 cm it produced a CLBI in the mice in which the characteristics of transient loss of neurobehavioral responses, short duration of brain edema, and long-lasting learning and memory deficits are similar to those of human CBI.


Objective: To assess the burden and spectrum of neurological illness in a pediatric intensive care unit and review the associated mortality. Methods: Retrospective review of medical records of children (1 mo-16 years) with acute neurological diagnosis admitted in PICU in Aga Khan University hospital from January 2008 to December 2011 was done. Basic demographic, diagnosis, neuro diagnostic procedures performed, therapies and outcomes were done on a structured datasheet. Results: During study period, 231 (19.3%) patients were admitted with acute neurological illnesses in PICU. The mean age was 67 ±50 months, 54% (n=125) was under-five and 138 (59.7%) were males. Out of total, 144 (62.3%) had neurological illness and 87 (37.7%) had neurosurgical diagnosis. In acute neurological illness, 51.5% (n=119) had non-traumatic-coma (NTC) and 10.8% (n=25) had neuromuscular illness. CNS infection (26%, n=60) in structural cause and status epilepticus (10%, n=23) were the most common cause of structural and metabolic type of NTC respectively. Severe traumatic brain injury (21.2%, n=49) and postoperative neurosurgical illness (16.5%, n=38) were common neurosurgical cases in our cohort. The intensive care resources were utilized as mechanical ventilation in 78% (n=180), inotropic support in 29.4% (n=67) and therapeutic hypothermia in 33% (n=76). Fifty children (21.6%) required PICU care for observation only. More than 500 neurodiagnostic tests/procedures were performed in this cohort of children with acute neurological disorders in PICU. The mortality rate in neurological cases was 18% (42/231) as compared to the overall mortality rate was 12% in PICU. Conclusion: Acute neurological disorders were common in PICU, and were associated with higher mortality. CNS infections, status epilepticus and severe traumatic brain injuries were the most common acute neurological illnesses in our cohort.


Summary: The widespread acceptance and application of proteomics in the clinic requires analytical reproducibility, reliability, low-cost and speed. As molecules with vastly different physiochemical properties, proteins are uniquely challenging. S-Trap sample processing unifies sample solubilization with high concentrations of SDS (5%), affords protein concentration and cleanup inexpensively with standard lab equipment and allows bottom-up proteomics sample prep in around 1 - 2 hrs. Here, we explore S-Trap clinical applications including dried blood spot protein extraction, reproducibility of sample processing and the effect of S-Trap harsh protein denaturation on antibody-antigen interactions, which may alter results in proteomics based clinical assays due to digestion differences. Intro: Bottom-up proteomics has been long hampered by limitations in sample preparation. The vastly different solubilities of proteins and myriad protocols to dissolve them lead to very different answers depending on what proteins are (or are not) brought into solution. S-Trap sample processing solves this problem by integrating: 1) strong SDS-based protein solubilization (5% SDS) and complete denaturation (pH 70% organic); 2) simultaneous sample concentration and cleanup; and 3) rapid reactor-type protein digestion. The universal S-Trap protocol works without alteration for all kinds of samples and enables reproducible sample processing using standard lab equipment from protein to peptides in around 1 – 2 hrs. It also allows sample preparation in the case of unknown sample composition, for example in submissions to core labs. In this work, we apply S-Traps to clinical applications. First, we explore the application of S-Traps to dried blood spots examining protein extraction via 5% SDS versus other techniques. Second, we apply S-Trap sample processing to biological fluids and assay the reproducibility and efficiency in a 96-well plate format. Third and finally, we explore the effect of the harsh protein denaturation in S Trap sample processing on antibody-antigen interactions. Especially when endogenous autoantibodies are present, these antibody-antigen interactions have been reported to alter susceptibility to digestion and thus change the results of mass spec based clinical assays. Methods: Serum and Noviplex plasma prep cards were purchased. S-Traps were purchased from ProtiFi LLC (www.protifi.com) and used per manufacturer's instructions. Blood was spotted per manufacturer's instructions and extracted with 5% SDS or other aqueous buffers. Level of protein extraction and proteins extracted were determined. Serum was processed in a 96-well plate format in replicate and reproducibility was determined. Antibody-antigen pairs were allowed to bind and digested in with or without S-Trap sample processing including harsh denaturation. In all cases, trypsin was used and samples were analyzed by gel and/or Orbitrap MS. Results: 1) Dried blood spots were quickly and most efficiently extracted with 5% SDS. We characterize the differences in extracted proteins.2) S-Trap sample processing consistently yielded high reproducibility within and between sample sets with average CVs of < 10%.3) Antibody-antigen interactions were disrupted by the harsh denaturing steps of S-Trap sample processing, facilitating protein digestion and ameliorating artifacts due to antibody binding. Conclusion: In our hands, S-Trap sample processing enables rapid, efficient and reproducible protein extraction, clean up and digestion for bottom-up proteomics analysis of clinical samples. The use of high concentrations of SDS unifies sample solubilization and extraction while simultaneously preventing sample loss during handling. The harsh denaturation conditions equalize digestibility and removes the potential bias of antigens masked by antibody interactions. As a low-cost consumable using only standard lab equipment, we believe this processing strategy will be of use to many.