This is a highly recommendable book, which presents the evangelical viewpoint on Egalitarianism. In the Introduction, Biblical equality and Egalitarianism are aptly defined as follows: "Biblical equality denies that there is any created or otherwise God-ordained hierarchy based solely on gender. Egalitarianism recognizes patterns of authority in the family, church and society, but rejects the notion that any office, ministry or opportunity should be denied anyone on the grounds of gender alone." Ensuing from this definition, the book is presented in five parts.


This study attempts to clarify whether using a hybrid model based on non-financial variables and financial variables is able to provide a more accurate company financial distress prediction model than using a model based on financial variables only. The relationship between the model test results and the De la Rey K-Score for the subject companies is tested, employing Cramer's V statistical test. A movement towards a Cramer's V value of one indicates a strengthening relationship, and a movement towards zero is an indication of a weakening relationship. Against this background, further empirical research is proposed to prove that a model combining financial variables with true nonfinancial variables provides a more accurate company distress prediction than a financial variableonly model. The limited evidence of a strengthening relationship found is insufficient to establish the superiority of the proposed model beyond reasonable doubt.


To provide a theoretical model of the dynamics of intellectual capital creation in regional clusters and in inter‐organizational networks. The model has been constructed on the basis of earlier studies, especially system's theoretical interpretation of organizations as knowledge systems, and then applied to the examination of a regional cluster operating in the mechanical wood processing industry in Eastern Finland. Intellectual capital in regional clusters is created by three main knowledge creation activities, each of which corresponds to a specific type of an inter‐organizational network. First, production networks aiming at efficiency and replication should function according to mechanistic system logic, focusing on the enactment of rules and regulations. Development networks aiming at continuous incremental development, on the other hand, are most successful when adhering to an organic mode, which emphasizes participation, tacit knowledge sharing, dialogue and mutual adjustments. Finally, innovation networks seeking to produce new intangible assets benefit from a dynamic systems model, where entropy and spontaneous knowledge flows form the basis for mastering radical change. Model should be applied to more cases to ascertain its validity. Provides means for understanding, assessing and managing creation of knowledge‐based value in inter‐organizational collaboration. Addresses three gaps in existing research: it focuses on regional intellectual capital; it examines the ways in which intellectual capital is created as a dynamic process; it provides means for understanding the future potential of a region.


The 1979 Revolution in Iran exploded aggressively because of the pressures that the Shah enforced on Iranian society; however, similar to the Shah, the Islamic regime imposed strict rules and regulations on Iranians in different ways to control society (especially women) via Islamic values. Hoping to create an obedient society, the state focused on educating children and youngsters on the ideologies of the 1979 Revolution. It emphasized gender discrimination in order to create a new generation who would follow the traditional model of mother-at-home and fatherat-work because it needed women inside the house who can give birth and raise their children (especially boys) with revolutionary ideologies and men outside the house who will fight for the nation when necessary. This essay focuses on the social sciences textbook that was taught in third grade primary school classrooms in Iran for three decades, from 1983 to 2013. Written by GholamAli Haddad-Adel, the textbook tells the story of an Iranian family who has to leave their town, Kazeroun, to live in the eastern town of Iran, Neishabour, because the father has been transferred by his office. This article aims to demonstrate how gender was supposed to be practiced in an Iranian family during these three decades based on the ideology of the 1979 Revolution. To do so, the paper studies the way social sciences in primary schools defined family, childhood, motherhood, and fatherhood for children through the revolutionary values. Moreover, it breaks down the ideological codes of the time about family dynamics that have been represented to the children through pictures and stories. As a result, the values of the 1979 Revolution that construct an ideal family would be elaborated to help the audience identify and clarify some of the most significant ideological issues that are still being taught to Iranian students today.


Online review plays an important role when people are making decisions to purchase a product/service. It is shown that the sellers can benefit from boosting the reviews of their products/services, or downgrading the reviews of their competitors. Dishonest behavior on reviews can seriously affect both buyers and sellers. In this work, we propose an algorithm that contains a two-step analysis to detect whether a product's reviews have been manipulated. The first step is called consistency analysis, which detects the variation in rating values. In the second step, we introduce a novel angle to detect dishonest reviews, called Equal Rating Opportunity (ERO) principle. We propose the ERO analysis using the ANOVA method. Furthermore, we develop a web-based system, referred to as ReviewSec, to conduct realtime on-demand review manipulation detection. The ReviewSec system includes three modules: 1) crawler, which download reviews data from e-commerce website; 2) detector, consisting of the consistency analysis and ERO analysis; and 3) web-based interface. We believe that with the assistance of the ReviewSec system, online shoppers can understand product reviews in a better way and thereby reduce the risk of being misled by untruthful reviews.


In many industrial applications fast and accurate solutions of linear elliptic partial differential equations are needed as one of the building blocks of more complex problems. The domains are often highly complex and meshing turns out to be expensive and difficult to obtain with a sufficient quality. In such cases methods with a regular, not boundary adapted grid offer an attractive alternative. The Explicit Jump Immersed Interface Method is one of these algorithms. The main interest of this work lies in solving the linear elasticity equations. For this purpose the existing EJIIM algorithm has been extended to three dimensions. The Poisson equation is always considered in parallel as the most typical representative of elliptic PDEs. During the work it became clear that EJIIM can have very high computational memory requirements. To overcome this problem an improvement, Reduced EJIIM is proposed. The main theoretical result in this work is the proof of the smoothing property of inverses of elliptic finite difference operators in two and three space dimensions. It is an often observed phenomena that the local truncation error is allowed to be of lower order along some lower dimensional manifold without influencing the global convergence order of the solution.


Studies were conducted for 21 days in a solid state fermentation to investigate the impact of fungal treatment on the chemical composition, mineral content and in vitro digestibility of acha straw treated with three species of fungi: (Pleurotus ostreatus, POA; Pleurotus tuber-reguim,PTA and Pleurotus pulmonarius, PPA). The result obtained showed an increase in the crude protein (CP) from 6.28% for the control (untreated acha straw) to 7.69% for the Pleurotus ostreatus treated acha straw (POA), 7.94% for the Pleurotus tuber-regium treated (PTA) and 8.03% for the Pleurotus pulmonarius treated (PPA) acha straw. Contrarily, the crude fibre (CF) decreased significantly (P<0.05) from 35.84% for the control to 30.78% for POA, to 33.28% for PTA and 31.16% for PPA. Similar significant (P<0.05) decrease was also obtained for the cellulose contents of all the fungal treated. The CF fractions (NDF, ADF and ADL) also -1 -1 decreased significantly. The fastest rate (c) of gas production was obtained in POA (0.0334h ) with the slowest rates in PPA (0.0298h ) and the control -1 (0.0255h ). Gas volumes at 24h and 72h were highest in PPA while the highest gas volume at 48h was recorded in PTA. The fermentation of the insoluble, but degradable fraction (b) range from 34 ml (control) to 58 ml (PTA). The estimated organic matter digestibility also increased from 48.34% in the control to 53.71% in Pleurotus pulmonarius samples. The highest values in short chain fatty acid (SCFA) and metabolizable energy (ME) were also estimated for PPA. The result obtained in this study showed decreases of CF and improvement in the CP, and in vitro digestibility after fungal treatment suggesting the possibility of recycling acha straw into value added ruminant feed.


Private vehicles are a significant source of air pollution in many areas of the United States. Areas with already high levels of air pollution are required by the Clean Air Act to take steps to reduce automobile use and the associated emissions. The behavioral implications of many travel demand management techniques are poorly understood. In this dissertation I focus on carpooling. Policy makers encourage commuters to carpool through High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes, free parking for carpoolers, attempts to connect carpoolers, and casual carpoolers (often called slugging). Despite these e


This article reviews and summarizes the research conducted following publication of the 1980s American Association of Critical-Care Nurses' clinical research priorities. Original research conducted on the clinical priority topics between 1981 and 1991 was included. Review articles, doctoral dissertations, theses and abstracts were excluded unless judged to provide important information on the topic. Following the statement of each priority, progress in the area is summarized. Limitations and measurement issues are discussed as appropriate. Recommendations for future research are provided, and progress in the area is summarized.


Lumajang as the city tried to build the region into more advanced and developed to try to always create significant changes and developments for the progress of his city, which is manifested in the form of a movement that is named
"Diamond Gate." In this movement consists of a wide range of activities that are build Lumajang become more advanced and developed. To show to the public the results of government-run movement Lumajang this, PR Lumajang had the idea to use the mass media as intermediaries of the Government to the community. From this newspaper that Lumajang Gate is a supplement of the Daily Morning Post and a part of Java Radar Jember has a share a profound impact on the progress of development that occurred in Lumajang.
Berita-berita Gate Lumajang contained in a news regarding various kinds of activities undertaken by the Government for the implementation of Lumajang movement "Diamond Gate" is. These activities can form the researchers classified some theme categories, namely Politics and Government, Economics and Finance, Natural Disasters, Public Welfare, Public Health, Education, Arts and Sports, Development, Agriculture, and the last profile. Based on the above phenomena, the formulation of the problem is: (1) How many
occurrences of each category in the newspaper Daily Gate Lumajang Java Post Supplements about government activity Lumajang? (2) How big is the vast volume of news the newspaper Daily Supplements Gate Lumajang Java Post about the activities of Government Lumajang? The purpose of this study were (1) To find out how much frequency of occurrence of each category of coverage in newspapers Gate Lumajang Supplements Daily Java Post about an event Lumajang County Government (2) To know How big is the vast volume of news in the newspaper Daily Gate Lumajang Supplements Java Post about Lumajang Government activity. This type of research conducted in this research is descriptive qualitative content analysis. Unit analysis used in this study are any items that are grouped beita based on the theme category. While the unit of measurement used is the number of news items or frequency of occurrence of news that comes from the theme category and volume (cm column). Based on the results of the analysis, from pengkodingan between researchers and koder which Reliability coefficient obtained is determined by 0.84 or 84% and presented in
Scott keterhandalan formula amounted to 0.83 or 83%. From the table the frequency of occurrence indicator categories can be seen the results of this research is the category of Political and Government is 7 news with the percentage of 9.09%, the category of Economics and Finance 8 news with the percentage of 10:39%, category Nature and Natural Disaster, Public Welfare, and Public Health has a similar story with the frequency of which is 5 percentage 6:49%.
Furthermore, the category of Education, Arts and Sports has frequency of 15 19:48% and the percentage, the Development category has the highest frequency which is 18 news with the percentage of 23:38%, agriculture category has a frequency of 4 news by percentage of 5.2 and the last category of the profile with a frequency of 10 news
percentage of 12.99%. From the comparison of these frequencies and refers to the formulation of the problem
can be drawn a conclusion that the news media about the activities of the Government Lumajang more displays news by category Building theme. This This relates also to the existence of a program that is owned by the Government of Lumajang Diamond Gate (Movement Building Healthy Communities). In addition, Lumajang is an area of trying to do development in all fields.


We propose ways of incorporating Google Translate into the teaching of Finnish and Hungarian in a higher education setting at different skill levels. The task types tested in our study were: analytical tasks (dictionary-like exercise, word-building, part-of-word identification), discovery method tasks (elicitation, problem solving), and awareness raising tasks (error correction, text-level error analysis, guided essay writing in the target language). Students were interviewed about their experience as users of Google Translate and the usefulness of the exercises conducted in class. In line with the principles of action research, the survey results enabled the practitioners to reflect on and improve the teaching of two morphologically complex languages, Finnish and Hungarian, and optimise the ways in which Google Translate is used in the language classroom. With the development of their Finnish and Hungarian language skills, students become more critical, and more competent, users of online translation tools as well.


Essay on artist Rachel Maclean's film 'Make Me Up'

From the Publisher's website:
Rachel Maclean has rapidly established herself as one of the most distinctive creative voices in the UK. Crafting baroque, hyper-real worlds from green-screen video and computer animation, and playing many of the extravagantly costumed characters herself, Maclean spins razor-sharp fables that revel in combining comedy and horror. Maclean's work offers a powerful critique of contemporary society and its underlying fears and desires.

This distinctive circular-format book, with its Happy/Sad face emoji-style front and back cover, follows on from Maclean's solo exhibition at Zabludowicz Collection, London, 20 September–16 December 2018. This exhibition included: I'm Terribly Sorry, 2018, a new Zabludowicz Collection commission in virtual reality, the artist's first piece in the medium; Make Me Up, 2018, Maclean's major new film commission produced by Hopscotch Films with NVA for BBC and 14-18 NOW; and Spite Your Face, 2017, the film with which Maclean represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale.

In this new publication can be found an introduction text from the exhibition's curator Paul Luckraft, plus three newly commissioned essays by art historians Jo Applin and Maria Walsh and comedian Frankie Boyle, each responding to one of the three major works.

Also included are behind-the-scenes production photographs from the making of the works, video and VR stills, and installation views at Zabludowicz Collection.


The Moving City: Processions, Passages and Promenades in Ancient Rome focusses on movements in the ancient city of Rome, exploring the interaction between people and monuments. Representing a novel approach to the Roman cityscape and culture, and reflecting the shift away from the traditional study of single monuments into broader analyses of context and space, the volume reveals both how movement adds to our understanding of ancient society, and how the movement of people and goods shaped urban development. Covering a wide range of people, places, sources, and times, the volume includes a survey of Republican, imperial, and late antique movement, triumphal processions of conquering generals, seditious, violent movement of riots and rebellion, religious processions and rituals and the everyday movements of individual strolls or household errands. By way of its longue duree, dense location and the variety of available sources, the city of ancient Rome offers a unique possibility to study movements as expressions of power, ritual, writing, communication, mentalities, trade, and – also as a result of a massed populace – violent outbreaks and attempts to keep order. The emerging picture is of a bustling, lively society, where cityscape and movements are closely interactive and entwined. (Less)


We bound the number of sensors required to achieve a desired level of sensing accuracy in a discrete sensor network application (e.g. distributed detection). We model the state of nature being sensed as a discrete vector, and the sensor network as an encoder. Our model assumes that each sensor observes only a subset of the state of nature, that sensor observations are localized and dependent, and that sensor network output across different states of nature is neither identical nor independently distributed. Using a random coding argument we prove a lower bound on the 'sensing capacity' of a sensor network, which characterizes the ability of a sensor network to distinguish among all states of nature. We compute this lower bound for sensors of varying range, noise models, and sensing functions. We compare this lower bound to the empirical performance of a belief propagation based sensor network decoder for a simple seismic sensor network scenario. The key contribution of this paper is to introduce the idea of a sharp cut-off function in the number of required sensors, to the sensor network community.


Due to the high complexity of biological data it is difficult to disentangle cellular processes relying only on intuitive interpretation of measurements. A Systems Biology approach that combines quantitative experimental data with dynamic mathematical modeling promises to yield deeper insights into these processes. Nevertheless, with growing complexity and increasing amount of quantitative experimental data, building realistic and reliable mathematical models can become a challenging task: the quality of experimental data has to be assessed objectively, unknown model parameters need to be estimated from the experimental data, and numerical calculations need to be precise and efficient. Here, we discuss, compare and characterize the performance of computational methods throughout the process of quantitative dynamic modeling using two previously established examples, for which quantitative, dose- and time-resolved experimental data are available. In particular, we present an approach that allows to determine the quality of experimental data in an efficient, objective and automated manner. Using this approach data generated by different measurement techniques and even in single replicates can be reliably used for mathematical modeling. For the estimation of unknown model parameters, the performance of different optimization algorithms was compared systematically. Our results show that deterministic derivative-based optimization employing the sensitivity equations in combination with a multi-start strategy based on latin hypercube sampling outperforms the other methods by orders of magnitude in accuracy and speed. Finally, we investigated transformations that yield a more efficient parameterization of the model and therefore lead to a further enhancement in optimization performance. We provide a freely available open source software package that implements the algorithms and examples compared here.


Dark energy is a mysterious force that pervades all space, acting as a "push" to accelerate the universe's expansion. Despite being 70 percent of the universe, dark energy was only discovered in 1998 by two teams observing Type Ia supernovae. A Type 1a supernova is a cataclysmic explosion of a white dwarf star. The best way of measuring dark energy just got better, thanks to a new study of Type Ia supernovae. [11]


Abstract. The purpose of the presented investigations was to study the influence and effects of altered states of consciousness (ASC) induced through the flotation tank restricted environmental stimulation technique (flotation-REST) in a laboratory setting. The results from the present investigations indicate that flotation-REST may offer a safe and practical method of inducing altered states of consciousness in a controlled laboratory setting. Throughout, flotation-REST was experienced as a positive event by the participants. In order to optimize the conditions of flotation-REST, possible differences in the type of experiences due to different settings (strict/fantasy) applied in the laboratory were examined; no such differences were obtained. Nor were experiences in the flotation tank affected by participants earlier experiences of altered states of consciousness. Mental experiences reported from flotation-REST include deep relaxation, experiences of leaving or losing contact with the body, visual and auditory pseudo-hallucinations and transpersonal experiences. Comparisons between chamber-REST and flotation-REST indicated that the flotation-REST group experienced a significantly higher degree of ASC as compared to the chamber-REST group. The instrument, EDN-scale, was developed to allow these measures. Investigations of creativity indicated that flotation-REST induced more originality and impaired deductive thinking, in comparison to chamber-REST. Chamber-REST induced more realistic and elaborated thinking compared to flotation-REST. Comparison of these two conditions indicated that both flotation-REST and chamber-REST were equally effective in reducing subjectively experienced stress. An experimental pain procedure was arranged in order to study the experience of pain in connection with individuals experiencing ASC (induced by flotation-REST). A higher level of pain and stress was obtained in those individuals with high ASC in the flotation-group compared with those with low ASC (as measured with the EDN-scale). The individuals presenting high ASC also experienced duration of experimental pain as shorter compared with low ASC individuals, within the flotation-REST condition. Within the chamber-REST condition, there were no differences between the low ASC and high ASC individuals. To study the possible pain-alleviating effects of flotation-REST upon existing, chronic pain, a series of flotation-REST treatments over a three-week period was carried out. It was found that the participants most severe perceived pain intensity was significantly reduced, whereas low perceived pain intensity was not influenced by the floating technique. Further, the results indicated that the circulating levels of noradrenaline metabolite MHPG (3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-phenylethyleneglycol) were reduced significantly in the experimental group but not in the control group following treatment, whereas endorphin levels were not affected by flotation. Flotation-REST treatment also elevated the participants' optimism and reduced the degree of anxiety or depression; at nighttime, patients who underwent flotation fell asleep more easily. These findings describe possible alleviations in patients presenting with chronic pain complaints. Taken together, these studies on the flotation-REST technique offer a promising avenue of future research on stress reduction, pain treatment and personal development, hopefully elucidating regional brain implicit and explicit processes. Key words: Altered states of consciousness, ASC, Floating, Flotation, REST, Pain, Creativity, Stress, setting.


Governments, and uranium producers and buyers assess policy implications for uranium markets by understanding the price of uranium and the role of government policy over time. To understand the key elements in the formation of price and policy in uranium markets, this study uses the institutional economics method to investigate the institutional arrangements used for procuring uranium in the Manhattan Project (1942-1946). Throughout this period, the formation of price expectations were bounded by the opportunities to receive revenue from selling uranium ore as a by product and as a main product. In regards to policy formation, price expectations were guided by the need to secure ore for customers, to secure income stability for producers, and to maintain competitive conditions in establishing price stabilization as the main policy. Similar pricing rules and concerns with price stabilization were adopted throughout the uranium market history. These recurring similarities in customs, which are understood through the underlying competitive behavior, are expected to be adapted to contemporary trends, such as global climate change, the joint ownership of mines, and the creation of the Low Enriched Uranium Bank. The contemporary trends represent the new negotiating circumstances for uranium market participants. Therefore, elements in understanding the formation of pricing and price stabilization policy during the Manhattan Project may be adapted to frame future assessments of uranium markets as participants consider advanced nuclear reactors and various nuclear fuel cycles as an option in adapting to contemporary trends.


Cover blurb: In a series of cross-cultural investigations of word meaning, Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka examine key expressions from different domains of the lexicon - concrete, abstract, physical, sensory, emotional, and social. They focus on complex and culturally important words in a range of languages that includes English, Russian, Polish, French, Warlpiri and Malay. Some are basic like men, women, and children or abstract nouns like trauma and violence; others describe qualities such as hot, hard, and rough, emotions like happiness and sadness, or feelings like pain. This fascinating book is for everyone interested in the relations between meaning, culture, ideas, and words. They ground their discussions in real examples from different cultures and draw on work ranging from Leibniz, Locke, and Bentham, to popular works such as autobiographies and memoirs, and the Dalai Lama on happiness. The book opens with a review of the neglected status of lexical semantics in linguistics. The authors consider a range of analytical issues including lexical polysemy, semantic change, the relationship between lexical and grammatical semantics, and the concepts of semantic molecules and templates. Their fascinating book is for everyone interested in the relations between meaning, culture, ideas, and words.


A continuous time Bayesian network (CTBN) uses a structured representation to describe a dynamic system with a finite number of states which evolves in continuous time. Exact inference in a CTBN is often intractable as the state space of the dynamic system grows exponentially with the number of variables. In this paper, we first present an approximate inference algorithm based on importance sampling. We then extend it to continuous-time particle filtering and smoothing algorithms. These three algorithms can estimate the expectation of any function of a trajectory, conditioned on any evidence set constraining the values of subsets of the variables over subsets of the time line. We present experimental results on both synthetic networks and a network learned from a real data set on people's life history events. We show the accuracy as well as the time efficiency of our algorithms, and compare them to other approximate algorithms: expectation propagation and Gibbs sampling.


This paper presents techniques for dynamic load balancing in heterogeneous computing environments. That is, the techniques are designed for sets of machines with varying processing capabiliti es and memory capacities. These methods can also be applied to homogenous systems in which the effective compute speed or memory availabilit y is reduced by the presence of other programs running outside the target computation. To handle heterogeneous systems, a precise distinction is made between an abstract quantity of work, which might be measured as the number of iterations of a loop or the count of some data structure, and the utili zation of resources, measured in seconds of processor time or bytes of memory, required by that work. Once that distinction is clearly drawn, the modifications to existing load balancing techniques are fairly straight-forward. The effectiveness of the resulting load balancing system is demonstrated for a large-scale particle simulation on a network of heterogeneous PC's, workstations and multiprocessor servers.


This long-awaited book will be a valuable tool for collectors, dealers, and researchers of modern Italian glass. Most comprehensive volumes are written in Italian, and none includes a value guide. This one, in English, includes information and photographs that will make this book a standard reference on the subject. With approximately 700 full color photos of almost 1000 examples of glass from 1900 to 2000, and an emphasis on the highly collectible mid-century period, nearly every company and technique is represented. Company histories, designer biographies, glossary, bibliography, index, and value guide make this an ideal reference book.


This is a fast-paced Beginner's Guide that will take you step by step through the fundamentals of FreeRADIUS and using it in your live projects. It has been structured in a way that will let you get maximum practical information out of it in setting up your own FreeRADIUS server. It will guide you on all the aspects of FreeRADIUS and do much more to get you all the 'A's right. If you are an Internet Service Provider (ISPs) or a network manager who needs to track and control network usage, then this is the book for you. You need to be familiar with Linux and have a solid understanding of TCP/IP. No previous knowledge of RADIUS or FreeRADIUS is required.


We explore the interconnection between search and action in the context of mobile robotics. The task of searching for an object and then performing some action with that object is important in many applications. Of particular interest to us is the idea of a robot assistant capable of performing worthwhile tasks around the home and office (e.g., fetching coffee, washing dirty dishes, etc.). We prove that some tasks allow for search and action to be completely decoupled and solved separately, while other tasks require the problems to be analyzed together. We complement our theoretical results with the design of a combined search/action approximation algorithm that draws on prior work in search. We show the effectiveness of our algorithm by comparing it to state-of-the-art solvers, and we give empirical evidence showing that search and action can be decoupled for some useful tasks. Finally, we demonstrate our algorithm on an autonomous mobile robot performing object search and delivery in an office environment.


The South African Research Ethics Training Initiative (SARETI) is the oldest Africa-based Master's programme in the field of health research ethics. The programme, initially a collaboration between the University of Pretoria's School of Health Systems and Public Health and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)'s School of Psychology in association with Johns Hopkins University, equips African health professionals with the education and practical experiences needed to provide sound ethics review of the increasingly numerous and complex health studies taking place in Africa. SARETI started in 2003 and to date has graduated 1 PhD, 14 Masters (with several more close to completion), and 22 non-degree fellows, and is currently awaiting a funding decision for a third cycle of Fogarty/National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for 2012 - 2016.


Most of the pepper species of the genus Capsicum have been recalcitrant to efficient Agrobacterium tumefaciens -mediated stable or transient, genetic transformation. In the present work, we optimized a protocol for transient transformation of the Habanero pepper ( Capsicum chinense Jacq.) through the standardization of several experimental factors. These included the age of the plants, the temperature, the length of co-cultivation, the application of a negative (vacuum) and/or a positive (infiltration) pressure, along with micro injection, the use of acetosyringone during the bacterial culturing, and modification of the pH during the GUS assay to eliminate the endogenous β-glucuronidase activity. The standardized protocol, which yielded nearly 55% fully transformed leaf explants, was used to successfully mobilize two empty binary vectors (pCAMBIA2301 and pCAMex), as well as the C. chinense cDNAs encoding the pathogenesis-related protein 10 and esterase, respectively.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivation behind mutual funds' risk shifting behavior by examining its impact on fund performance, while jointly considering fund managers' compensation incentives and career concerns. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses a sample of US actively managed equity funds over the period 1980-2010. A fund's risk shifting is estimated as the difference between the fund's intended portfolio risk in the second half of the year and the realized portfolio risk in the first half of the year. Using the state of the market to identify the dominating type of incentive that fund managers face, we examine the relationship between performance and risk shifting in a cross-sectional regression setting, using the Fama and MacBeth (1973) methodology. Findings - The authors find that poorly performing (well performing) funds are likely to increase (decrease) their risk level in bull markets, while reducing (increasing) it during bear markets. Furthermore, we find that funds that increase risk underperform, while those that decrease their portfolio risk do not. In addition, we find that poorly performing funds that increase (or decrease) their risk underperform across bull and bear markets, while well performing funds that reduce risk during bull markets subsequently outperform. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the literature on mutual fund risk shifting by providing evidence that the performance consequence of such behavior is dependent on the state of the market and on the funds' past performance. The results suggest that loser funds tend to be agency prone or be managed by managers with inferior investment skill, and that winner funds exhibit superior investment ability during bull markets. The authors argue that both the agency and investment ability hypotheses are driving fund managers' risk shifting behavior.


This study examines the career of Maria Ouspenskaya (1887-1949) in American theatre from 1923-1949, and it assesses her significance in American theatre history. The primary sources for this study were newspapers, the Maria Ouspenskaya Collection in the University Library at UCLA, and the Ouspenskaya clipping file in the Billy Rose Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Prior to moving to the United States, Ouspenskaya acted and taught at the Moscow Art Theatre, where she studied with Konstantin Stanislavsky, who had developed a new form of actor training known as the "System." In America, Ouspenskaya first taught System techniques to students at the American Laboratory Theatre in New York, working with Richard Boleslavsky. She later taught at the Neighborhood Playhouse and her own schools in New York and Hollywood. She also acted in six Broadway plays and twenty movies. Admired as a character actress, she received two Academy Award nominations. The findings of this study reveal that Ouspenskaya was a highly respected and influential theatre artist during her years in America. Her acting consistently received praise from both critics and colleagues, and her stage and film roles provided a rare opportunity for the general public to view performance by a former student v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of Stanislavsky. More important, Ouspenskaya taught the System to hundreds of students, who, in turn, carried the new technique to the stage, film, radio, and television. Former Lab students Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, and Lee Strasberg brought their new knowledge to Broadway via the Group Theatre in the 1930's. Strasberg later taught his own version of Ouspenskaya's teachings, the controversial "Method," at the Actor's Studio in the 1950's and 1960's, thereby introducing Stanislavsky's System to a new generation of actors. Ouspenskaya' s work as both an actress and a teacher significantly influenced and reformed American acting technique. She deserves recognition in theatre history for her important contributions to performance and actor training in the United States.


Testing capacity for COVID-19 remains a challenge globally due to the lack of adequate supplies, trained personnel, and sample-processing equipment. These problems are even more acute in rural and underdeveloped regions. We demonstrate that solicited-cough sounds collected over a phone, when analysed by our AI model, have statistically significant signal indicative of COVID-19 status (AUC 0.72, t-test,p <0.01,95% CI 0.61-0.83). This holds true for asymptomatic patients as well. Towards this, we collect the largest known(to date) dataset of microbiologically confirmed COVID-19 cough sounds from 3,621 individuals. When used in a triaging step within an overall testing protocol, by enabling risk-stratification of individuals before confirmatory tests, our tool can increase the testing capacity of a healthcare system by 43% at disease prevalence of 5%, without additional supplies, trained personnel, or physical infrastructure


The increasing number of the elderly in the future will inevitably affect the public health service system. The objective of this Cross-sectional Survey Research was to compare the quality of life of the elderly who were denture wearers and non-denture wearers in Ang Thong Province and study the factors that influenced and predicted the quality of life in both groups. Data collection was carried out from April 2008 to June 2008 by using a simple random sampling method in which 400 subjects of elderly, both denture wearers and non-denture wearers, were randomly selected to participate in the study. All participants who were denture wearers had participated in the Royally granted denture project from the year 2005-2007 in Ang Thong Province and all non-denture wearers were local seniors. A questionnaire developed by researchers, consists of participants' general character, feelings about their oral health, attitude towards denture wearing, social support and the quality of life of the elderly. The data were analyzed by using percentile statistics, t-test, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Stepwise Multiple Regression. The results were that 2/3 of the elderly in both groups (denture wearers and non-denture wearers) had high quality of life score (63.0% and 67.0%, respectively) and the elderly who were denture wearers and non-denture wearers in Ang Thong Province had no statistically significant difference in their quality of life (p > 0.05). Predisposing and reinforcing factors that influenced their quality of life in both groups were attitude about denture wearing, social support and feeling about their oral health with a statistically significant difference reported (p The results of the study suggested that family and the associated authorities should show the campaign that support a good attitude about denture wearing and having criteria for increasing the elderly people to participate in the Royally granted denture project to improve their good quality of life.


This thesis explores competing meanings of being a woman in Dakar, Senegal. Above all, it is concerned with the relationship between livelihoods – how ordinary Dakarois make ends meet – and women's gendered identities. It explores the full spectrum of Dakar women's economic activities, all the while keeping the definition of what, precisely, qualifies as 'economic' or as 'work' as open as possible. Distancing itself from approaches that privilege the sexual aspects of gender, this thesis asks what kinds of gendered economic identities emerge in the context of the various roles and relationships that constitute women's everyday lives. What do women do that enables people in this society to get by and to secure their day-‐to-‐day needs? How are these activities experienced, and what kind of values are they imbued with? Based on three years' fieldwork in low-‐income neighbourhoods across the Dakar region, the thesis advances an ethnographic analysis of women's roles as wives and girlfriends, sisters and sisters-‐in-‐law, daughters, mothers and grandmothers, and members of extended family and community networks. It explores women's activities as dependents, consumers, providers and informal-‐sector workers. Together, the chapters shed light on the complexities and contradictions involved in being a woman in this particular part of the world. Building on the ethnographic findings, this thesis argues that it is possible to identify two distinct, even competing conceptions of being a woman in Dakar. One of these can be framed in terms of 'materialism', the other around the emic concept of 'mothering work'. Dakar women, this thesis suggests, draw on both in order to create, defend and challenge the meaning and the value of their everyday experiences.


Studies with monochromatic light stimuli have shown that the action spectrum for melatonin suppression exhibits its highest sensitivity at short wavelengths, around 460 to 480 nm. Other studies have demonstrated that filtering out the short wavelengths from white light reduces melatonin suppression. However, this filtering of short wavelengths was generally confounded with reduced light intensity and/or changes in color temperature. Moreover, it changed the appearance from white light to yellow/orange, rendering it unusable for many practical applications. Here, we show that selectively tuning a polychromatic white light spectrum, compensating for the reduction in spectral power between 450 and 500 nm by enhancing power at even shorter wavelengths, can produce greatly different effects on melatonin production, without changes in illuminance or color temperature. On different evenings, 15 participants were exposed to 3 h of white light with either low or high power between 450 and 500 nm, and the effects on salivary melatonin levels and alertness were compared with those during a dim light baseline. Exposure to the spectrum with low power between 450 and 500 nm, but high power at even shorter wavelengths, did not suppress melatonin compared with dim light, despite a large difference in illuminance (175 vs. <5 lux). In contrast, exposure to the spectrum with high power between 450 and 500 nm (also 175 lux) resulted in almost 50% melatonin suppression. For alertness, no significant differences between the 3 conditions were observed. These results open up new opportunities for lighting applications that allow for the use of electrical lighting without disturbance of melatonin production.


Nanotechnology, already showing great potential for application in environmental protection has been suggested to be able to provide green and effective alternatives for the management of insect pests in agriculture and post harvest processes. This is in an effort to reduce the hazardous effects of previously used non-biodegradable substances on humans and the environment. The paper will discuss emerging nanotechnologies in antifeedant and pesticide formulations from natural products including novel photodegradable insecticide involving nanoparticles. This will include studies on synthesized nanoparticles used as larvicides, antifeedants, insecticides and pesticides. Nanoscience and nanotechnologies have offered the opportunities to combine organic constituents from natural products with elemental components in order to create complex, innovative and specific material in chemical synthesis for future and immediate use in green technologies.


PURPOSE
To determine whether Flt24K, a recombinant construct of domains 2 to 4 of VEGFR-1 (Flt) coupled with an endoplasmic reticulum retention signal (KDEL) can bind VEGFR-2 and induce apoptosis, unfolded protein response (UPR), and regression of injury-induced corneal neovascularization.

METHODS
Human microvascular endothelial cells were transfected with pCMV.Flt24K and subjected to hypoxia. Cell lysates underwent Western blot analysis with anti-XBP-1 antibody and RT-PCR for CHOP. Human malignant melanoma cells (which express VEGFR-2 but not Flt), were transfected with pCMV.Flt24K, and lysates underwent immunoprecipitation with anti-FLT antibody, and Western blot analysis for VEGF and VEGFR-2. Mouse corneas sustained injury induced by topical NaOH and mechanical scraping and were injected with pCMV.Flt24K 2 weeks later. Corneas were harvested 2 days later for Western blot analysis for XBP-1 and caspase-3 or 1 week later for quantification of neovascularization and TUNEL staining. Saline and empty pCMV vector were used in control experiments.

RESULTS
The mean percentage area of corneal neovascularization in mice 3 weeks after corneal injury and 1 week after intrastromal injection of empty pCMV vector or pCMV.Flt24K was 55.4% +/- 2.7% vs. 19.3% +/- 6.1%, respectively (P < 0.001). Flt24K was found to bind VEGFR-2 and upregulate activated XBP-1 and CHOP in vitro. In vivo, pCMV.Flt24K upregulated activated XBP-1 and caspase-3. Apoptosis was observed in corneal neovascular endothelium in corneas treated with pCMV.Flt24K but not in the control.

CONCLUSIONS
The Flt24K intraceptor can bind VEGFR-2 within cells, induce the unfolded protein response in vitro and in vivo, elicit apoptosis of vascular endothelial cells in vivo, and induce regression of corneal neovascularization in vivo.


Understanding ore textures is fundamental to unraveling the genesis of an ore deposit, which in turn allows exploration and mining geologists to build their conceptual models of the deposits they encounter and leads to more successful exploration and exploitation. This book is specifically designed for the field geologist working without the benefits of sophisticated chemical, mineralogical or petrological support. It covers the basic building blocks of textural recognition beginning with infill (direct precipitation from hydrothermal fluids into 'cavities'), alteration (the results of hydrothermal fluid reactions with wall rocks) and overprinting (the normal complexity caused by successive introduction of hydrothermal fluids usually accompanied or preceded by renewed fracturing) and ends with a detailed examination of textures associated with tectonic and intrusive breccias.


Summary: Assessment of fracture union is a critical concept in clinical orthopaedics; however, there is no established "gold standard" for fracture healing. This review provides an overview of the problems related to the assessment of fracture healing, examines currently available tools to determine union, discusses the role of functional outcomes in the assessment of fracture healing, and finally evaluates healing outcome measures as they pertain to fracture trials. Because there is no universally accepted method to determine fracture healing, orthopaedic surgeons must rely on a range of tools that can include: radiographic assessment, mechanical assessment, serologic markers, and clinical evaluation (including functional outcomes). When used in conjunction, these tools can help to improve the sensitivity and specificity of determining fracture union. This is furthermore relevant when conducting fracture healing trials, for which there is little consensus between surgeons or the Food and Drug Administration as to optimal study endpoints. Such studies should therefore include a composite outcome measure consisting of radiographic and functional assessments to increase the quality and consistency of fracture healing trials.


A neurologists view of our response to trauma. Our experiences of trauma sow the seeds of many persistent and misunderstood medical problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and various maladies of the immune system. Because of our inadequate understanding of the relationship of mind and body in processing these traumas, many of us suffer needlessly from our exposure to lifes traumas. Robert Scaer offers hope to those who wish to transform trauma and better understand their lives.


Fifteen years ago further education (FE) colleges in England were removed from local education authority (LEA) control and re‐formed as 'FE corporations'. Now, it is proposed that, from 2010, local authorities will become re‐involved in the running of FE. Given such a prospect, this article takes the opportunity to look back at colleges under LEA control and to critically consider what many FE teachers regard as a golden era: a time which was certainly one of less pressured and more stable circumstances. Whilst this article does not attempt to justify any of excesses that have characterised FE since incorporation, it is recognised that there is a temptation to view FE's past through rose‐tinted glasses. It is argued that, despite the turbulent environment in which colleges now exist, the era of LEA control should not be romanticised and that, in the past, FE was highly variable and flawed in many ways. In exploring this argument this article reviews four inter‐linked themes related to LEA control: local authority governance; the role of college managers; the position of FE teachers; and the service provided to students. It highlights some of the shortcomings and problems of LEA control and argues that the future role of local authorities in FE should not be viewed as an opportunity to turn the clock back to a bygone era. It should be seen as a chance for a fresh start rather than as a step back in time.


This paper presents influence of treatment and mixing methods on recycled aggregate concretes (RAC) designed regarding various techniques. Absolute Volume Method (AVM) according to TS 802, Equivalent Mortar Volume Method (EMV), silica fume (SF) as a mineral addition were considered in the design of concretes. In total, four groups of concretes were produced in the laboratory: (1) natural aggregate concrete (NAC) designed with AVM as control concrete, (2) RAC designed with AVM as control RAC, (3) RAC with SF as a mineral addition designed with AVM as treated RAC and (4) RAC designed with EMV as treated RAC. The tests were performed at 28th days and the statistical analysis were made on the test results. According to the results, EMV and SF increased the compressive strength of concretes and this resulted an increase in the strength class of concrete. A significant statistical difference between the concretes were determined. According to multiple comparison analysis, it was found that especially there was a significant relationship among NAC, RAC and RAC-EMV. In addition, it was recommended that EMV and AVM with 5% SF could be used in the design of RAC rather than AVM only to achieve the target strength class C30/37.


Continental collision is commonly accompanied by a sequence of several plate–mantle interactions, including accretion of buoyant features, pulses of slab rollback, slab break-off, formation of slab windows, and lithosphere delamination. Using the combined insight from seismic and dynamical modelling studies, we illustrate how these processes and their characteristic rates and timescales played an important role in shaping the Mediterranean and how they dominated the closure of the Tethyan oceans. Older collisions, such as the one that formed the Norwegian Caledonites, probably experienced similarly complex plate–mantle interaction, even though direct evidence of the associated mantle dynamics is absent.


While the 1950s have been popularly portrayed - on television and in the movies and literature - as a conformist and conservative age, the decade is better understood as a revolutionary time for politics, economy, mass media, and family life. Magazines, films, newspapers, and television of the day scrutinized every aspect of this changing society, paying special attention to the lifestyles of the middle-class men and their families who were moving to the suburbs newly springing up outside American cities. Much of this attention focused on issues of masculinity, both to enforce accepted ideas and to understand serious departures from the norm. Neither a period of "male crisis" nor yet a time of free experimentation, the decade was marked by contradiction and a wide spectrum of role models. This was, in short, the age of Tennessee Williams as well as John Wayne. In Men in the Middle, James Gilbert uncovers a fascinating and extensive body of literature that confronts the problems and possibilities of expressing masculinity in the 1950s. Drawing on the biographies of men who explored manhood either in their writings or in their public personas, Gilbert examines the stories of several of the most important figures of the day - revivalist Billy Graham, playwright Tennessee Williams, sociologist David Riesman, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, Playboy literary editor Auguste Comte Spectorsky, and TV-sitcom dad Ozzie Nelson - and allows us to see beyond the inherited stereotypes of the time. Each of these stories, in Gilbert's hands, adds crucial dimensions to our understanding of masculinity the 1950s. No longer will this era be seen solely in terms of the conformist man in the gray flannel suit or the Marlboro Man.


Introduction: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) had been known as clustering of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Over the years, clinical criteria had been revised to highlight importance of various risk factors in defining MetS. Studies had reported different clustering of factors based on different population characteristics.
Objective: Our study aimed to identify the clustering factors among our Malaysian population based on sexes and 4 major ethnic groups namely Malay, Chinese, Indian and other minor ethnic
Methods: A national cross sectional study was done covering both Peninsular and East Malaysia. Subjects' sociodemographic, body mass index (BMI), waist, hip and neck circumference, blood pressure, fasting triglycerides (TG) and HDL-cholesterol and glucose, urine microalbumin and serum insulin were taken. Principal component factor analysis with Varimax rotation was done to identify the clustering based on sex and ethnic groups.
Results: One thousand two hundred and sixty eight male and 2355 female subjects were recruited. Majority of subjects were Malays (63.0%) followed by Chinese (13.3%), Indian (7.4%) and other ethnic groups (13.8%) which followed the population composition in Malaysia. Four factors were identified for both men and women. The factors were anthropometry, glycemia, blood pressure and dyslipidemia given the cumulative percent of variance of 69.4 and 65.9 respectively. There are 4 factors identified for Malay, Chinese and Aborigines but 5 factors for Indian ethnic groups given cumulative percent of variance explained ranged from 65.1 to 77.7.
Discussion and Conclusion: BMI, neck circumference, blood pressure, Fasting TG and HDL had a high factor loading in both sexes suggesting that for field screening, diagnostic criteria would be adequate criteria. These factors also showed a similar pattern of loading by different ethnic groups. In conclusion, in Malaysian population, at least one measurement from each components namely anthropometric, blood pressure, glycemia and dyslipidemia is adequate to diagnose MetS.


S-wave propagation from source to a high impedence contrast boundary can produce convert phase SP. Normally S-phases are recorded on radial these two phases can be identified and isolated. Some significant structure information can be studied from these two phases. The Q value of sedimentary rock is one of them. The spectral ratio of SP-and S-phases are calculated in this study for estimating frequency-independent Q value of near surface layer. By the help of P-and S-waves velocity structure, the travel times of SP-and S-phases can be estimated such that SP-phase is identified. Three SP-phases, converted from different layers in the Lotung area, can be identified. The earliest SP-phase is possibly converted from the bottom of PLEISTOCENE formation. The second SP-phase might be converted from the bottom of ALLUVIUM layer, and the last one might be converted from the bottom of surface soil layer. Each SP/S ratio gives a different Q value which shows the variation of Q in each layer. The range of Q value estimated by this method agreed with the laboratory measurement of sedimentary rock.


This guide comply sources containing statistical data that is frequently required for your research. The sources covered include SIT Library's subscribed resources and also publicly available sources.


For 70 years, the physics community operated under the assumption that the expansion of the Universe must be slowing due to gravitational attraction. Then, in 1998, two teams of scientists used Type Ia supernovae to discover that cosmic expansion was actually accelerating due to a mysterious "dark energy." As a result, Type Ia supernovae have become the most cosmologically important transient events in the last 20 years, with a large amount of effort going into their discovery as well as understanding their progenitor systems. One such probe for understanding Type Ia supernovae is to use rate measurements to determine the time delay between star formation and supernova explosion. For the last 30 years, the discovery of individual Type Ia supernova events has been accelerating. However, those discoveries were happening in time-domain surveys that probed only a portion of the redshift range where expansion was impacted by dark energy. The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is the first project in the "next generation" of time-domain surveys that will discovery thousands of Type Ia supernovae out to a redshift of 1.2 (where dark energy becomes subdominant) and DES will have better systematic uncertainties over that redshift range than any survey to date. In order to gauge the discovery effectiveness of this survey, we will use the first season's 469 photometrically typed supernovee and compare it with simulations in order to update the full survey Type Ia projections from 3500 to 2250. We will then use 165 of the 469 supernovae out to a redshift of 0.6 to measure the supernovae rate both as a function of comoving volume and of the star formation rate as it evolves with redshift. We find the most statistically significant prompt fraction of any survey to date (with a 3.9σ prompt fraction detection). We will also reinforce the already existing tension in the measurement of the delayed fraction between high (z > 1.2) and low redshift rate measurements, where we find no significant evidence of a delayed fraction at all in our photometric sample. This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1716 Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Physics & Astronomy First Advisor Masao Sako


This article explores Fairtrade minimum price setting as an organizational formulation of a critical response to economic liberalism and its underlying notion of value—a subjective theory of value. The aim of the article is to show what happens if such meta-level philosophical debates on fairness and markets are lived out organizationally. This is achieved by using an ethnographic study of the price setting process of the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations. The case unpacks the complexities of defining a 'fair' price beyond the principle of marginal utility. I draw on French pragmatist sociology in order to decompose the political and moral constructions that underpin the organizational practices of minimum price setting. Challenging the assumption of free choice in neo-classical economics, Fairtrade redefines not only how value should be calculated, but also what it is it that should be valued and who values. This makes visible the political confrontation at the point of price determination, notably by providing a social arena for where conflicts of interest between opposing parties are played out. Once the producer enters price formation processes as a person and not only as the alienable owner of a commodity, the social, political and ecological and relations of production come to the fore that are otherwise concealed through the spontaneous market mechanism.


In this paper we show that free entry decisions may be socially inefficient, even in a perfectly competitive homogeneous goods market with non-lumpy investments. In our model, inefficient entry decisions are the result of risk-aversion of incumbent producers and consumers, combined with incomplete financial markets which limit risk-sharing between market actors. Investments in productive assets affect the distribution of equilibrium prices and quantities, and create risk spillovers. From a societal perspective, entrants underinvest in technologies that would reduce systemic sector risk, and may overinvest in risk-increasing technologies. The inefficiency is shown to disappear when a complete financial market of tradable risk-sharing instruments is available, although the introduction of any individual tradable instrument may actually decrease efficiency. We therefore believe that sectors without well-developed financial markets will benefit from sector-specific regulation of investment decisions.


The term hwa-byung (HB) as a culture-bound syndrome of Koreans has been used to refer to certain types of symptom complexes. However, there is an ambiguity in relation to what sorts of experiences and personal attributes can be identified for describing HB. Our study was designed to reexamine the conceptual structure of HB through a qualitative analysis of interview data with six middle-aged women experiencing HB. The emerging common themes of HB were identified in three dimensions: (a) those related to personal attributes or life situations such as quick-temperedness, strong commitment to traditional values, a hard or unhappy life , and conflicted marital relationship ; (b) those related to experiential accounts such as deep sorrow (hahn in Korean), a feeling of victimization, anger , and enduring ; and (c) HB symptoms. "Enduring" as one of the core concepts of HB viewed as the only way of life for these women needs further examination.


With advances in mobile technology, the ability to get real-time geographically accurate data, including photos and videos, becomes integrated into daily activities. Businesses use this technology edge to stay ahead of their competitors. Social media has made photo and video sharing a widely accepted and adopted behavior. This real-time data and information exchange, crowdsourcing, can be used to help first responders and personnel in emergency situations caused by extreme weather such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and snow storms. Using smartphones, civilians can contribute data and images to the recovery process and make it more efficient, which can ultimately save lives and decrease the economic impact caused by extreme weather conditions.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Oats contain antioxidant phytochemicals that may help reduce inflammation as well as oxidative stress. In this study we aimed to investigate the effect of oat porridge consumption on inflammatory marker levels and oxidative stress in Thai adults with high blood lipid levels.

METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN
A randomized crossover study was conducted. Hypercholesterolemic adults were randomly assigned to a 4-week daily consumption of oat or rice porridge. After 4 weeks, they were switched to alternate intervention arms for 4 weeks. At baseline, before and after each intervention period, inflammatory markers including hsCRP, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, and MCP-1 and antioxidant status markers including ORAC, FRAP, and MDA of all subjects were measured.

RESULTS
Compared to baseline, levels of hsCRP, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α were significantly decreased after oat porridge consumption (mean change: -0.6±0.9 mg/L, -26.9±27.6 pg/mL, -56.3±27.6 pg/mL, and - 9.7±11.6 pg/mL, p<0.05 for all, respectively). In addition, consumption of oat porridge also increased antioxidant capacity; ORAC and FRAP levels (mean change: 2.7±1.0 μmol of Trolox/L and 2.4±0.8 μmol of Fe2+/L, p<0.001, respectively). However, MCP-1 and MDA levels were not affected. Consumption of rice porridge did not lead to significant changes in these measures.

CONCLUSIONS
Daily consumption of 70 grams oat porridge containing 3 grams β-glucan for 4 weeks may help reduce markers of inflammation and oxidation in hypercholesterolemic adults. Therefore, oat may be an appropriate dietary recommendation for individuals with hypercholesterolemia.


Abstract:
Introduction: Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide disease that infects human and animals. The prevalence of acute toxoplasmosis in pregnant women in the world is between 0.1 and 0.8 percent. Acute toxoplasmosis can cause abortion and congenital disorders in fetus. Few studies have been conducted on the prevalence of neonatal toxoplasmosis in Iran. The purpose of this study was to obtain the overall situation of this disease in Iranian neonates.
Methods: PubMed, Googel scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Medline, Medlib, Scientific Information Database (SID), IranMedex, IranDoc and Magiran were searched to find reports about prevalence data
among the neonates from 1980 to 2014.
Results: A total of 233 publications were found. After excluding the unrelated and duplicate articles, only 9 publications were found in relation to the prevalence of neonatal toxoplasmosis in Iran. These studies were done only in north and center of Iran. There was no data on congenital toxoplasmosis in other parts of Iran. In the reviewed studies, 3442 neonate samples (included neonates blood, cord blood and amniotic fluid) were screened for toxoplasmosis. Conclusion: Based on an estimated population of newborns in Iran, more newborns should be studied in different parts of Iran.

Keywords: Iran, Prevalence, Neonatal, Toxoplasmosis,


The most important factor reinforcing individual habits is the tendency to the habit initiating at an early age. In order to have the habit of reading become permanent at later ages, it needs to be acquired at an early age. Therefore, the family has a very important role in the individual acquiring the habit of reading. Prior to beginning school, children take persons in their living space as examples. The parent, who reads and encourages reading, and the other persons around the child have important roles in upbringing a society with a strong habit of reading. When it is considered that in information society there is a need for an education system that educates students, who read and question what they read, it can be said that reading education and the habit of reading primarily commences in the family and then develops at primary school. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the students spending quality time with their family and the development of the sympathy and habit of reading books with the support of the family. The study group of the study conducted according to the survey method consists of a total of 211 students studying in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades at the Nesibe Aydin Schools in the province of Ankara during the 2011-2012 academic year and 582 parents. The questionnaire and the reading tracking table developed by the researchers was utilized as a data collection instrument in the study. At the end of the 8 week application period, parents were invited to the meeting providing information on the results of the project and they were awarded a "Certificate of Appreciation". According to the data obtained from the study findings it was observed that parents were pleased to participate in this project, a positive change occurred in the reading habit of a large proportion of children and parents throughout the application period of the project, and sympathy for books started to appear in children


Background. Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is a frequent finding in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). CAA may be complicated with CAA-associated intracerebral haemorrhage (CAAH). Previous studies have revealed matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) expression in a mouse model of CAA and in human intracerebral haemorrhage. Here we studied the involvement of MMPs in human CAA and CAAH. Material and methods. To investigate the putative expression of MMPs in human CAA and CAAH (Step 1), immunohistochemistry (IHC) against MMPs-1, -2, -7, -9, -19 and -26 was applied on tissue microarray (TMA) constructed of cerebral samples from 29 individuals with AD, 15 with CAAH and 2 controls. The findings in TMA were confirmed (Step 2) in tissue samples from 64 individuals, 45 presenting with CAA (including 36 with CAAH) and 19 without CAA (including 11 with hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage). Results. In Step 1, immunoreactivity against MMPs-19 and -26 was detected in cerebral blood vessels in CAA. The results were confirmed in Step 2, where CAA (p<0.001) and intracerebral haemorrhage (p=0.045) were associated with vascular immunoreactivity against MMP-19. Multivariate analysis showed that the association between vascular MMP-19 and intracerebral haemorrhage was dependent from CAA. MMP-26 associated with CAA (p=0.021) but not with intracerebral haemorrhage. Conclusion. This is the first human study showing local MMP-19 immunoreactivity in the Aβ-amyloid-laden blood vessels in CAA, suggesting that MMPs may be involved in CAA.


Ultrasound as an acoustic imaging modality suffers from various kinds of noise. The presence of noise especially hinders the 3D visualization of ultrasound data, both in terms of resolving the spatial occlusion of the signal by surrounding noise, and mental decoupling of the signal from noise. This paper presents a novel type of structurepreserving filter that has been specifically designed to eliminate the presence of speckle and random noise in 3D ultrasound datasets. This filter is based on a local distribution of variance for a given voxel. The lowest variance direction is assumed to be aligned with the direction of the structure. A streamline integration over the lowest-variance vector field defines the filtered output value. The new filter is compared to other popular filtering approaches and its superiority is documented on several use cases. A case study where a clinician was delineating vascular structures of the liver from 3D visualizations further demonstrates the benefits of our approach compared to the state of the art.


This poster presents one part of the current PhD project entitled "Policy, Purpose, Practice: Defining English-medium Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the Swedish Upper Secondary School." The project includes an investigation of the development of CLIL in the Swedish context in light of language policy and the role of the English language, as well as an investigation of classroom discourse in relation to the implicit and explicit goals expressed by the stakeholders. Additionally, the reasons why English is being offered as the medium of instruction as well as how the option is being presented by and to the stakeholders are of interest. In an open market for upper secondary education, Swedish schools, including those offering CLIL, tend to "sell" their programs in a persuasive manner, using websites, brochures, and advertising in the local media to attract pupils. These marketing texts may be used to create a certain identity of a CLIL pupil as well as to establish a position as a stakeholder in the CLIL community.The current study investigates several websites presenting Swedish schools offering CLIL, with an analysis exploring what is being offered and to whom as well as how written text is used together with images. In this study, Appraisal Analysis, with a focus on how the three systems of Attitude, Engagement and Graduation express meaning, is the main tool for analysing the websites. Appraisal Analysis, stemming from the interpersonal metafunction in the systemic functional linguistics approach, is useful for exploring how evaluative language is used in the texts presented online to potential and intended stakeholders. In this poster presentation, some of the early results of this study will be presented, although the analysis is still a work in progress. With a focus on Attitude, the preliminary analysis indicates that number of instances of positive judgement and appreciation is high, while instances of affect are mostly absent. These results may not be surprising, but the preliminary analysis has raised several questions about the use of Appraisal Analysis for this investigation of school marketing texts, including the following:What can Appraisal Analysis of school websites actually tell us?Is there an evaluation pattern in marketing texts for Swedish schools offering CLIL?What can this analysis say about the sociocultural context of schools offering CLIL in Sweden?More results, as well as consideration of the questions raised from the analysis, will be presented in the poster session. Discussion and feedback from summer school participants will be welcome.


This paper examines the status of contemporary civil society in Vietnam from a process-oriented perspective. It considers civil society in light of its actions and processes rather than by its political and structural affiliations. The analysis takes as a case study the bauxite mines in the Central Highlands. The Chinese-Vietnamese joint venture between two respective state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is seeking $15 billion in investment by 2025 to take advantage of Vietnam's huge bauxite reserves in order to process aluminum. The project has fomented unprecendented criticism from individuals within the mainstream elite of the Party, as well as environmental scientists, prominent lawyers and citizen bloggers in Vietnam. After a series of contentious policy debates and high-level reviews by various government ministries concerning the project's sustainability, environmental as well as social impact, the Vietnamese government approved and initiated mining in early 2012. By looking at the various sites of contention, National Assembly debates, and public outcry concerning the case, this paper advances a new conceptual framework for analysing civil society in Vietnam. The bauxite controversy explictly showcases the form that civil society is taking in contemporary Vietnam. I will argue that interactions among the vacillating civil society network that encompasses both grassroots activists and reformist political leaders will guide elite-level policy in Vietnam in such a way that does not pose a direct challenge to the Party's central authority.


Both Walt Whitman and Herman Melville wrote poetry about the Civil War, and while Whitman's is better known, Melville's Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) remains an interesting experiment in improvisation, a kind of "blues" lament for a loss that could not be reconstructed. Melville pursues several key questions: Is art meaningful in the face of chaos? Can imagination counter traumatic events? Melville's poetry provides no sure answers and is therefore troubling, if not annihilating, to the concept of art as therapeutic. But the question of whether art is useful in times of conflict was one that long engaged Melville. Much could be said about Moby-Dick and irresponsible bloodshed. This essay revisits Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), which anticipates the tenor, form, and loss of hope that comes to the fore in Battle-Pieces. I make this turn to the serial novel for several reasons. First, I will demonstrate that what some call Potter's incoherence is evidence of Melville's lost faith in narrative; second, Potter is about war and politics, as is the poetry; and third, I will show that it was not until Melville faced the Civil War in a poetic form of his own that he understood the Republic as lost.


Information regarding predation of honey bees by Afrotropical Asilidae is presented. Apidae constitute the fifth most common insect family preyed on by asilids. Eighty three prey records from eight African countries are analysed. The importance of predator size in the selection of honey bee prey is examined. Asilids with a bulk index (length x depth in millimetres) of less than 90 did not prey on honey bees. Fourteen genera in four subfamilies, Apocleinae, Dasypogoninae, Laphriinae and Stenopogoninae, are recorded as apivorous. Possible reasons are given why no members of the six remaining subfamilies have been recorded. The survey indicates that asilids are more deleterious to apiarists than previously suspected.


This paper discusses the range of options available to increase biogas production in wastewater treatment facilities incorporating anaerobic digestion. Based on a review of global applications, the key lessons and success factors are detailed. This information fits into an overall decision making framework design to ensure a holistic approach to investment in increasing biogas production is taken.


Monetary Conditions Indices (MCIs) are weighted averages of changes in an interest rate and an exchange rate relative to their values in a base period. A few central banks calculate MCIs for use in monetary policy. Although the Bank of England does not calculate such an index, several international organizations as well as financial corporations construct MCIs for the UK on a regular basis. In this article we survey those indices and compare their performance. We also suggest an alternative MCI for the UK to be used as a coincident indicator of stance, obtained estimating and simulating a small-scale macro-econometric model over the period 1984 Q4-1999 Q3. To overcome familiar criticisms of MCIs, our measure innovates upon existing MCIs in several respects. In this sense it may be more informative than those in understanding whether an existing level of interest rates, given the existing level of sterling, makes monetary policy "tighter" or "looser" than in previous periods.


The rise of hoplite-democracy and the virtual imprisonment of respectable women in the oikos (household) and the more extreme exploitation of all other women for male convenience and pleasure was no paradox of the Athenian conception of freedom. The increase in the power and wealth of Athens implied (in the male-dominated politics of the day) that respectable women, i.e., those who might bear legitimate heirs, had to be kept under close supervision, lest this all-important function be compromised, thereby jeopardizing the all the gains Athens had procured since the victory at Marathon. Self-consciously Athenians related hoplite democracy to their remarkable and sudden success. Equally, they appreciated their vulnerability, individually and politically, to domestic uncertainty. Their remedy was not merely to sequester their wives and daughters, but to degrade women generally. This process was more than an expression of male arbitrariness or an adolescent desire to have women serve male needs, cheerfully, instantly, obediently and without complication. It was seen as essential to the survival of Athens as a political entity. The Phallicratic Polis has twin foundations: (1) the need to deliver effective martial valor at the behest of the polis; (2) the need to secure domestic order, so that the oikos, the most important under-lying social unit of the polis, could protect family succession and property, and ultimately the polis itself.


We investigated the effects of a potent antioxidant, lycopene, on the free radical-scavenging activity as evaluated by DPPH assay, FRAP assay, lipid peroxidation, nitric oxide and lipofuscin formation in rat PC12 cells exposed to neurotoxic shock by 6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA). Cell viability was also determined using MTT assay in these samples. Cell morphology was studied using TUNEL assay prior and after treatment of cells with 6-OHDA and lycopene. In addition, we also determined the apoptotic characteristics prior and after treatment of cells with 6-OHDA and lycopene using flow cytometer. Lipid peroxidation levels were increased in PC-12 cells after treatment with 6-OHDA. Total antioxidant levels were found to be increased in cells treated with 6-OHDA and lycopene as compared to cells treated with 6-OHDA alone. But on further treatment of cells exposed to 6-OHDA with lycopene, the levels of these enzymes and the cell counts were increased to nearly 80% as compared to the control and lipid peroxidation levels were decreased to 75% as compared to the control. Altered activities of these antioxidant enzymes upon treatment with 6-OHDA were restored to almost normal level upon treatment of cells with lycopene. This may be due to the antioxidant property of lycopene. Lycopene exerted decreased lipofuscin content in cells treated with it. Lycopene significantly inhibited nitrite production by about 61% in cells exposed to neurotoxic shock. Our study demonstrated a protective effect of lycopene in rat PC-12 cells exposed to neurotoxic shock. Lycopene, through its antioxidant property, mediates free radical-scavenging activity and inhibits apoptosis.


Russia is undergoing a great transition period, with many large-scale economic changes taking place at a very vapid pace. At this time, almost half of the economy has been converted from the old centralized economy to a privatized environment. Many changes have occurred in social life, such as the development of large private firms, private banks, a new tax system, and the first bankruptcy actions. During the Soviet period, lay people were primarily interested in foreign politics and sporting events. Today, the focus of newspapers is on economic news, changes in local and foreign currencies, negotiations with the World Monetary Fund, stocks and securities markets, and so on. The greatest changes have occurred within the minds of the people (Breev, 1993). Under socialism, people relied on the state system for most of their needs. Now the majority of Russians understand that their well-being depends on the success of their own efforts, on their ability to adapt to the new and dynamic labor market realities. Evans and Birch (1995) found that the vast majority of Russian students did not believe their education was relevant to their intended careers. These great changes in the economic field have created new opportunities and demands on the Russian education system (Alenchikov, 1993; Kitaev, 1993). New economic realities demand new business specialists. Therefore, business and economic education (as well as related fields such as law and business law) were very popular in the first years of the decade of the 1990s. There was an almost immediate recognition by business people that they needed more knowledge, shifting from the old "planning in advance" behavior to a more flexible attitude capable of operating in a dynamic and highly risky environment. Many older managers were not able to make this transition. Consequently, new business institutions hired predominantly young people with new educational backgrounds and fresh world outlooks. At present, it is not out of the ordinary to meet young people, 25 and 30 years old, as heads and top mangers of the leading banks, trading companies, investment firms, and other business organizations. As a result, business education has undergone dramatic changes. Hundreds of new business schools of very different types, sizes, programs, and educational quality have opened in recent years (Kitaev, 1993; Meddoks, 1994). Many old state universities have opened new business colleges. A lot of separate business schools have been opened as well. These schools offer widely varying educational programs. Several business schools, primarily in Moscow, have affiliated with American schools, and copied the curricula from the corresponding American school. There are also many short terms schools, with program ranging from four months to one year, where accelerated training is available. Many of these schools offer programs in accounting and in computer information systems. There has been a high demand for specialists in these areas and this demand continues. Business professions have become very prestigious. During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, business was not a very attractive discipline for young Russians. Now, however, business schools and law schools have the highest prestige (Breev, 1993) This contention is confirmed by the fact that the majority of educational programs paid for by students (the Russian education system was, and still is predominantly, free of charge) has been in the business field. Because of the unique nature of the Russian computer market, the computer information system field is one of the most attractive in business schools. There has always been a large technological gap between Russia and western countries in many fields, with the largest gap being in computer information systems. The planned Soviet economy was quite inert, unable to cope with the extremely rapid developments in computer applications. Therefore, at the beginning of the 1990s, new liberal import rules led to the importation of many modern computer systems into Russia. …


We live in an ever-accelerating world: faster computers, markets, food, fashion, product cycles, minds, bodies, kids, lives. When did everything start moving so fast? Why does speed seem so inevitable? Is faster always better? Drawing together developments in religion, philosophy, art, technology, fashion, and finance, Mark C. Taylor presents an original and rich account of a great paradox of our times: how the very forces and technologies that were supposed to free us by saving time and labor now trap us in a race we can never win. The faster we go, the less time we have, and the more we try to catch up, the farther behind we fall. Connecting our speed-obsession with today's global capitalism, he composes a grand narrative showing how commitments to economic growth and extreme competition, combined with accelerating technological innovation, have brought us close to disaster. Psychologically, environmentally, economically, and culturally, speed is taking a profound toll on our lives. By showing how the phenomenon of speed has emerged, Taylor offers us a chance to see our pace of life as the product of specific ideas, practices, and policies. It's not inevitable or irreversible. He courageously and movingly invites us to imagine how we might patiently work towards a more deliberative life and sustainable world.


Minimally invasive surgery is increasingly indicated in the management of malignant disease. Although oesophagectomy is a difficult operation, with a long learning curve, there is actually a shift towards the laparoscopic/thoracoscopic/ robotic approach, due to the advantages of visualization, surgeon comfort (robotic surgery) and the possibility of the whole team to see the operation as well as and the operating surgeon. Although currently there are still many controversial topics, about the surgical treatment of patients with gastro-oesophageal junction (GOJ) adenocarcinoma, such as the type of open or minimally invasive surgical approach, the type of oesophago-gastric resection, the type of lymph node dissection and others, the minimally invasive approach has proven to be a way to reduce postoperative complications of resection, especially by decreasing pulmonary complications. The implementation of new technologies allowed the widening of the range of indications for this type of surgical approach. The short-term and long-term results, as well as the benefits for the patient - reduced surgical trauma, quick and easy recovery - offer this type of surgical treatment the premises for future development. This article reviews the updates and perspectives on the minimally invasive approach for GOJ adenocarcinoma.


The main limit of PV systems is the low conversion efficiency of PV panels, which is strongly influenced by their operating temperature. Lack of accuracy in consideration through PV panel temperature increases the financial risk of system installation. This present study investigates the effects of operating temperature on monocrystalline PV panel at Perlis, Malaysia. A selected model of PV panel firstly was simulated using PVSYST software in order to evaluate its output performance. Meanwhile, PROVA 200 used to measure and record all electrical data for outdoor experimental during the sunniest day. Besides, the thermal distribution was analysed through PV panel temperatures and thermal imaging. Simulation results implied that the output power of PV panel decreases with increasing of its working temperature followed by the efficiency. The experimental results obviously show that the STC parameters do not represent the real operating conditions of PV panel for outdoor conditions. Less output power was produced affected by the atmospheric factors such as solar irradiance and ambient temperature. These both factors strongly affected the PV panel temperature distribution. In short, the elevating of PV panel temperature contributed to the negative impact on output performance of the panel.


Tax arbitrage opportunities in rental housing markets arise when high bracket taxpayers exploit the tax shelter and conversion features of the tax treatment of rental housing and as a consequence offer low bracket taxpayers rental housing at a cost lower than if they purchased the same quantity of housing for owner occupation. A microdata set has been employed to estimate the size of these tax arbitrage opportunities with respect to 1907 properties owned by Australian landlords. The measure of tax arbitrage opportunities is the breakeven tax rate at which the maximum rental rate a potential occupant is prepared to pay before turning to purchased housing is equal to the landlord's reservation rental rate. Potential occupants with marginal tax rates below the breakeven tax rate find that renting has a relative cost advantage over home purchase. When agency costs (the costs incurred in managing landlord-tenant relationships) are included in the tax arbitrage model, our estimates of the breakeven tax rate indicate that home purchase has a relative cost advantage over renting for most potential occupants. Renting is only financially attractive to low tax bracket individuals. This finding is consistent with Australian tenure patterns. However, there are more puzzling results. A majority of landlords belong to tax brackets below the top bracket, landlords in the lowest tax brackets typically make below normal profits, and reservation rental rates at the bottom of the rental housing market are relatively high. Down payment requirements, lock-in effects, and rent clientele groups are put forward as possible explanations for these findings.