Dietary intake assessment is a qualitative or quantitative evaluation of the degree of
intake likely to happen, in which the estimation is made by multiplying the food
consumption by the chemical concentration in the respective foods. In the present study,
assessment of free dietary glutamate has been carried out among 360 Malay and
Chinese adults in the urban area of Klang Valley, Malaysia. The food consumption data
was obtained through a survey using food frequency questionnaires (FFQ) and
condiments usage forms. In addition to that, the free glutamate content of food and
condiments were analysed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
utilizing pre-column derivatization and fluorescence detection. Subsequently, using
both data from survey and sample analysis, the study estimated free dietary glutamate
intake of the respondents involved in the study. Results from the survey revealed that
the average total food consumption by total respondents was 843 g/person/day, with
significant (p=0.017) higher consumption among the Chinese (948 g/person/day)
compared to the Malays (793 g/person/day). The study also showed that consumption of condiments by both Malay and Chinese households was comparable, at 7.56 and 6.87
g/person/day, respectively. Chinese respondents, however, used more types of
condiments compared to Malays. Meanwhile, results from sample analysis showed that
the average free glutamate content in processed foods ranged from 0.34 ± 0.20 to 4.63 ±
0.41 mg/g. In food dishes, it was as low as 0.24 ± 0.15 mg/g in roti canai to 8.16 ± 1.99
mg/g in dim sum. Relatively, the free glutamate content was found to be higher in
condiments at 0.28 ± 0 mg/g in mayonnaise to 786.00 ± 0 mg/g in monosodium
glutamate. Calculated free glutamate intake from food by total respondents was 1.96
g/person/day; with intake by the Chinese was shown to be significantly (p=0.001)
higher than Malays at 2.34 and 1.77 g/person/day, respectively. On the other hand, the
average total free glutamate intake from condiments by total respondents was 0.27
g/person/day. The average total intake by the Malays, however, was significantly
(p=0.004) higher than Chinese at 0.35 and 0.15 g/person/day, respectively. Overall, the
average consumer need not be alarmed about the intake of glutamate from typical diet
in their daily dietary pattern. Despite that, with heavy free glutamate intake (95th
percentile) at more than 3.0 g/person/day may expose the consumers with possible
adverse health effects.


Data were collected on samples of American (N = 172) and Scottish (N = 264) adolescents to evaluate the scale reliability and construct validity of an adolescent version of Levant et al.'s (1992) Male Role Norms Inventory. Results indicate that the MRNI-A showed good overall internal consistency for the scale as a whole in both samples; results for the subscales were less robust. Convergent and discriminant validity were assessed with the U.S. sample. Results indicated adequate convergent validity for the MRNI-A for both boys and girls, and adequate discriminant validity for girls. Results for the discriminant validity of the MRNI-A for boys were not as conclusive. Consistent with research on adults, females in both samples endorsed less traditional views of masculinity than did males. Scottish adolescents endorsed less traditional views of masculinity than did Americans. Keywords: masculinity ideology, male role norms, adolescents, scale validation, cross sex and cross cultural comparisons Within the study of sex and gender, the acquisition of and adherence to masculine and feminine gender roles has been a topic of vigorous debate. Historically, the acquisition of gender roles had been viewed theoretically as an invariant process leading to the development of clusters of sex-typed personality traits that reside in individuals. Such a perspective characterized the essentialist Gender Role Identity Paradigm (Bohan, 1997; Pleck 1981,1995). The Gender Role Identity Paradigm further assumed that individuals have an inner psychological need to identify with their gender role, and that success in meeting this inner need was dependent upon the extent to which a person embraced his or her respective traditional gender role, and exhibited the sex-tyed personality traits (Levant, 1996a). This approach to gender dominated the research community's understanding of masculinity until Joseph Pleck (1981) conceptualized a new approach to understanding men and the masculine gender role known as the Gender Role Strain Paradigm. The Gender Role Strain Paradigm (Pleck, 1981, 1995) proposed a competing framework in which the acquisition of gender roles is viewed as a variable, not invariant, process, informed by the prevailing gender ideologies, which themselves can vary according to the social context. The prevailing ideologies define the social norms for male and female gender roles. Pleck thus introduced a normative perspective on gender, in contrast to the older personality trait approach. The ideologies and norms serve to uphold gender-based power structures (Kimmel, 2000). For the most part, gender-based power structures in the U.S. are patriarchal, mitigated to varying degrees in different subcultures by the influence of feminism and the gay rights movement. These gender ideologies influence how parents, teachers, and peers socialize children, and how adults think, feel, and behave in regard to gender-salient matters (Levant, 1996a; Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku, 1994a). Gender ideology is thus the central construct in the Gender Role Strain Paradigm; it defines the gender role norms for men and women. Masculinity ideology refers to culturally defined standards for men's gendered behavior, as well as internalized beliefs about the importance for men to adhere to these defined standards (Pleck, 1981,1995). Through social processes, masculinity ideology informs and encourages men to conform to the prevailing male role norms by adopting certain socially sanctioned masculine behaviors and avoiding certain proscribed behaviors (Levant, 1996a). Given that masculinity ideology is defined socially and culturally, it is not suprising that there exists no single standard of masculinity; rather, societies construct their own masculinity ideologies (Levant, 1996a). In fact, male role norms have been found to vary across cultures (Levant & Richmond, 2007). While recognizing the potential diversity in masculinity ideologies, Pleck (1995) noted that a common constellation of standards and expectations with the traditional male role exists in the Western world. …


Robotic vision introduces requirements for real-time processing of fastvarying, noisy information in a continuously changing environment. In a real-world environment, convenient assumptions, such as static camera systems and deep learning algorithms devouring high volumes of ideally slightlyvarying data, are hard to survive. Leveraging on recent neural studies that show smooth pursuit that is the slow movement of the eyes and saccade their rapid movement being handled by the same neuronal circuitry, we designed a neuromorphic oculomotor controller and placed it at the heart of a biomimetic robotic head prototype that we designed and built. The oculomotor controller is unique in the sense that 1) the encoding and processing of information is done via spikes communicated across models of biological neurons, and 2) it mimics the brain structure and therefore requires no training to operate. The tracking performance of our proposed system is comparable to that of PID controllers while the robotic eye kinematics are strikingly similar to those reported in human eye studies. Interestingly, employing biologically constrained methods of learning for the motor-related neurons resulted to synaptic weights that are comparable to the ones reported in the literature. This work contributes to the overarching goal of ComBra Lab, which is to develop neuromimetic bottom-up computational models of brain networks, where intelligence, emerging through a combination of network structure and learning, is used to control robots. A demo of the robot can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSs1JYy9oRc&index=1&list=PLxhn8mS5uHpLaEhA1eKll t1ce21gsLC Defense Committee: K. Michmizos (chair), C. Kulikowski, P. Awasthi


The state of the art rigid object recognition algorithms are based on the bag of words model, which represents each image in the database as a sparse vector of visual words. We propose a new algorithm to select informative features from images in the database. which can save the memory cost when the database is large and reduce the length of the inverted index so it can improve the recognition speed. Experiments show that only using the informative features selected by our algorithm has better recognition performance than the previous methods.


Lineage commitment is a fundamental process that enables the morphogenesis of multicellular organisms from a single pluripotent cell. While many genes involved in the commitment to specific lineages are known, the logic of their joint action is incompletely understood, and predicting the effects of genetic perturbations on lineage commitment is still challenging. Here, we devised a gene regulatory network analysis approach, GRN-loop, to identify key cis regulatory DNA elements and transcription factors that drive lineage commitment. GRN-loop is based on signal propagation and combines transcription factor binding data with the temporal profiles of gene expression, chromatin state and 3D chromosomal architecture. Applying GRN-loop to a model of morphogen-induced early neural lineage commitment, we discovered a set of driver transcription factors and enhancers, some of them validated in recent data and others hitherto unknown. Our work provides the basis for an integrated understanding of neural lineage commitment, and demonstrates the potential of gene regulatory network analyses informed by 3D chromatin architecture to uncover the key genes and regulatory elements driving developmental processes.


Research on nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) has indicated that a teacher's knowledge of each, however well developed, is not sufficient to ensure that these conceptions necessarily manifest themselves in classroom practice (Lederman & Druger, 1985; Lederman, 2007). In light of considerable research that has examined teachers' subject matter knowledge structures and their classroom practices (e.g., Gess-Newsome & Lederman, 1993, 1995), what was conspicuously absent was an assessment of teachers' knowledge structures for NOS and SI. The current investigation inferred the classroom practice knowledge structures for NOS and SI for four physics teachers. These results were then compared to responses communicated through the Knowledge Structures for NOS and SI (KS4NS) questionnaire and subsequent interview. The degree of congruence between the two knowledge structures was gauged at the level of included concepts, connections between concepts, and for other organizational or thematic elements. The results indicated limited congruence between teachers' knowledge structures for NOS and SI and those espoused in their classroom practice. Most notable was the dearth of connections evidenced between constituent aspects in the latter. The necessity of having teacher candidates explicitly reflect on the structure of the subject matter they are learning for teaching is reiterated through the findings of the current study. The utility of the KS4NS as tool to foster such reflections specifically regarding conceptualization of NOS and SI independent of, or in conjunction with, traditional subject matter also warrants further investigation, particularly in light of the recently released Next Generation Science Standards and their highly integrative conception of science. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51: 1150–1184, 2014


Three-hundred sixty calf-fed steers (BW = 318 ± 15 kg) were used in a completely randomized design to evaluate corn processing methods in finishing diets containing wet distillers grains plus solubles (WDGS). Whole corn (WC) was compared with corn processed by different methods, consisting of dryrolled corn (DRC), high-moisture corn (HMC), a 1:1 DRC:HMC combination (DM basis), steam-flaked corn (SFC), and finely-ground corn (FGC). The SFC with a flake density of 0.33 kg/L was obtained from a commercial feedlot. Basal dietary ingredients consisted of ground alfalfa hay (5.6% of DM) and dry supplement (3.0% of DM), with the balance being WDGS (30% of DM) and corn (61.4% of DM). Final BW and ADG were greater (P < 0.05) for the cattle fed DRC (1.84 kg/d) compared with cattle fed FGC (1.53 kg/d), SFC (1.63 kg/d), and WC (1.75 kg/d), but was not different (P = 0.11) from cattle fed DRC:HMC (1.78 kg/d). Cattle fed HMC (0.185) had greater (P < 0.05) G:F compared with cattle fed FGC (0.166), SFC (0.176), and WC (0.166). No differences (P > 0.30) were detected between cattle fed HMC and DRC:HMC for ADG and G:F; however, cattle fed DRC tended to have greater (P = 0.08) ADG, yet lower (P = 0.08) G:F than cattle fed HMC. Carcass characteristics reflected performance. These data indicate that steam flaked and finely ground corn processing methods, or no processing, are not as effective as high-moisture or dry-rolled corn processing methods in finishing diets containing 30% WDGS.


The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is a certification initiative which aims to promote responsible aquaculture. Oxfam regards ASC as an initiative to transform the sector, but there is a need for urgent improvements on social aspects such as fair contracts for farmers, decent labor rights in the industry, and effective and transparent stakeholder consultation including farmers, workers, communities, and civil society. Currently, smallholder farmers are effectively excluded from certification, the burden of change is put on farmers rather than shared throughout the chain, and the quality and effectiveness of social impact assessments are lacking. This paper presents several recommendations on how ASC should address these issues, so that it can truly claim to promote social responsibility.


The unwarranted persistence of the immunoinflammatory process turns this critical component of the body's natural defenses into a destructive mechanism, which is involved in a wide range of diseases, including chronic rejection. Performing a comprehensive analysis of human kidney grafts explanted because of terminal chronic rejection, we observed that the inflammatory infiltrate becomes organized into an ectopic lymphoid tissue, which harbors the maturation of a local humoral immune response. Interestingly, intragraft humoral immune response appeared uncoupled from the systemic response because the repertoires of locally produced and circulating alloantibodies only minimally overlapped. The organization of the immune effectors within adult human inflamed tissues recapitulates the biological program recently identified in murine embryos during the ontogeny of secondary lymphoid organs. When this recapitulation was incomplete, intragraft B cell maturation was impeded, limiting the aggressiveness of the local humoral response. Identification of the molecular checkpoints critical for completion of the lymphoid neogenesis program should help develop innovative therapeutic strategies to fight chronic inflammation.


The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of vitamin E supplement on elite taekwondo performers who were made to do acute taekwondo exercise on some free radicals. Twenty-four healthy male elite taekwondo performers whose mean age is 21.66 ± 1.20 and mean body weight is 72.50 ±8.17 kg participated the study. The study protocol was also endorsed by the ethical board of the same faculty. In the study, the subjects were divided into 2 equal groups. The vitamin E group (Group 1) will be given vitamin E for 4 weeks (300 mg D-alpha- tocopheryl acetate) and will be made to do acute taekwondo exercise once a week till they get tired. The control group (Group 2) is the group who were only made to do acute taekwondo exercise till they got tired once a week for 4 weeks. Taekwondo exercises were carried outfor four weeks and once a week as acute exercises till they got tired. During four weeks of application procedure, malondialdehyde (MDA) and Nitrococsite(NO) levels and plasma lactate (LAC) levels were determined from the blood samples taken from the subjects before the beginning of and at the end of the application and before and after the training. While the highest MDA level was obtained from the 2nd group in the 4th measurement (P<0.05), the lowest MDA level was obtained from 3rd measurement in the 1st group (P<0.05). While the highest NO level was obtained in the 2nd measurement in the 2nd group (P<0.05), the lowest NO level was obtained on the 3rd measurement in the 1st group (P<0.05). While the highest lactate level was obtained in the 2nd measurement in group 1 (P<0.05), the lowest lactate level was in the 3rd measurement in group 1 (P<0.05). As a result, it was determined that vitamin E application prevented free radical formation by increasing antioxidant activity during acute taekwondo exercise and substantially pressurized lactate levels.


This book is a compilation of approximately nine hundred problems, which have appeared on the preliminary exams in Berkeley over the last twenty years. It is an invaluable source of problems and solutions for every mathematics student who plans to enter a Ph.D. program. Students who work through this book will develop problem solving skills in areas such as real analysis, multivariable calculus, differential equations, metric spaces, complex analysis, algebra, and linear algebra. The problems are organized by subject and ordered in an increasing level of difficulty. This new edition contains approximately 120 new problems and 200 new solutions. It is an ideal means for students to strengthen their foundation in basic mathematics and to prepare for graduate studies.


Background Traditional faecal-based methods have poor sensitivity for the detection of S. stercoralis, therefore are inadequate for post-treatment evaluation of infected patients who should be carefully monitored to exclude the persistence of the infection. In a previous study, we demonstrated high accuracy of five serology tests for the screening and diagnosis of strongyloidiasis. Aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of the same five tests for the follow up of patients infected with S. stercoralis. Methods Retrospective study on anonymized, cryo-preserved samples available at the Centre for Tropical Diseases (Negrar, Verona, Italy). Samples were collected before and from 3 to 12 months after treatment. The samples were tested with two commercially-available ELISA tests (IVD, Bordier), two techniques based on a recombinant antigen (NIE-ELISA and NIE-LIPS) and one in-house IFAT. The results of each test were evaluated both in relation to the results of fecal examination and to those of a composite reference standard (classifying as positive a sample with positive stools and/or at least three positive serology tests). The associations between the independent variables age and time and the dependent variable value of serological test (for all five tests), were analyzed by linear mixed-effects regression model. Results A high proportion of samples demonstrated for each test a seroreversion or a relevant decline (optical density/relative light units halved or decrease of at least two titers for IFAT) at follow up, results confirmed by the linear mixed effects model that showed a trend to seroreversion over time for all tests. In particular, IVD-ELISA (almost 90% samples demonstrated relevant decline) and IFAT (almost 87%) had the best performance. Considering only samples with a complete negativization, NIE-ELISA showed the best performance (72.5% seroreversion). Conclusions Serology is useful for the follow up of patients infected with S. stercoralis and determining test of cure.


********** When I worked on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the early 1990s as part of the Basic Veterinary Worker (BVW) Project, nearly everyone I met, from U.N. and NGO workers to journalists, was obsessed with "getting inside" Afghanistan. The expatriate community hardly talked about anything else. In much the same spirit, graduate students in geography voice eagerness to "get inside" the "field." Certainly I did. Yet adequate preparation for geographical field research is crucial. Taking extra time at the start of doctoral work to develop specific skills, instead of rushing headlong and headstrong to the field, makes substantive interdisciplinary research possible. The incorporation of interdisciplinary training into preparations for field research provides unique benefits. These include the potential to pose new research questions, to develop new or different methods for exploring existing research questions, and to adapt novel modes of analysis and interpretation to research findings. The geographical subfields of political and cultural ecology have produced successful scholars who are increasingly conducting just this kind of research. Tackling interdisciplinary research can, however, be difficult, time consuming, and professionally risky. Because the results of high-quality interdisciplinary research in geography are rewarding, in this essay I outline some hard-won suggestions for the preparation and execution of interdisciplinary field research. I use, as case in point, my work on the political ecology of pastoralism, an example that includes methods drawn from veterinary medicine. Having recently completed an interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation, I address finishing strategies that may be helpful to doctoral students and young scholars. Each of you who reads this, though, will likely have a different skill set and your own distinct possibilities. VETERINARY GEOGRAPHY? Formal interdisciplinarity is something I stumbled on more or less by accident. After attempting fieldwork in Morocco at the master's level, I naively thought I could be of more help to pastoralists if I were a veterinarian. I didn't fully understand at the time that most problems faced by pastoralists and their livestock were caused by underlying structural problems of poverty and state oppression rather than by livestock disease. Thus, after finishing my master's degree in geography I concluded that because I wanted to work with pastoralists for my dissertation research in geography, I would earn a doctorate in veterinary medicine. I thought veterinary skills would enable me to "give something back" to the pastoralists with whom I hoped to work and allow me to collaborate more closely with pastoral people and thereby gain a better understanding of their lives and work. Of course, the subsequent four years were challenging and exhausting in ways I had previously only imagined, but the learning experience was the best I could have had. As a result, I have been able to actively incorporate veterinary training, research, and work experiences into my doctoral and postdoctoral geographical research. Halfway through veterinary training, I had the opportunity to work with the BVW project on the Afghan border with Pakistan (Figure 1). The international section of my veterinary school at Tufts University coordinated this multiagency project to train Afghan herders, many of them nomads, in basic veterinary skills. Nearly all veterinary and human medical services had been destroyed in the war. My primary job was to interview male and female nomads to determine whether women, too, could be trained as BVW workers in Afghanistan's Islamic society. As I started to carry out this survey, it quickly became apparent that the nomads had substantial knowledge about the health and diseases of livestock and how to care for them with many products found in their local environment. I put on my geographer's hat and expanded the study to include ethnoveterinary medicine (indigenous veterinary knowledge and practice), which covered basic resource management and herding knowledge and practice. …


Conventional Neural Networks can approximate simple arithmetic operations, but fail to generalize beyond the range of numbers that were seen during training. Neural Arithmetic Units aim to overcome this difficulty, but current arithmetic units are either limited to operate on positive numbers or can only represent a subset of arithmetic operations. We introduce the Neural Power Unit (NPU) that operates on the full domain of real numbers and is capable of learning arbitrary power functions in a single layer. The NPU thus fixes the shortcomings of existing arithmetic units and extends their expressivity. We achieve this by using complex arithmetic without requiring a conversion of the network to complex numbers. A simplification of the unit to the RealNPU yields a highly interpretable model. We show that the NPUs outperform their competitors in terms of accuracy and sparsity on artificial arithmetic datasets, and that the RealNPU can discover the governing equations of a dynamical systems only from data.


Background: Although the etiology of primer spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) is not exactly understood, it has been suggested to be associated with rupture of bulla/bleb formations at the lung apices in thin, tall, young adults. In this study, we aim to evaluate whether delayed puberty is a new etiological factor for PSP. Materials and Methods: A total of 91 patients who were treated for PSP in our clinic between January 2013 and September 2016 and who were scheduled for a follow-up visit by phone call and underwent pubertal-stage assessment were retrospectively analyzed. Results: Of all patients, 10 (12.1%) were females and 81 (87.9%) were males. The mean age was 25.90 ± 6.83 (range, 17 to 38) years and the mean height was 178.90 ± 7.6 (range, 161 to 197) cm. The mean age at menarche of female patients was 14.20 ± 1.31 (range, 12 to 17) years. The women had a late age at menarche compared to the overall Turkish female population (p < 0.0001). The mean age for the development of facial hairs in the men was 16.63 ± 1.69 (range, 13 to 22) years, showing a later age, compared to the overall Turkish male population (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Our study results showed that the patients with pneumothorax had an advanced age at puberty, compared to the normal overall population, and that the pubertal growth spurt occurred within a short period of time. This condition is also suggested to have an effect on the lung maturity and the development of pneumothorax.


When the Second World War came to an end, some 150
thousand Ukrainian Ostarbeiters (civilian labourers who were
forcibly recruited to work for the Nazi economy during the war)
refused to return from Germany to the Soviet-dominated Ukraine.
Together with other Ukrainian Displaced Persons, they composed the
third wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. However, to this
day, the history of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Canada as a separate
subject has been overlooked by mainstream Ukrainian-Canadian
historical research. There has been a tendency to generalize all
DPs under the title "political refugees" without distinguishing
Ostarbeiters as a separate category within this group. This thesis
addresses the historiographical gap mentioned above. It establishes
background that is essential for readers' understanding of the
Ukrainian Ostarbeiters' war time experiences. Built on oral history
interviews with former forced labourers, it reconstructs the
process of Ostarbeiters' immigration to Canada and their
integration into Canadian society. Through survey of scholarly
texts, newspaper articles, and memoirs, it also explores the nature
of the collective memory about Ostarbeiters in the Canadian
context. Finally, based on the transcripts of 32 available
interviews, the study investigates how former forced labourers make
sense of their past and how they present their life experiences. By
describing the Ostarbeiters' experience in Canada, revealing the
nature of collective and individual remembering of the forced
labour, and challenging certain existing conclusions about all
Ukrainian DPs in the Ukrainian-Canadian historiography, this thesis
sheds new light on the history of the "third wave" of Ukrainian
immigration to Canada and the history of Ukrainian community in
Canada. In addition, it contributes to the general history of
Ukrainian Ostarbeiters by reconstructing the post-war experiences
and analyzing collective and individual memories of those
Ostarbeiters who did not return home after the war but decided to
resettle to another country instead.


Abstract Itinerant traders provide an important route for West Africa's farmers' to get their perishable produce rapidly to the distant urban markets. But these farmers often accuse the traders of offering "unfairly" low prices while preventing direct access to these markets. Using Ghana's tomato sector as a case study, we provide the first detailed exploration of the interface between Ghana's farmers and traders, combining a theoretical model with novel empirical data on daily sales prices and tomato quality. We find that although the prices traders pay farmers are lower than prices in the urban markets, taking into account transport costs, these prices are higher than farmers receive from the local rural market. Our article suggests that policymakers would do better to focus on opening up access to the urban markets rather than on strengthening farmers' bargaining power with the traders, which restricts market volumes further and harms farmers unable to sell to traders.


There are numerous PCR-based assays available to characterize human fecal pollution in ambient waters. Each assay employs distinct oligonucleotides and many target different genes and microorganisms leading to potential variations in assay performance. Performance comparisons utilizing feces and raw sewage samples are needed to determine which assays are best suited for expensive and time-consuming field validation, fate, transport, and epidemiology studies. We report the assessment of five end-point PCR and 10 real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays that target genes from presumptive Bacteroidales microorganisms reported to be associated with human feces. Each assay was tested against a reference collection of 54 primary influent sewage samples collected from different geographical locations across the United States and 174 fecal DNA extracts from 23 different animal sources. Experiments indicate that human-associated genetic markers are distributed across a broad range of human populations but show substantial differences in specificity for human feces suggesting that particular assays may be more suitable than others depending on the abundance of genetic marker required for detection and the animal sources impacting a particular watershed or beach of interest.


This paper presents various techniques for the registration of real and virtual content and proposes an abstract representation for Augmented Reality (AR) through  a  pipeline  of  rendering  of  components  Until  now,  few  solutions wereavailable to create different AR rendering techniques without a high level of effort. In this paper, we propose a unifying framework which is flexible and easy to develop various rendering techniques in AR. Our framework supports combination  of  Photorealistic  or  NonPhotorealistic  Rendering  techniques  in AR  and  MixedReality  (MR)  applications.  Based  on  a  GPU  shader implementation,  our  framework  is  a  simple  and  extensible  solution  for rendering in AR. Finally, sample demonstrations of the various possibilities of the framework are described


Twinned BiPO4 has been confirmed to exhibit higher performance than pristine single-phase BiPO4 (HBIP) owing to the formation of a homo-junction between monazite monoclinic BiPO4 (nMBIP) and monoclinic BiPO4 (mMBIP). In the present study, further promotion of photocatalytic activity of twinned BiPO4 was achieved by coupling with BiOCl because of the formation of multi-junctions with a ladder band structure. The results showed that the photocatalytic activity of twinned BiPO4 enhanced 8.7 times and 2.5 times compared to that of pristine BiPO4 for degradation of methyl orange (MO) and acetaminophen (ACE), respectively, while the photocatalytic activity of the obtained multi-junctioned sample enhanced 35.7 times and 59.5 times compared to that of twinned BiPO4 for degradation of MO and ACE, respectively. XRD and Raman spectra revealed that the composites exhibited characteristic peaks of BiOCl and BiPO4 including nMBIP and mMBIP. In addition to the homo-junction between nMBIP and mMBIP, the hetero-junction between twinned BiPO4 and BiOCl was verified in the composites by TEM and HRTEM. The boosted transfer and separation of photo-excited charge carriers were attributed to the synergy between the homo-junction and hetero-junction in the composite, which were measured by the transient photocurrent response, EIS and PL. Consequently, the corresponding photocatalytic performance was notably improved. This work provides a new concept to design new multi-junctioned photocatalysts with both homo- and hetero-junctions for efficient pollutant removal in environmental renovation.


BACKGROUND
Cryptococcal meningitis associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection causes more than 600,000 deaths each year worldwide. Treatment has changed little in 20 years, and there are no imminent new anticryptococcal agents. The use of adjuvant glucocorticoids reduces mortality among patients with other forms of meningitis in some populations, but their use is untested in patients with cryptococcal meningitis.

METHODS
In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited adult patients with HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Uganda, and Malawi. All the patients received either dexamethasone or placebo for 6 weeks, along with combination antifungal therapy with amphotericin B and fluconazole.

RESULTS
The trial was stopped for safety reasons after the enrollment of 451 patients. Mortality was 47% in the dexamethasone group and 41% in the placebo group by 10 weeks (hazard ratio in the dexamethasone group, 1.11; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.84 to 1.47; P=0.45) and 57% and 49%, respectively, by 6 months (hazard ratio, 1.18; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.53; P=0.20). The percentage of patients with disability at 10 weeks was higher in the dexamethasone group than in the placebo group, with 13% versus 25% having a prespecified good outcome (odds ratio, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.25 to 0.69; P<0.001). Clinical adverse events were more common in the dexamethasone group than in the placebo group (667 vs. 494 events, P=0.01), with more patients in the dexamethasone group having grade 3 or 4 infection (48 vs. 25 patients, P=0.003), renal events (22 vs. 7, P=0.004), and cardiac events (8 vs. 0, P=0.004). Fungal clearance in cerebrospinal fluid was slower in the dexamethasone group. Results were consistent across Asian and African sites.

CONCLUSIONS
Dexamethasone did not reduce mortality among patients with HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis and was associated with more adverse events and disability than was placebo. (Funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development and others through the Joint Global Health Trials program; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN59144167.).


Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? In "The Wizard of Lies", Diana B. Henriques of "The New York Times" - who has led the paper's coverage of the Madoff scandal since the day the story broke - has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme, drawing on unprecedented access and more than one hundred interviews with people at all levels and on all sides of the crime, including Madoff's first interviews for publication since his arrest. Henriques also provides vivid details from the various lawsuits, government investigations, and court filings that will explode the myths that have come to surround the story. A true-life financial thriller, "The Wizard of Lies" contrasts Madoff's remarkable rise on Wall Street, where he became one of the country's most trusted and respected traders, with dramatic scenes from his accelerating slide toward self-destruction. It is also the most complete account of the heartbreaking personal disasters and landmark legal battles triggered by Madoff's downfall - the suicides, business failures, fractured families, shuttered charities - and the clear lessons this timeless scandal offers to Washington, Wall Street, and Main Street.


The figure of the "abused Aboriginal child" haunts the Australian legal imaginary in ways that are both poignant and dangerous. This article examines the role this figure has played in assertions of Australian law's violent jurisdictions, in the past and in the present. I examine the narratives that support law's claims to authority and jurisdiction over Aboriginal communities, arguing that practices of representation — narrative, figuration, and what we might more widely think of as "law's imaginary" — need to be interrogated and challenged, as an important means of intervening in law's violent jurisdictions. We need to engage in what I term here a "literary jurisprudence," in order to intervene in law's claims to authority and jurisdiction that are based on narratives of purported harm to the Aboriginal child. "Haunting" is used to think through the significance of the legal imagination in two ways: the ways in which narratives in legal and state archives affect culture and politics; and also the role of law's own imaginary and the ways in which its figures and narratives affect judicial outcomes, perhaps in ways that function beyond logic. To say that law is haunted by the figure of the abused Aboriginal child is to point to the affective, political, legal, and imaginative afterlife of narratives and figurations that are part of law, and which are not ended with each case or legislative regime but which, unresolved, are always living on.By way of an example of these practices, I provide a reading of harm in the novels of Alexis Wright, a leading Australian novelist, which I argue together provide an exemplary text that counters state law's representational practices and claims. What is needed to resist the use of the child figure as the occasion for further violence, I argue, and what this reading provides, can be described as a "counter-imaginary" to law's. This counter-imaginary re-writes law's narratives and figures, connects that which law has separated, and makes visible that which law has occluded. In particular, each of Wright's three novels Plains of Promise (1997), Carpentaria (2006), and The Swan Book (2013) is concerned with the relation of harm to questions of Aboriginal authority. Together, all three of Wright's novels provide a developed counter-imaginary to law's continuing assertions of authority over Aboriginal people based on the figure of the "abused Aboriginal child," from the early twentieth century to the present.


We consider the problem of finding a balanced ordering of the vertices of a graph. More precisely, we want to minimise the sum, taken over all vertices v, of the difference between the number of neighbours to the left and right of v. This problem, which has applications in graph drawing, was recently introduced by Biedl et al. [Discrete Applied Math. 148:27―48, 2005]. They proved that the problem is solvable in polynomial time for graphs with maximum degree three, but NP-hard for graphs with maximum degree six. One of our main results is to close the gap in these results, by proving NP-hardness for graphs with maximum degree four. Furthermore, we prove that the problem remains NP-hard for planar graphs with maximum degree four and for 5-regular graphs. On the other hand, we introduce a polynomial time algorithm that determines whetherthere is a vertex ordering with total imbalance smaller than a fixed constant, and a polynomial time algorithm that determines whether a given multigraph with even degrees has an 'almost balanced' ordering.


Thawing of permafrost potentially affects the global climate system through the mobilization of greenhouse gases, and poses a risk to human infrastructure in the Arctic. The response of ice-rich permafrost landscapes to a changing climate is particularly uncertain, and challenging to be addressed with numerical models. A main reason for this is the rapidly changing surface topography resulting from melting of ground ice, which is referred to as thermokarst. It is expressed in characteristic landforms which alter the hydrology, the surface energy balance, and the redistribution of snow of the entire landscapes. Polygonal patterned tundra which is underlain by massive ice-wedges, is a prototype of a sensitive permafrost system which is increasingly subjected to thermokarst activity throughout the Arctic.

In this talk I will present a scalable modeling approach, based on the CryoGrid land surface model, to investigate the degradation of ice-wedges. The numerical model takes into account lateral fluxes of heat, water, and snow between different topographic units of polygonal tundra and simulates topographic changes resulting from melting of excess ground ice (i.e., thermokarst), and from lateral erosion of sediment. We applied the model to investigate the influence of hydrological conditions on the development of different types of ice-wedge polygons in a study area in northern Siberia. We further used projections of future climatic conditions to confine the evolution of ice-wedge polygons in a changing climate, and assessed the amount of organic matter which could thaw under different scenarios. In a related study for a study site in northern Alaska, we demonstrated that the model setup can be used to study the effect of infrastructure on the degradation of ice-wedges.
Altogether, our modeling approach can be seen as a blueprint to investigate complexly inter-related processes in ice-rich permafrost landscapes, and marks a step forward towards an improved representation of these landscapes in large-scale land surface models.


Bad weather, such as snowfall, can seriously decrease the quality of images and pose great challenges to computer vision algorithms. In view of the negative effect of snowfall, this paper presents a single-image snow removal method based on a generative adversarial network (GAN). Unlike previous GANs, our GAN includes an attention mechanism in the generator component. By injecting attention information, the network can pay increased attention to areas covered by snow and improve its capability to perform local repairs. At the same time, we improve the traditional U-Net network by combining it with the residual network to enhance the effect of the model when removing snowflakes from a single image. Our experiments on both synthetic and real-word images show that our method produces better results than those of other state-of-the-art methods.


The addition of the achiral biphenyl dopant 2,2′,6,6′-tetramethyl-4,4′-bis(4-n-nonyloxybenzoyloxy)biphenyl (3) or its dithionoester or dithioester analogue (4, 5) to a 4 mol % mixture of the atropisomeric biphenyl dopant (R)-2,2′,6,6′-tetramethyl-3,3′-dinitro-4,4′-bis(4-n-nonyloxybenzoyloxy)biphenyl, (R)-1, in the phenylpyrimidine SmC host PhP1 produces a significant amplification of the spontaneous polarization induced by (R)-1. This amplification may be due to a chiral perturbation by (R)-1 which causes a shift in the equilibrium between enantiomeric conformations of the achiral dopant. The degree of polarization amplification afforded by the achiral dopant, as expressed by the polarization amplification factor PAF, varies with the nature of the linking group. This may be ascribed to different rotational distributions of the core transverse dipole moments relative to the polar axis of the SmC* phase and/or to differences in lateral bulk of the polar linking groups. The latter may affect the degree of chiral molecular recognition achieved by 3–5 in the binding site of the SmC* phase.


Contemporary threats to the independence of American judges have drawn critical comment from a variety of observers. In this spirit we describe and critique New York's under-examined practice of using "Acting" Supreme Court Justices. These are judges serving on courts of inferior jurisdiction who are temporarily appointed to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the state's trial court of general jurisdiction. As the "Acting" title denotes, these appointees do not enjoy significant job security in their Supreme Court judgeships. While we focus here on the "Acting" judiciary of New York that state is not alone in using temporary judges and much of what we offer is relevant to other jurisdictions. We argue that both the possibility of an "Acting" appointment and the lack of any security in the position if appointed to it, create incentives to please appointing authorities that restrict independent decision making. We recommend that New York abandon the practice of "Acting" judicial appointments. Failing that we recommend making the process fairer and more transparent.


DNA evidence, linking perpetrators to crime scenes, is central to many legal proceedings. However, DNA samples from crime scenes often contain PCR-inhibitory substances, which may generate blank or incomplete DNA profiles. Extensive DNA purification can be required to rid the sample of these inhibitors, although these procedures increase the risk of DNA loss. Most forensic laboratories use commercial DNA amplification kits (e.g., AmpFlSTR SGM Plus) with the DNA polymerase AmpliTaq Gold as the gold standard. Here, we show that alternative DNA polymerase-buffer systems can improve the quality of forensic DNA analysis and efficiently circumvent PCR inhibition in crime scene samples, without additional sample preparation. DNA profiles from 20 of 32 totally or partially inhibited crime scene saliva samples were significantly improved using Bio-X-Act Short, ExTaq Hot Start, or PicoMaxx High Fidelity instead of AmpliTaq Gold. A statistical model for unbiased quality control of forensic DNA profiles was developed to quantify the results. Our study demonstrates the importance of adjusting the chemistry of the PCR to enhance forensic DNA analysis and diagnostic PCR, providing an alternative to laborious sample preparation protocols.


Aim: The aim of the present work is to evaluate improved or enhanced antibacterial activity, controlled drug release, and biocompatibility of bacteriocin - chitosan nanoparticles (NPs) -cephalothin nano drug conjugate formulation stabilized by phycocyanin. Materials and Methods: Ionic gelation method was carried out to synthesize phycocyanin stabilized nano drug conjugate, and the synthesized nano drug conjugate was characterized by electron microscopy for determination of particle size and shape, energy dispersive atomic X-ray spectroscopy for elemental composition and surface modification by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Antibacterial activity was studied by well diffusion assay, microdillution colorimetric assay, and biofilm inhibition assay against food spoilage pathogenic bacterial strains. In vitro drug release of cephalothin from the nano drug, conjugate preparation was done by continuous dialysis method. Effect of temperature on the antibacterial activity of nano drug conjugate was also studied biocompatibility of nano drug conjugate was evaluated using in vitro 3-(4, 5-dimethyl thiazol-2-yl)-2-5-dephenyl tetrazoliumbromide (MTT) cyctotoxicty test using vero cell line. Hemocompatibility of nano drug conjugate was studied by spectrophotometric determination of plasma hemoglobin (Hb) and hemolysis of nano drug conjugate treated blood. Results and Discussion: Nano drug conjugate synthesized by ionic gelation method revealed electron-dense core-shell spherical particles with nano size range. An increase in antibacterial activity against the tested bacterial strains was recorded in nano drug conjugate-bacteriocin preparation treatment studied by all the assays which revealed an effective synergistic activity and the activity was not affected under the influence of temperature except 70°C. Nanoformulation brought about a steady constant release of cephalothin at increasing time. Less cytotoxic effect of nano drug conjugate against vero cell line adopting MTT assay and changes on plasma Hb and hemolysis supported the biocompatibility. Hemocompatibility of nano drug conjugate revealed no distinct changes in plasma Hb and complete absence of hemolysis. Conclusion: Formulation of cephalothin-bacteriocin by the phycocyanin stabilized chitosan NPs preparation showed distinct antibacterial activity, controlled release pattern, and best biocompatibility. This study would suggest the possible utilization of the synthesized nano drug conjugate against pathogenic bacterial strains.


OBJECTIVE
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating stress-related illness associated with trauma exposure. The peripheral and central mechanisms mediating stress response in PTSD are incompletely understood. Recent data suggest that the renin-angiotensin pathway, essential to cardiovascular regulation, is also involved in mediating stress and anxiety. In this study, the authors examined the relationship between active treatment with blood pressure medication, including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), and PTSD symptom severity within a highly traumatized civilian medical population.

METHOD
Cross-sectional, observational data were analyzed from a larger study; patients were recruited from Grady Memorial Hospital's outpatient population from 2006 to November 2010. Multivariable linear regression models were fit to statistically evaluate the independent association of being prescribed an ACE inhibitor or ARB with PTSD symptoms, using a subset of patients for whom medical information was available (n = 505). Categorical PTSD diagnosis was assessed using the modified PTSD Symptom Scale (PSS) based on DSM-IV criteria, and PTSD symptom severity (the primary outcome of interest) was measured using the PSS and Clinician Administered PTSD Scale.

RESULTS
A significant association was determined between presence of an ACE inhibitor/ARB medication and decreased PTSD symptoms (mean PSS score 11.4 vs 14.9 for individuals prescribed vs not prescribed ACE inhibitors/ARBs, respectively [P = .014]). After adjustment for covariates, ACE inhibitor/ARB treatment remained significantly associated with decreased PTSD symptoms (P = .044). Notably, other blood pressure medications, including β-blockers, calcium channel blockers, and diuretics, were not significantly associated with reduced PTSD symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
These data provide the first clinical evidence supporting a role for the renin-angiotensin system in the regulation of stress response in patients diagnosed with PTSD. Further studies should examine whether available medications targeting this pathway should be considered for future treatment and potential protection against PTSD symptoms.


Abstract This article reviews how the model of family medicine has developed over the last 15 years in the Western Cape. It is based on a series of in-depth interviews with key role players. This period coincides with the immediate post-apartheid era, in which both the health system and health science education experienced rapid transformation. The new focus on primary health care, the district health system and community-based education provided an opportunity for the disciplines of family medicine and in primary care to develop. The model that emerged required the family physician to work at both the district hospital and in primary care, and to have a number of different roles: care provider, consultant, capacity builder, supervisor, manager and community leader. Family medicine was accepted as a new speciality in 2007. The first specialist family physicians will qualify in 2011, and start to consolidate the model that has been developed. Although the model shows promise, a number of challenges still remain, in relation to the health system, the relationship between universities and the province, the discipline of family medicine, research, and training programmes. It is hoped that these reflections will be of value to other provinces in South Africa, and other countries in the region, that are also thinking of including family physicians in their health systems.


: One of the hallmarks of the American higher education has been its quality. In U.S.A colleges and universities are under constant pressure to strive to make their programs career oriented so as to meet the changing needs of the industry and the society. The accreditation process of colleges and universities in U.S.A is non-governmental operation. As a result colleges and universities fiercely compete in the market of higher education. Institutional autonomy allows them to changing their curriculum to inculcate and incubate entrepreneurial culture through their various programs. It is no accident that many American universities dominate the World University Rankings. There is lot of discourse in academia that an educated workforce is essential for a prosperous and sustainable economy. This has lead to heightened policy interest in higher education in American universities. This paper uses variety resources, data and facts to discuss accreditation process in U.S.A. The main focus of this paper is to explore models of accreditation being used in U.S.A and how they can be useful for other countries.


Over the last ten years there have been great strides made in the analysis of the regional structure of banking systems and financial integration both from the theoretical and empirical point of view. Experience shows that the financial structure tends to be hierarchical with an advanced financial centre at the top and local credit systems becoming gradually less advanced depending on the peripheral regions in which they operate. It is essential to recognise and deal with this fact and to consider the question of financial integration between the global and the local or, to be more exact, between the centre and the periphery. There are three basic ways to approach this question. The first two approaches present two well-known opposite views concerning the effects of integration: one is pessimistic and the other optimistic. In our opinion a third point of view, which we will call "possibilist", falls midway between the two extremes and offers a more realistic and accurate picture of the situation. The first two theories, widely discussed in the literature, have certain points in common. In particular, both emphasise a strong contrast between centre and periphery and attempt to ignore one of the two poles in the conviction that the other will prevail.The pessimistic theory concentrates exclusively on "localism". It maintains that the centre would take advantage of asymmetries in information, behaviour and structure and would invest the savings drained out of the peripheral regions and in this way slow down their development. This could lead to the radical conclusions that local segmentation of capital markets is preferable to integration. The optimistic theory concentrates exclusively on "globalisation". The hope is that higher competition will select the best enterprises (banks, firms) and standardise their performance at the levels of efficiency reached in the more advanced centre. This opinion leads one to believe that every region can become a centre in the hope of exorcising its peripheral nature. In our opinion, it is wiser to adopt what we call a "possibilist" or "open" approach. It is based on the continual exploration of the possibility of co-existence, complementarity, and interaction between different areas and therefore also between the centre and periphery. The territorial integration of local financial systems, which should not be disputed, must be carried out in a selective and gradual way, by trying to give preference to solutions that are best suited to the characteristics and assimilation ability of local firms and individuals. The paper deal with these questions by focusing our attention on the experience of the Italian banking system.


The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol raised the hopes of many, that payment for carbon sequestration services would provide a significant incentive for sustainable management practices in industrial forestry in tropical countries. Data to assess how realistic these hopes are, remain scant and high degree of uncertainty about CDM rules make assessment hazardous. The analysis in this paper focuses on the potential for using carbon trading to stimulate adoption of reduced impact logging (RIL)-based sustainable forest management. The result shows that: (i) expectations about the contribution carbon projects could make towards inducing sustainable timber harvesting should be scaled down; (ii) the cost-effectiveness of RIL-based SFM projects is likely to be highly-specific; (iii) RIL projects should be targeted to areas where timber volumes under RIL are similar to volumes under conventional logging with repeated harvesting at short intervals; (iv) pro-active measures could also be taken to expand the niche for RIL projects and reduce the risk of leakage and project failure; (v) CDM RIL projects should not be perceived as a silver bullet for inducing sustainable management and preventing forest degradation. (YS)


Endurance athletes usually achieve performance peaking with 2‐4 weeks of overload training followed by 1‐3 weeks of tapering. With a tight competition schedule, this may not be appropriate. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the effect of a compressed variant of the recommended overload and tapering approach (EXP; n = 9, VO2peak = 77 ± 5 mL·min−1·kg−1) with a 11‐day traditional taper that maintained the usual frequency of high‐intensity aerobic interval training (HIT) and reduced the duration of training at lower exercise intensity (TRAD, n = 8, VO2peak = 74 ± 4 mL·min−1·kg−1) on physiological and psychological variables of endurance performance. EXP performed a 6‐day period with daily HIT followed by a 5‐day step taper. Testing was performed before the intervention (pre), on the 7th (post‐1), and on the 11th day of the intervention (post‐2). From pre to post‐2, EXP achieved a larger relative improvement than TRAD in VO2peak (4.0 ± 3.7% vs 0.8 ± 1.8%, respectively, P = .041) and the 1‐min peak power output from the VO2peak test (5.0 ± 3.6% vs 0.9 ± 1.5%, respectively, P = .009) and had a tendency toward larger improvement in power output at a blood lactate concentration of 4 mmol∙L−1 (P = .088) and peak isokinetic knee extension (P = .06). The effect size of the relative improvement in the endurance variables revealed a moderate‐to‐large effect of EXP vs TRAD. In conclusion, this study indicates that elite cyclists performing the present 11‐day compressed performance peaking protocol consisting of a 6‐day HIT overload followed by a 5‐day step taper are superior to a 11‐day taper only.


Abstract. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 21 000 yr before present) was a period of low atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, when vast ice sheets covered large parts of North America and Europe. Paleoclimate reconstructions and modeling studies suggest that the atmospheric circulation was substantially altered compared to today, both in terms of its mean state and its variability. Here we present a suite of coupled model simulations designed to investigate both the separate and combined influences of the main LGM boundary condition changes (greenhouse gases, ice sheet topography and ice sheet albedo) on the mean state and variability of the atmospheric circulation as represented by sea level pressure (SLP) and 200-hPa zonal wind in the North Atlantic sector. We find that ice sheet topography accounts for most of the simulated changes during the LGM. Greenhouse gases and ice sheet albedo affect the SLP gradient in the North Atlantic, but the overall placement of high and low pressure centers is controlled by topography. Additional analysis shows that North Atlantic sea surface temperatures and sea ice edge position do not substantially influence the pattern of the climatological-mean SLP field, SLP variability or the position of the North Atlantic jet in the LGM.


Swimming is an integral part of the Australian lifestyle. Studies have examined drowning fatalities in public and residential swimming pools and the potential factors involved, but there is little evidence detailing the extent of injuries that occur in public pools. This article describes the types of injuries that occur at public pools, the locations in pools where injuries occur, the type of medical treatment required, and the rate of injury. Incident reports were collected from 18 public pools across metropolitan and regional Victoria, Australia. Over 6 months, 1,715 injuries were recorded, representing an injury rate of 142.2 per 100,000 pool visits. The highest proportion of injuries occurred in children age 5–14 years, accounting for 50% of all injuries. The injuries were typically minor cuts, bruises, and grazes. Individuals were usually involved in water recreation or swimming lessons when the injury occurred. The study demonstrated that the role of the lifeguard is much more than that of providing supervision and performing rescues.


Developing the arguments put forward in books such as Communitas , in this article the political  philosopher Roberto Esposito tries to overcome the customary opposition between the notions of community and nihilism. His aim is to rethink what community might mean in an age of 'completed nihilism'. In a subtle genealogical and etymological analysis of the concept of community, he demonstrates how, rather than establishing a substantial and positive bond, community is constituted by nothingness, by a shared lack—which communal, communitarian and totalitarian politics seek to deny. The excavation of the meaning of communitas allows Esposito to critically examine the manner in which the thinking of community has been expunged by modern political philosophy.


Chlorides have been reported to be present in several field cases where thaumasite attack has occurred. However, no published systematic research dealing with the role of chloride in the thaumasite form of sulfate attack could be found in the literature. This research project has been designed through a comprehensive experimental programme to address this issue. This investigation studies the following: the formation of thaumasite in long-term exposure of carbonated systems to sulfate environment; whether or not the presence of chloride affects the thaumasite form of sulfate attack (TSA); the effect of long-term and short-term carbonation on the precipitation of thaumasite; the composition of thaumasite formed in chloride containing solutions; the chloride binding capacity of thaumasite-affected cement matrix; and the use of metakaolin to prevent TSA in carbonated mortar. Mortar samples were cast using siliceous sand and Portland cement replaced by different amounts (0,5 and 15%) of limestone filler, and by 10% metakaolin. Mortar cubes were subsequently stored in deionised water, magnesium sulfate solution, combined sulfate and sodium chloride solution and simulated seawater at 5°C and 20°C. Long-term specimens consisted of Portland cement mortars containing 15% limestone filler, which were exposed to atmospheric carbonation at 5 and 20°C for 5 years, were also immersed in these salt solutions at both temperatures. The mortar cubes were examined regularly every month, and the results of visual assessment recorded. The mineralogy of the deteriorated products was determined by x-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IRS). The pH of the solutions was also measured periodically. The composition of the thaumasite and the deteriorated cement matrix was assessed by means of the determination of the unit cell parameters of the crystal, by quantitative infrared spectroscopy (IRS); scanning electron microscopy (SEM); backscattered electron image (BEI) and chemical analyses by energy dispersive X-ray and quantitative x-ray microanalyses. The results indicate that the effect of chloride on sulfate attack is affected by temperature, because it affects the solubility of some minerals and increases the activity of carbonates. At 20°C, the presence of chlorides appears to mitigate sulfate attack by combining with the aluminates of the cement forming Friedel's salt. At this temperature, the main carbonate phases were calcite and aragonite, whereas thaumasite was predominant in all samples at 5°C, which caused damage that increased with increase in the chloride concentration in solution and the carbonate content, as evidenced by increased loss of mass and pH. Because of the demand for an alkaline environment, thaumasite did not precipitate within the long-term carbonated surface areas, but immediately underneath. The formation of thaumasite was not prevented in carbonated specimens after short-term. In the presence of chloride, thaumasite precipitated with lower lattice parameter c, indicative of a higher carbonate to sulfate ratio, and its composition shifted towards the thaumasite end-member of the solid- solution series. Thus, chloride does not seem to enter into thaumasite crystal structure. In addition, the chloride binding capacity of thaumasite-affected areas of the cement is reduced as the residual CSH phase both decalcifies and loses its silicon to give place to the deposition of thaumasite. The performance of metakaolin containing mortars in salt solutions was improved by the pozzolanic effect, but also by an increase in the chloride binding capacity, which reduced the deleterious effect of the chloride on the formation of thaumasite. However, metakaolin-containing samples in magnesium sulfate developed some signs of damage that were detected after 18 months. The interaction between chloride and other ionic species on thaumasite formation in the cement matrix is very complex, and can have some implications to the CaC03 threshold for durable concretes under TSA prone environments and also to the steel corrosion of concrete reinforcement.


We have studied, in the salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum), an apparent hindrance to the sprouting of certain segmental nerves into adjacent skin supplied by neighbouring segmental nerves. The mechanosensory fields of the dorsal skin of the hindlimb were examined by recording the afferent impulses evoked by a fine bristle applied to the skin. Three segmental nerves normally supply the hindlimb, and together divide the dorsal skin into two major mechanosensory fields, an anterior one innervated by both the 15th spinal nerve (N15) and the anterior division of N16 (N16A), and a posterior one innervated by N17 and N16P. Denervations were done so as to leave only one of the two major fields intact, that of N15 (with or without an intact N16A) or of N17 (with or without N16P). The results were surprising: after a small (but significant) expansion of the remaining N15 or N17 field the sprouting of either of these nerves into the adjacent denervated skin ceased for a total post-operative period of at least two months; however, when N16A or N16P was present the N16 axons sprouted apparently without hindrance into the adjacent skin (showing that there was no mechanical barrier to sprouting at the frontier zone). The failure of N15 or N17 to invade the adjacent territory was not because their axons had reached an upper limit in their capacity to enlarge the size of their terminal fields: when a proportion of the axons of a remaining N17 was eliminated, the remainder sprouted progressively over the following weeks. Significantly they invaded denervated skin that was almost entirely confined to the territory of the 'parent' N17; the immediately adjacent skin formerly supplied by N15 was largely ignored. These results, and similar ones for N14, N16 and N18, suggest that the segmental cutaneous axons are hindered from sprouting to any great extent into skin normally occupied by a neighbouring segmental nerve, even when that nerve is removed. The axons will sprout readily within the territory of the parent nerve, and we call these territories 'domains'; their borders usually correspond fairly closely to those of the segmental dermatomes Regenerating nerves freely invaded 'foreign' skin, and thus were not susceptible to these spatial constraints. After a two month period the intact axons of a remaining N17 began freely to invade the adjacent domain, as though the constraint had suddenly disappeared. To test for skin 'specificity', skin flaps were excised, and reimplanted after rotation by 0-180°, in limbs that were either fully innervated or partially denervated. In about half of the instances the segmental nerves sprouted to re-establish their former spatial territories in the flaps with respect to the coordinates of the limb, without regard for the type of skin that they innervated (i.e. their former skin or 'foreign' skin). In the remaining cases the invasion of the flaps was often indiscriminate, as though by regenerating nerves. The spatial constraint thus seemed to operate at the borders of domains, and to relate to the limb as a whole, rather than to skin itself. The possible genesis of domains, and their significance, are discussed.


A new type of technology is becoming an education tool, the augmented reality. This tool is used in different category of education in order to facilitate learning. Together apps and other kind of tools like e-learning platforms can be used to promote learning through augmented reality. The purpose of our study is to investigate the possibilities of augmented reality to have a real contribution to the Romanian education system. The first part of the paper is highlighting the new trends in using augmented reality by other industries. The second part of the article is analyzing the perspective of improving learning process in the Romanian higher education system operating with augmented reality. The last part of the study is presenting the challenges in using this technology found through the realized quantitative study. The questionnaire presents the students attraction to those combined technologies. The sample gathered 164 students and it has been used as tool the online survey methods. A real interest of our research was to discover the augmented reality technology used but most of all how can be used in a learning activity. The research underlined the limits but also the advantages in using this kind of technologies and the specific interactions of this tool with e-learning platforms but also with other kind of tools. The reported results presented the enthusiasm and flexibility of the students in using such tools based especially on their experience of using apps and on their gaming experiences. Finally, we address different chances of research taking into consideration the limits but also the possibilities of the future for augmented reality.


Chez Panisse is a restaurant in Berkeley, California, run by Alice Waters and her large group of friends. Her daughter Fanny's stories of this busy place are a friendly and funny introduction to the delights of real restaurant life, and her recipes show how easy and inexpensive it is to make good food with basic ingredients and simple techniques. Opening up the magic world of cooking to children, Alice Waters describes, in the words of seven-year-old Fanny, the path food travels from the garden to the kitchen to the table. Teaching kids where food really comes from not just from the market but from farms and people who care about the earth, Fanny at Chez Panisse has lessons on the importance of eating with your hands, of garlic and of composting and recycling. It is also a delightful beginner's cookbook with 46 recipes that will tempt children into the desire to cook and eat with whole hearts, alert minds and all the senses. From banana milkshakes and green apple sherbet to cherry tomato pasta and black beans and sour cream, as well as spaghetti and meatballs, french fries and pizza, there is something here for every child to prepare and enjoy.


Brazilian asset-backed securities (ABS) appeal to investors because of their relatively high yields and diversification benefits. However, Brazilian and international investors struggle to price these ABS because of the country's unique financial calculations, lack of transparency, and the scarcity of quantitative pricing tools in Brazil. Even Bloomberg presents these securities with analytical tools for mutual funds rather than for typical ABS. Brazil's lack of standardization with respect to calculations and documentation compounds the pricing problems. This forces pricing tools to use more-complicated algorithms and pricing models. The authors show that this extra work is worth the effort. Arbitrage-free pricing models provide more insight into the potential returns and risks embedded in the shares (tranches) of a Brazilian ABS. They also propose norms for standardizing the information needed to trade in secondary markets for Fundos de Investimento em Direitos Creditórios (FIDCs—the most prevalent ABS vehicle). All market participants would benefit from the increased liquidity and capital flows that would result from adopting the best practices for pricing described in this article.


Abstract Taxonomic treatments recognize three varieties of Cercis canadensis: with variety canadensis, widespread throughout the eastern United States, and varieties texensis and mexicana, found east and west of the Pecos River in Texas, respectively. The distribution of Cercis continues southward into northeastern Mexico, but complex variation in leaf shape has confounded straightforward application of varietal names to the Mexican plants. To clarify the taxonomy of Cercis in Mexico, we conducted a morphometric analysis with 281 herbarium specimens, including a representative set of samples from Texas. Correlation and principal component analysis of 12 characters recovered two groups that correspond to the presence versus absence of branchlet pubescence. These groups are geographically distinct at the northern and southern extremes of the focus area but exhibit a large central region of overlap. No other discontinuities in character states were discovered to corroborate this division. Leaf shape varies continuously from ovate-acuminate at the northern and southern extremes to subreniform in the central region, suggesting clinal adaptation to the mesic versus xeric environments in which the plants occur. Based on our data, we apply the varietal epithets mexicana and, provisionally, texensis to Mexican C. canadensis with pubescent and glabrous branchlets, respectively, the latter based on geographic proximity to plants in Texas in the absence of definitive evidence on the phenotypic distinction between varieties canadensis and texensis.


China's growth potential has become a hotly debated topic as the economy has reached an income level susceptible to the "middle-income trap" and financial vulnerabilities are mounting after years of rapid credit expansion. However, the existing literature has largely focused on macro level aggregates, which are ill suited to understanding China's significant structural transformation and its impact on economic growth. To fill the gap, this paper takes a deep dive into China's convergence progress in 38 industrial sectors and 11 services sectors, examines past sectoral transitions, and predicts future shifts. We find that China's productivity convergence remains at an early stage, with the industrial sector more advanced than services. Large variations exist among subsectors, with high-tech industrial sectors, in particular the ICT sector, lagging low-tech sectors. Going forward, ample room remains for further convergence, but the shrinking distance to the frontier, the structural shift from industry to services, and demographic changes will put sustained downward pressure on growth, which could slow to 5 percent by 2025 and 4 percent by 2030. Digitalization, SOE reform, and services sector opening up could be three major forces boosting future growth, while the risks of a financial crisis and a reversal in global integration in trade and technology could slow the pace of convergence.


We sought to characterize the ability of hummingbirds to fuel their energetically expensive hovering flight using dietary sugar by a combination of respirometry and stable carbon isotope techniques. Broadtailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) were maintained on a diet containing beet sugar with an isotopic composition characteristic of C3 plants. Hummingbirds were fasted and then offered a solution containing cane sugar with an isotopic composition characteristic of C4 plants. By monitoring the rates of CO2 production and O2 consumption, as well as the stable carbon isotope composition of expired CO2, we were able to estimate the relative contributions of carbohydrate and fat, as well as the absolute rate at which dietary sucrose was oxidized during hovering. The combination of respirometry and carbon isotope analysis revealed that hummingbirds initially oxidized endogenous fat following a fast and then progressively oxidized proportionately more carbohydrates. The contribution from dietary sources increased with each feeding bout, and by 20 min after the first meal, dietary sugar supported ∼74% of hovering metabolism. The ability of hummingbirds to satisfy the energetic requirements of hovering flight mainly with recently ingested sugar is unique among vertebrates. Our finding provides an example of evolutionary convergence in physiological and biochemical traits among unrelated nectar‐feeding animals.


Critical social analysis seeks, amongst other things, to delineate and foster more emancipatory types of discipline and practice. In so doing, it appropriately turns to and can come to be informed and influenced by a broad range of subject areas and empirical focuses, including some that substantially parallel its own emancipatory project. The concern of this article is to explore the case of liberation theology as a social discipline and practice, including as a practice attending to the spiritual and theological. The article's intervention is consistent with the inspirational and insightful character of the theological and reflection upon religious beliefs and values. The concern is to reflect upon the possibilities and potentialities of analysis for accounting. The article explores the sense in which a review of liberation theology can provide critical researchers concerned to locate and promote a more emancipatory accounting with new insights and inspiration.


In this book chapter, I develop a typology of social problems at which social norms management and research might be directed. Much of the recent legal literature on law and social norms speaks of social norms generically and fail to distinguish among types of social problems. Yet a focus on different categories of social problems helps clarify important questions. How and when, for example, do social norms emerge to solve a social problem? What role can and should governments play in developing social norms as a regulatory tool? How should courts treat independently developed social norms? I suggest that the answers to these questions vary depending on at least two important characteristics: group size and the strength of economic or other interest among group members in resolving a social problem. I identify four types of social problems relevant to the development and management of social norms: "large-number, large-payoff" social problems, of which smoking and seat belt use are examples; "large-number small-payoff" collective action problems, which often involve the management of commons resources and include carpooling, recycling and blood donation; "small-group, large-payoff" problems, including Robert Ellickson's famous cattle ranchers; and a subset of small-group, large payoff problems involving commons resources, most thoroughly studied by Elinor Ostrom. Within some of these categories - small-number, large-payoff problems, for example - norms may arise internally to help resolve group problems and government may play little role in either facilitating or enforcing those norms. For other categories - large-number, large-payoff problems in particular - governments may seek to shape new norms to overcome bad behavior (or even bad norms) (drunk driving and smoking illustrate the point). The classifications, then, focus analysis on questions that may be of special import to one category of problem yet of little importance to another. By cataloguing and organizing social problems and the role social norms may play in resolving them the book chapter is meant to sharpen analysis, discussion, and debate about each particular group of problems.


OBJECTIVE. We identified and described the strategies parents use to support the mealtime participation of their child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). METHOD. Twelve families with children with ASD (ages 2–7 yr) participated in videotaped mealtime observations. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify strategies families used to facilitate participation. RESULTS. Six categories were identified: (1) parent intervening and ignoring, (2) meal preparation and adaptability, (3) play and imagination, (4) distractions, (5) positive reinforcements, and (6) modeling. Props—common child objects that support the child's mealtime participation—were used in the context of multiple strategies. In addition, increased parental vigilance emerged as an important component of all family mealtimes. CONCLUSION. Families used multiple strategies within and across mealtimes, highlighting the individualistic nature of feeding challenges. Understanding parent mealtime strategies allows for further investigation into the efficacy and development of intervention strategies to promote mealtime participation of children with ASD.


In this study, a model of in-situ geothermal energy piles was constructed using COMSOL Multiphysics® software. Geothermal energy piles serve two purposes, first to transfer building load into the subsurface, but also to extract thermal heat from surrounding soils. This is achieved using a heat pump coupled with embedded heat exchangers. As a result, a multiphysics problem is introduced - heat transfer coupled with fluid flow. This paper outlines the COMSOL model description and discusses results obtained during calibration. The configuration outlined by Murphy et al. (2014) was used to construct geometry, define boundary conditions, and calibrate the model. Calibration was accomplished using a Thermal Response Test (TRT) performed on four energy piles during the summer of 2013 in a full-scale field experiment. The test lasted for 1800 hours total; 500 hours of active heat rejection into the soil surrounding the energy piles and 1300 hours of non-operational observation. Accordingly, a numerical analysis of the TRT was performed in three dimensions using both the Heat Transfer Module and Pipe Flow Module. Heat transfer in solids and porous media was imposed on the energy pile and surrounding soils. Non-isothermal pipe flow was imposed on the heat exchange tubes embedded in the energy piles. Additionally, several field data were incorporated into the model including variables for atmospheric temperature, inlet pipe temperature/flow, and subsurface temperature gradients. The model was successfully calibrated using in-situ TRT data. Good agreement was observed within Foundation 4 and at Borehole 4 (Figures 1 & 2). Existing discrepancies in model predictions can be attributed to unknown soil condition/stratification at depths greater than 12m, coarse meshing within the model, and simplifications within heat transfer and pipe flow physics.


Aim: This study is a qualitative study planned to reveal the feelings, thoughts and experiences that the diabetic patients experience in their disease processes, to determine what the disease means for them and to reveal ways to cope. Method: 20 patients, who were hospitalized with diagnosis of diabetes for treatment at the Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Clinic of Gulhane Education and Research Hospital, were included in the study. In-depth interviews with patients were conducted to collect data. A semi-structured questionnaire aimed at revealing the ages and genders, as well as the feelings, thoughts and experiences of the diabetic patients was used in the interviews, which lasted approximately 45 minutes. Individual interviews were held in each patient's own room. Before conducting the interview, the clinic staff was warned about the interview with the patient, and the measures were taken to ensure that the interview was not split. All interviews were recorded with the patient's permission and the recorded interviews were transferred into text as the same. The descriptive analysis method that is frequently used for analysis of data in the qualitative researches was used. Results: 7 of the patients participating in the study were males and 13 were females. It was determined that 45% of the patients were between 60-69 years of age, 85% were married, 60% lived with spouses and children. It was detected that the patients had diabetes for an average of 16,55 years and 90% received insulin + oral anti-diabetic treatment. As a result of the qualitative analysis of the patient interviews; the 5 (five) main themes were identified as "meeting with diabetes", "difficulties in living with diabetes", "fears caused by diabetes", "coping with the diabetic life", and "future with diabetes". Conclusion: As a result, it is thought that it is important not to consider diabetes as only a physical disease, in addition, the subjects such as emotional reactions, perception of the disease, and life challenges should be evaluated by the health professionals in order to improve diabetes compliance.


Objectives
We evaluated the association between cumulative stressful life events (SLE) and type of stress (lifetime vs. recent) and incident diabetes (T2DM) in middle-aged U.S. adults.

Methods
Data from the 2006-2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) were analyzed (n = 7956). Stress-related differences in age at T2DM diagnosis were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models.

Results
The adjusted risk of T2DM significantly increased by six percent per unit increase in cumulative SLE (95% CI = 1.03, 1.11), by five percent per unit increase in lifetime stress (95% CI = 1.00, 1.09), and by 23% per unit increase in recent stress (95% CI = 1.12, 1.36). Each level of cumulative SLE (one, two, three, and > four events) and recent stress (one and > two events) compared to no stress was significantly associated with an increased risk of T2DM. Each level of lifetime stress compared to no stress was significantly associated with an elevated risk of T2DM except for three events.

Discussion
Cumulative SLE and type of stress were associated with incident T2DM in middle-aged adults. Reducing the direct effect of stress with management interventions may reduce the indirect effect of developing T2DM and warrants further investigation.


Abstract Aggregates are major constituents in construction, the global demand for which approaches some 22 billion tonnes per year. Some major challenges follow: firstly, the dependency on geological conditions and the availability of resources; secondly, the traffic, emissions and energy use connected with transportation; thirdly, the technology of utilizing resources with a variety of properties to meet user requirements; and finally, the need for increased awareness, particularly over issues like land-use conflicts, environmental impact of the aggregate and quarrying industry, and the need to make these activities sustainable. Aggregate standards have primarily been written by engineers, and engineers are first of all concerned with technical requirements. However, in the future, there will be a greater focus on environmental impact and sustainability. Geological resources are non-renewable, which, for example, can be seen in the rapid depletion of natural sand/gravel deposits. This causes increasing awareness along with environmental impact, conflicts of interest concerning land use, sustainability in mass balance and – not least – increasing transport distances required to get the materials to the places of use. The principle of a Best Available Concept (BAC) for aggregate production and use is introduced, working with four essential phases: inventory and planning; quarrying and production; use of aggregates; and reclamation of mined-out areas. In order to compare alternatives and calculate environmental and economic consequences of decisions, it is recommended that new LCC (Life Cycle Cost) and LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) tools are worked with, which have been recently developed in two EU (European Union) funded research projects.


The effects of sloping upper and lower boundaries on baroclinic waves in a differentially heated rotating fluid annulus have been studied experimentally. Measurements have been made of the internal temperature structure, the transition from axisymmetric to non-axisymmetric flow, the wave numbers and flow types, the drift rates and the heat transfer. The sloping boundaries influence the baroclinic waves in two distinct ways: if they are parallel the energy releasing mechanism is directly affected, while if they are not parallel effects similar to the latitudinal variation of coriolis parameter in a planetary atmosphere (the (3-effect) are introduced. In order to identify essentially non-linear effects the results on the transition from axisymmetric to non-axisymmetric flow, the wave numbers and the drift rates have been compared with an appropriately extended version (by Hide) of Eady's linear perturbation theory of baroclinic instability. In the case of the transition from axisymmetric to non-axisymmetric flow, when account was taken of concomitant changes in the internal temperature structure, surprisingly good agreement with linear theory was obtained. Within the regular wave regime, the azimuthal wave numbers agreed quite well when the theoretically predicted value was 1, 2 or 3 but for higher predicted wave numbers the observed wave numbers were smaller. In the case of oppositely sloping boundaries the observed drift rates relative to the mean flow were generally 30 % less than that of the unstable waves of the linear theory. Another departure from the linear theory also occurred when the boundaries sloped in opposite senses, namely the occurrence at sufficiently rapid rotation rates of two separate wave trains of limited radial extent and differing wave numbers and drift speeds; one dominated the flow near the inner cylinder and the other dominated the flow near the outer cylinder. This result suggests that the variation of coriolis parameter with latitude can determine the radial extent of the baroclinic waves. Apart from its intrinsic interest as a fluid-mechanical study this work bears on the role played by the (3-effect and large-scale topography in natural systems such as the atmosphere and oceans. It also shows that at the higher rotation rates used the sloping eeopotentials inevitably present in previous laboratory experiments on baroclinic waves have important effects, and in particular explains the failure of previous theories to account for the position of part of the transition from axisymmetric to non-axisymmetric flow.


An investigation was conducted to examine the validity of self reported work histories obtained from a sample of 326 capacitor manufacturing workers who had participated in an epidemiological study relating health abnormalities to exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls. Based on objective personnel records obtained for 288 members of the sample group, validity scores ranged from 20% to 100% with most falling between 70% and 75%. This validity range corresponded to misclassification proportions ranging from 13% to 29%. Exposure misclassification tended to be random for men but non-random for women (overestimation of exposure). By means of multiple regression analysis, the diversity of the job categorical pattern was found to be a significant independent predictor of validity. The factors sex, duration, and time lapse were also significant validity predictors but only interactively with job diversity. There were also indications that interviewer skill could be an important factor. Knowledge of the magnitude of these factor effects could be critical in planning retrospective epidemiological studies.


A common quality impairment observed in surgery videos is blur, caused by object motion or a defocused camera. Degraded image quality hampers the progress of machine-learning-based approaches in learning and recognizing semantic information in surgical video frames like instruments, phases, and surgical actions. This problem can be mitigated by automatically deblurring video frames as a preprocessing method for any subsequent video analysis task. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a multi-scale deconvolutional neural network to deblur cataract surgery videos. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of the visual quality of frames as well as PSNR improvement.


One of the most striking features of meandering rivers are quasi-regular ridges of the point bar, evidence of a pulsed lateral migration of meander bends. Scroll bars formed on the inner bend are preserved on the point-bar surface as a series of ridges as meanders migrate, and in the subsurface of the point bar as inclined heterolithic stratification with lateral accretion surfaces. It is necessary to understand the formation and sedimentary architecture of these point bars, which are fundamental geomorphic building blocks of meandering rivers and potential reservoirs for water, oil, and gas. However, it remains unresolved whether the scroll-bar pattern forms in response to outer bend bank erosion during floods (i.e., bank pull), or is forced by bank progradation (i.e., bar push). Here we use experimentally formed meandering rivers with a set of static and migrating bends to isolate the effects of sediment supply to the point bar, bank protection, and forced bank retreat. We find that channel widening caused by bank retreat near the bend apex causes deposition of new scroll ridges along the inner bend point bar, whereas scroll bars cannot be forced by sediment pulses. Thus channel width variations along meander bends cause bank pull, which is necessary for scroll-bar formation. Furthermore, we find that each newly attached scroll bar overlies a nonpermeable layer of finer-grained sediment caused by the temporary flow expansion, which explains the fining-upward tendency of point bars.


BACKGROUND
Pityriasis rosea is an acute inflamatory skin disease that the etiology is unknown but some viral agents like human herpes virus-6 and 7 and drugs are suspected.

CASE REPORT
A-58-year-old man with chronic hepatitis C was being followed up in our hospital. Pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) alfa-2b (100 μg per week) and ribavirin (1000 mg/day) was started. In the third month of this treatment, the patient was diagnosed with pityriasis rosea (PR), which was confirmed by skin biopsy. PEG-IFN alfa-2b treatment for chronic hepatitis C was maintained and no therapy was given for PR. The lesions spontaneously improved within 5 weeks.

CONCLUSION
Interferon and ribavirin have several cutaneous side effects. Our case is the first case of PR, emerged in a patient with chronic hepatitis C while receiving PEG-IFN alfa 2b and ribavirin.


A new reflect-array antenna structure is proposed. This structure utilizes a perforated substrate as a reflecting surface with the lattice of different holes. The effective electric permittivity of the dielectric substrate is altered by drilling holes with different diameter and spacing, which provide an in-homogeneous dielectric layer. This in-homogeneous dielectric layer can be controlled by these holes to collimate the reflected waves in the special direction. Absence of resonator elements in this structure will reduce the dielectric and conductor losses, which are the main losses in reflect-array antennas at resonance frequency. In addition, a simple method based on an equivalent circuit model is introduced for designing and analyzing this kind of antennas. Using this method, the suitable values of the diameter and spacing of the holes at each point on the reflecting surface are obtained. Some proposed antennas are designed at millimeter wave frequency and simulated by full-wave analyzer; CST Microwave Studio software to verify theoretical results.


This paper offers recommendations and a road map for the future success of a restarted technology assessment office in Congress. We look at three potential approaches: (1) Building up the Government Accountability Office (GAO)'s OTA-like capacity in its newly created Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team, and giving it greater resources and structural autonomy; (2) Reviving OTA but updating its procedures and statutory authority; and (3) A hybrid approach wherein both GAO and a new OTA develop different capacities and specializations. The next section of this paper reviews what OTA was and how it functioned. The third section discusses the history of and rationale for the defunding of OTA, other cuts to Congress's S&T capacity, and why this congressional capacity and expertise matter for democracy. The fourth section reviews efforts to revive OTA and other efforts to build new congressional S&T capacity. The fifth section discusses the political landscape for building S&T capacity, including the legislative branch appropriations process and the different political constituencies for S&T. The final section offers a detailed discussion of various structural recommendations for a new congressional technology assessment office, including an expanded STAA unit in GAO, and a new OTA.