Biology has long been recognized as an excellent source of analogies and stimuli for engineering design. Previous work focused on the systematic identification of relevant biological analogies by searching for instances of functional keywords in biological information in natural language format. This past work revealed that engineering keywords couldn't always be used to identify the most relevant biological analogies, as the vocabularies between biology and engineering are sufficiently distinct. Therefore, a method of identifying biologically meaningful keywords that correspond to engineering keywords was developed. Here, we apply and refine this method by generating biologically meaningful keywords for the terms of the Functional Basis, which is widely accepted as a standardized representation of the functionality of engineering products. We present insights gained on the selection of biologically meaningful keywords for the function sets based on semantic relations. We then observe the use of our keywords by providing 4th year undergraduate design students with the biologically meaningful keywords that are related to the desired functions of their design projects.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


Business process change (BPC) projects are complex initiatives with many interrelated factors that still cause unforeseen delays and even cancellations. While research on BPC provides useful insights into successes and failures of BPC projects, we argue that these insights remain rather fragmented. We present a multi-method approach to create a coherent picture by extracting variables and causal links within BPC projects. We do so by adopting case survey methodology and causal loop diagrams. We show the usefulness of this approach by analyzing and consolidating insights of 130 BPC case studies. We make two main contributions: (1) we show the potential of system dynamics in BPC research by integrating the fragmented research on BPC to achieve more coherent picture, and (2) we contribute to the literature on qualitative methods used in system dynamics, as we propose to use case survey methodology for developing causal loop diagrams.


We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find muted effects of oil through market channels: offshore oil has no effect on municipal non-oil GDP or its composition, while onshore oil has only modest effects on non-oil GDP composition. However, oil abundance causes municipal revenues and reported spending on a range of budgetary items to increase, mainly as a result of royalties paid by Petrobras. Nevertheless, survey-based measures of social transfers, public good provision, infrastructure, and household income increase less (if at all) than one might expect given the increase in reported spending. To explain why oil windfalls contribute little to local living standards, we use data from the Brazilian media and federal police to document that very large oil output increases alleged instances of illegal activities associated with mayors.


Abstract In this work, we present an improved method for the semi-quantitative determination of sulfur species in S-bearing minerals by electron microprobe analysis. For calibration, we analyzed several sulfate and sulfide standard minerals such as baryte, celestine, chalcopyrite, and pyrite, and correlated the results with theoretical calculations retrieved from density functional theory (DFT). We applied this method to natural sodalite-group minerals from various localities. In addition, we applied the more common Raman spectroscopy to some samples and show that this method cannot be applied to sodalite-group minerals to determine their sulfur speciation. We show that even though sodalite-group minerals have a complex crystal structure and are sensitive to the electron beam, electron microprobe analysis is a reliable tool for the analysis of their sulfur speciation. The natural sodalite-group minerals show systematic variations in sulfur speciation. These variations can be correlated with the independently determined oxidation state of the parental magmas thus making S-bearing sodalitegroup minerals good redox proxies, although we show that the electron microprobe analysis of the sulfur speciation is matrix-dependent, and the sulfur speciation itself depends on crystal chemistry and structure, and not only on fO₂.


We study the multiple manifold problem, a binary classification task modeled on applications in machine vision, in which a deep fully-connected neural network is trained to separate two low-dimensional submanifolds of the unit sphere. We provide an analysis of the one-dimensional case, proving for a simple manifold configuration that when the network depth $L$ is large relative to certain geometric and statistical properties of the data, the network width $n$ grows as a sufficiently large polynomial in $L$, and the number of i.i.d. samples from the manifolds is polynomial in $L$, randomly-initialized gradient descent rapidly learns to classify the two manifolds perfectly with high probability. Our analysis demonstrates concrete benefits of depth and width in the context of a practically-motivated model problem: the depth acts as a fitting resource, with larger depths corresponding to smoother networks that can more readily separate the class manifolds, and the width acts as a statistical resource, enabling concentration of the randomly-initialized network and its gradients. The argument centers around the neural tangent kernel and its role in the nonasymptotic analysis of training overparameterized neural networks; to this literature, we contribute essentially optimal rates of concentration for the neural tangent kernel of deep fully-connected networks, requiring width $n \gtrsim L\,\mathrm{poly}(d_0)$ to achieve uniform concentration of the initial kernel over a $d_0$-dimensional submanifold of the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^{n_0-1}$, and a nonasymptotic framework for establishing generalization of networks trained in the NTK regime with structured data. The proof makes heavy use of martingale concentration to optimally treat statistical dependencies across layers of the initial random network. This approach should be of use in establishing similar results for other network architectures.


This experiment investigated the effects of goal setting on children's self-efficacy and reading comprehension. Remedial readers participated in a comprehension strategy instructional program on finding main ideas. Some subjects received a product goal of answering questions, others were given a process goal of learning to use the strategy, and subjects in an instructional control condition were told to work productively. Compared with control subjects, process and product goal children judged self-efficacy significantly higher, and process goal children demonstrated higher comprehension skill. On a measure of goal perceptions, process goal children placed significantly greater emphasis on learning to use the strategy compared with children in the other two conditions, and judged becoming a better reader more important than did product goal subjects. These results suggest the usefulness of goal setting with remedial readers and of employing goals relating to learning processes.


Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales. Edited by Manna Bolina, Helena Goscilo, and Mark Lipovetsky Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005. xiv + 418 pp. Now that the kind of cachet that Russia had during the Cold War has moved to new languages and regions, many Russian programs on college and university campuses have discovered that Russian fairy tales make a popular undergraduate or general education topic. A number of courses now taught in the United States descended from one originally created by Helena Goscilo, professor of Slavic at the University of Pittsburgh. Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales aims partly to serve such classes and partly to do much more. It includes translations by a number of individuals, some done expressly for this book, framed with theoretical essays by three editors who are all prominent scholars of Russian literature and culture. As these origins suggest, the book may serve as a required or supplemental text in courses on folklore, culture, and literature in a framework of Russian or Slavic studies but also as Russian material in a comparative course. It can also be profitably employed for pleasure reading, individual study, or research, particularly the enlightening and richly footnoted section introductions. The book's three sections present "Folkloric Fairy Tales," "Fairy Tales of Socialist Realism," and "Fairy Tales in Critique of Soviet Culture," followed by brief notes on the translators and sources. Goscilo points out (xii) that the editors chose to exclude nineteenth- century Russian literary fairy tales, such as Pushkin's tales in verse or Aksakov's version of "Beauty and the Beast," "The Little Scarlet Flower," since that line of development does not lead neatly to the Soviet uses of folklore forms. Goscilo provides the edition's foreword (ix-xiv) and introduces the section of folkloric fairy tales, presenting them largely in terms of the course she created, with a description and evaluation of Russian and Western European folklore theory and analysis. The subsequent twelve translations by Goscilo include some of the tales that are most popular among Russian and other readers and some that have been adapted by Russian composers for opera, ballet, or orchestral treatment: "Vasilisa the Beautiful," "The Tale of Prince Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf." Goscilo also includes "The Magic Ring," a cheerful example of Aleksandr Afanas' ev's bawdy folktales, which have been published more than once in English translation but never combined with the "censored" general collection. Goscilo's translations are brisk and pragmatic, with an occasional slip in style (anachronistic expressions, run-on sentences), but enjoyably readable as she captures the down-t o- earth style of the originals. Marina Balina (professor of Russian and German at Illinois Wesleyan University) introduces the Socialist Realist tales that Richard Dors on might have described as "fakelore." Balina's well-informed survey outlines the Soviet adoption of fairy tales for propaganda purposes and explains in elegant detail how propaganda functions in each of the five tales that follow. This section shows vividly how inapt the English term "Fairy Tales" is for many Russian examples - "magical tales" is a better rendering of the term volshebnye skazki. These Stalinist creations show the era's ambition to force once-imaginary wonders into reality, as magic beings or objects illustrate the transition to new social norms or teach class consciousness and properly unselfish behavior (Valentin Kataev's "Flower of Seven Colors"). …


Web 2.0 is of growing importance and nowadays also a hot topic for public institutions. However, it is still an open question if users appreciate and recognize the merit of Web 2.0 applications in the context of public institutions. The presented paper describes first empirical findings on usersâ?? reactions on the linkage of a modern library 2.0 with Web 2.0 applications, namely the presence in social networks and the integration of blogs and wikis. The results showed that most users didnâ??t recognize the benefit of Web 2.0 in the context of the homepage of a library 2.0. However, even though they didnâ??t use the accordingly Web 2.0 links by themselves, they thought that the connection to Web 2.0 is a necessity for the image of a modern library. These findings imply that the connection to Web 2.0 is important for the image of a modern public institution but the surplus benefit has to be better communicated and to be made more visible on the conventional homepage in Web 1.0.


BACKGROUND
Human female meiosis is particularly error prone, leading to the generation of aneuploidy, a problem which increases dramatically with advancing age. Despite being of great clinical importance, the genesis of oocyte aneuploidy remains poorly understood. Cumulus cells (CCs) surround oocytes in antral follicles and play a crucial role in regulating their maturation. During this investigation, we aimed to obtain an insight into the follicular environment of oocytes that become aneuploid and identify non-invasive markers of oocyte chromosome status and competence.

METHODS
Microarray comparative genomic hybridization was used to assess oocyte ploidy. Expression of 96 genes was examined via a large real-time PCR experiment in 51 CC samples, whereas an additional 26 CC clumps were used for a more focused real-time PCR experiment assessing just three genes. Gene selection was based on the results of a previous microarray analysis comparing the transcriptome of CCs from normal and aneuploid oocytes.

RESULTS
Fifty eight of the investigated genes were confirmed to be expressed in CCs. Patterns of expression were generally similar among all CC samples, regardless of the chromosomal status of the corresponding oocyte. However, two genes, SPSB2 and TP53I3, were both significantly down-regulated in CCs from chromosomally abnormal oocytes (P<0.05). The expression of SPSB2 was also found to display a strong trend towards up-regulation in the CCs of oocytes that produced a healthy live birth (P=0.054).

CONCLUSIONS
In the current study, SPSB2 and TP53I3 exhibited highly significant differences in their expression between CCs of normal and chromosomally abnormal oocytes. SPSB2 is involved in intracellular signalling and homeostasis, whereas TP53I3 regulates carbohydrate metabolism and apoptosis. We speculate that both these genes might have the potential to serve as non-invasive markers of oocyte aneuploidy.


Objective: The surgical flap delaying has been shown to be effective in preventing partial flap loss or in preparing larger flaps. However, there is no gold standard flap delay method in the literature. In this study, the authors aimed to compare 3 types of surgical delay methods to determine which model would increase more flap survival. The authors also investigated the effect of delay methods on circulating mononuclear leukocytes as a parameter of DNA damage. Methods: Twenty-four Sprague-Dawley male rats were divided into 4 groups. All subjects had a 10 × 3 cm modified McFarlane flap. Surface area measurements, biopsies, and blood samples were taken on the day of sacrification; 7th day for the control group and 14th day for delay groups. Results: Between incisional surgery delay groups, a significant difference was found in necrosis and apoptosis in the bipedicled group, and only necrosis in the tripedicled group compared to the control. In terms of DNA damage, it was found higher in all experimental groups than in the control group. Conclusions: Both incisional surgical delay procedures' results were meaningfully effective when only incisions were made without the elevation of flaps. In conclusion, bipedicled incisional surgical delay seems to be the most effective method in McFarlane experimental flap model whereas two-staged surgeries may increase the risk of systemic toxicity.


Studies of communication in early infancy and childhood have highlighted the significance of rhythm, sound and music for emotional and social development. There is, however, little detailed empirical data on the emergence of naturalistic music-related behaviour by children in the early years. The aim of this work is to examine instances of musicality with respect to their form and/or function and to trace out developmental indices of musically related behaviours and competencies. Employing a single-case study approach, this paper documents the emergence of one child's musicality between the ages of 1 year, and 3 years 10 months. From a data corpus of video-recordings, 33 examples of musicality, representing 20 time periods, were examined and categorized. In order to examine specific instances, ethnomethodologically informed conversation analysis was used to consider examples in more detail. Beyond indicating what conversation analysis might bring to the study of musical behaviour in context, the results highlight certain interrelationships between musicality, early word use, interpersonal skill and narrative development. Distinct phases — social-affective followed by 'song-word' play and finally narrative-related musicality — were identified in the data. Concluding comments touch on the significance of emerging musicality for social and cognitive development.


From Yeast to Therapeutic? Yeast has shown some promise as a model system to generate lead compounds that could have therapeutic potential for the cellular problems associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Along these lines, Tardiff et al. (p. 979, published online 24 October) and Chung et al. (p. 983, published online 24 October) describe the results of multiple screens in yeast that lead to the identification of a potential therapeutic compound to combat the cytotoxic affect of α-synuclein accumulation. The compound was able to reverse the pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease in cultured neurons derived from patients with α-synuclein–induced Parkinson's disease dementia. Screening in yeast yields an effective therapeutic for Parkinson's patient–derived neuronal stem cells. The induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell field holds promise for in vitro disease modeling. However, identifying innate cellular pathologies, particularly for age-related neurodegenerative diseases, has been challenging. Here, we exploited mutation correction of iPS cells and conserved proteotoxic mechanisms from yeast to humans to discover and reverse phenotypic responses to α-synuclein (αsyn), a key protein involved in Parkinson's disease (PD). We generated cortical neurons from iPS cells of patients harboring αsyn mutations, who are at high risk of developing PD dementia. Genetic modifiers from unbiased screens in a yeast model of αsyn toxicity led to identification of early pathogenic phenotypes in patient neurons. These included nitrosative stress, accumulation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER)–associated degradation substrates, and ER stress. A small molecule identified in a yeast screen (NAB2), and the ubiquitin ligase Nedd4 it affects, reversed pathologic phenotypes in these neurons.


This study was conducted to test if tumour drug uptake could be increased in experimental colorectal cancer peritoneal metastases, by using pretreatment with peritoneal vasoconstriction or radioimmunotherapy. A total of 29 nude rats with peritoneal metastases were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with 14C-labelled 5-FU. The animals were randomly allocated to 5 groups. Six days prior to 5-FU, group I (control) received i.p. NaCl, group II was subjected to i.p. radioimmunotherapy (RIT) 131I-labelled anti-CEA monoclonal antibody (150 MBq) and group III received i.p. Norbormide 10 minutes before 5-FU. Two days prior to 5-FU group IV and V received i.p. NaCl (control) and RIT, respectively. 5-FU uptake was visualised with autoradiography and quantified by computer-based image analysis. Tumours in group III showed a higher uptake (mean+/-SD, 21.4+/-17) than in group I (11.8+/-10, p=0.04). This was also true when the analysis was restricted to larger tumours (> or = median 627 pixels) group III (23.2+/-19) vs. group I (11.8+/-7, p=0.002). Peritoneal tumours in group II were of smaller size (median area 308 pixels) than in group I (619 pixels), in group III (901 pixels), in group IV (769 pixels) and in group V (808 pixels). RIT decreased the tumour size whereas it did not affect 5-FU uptake. The uptake of 5-FU was potentiated by pretreating the animals with Norbormide. These results demonstrate that 5-FU uptake in experimental peritoneal metastases is increased when the peritoneal absorption of the drug is blocked using pretreatment with a vasoconstrictive agent. This principle may also be relevant when treating patients with colorectal cancer peritoneal metastases.


We consider the problem of estimating the parameters of a multivariate Bernoulli process with auto-regressive feedback in the high-dimensional setting where the number of samples available is much less than the number of parameters. This problem arises in learning interconnections of networks of dynamical systems with spiking or binary-valued data. We allow the process to depend on its past up to a lag $p$, for a general $p \ge 1$, allowing for more realistic modeling in many applications. We propose and analyze an $\ell_1$-regularized maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) under the assumption that the parameter tensor is approximately sparse. Rigorous analysis of such estimators is made challenging by the dependent and non-Gaussian nature of the process as well as the presence of the nonlinearities and multi-level feedback. We derive precise upper bounds on the mean-squared estimation error in terms of the number of samples, dimensions of the process, the lag $p$ and other key statistical properties of the model. The ideas presented can be used in the high-dimensional analysis of regularized $M$-estimators for other sparse nonlinear and non-Gaussian processes with long-range dependence.


The runtime behaviors of software systems are often subject to alteration or intervention after their development cycles for various reasons such as performance profiling, debugging, code specialization, and more. There are two separate domains related to the instrumentation of software systems, one being various performance measurement and instrumentation tools, the other the new aspect oriented programming (AOP) paradigm. This paper describes TinyC language, a language approach which experiments with the idea of implementing an aspect oriented language based upon existing system instrumentation techniques. Like other aspect oriented languages, TinyC uses new language constructs to allow programmers to intentionally compose systems in the dimensions of both components and aspects. In this paper, we discuss both the grammatical features and the compiler architecture of the TinyC language. Through the TinyC implementation, we demonstrate that a language approach can well bridge the gap between the AOP paradigm and the existing system instrumentation technologies. It greatly simplifies code instrumentation effort and provides runtime optimization at the application level.


On the Brazilian coast, where sandy shores predominate, not only the form of the coastline but depositional features associated therewith (spits, sandbanks, etc.) have also been frequently used as geomorphic indicators of the predominant direction of the longshore transport of sediments. On the southern coastal region of State Sao Paulo, the growth of prominent features is related not only to the longshore drift but also to the interaction between these processes and internal dynamics strongly conditioned by the action of tides. This intense interaction takes place especially in the proximities of lagoonal mouths. In the lagoonal mouth of Ararapira (on the boundary of the states of Sao Paulo and Parana) the growth of the sandy spit occurs in the opposite direction to that of the drift of the current responsible for the transport of sediments along the coastline. On the other hand, on the lagoonal mouth of Icapara, to the northeast of Iguape (SP) the growth of the sandy feature occurs in the same direction as that of the drift current most effective in the transport of sediments, inasmuch as there is conformity between this and the vector resulting from the currents of the lagoonal region. Therefore, the simple observation of the direction of the growth of coastal features, when associated with lagoonal or estuarine systems, strongly controlled by tidal conditions, cannot be used without reservations as indicative of the predominant direction of the transport of sediments along the coastlines.


Solar reflective urban surfaces (white rooftops and light-colored pavements) can increase the albedo of an urban area by about 0.1. Increasing the albedo of urban and human settlement areas can in turn decrease atmospheric temperature and could potentially offset some of the anticipated temperature increase caused by global warming. We have simulated the long-term (decadal to centennial) effect of increasing urban surface albedos using a spatially explicit global climate model of intermediate complexity. We first carried out two sets of simulations in which we increased the albedo of all land areas between ±20 and ±45 latitude respectively. The results of these simulations indicate a long-term global cooling effect of 3× 10−15 K for each 1 m2 of a surface with an albedo increase of 0.01. This temperature reduction corresponds to an equivalent CO2 emission reduction of about 7 kg, based on recent estimates of the amount of global warming per unit CO2 emission. In a series of additional simulations, we increased the albedo of urban locations only, on the basis of two independent estimates of the spatial extent of urban areas. In these simulations, global cooling ranged from 0.01 to 0.07 K, which corresponds to a CO2 equivalent emission reduction of 25–150 billion tonnes of CO2.


The yellow-brown coloration formed in the degradation process of linen fabrics has been studied by Raman spectroscopy. Aqueous extracts from documented linens from the Egyptian XIIth Dynasty (ca. 4000 y BP) and Kasr-el-Yahud (ca. 1350 y BP) have been used to investigate the chemical basis of the degradation process; the pale-yellow crystalline material isolated from these extracts shows evidence of OH, C =C, C–C, and hydrocarbon groups. Several possibilities for the ring scission of cellulose under archaeological conditions are addressed.


Background: Ovarian cancer is the most common cause of cancer death from gynecological tumors in Iran. Despite the fact that intra-operative frozen section, which is widely used in diagnosis of ovarian tumors, there are problems associated with the diagnostic procedure in this setting. The aim of this study was to compare the intra-operative frozen section with the permanent histopathological sections in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer at Rouhani Hospital in north of Iran. Methods: The intra-operative frozen section diagnosis was conducted on 126 women with ovarian masses, who underwent surgery between January 2006 and July 2011. The results of the intraoperative frozen section were compared with those of the past histopathological diagnoses of permanent sections as the gold standard. Results: The overall accuracy of intra-operative frozen section diagnosis was 94.4%. There were 0.9% cases with false-positive as well as 1.8% cases with false-negative. The sensitivity and specificity values were 66.7% and 100% for malignant tumors, 80.0% and 95.9 % for borderline tumors, and 99.1% and 90.0% for benign tumors, respectively. All inaccurate diagnoses were for the epithelial tumors. Conclusion: The intra-operative frozen section diagnosis is a reliable method for the surgical management of the patients with an ovarian mass. Diagnostic problems can occur during the intraoperative frozen section examination. The clinicians and pathologists must be aware of the pitfalls of this method; therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a good communication among them


The public discussion on the National Information Infrastructure (NII) has been wide ranging and lacking in consensus as to the nature of the proposed NII itself. This paper in acknowledgement of the national policy origins of the NII debate begins with relevant remarks by President Clinton in his State of the Union Address. It defines an initial working definition of the NII based on the President's challenge. It then provides some clarification to the discussion in terms of planning horizon, subscriber transport services and transport media. The working definition is further developed to incorporate the type of traffic the NII will be expected to support following a discussion of an emerging desktop computing imperative. From this implications are drawn as to the feasibility of the so called fiber solution and an argument made that in the evolution of the current infrastructure to the future NII satellites offer the best solution for a timely manifestation of the vision.


This document defines the watcher information template-package for the
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) event framework. Watcher information
refers to the set of users subscribed to a particular resource within
a particular event package. Watcher information changes dynamically as
users subscribe, unsubscribe, are approved, or are rejected. A user
can subscribe to this information, and therefore learn about changes
to it. This event package is a template-package because it can be
applied to any event package, including itself. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


BACKGROUND
Pain is a prominent nonmotor symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD) but has not been well studied.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to assess thermal experience and emotional content, as well as side-to-side sensory differences in PD "off" and "on" dopaminergic therapy following thermal cutaneous stimulation.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional design.

SETTING
University teaching hospital.

METHODS
Twelve PD subjects experiencing motor fluctuations but no pain symptoms and 13 healthy controls participated in the study. Heat pain and emotional content were assessed using a thermode and visual analog scales in medication on and off states in PD and without medication in healthy controls.

RESULTS
There were no side to side differences in heat pain intensity or between PD medication on state and PD medication off state. Unexpectedly, PD subjects reported a higher degree of unpleasantness in response to heat pain while on medication compared with the off state.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the perception of heat pain is mediated, at least in part, by nondopaminergic systems in PD, while dopamine might modulate the affective component of pain.


The authors empirically test Prendergast's (2002) theory that incorporates the delegation of worker authority into the principal-agent model to explain the lack of consistent empirical support for a tradeoff between risk and incentives. Using data from the 1998 British WERS, the authors investigate whether there is: 1) evidence of a risk-incentives tradeoff as predicted by the principal-agent model; 2) evidence of a positive relationship between incentive pay and the delegation of worker authority; 3) evidence of a positive relationship between risk and authority; 4) support for the main testable implication of Prendergast's model, namely that the evidence favoring a risk-incentives tradeoff should strengthen when authority controls are added to the empirical model. The answers are affirmative for all four questions, thereby providing evidence clarifying the relationship between risk and incentive pay and how managers optimally bundle incentive pay and the delegation of worker decision rights to cope with risk.


Human hair follicle dermal papilla cells (DPCs) are a specialized population of cells located in the hair follicles and regulate hair growth and development, particularly by releasing numerous growth factors in response to various physiological conditions. In the present study, we aimed to test whether nonanal, a scent compound from plants, stimulated growth factors in DPCs and to delineate the underlying mechanisms involved. We found that nonanal promoted DPC proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. Meanwhile, it also increased the intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels and the expression of various growth factor genes such as vascular endothelial growth factor, keratinocyte growth factor, and insulin-like growth factor 1. Furthermore, nonanal treatment stimulated DPC migration. Notably, the benefits of nonanal use were abrogated by cAMP inhibition. Our results reveal the potential of nonanal in preventing hair loss and suggest that its effects are cAMP-mediated in DPCs.


This dissertation presents evidence that Bela Bartok created his masterwork, the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937), in a very complex period of his life. Since it was a mature piece, Bartok utilized typically "Bartokian" compositional techniques and styles. His ethnomusicological studies were also influential factors in the creation of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. We can be witness to how different the first draft was to the published version; the minor and major changes are revealed in the draft study of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion 's first movement. These changes allow today's musicians to reconstruct the compositional process. The first movement introduces some interesting uses of sonata form, to be explored in more detail in the analysis. Starting with linear analysis, the basic motives and rhythmic patterns are discussed and supported with Bartok's own explanations. The conclusion of this study has important ramifications for performance: it eases up the pressure on the performers, since problematic passages are analyzed and explained - preparing the players' mentally for the performance. This is music which is hard to play and difficult to analyze. The analysis, combining the results of both theoretical and musicological studies, is intended to help both analysts and performers understand the genesis of the piece and, for performers, to execute the music in the best possible manner.


In this paper a method for continuous-time identification for the class of moored semisubmersible marine systems based on totally measured states is presented. The exponential convergence of parameter trajectories is analyzed in the context of conditions for persistency of excitation (PE). A regression for the estimator is constructed containing generically 312 parameters to be identified. The presented analysis has revealed that the regressor must expand a space of only 24 dimensions instead of 312 for unbiased estimates. Under monochromatic excitation, PE conditions are expected to be satisfied only in chaotic behaviors. A case study of a real moored craneplatform is modelled and simulated to verify such conditions. Keywords– Nonlinear Semisubmersible Dynamics, Moored Systems, Identification, Identifiability, Persistency of Excitation.


Human security, defined as a state to relieve people of the traumas that accompany human development, is closely linked to human rights. The treatment of the concept of human security enables the narrowing of the gap between the citizen and the state. At the time of a pandemic, the task of protecting life forces states to take special measures. The response of states to coronavirus has consisted of restrictive measures, which often conflict with human rights. International Human Rights Law allows the restrictions on freedom in cases of national emergencies, but necessary and proportionate. Health security, as an integral part of human security, aims to guarantee a necessary minimum of protection against diseases, especially infectious, epidemic and poor living conditions. State institutions have a responsibility to guarantee medical treatment as needed. Ignoring or refusing this service, even to a single citizen, can have fatal consequences for national security. The Covid-19 pandemic also caused collapse in developed countries, with advanced health systems. It is still too early to make final analyzes, studies and evaluations regarding this pandemic. Experience and lessons learned should serve to make such a situation as less emergency as possible in the future. Important for this, among other things, is the evaluation and respect of professional communities.


The purpose of this study was the development and reliability testing of a classroom observation coding scale. -- The observation scale focused simultaneously on the on- or off-task activity of the student and on the motivational aspect of teacher behavior. The various categories of student and teacher behavior were presented along with an outline of the training program developed for the preparation of classroom observers. -- Two dimensions of the reliability problem were addressed in this study. First, eleven observers were trained in the use of the observation instrument, with the trainees given varying amounts of training time. Training was carried out using a video-tape package prepared for use with the instrument. The degree of agreement for each observer with the coding scheme for the instrument was determined using a video-taped criterion test containing samples of pupil-teacher behaviors. -- The second aspect of the reliability study addressed the reliability of observations made using the coding scale. This involved an examination of the generalizability of the behavior categories used to actual classrooms. The two most highly trained observers were employed in live observations of nine different classrooms on several occasions for each classroom. An analysis of variance of the data furnished by these observations produced generalizability coefficients for each of the categories of the observation scale. -- The study concluded that the behavior categorizations employed permitted an acceptable level of criterion agreement. Generally, the pupil-focus categories produced higher agreement levels than did the teacher-focus categories. However, the data indicated that additional observer training might overcome any deficiencies in coding skills on either aspect of the instrument. -- The coefficients of generalizability provided by the classroom observation data indicated that the categories of the scale are generalizable across teachers. Observations recorded using the observation instrument would therefore appear to be reliable.


This article summarises a 2.5 day long Dagstuhl seminar on Global Measurements: Practice and Experience held in January 2016. This seminar was a followup of the seminar on Global Measurement Frameworks held in 2013, which focused on the development of global Internet measurement platforms and associated metrics. The second seminar aimed at discussing the practical experience gained with building these global Internet measurement platforms. It brought together people who are actively involved in the design and maintenance of global Internet measurement platforms and who do research on the data delivered by such platforms. Researchers in this seminar have used data derived from global Internet measurement platforms in order to manage networks or services or as input for regulatory decisions. The entire set of presentations delivered during the seminar is made publicly available at [1].


We advocate a dynamic approach to monetary convergence to a common currency that is based on the analysis of financial system stability. Accordingly, we empirically test volatility dynamics of the tenyear sovereign bond yields of the 2004 EU accession countries in relation to the eurozone yields during the January 2, 2001 untill January 22, 2009 sample period. Our results show a varied degree of bond yield comovements, the most pronounced for the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland, and weaker for Hungary and Slovakia. However, since the EU accession, we find some divergence of relative bond yields. We argue that a static specification of the Maastricht criterion for longterm bond yields is not fully conducive for advancing stability of financial systems in the eurocandidate countries.


PURPOSE
To evaluate whether baseline visual field data and asymmetries between eyes predict the onset of primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS) participants.

METHODS
A new index, mean prognosis (MP), was designed for optimal combination of visual field thresholds, to discriminate between eyes that developed POAG from eyes that did not. Baseline intraocular pressure (IOP) in fellow eyes was used to construct measures of IOP asymmetry. Age-adjusted baseline thresholds were used to develop indicators of visual field asymmetry and summary measures of visual field defects. Marginal multivariate failure time models were constructed that relate the new index MP, IOP asymmetry, and visual field asymmetry to POAG onset for OHTS participants.

RESULTS
The marginal multivariate failure time analysis showed that the MP index is significantly related to POAG onset (P < 0.0001) and appears to be a more highly significant predictor of POAG onset than either mean deviation (MD; P = 0.17) or pattern standard deviation (PSD; P = 0.046). A 1-mm Hg increase in IOP asymmetry between fellow eyes is associated with a 17% increase in risk for development of POAG. When threshold asymmetry between eyes existed, the eye with lower thresholds was at a 37% greater risk of development of POAG, and this feature was more predictive of POAG onset than the visual field index MD, though not as strong a predictor as PSD.

CONCLUSIONS
The MP index, IOP asymmetry, and binocular test point asymmetry can assist in clinical evaluation of eyes at risk of development of POAG.


The concept 'social reproduction' refers to the structural inequalities that mark the distribution of the material resources necessary to reproduce and sustain human life. This half day seminar seeks to renew the concept of social reproduction by interrogating it from the perspectives of different life stages and from diverse positionings within the global economy. How is social reproduction to be understood within the current context of globalisation? How does global competition, HIV, feminisation of migration, limited safety nets, increased longevity and changing expectations of different life stages impact on social production? Do, for instance, female migration, transnational households and 'global care chains' reliant on grandparent and children's labour to replace that of female migrants require a renewed conceptualisation of social reproduction? Are economic reform programmes, the global financial crisis, and increasing pauperisation exacerbating the 'squeeze on care', commoditising social reproduction or changing the relations of care within families and societies as well as between countries? If the relations of care and support are changing, what are the policy implications?


Reducing material sizes and scales to the nanometer level is not an end in itself but rather a means and scientific philosophy and a qualitative and scientific coup against the classics and constants of physical and chemical theories, with the aim of producing novel types of materials with distinct properties that suit the requirements of advanced technology known as nanomaterials. Therefore, it is important to study those new materials that nanotechnology has come up with and learn about their properties, capabilities and industrial applications with a view to obtaining products with advanced properties. Research problem: Can the materials developed by nanotechnology be used in the field of products? What new features can nanotechnology add to products? How can new materials be used in the manufacture of advanced products? Do the new materials contribute to making products with new features and advantages? The aim of the research: to identify the new materials that nanotechnology has reached, to study the properties and capabilities of the materials created by nanotechnology, and the opportunities for their industrial application on some products, as well as to identify the new features that nanotechnology can add to products in addition to taking advantage of the materials developed by nanotechnology in Manufacture of products with advanced characteristics. Research Methodology: Use the descriptive analytical method: to describe and analyze the topic, problem, goals and results of the research. Research results: Reducing the size and dimensions of the granules that make up the structure of any material is not a goal or an end in itself but rather a way and a way to improve the different properties of materials and to produce new and updated materials. Mineral rubber is a novel material that combines the elasticity of rubber with the strength of the metal, combining the conductive properties of the metal with the malleability of the rubber. That there is a clear possibility to use mineral rubber in the manufacture of many advanced products that are characterized by innovative features such as light weight, portability, resistance to breakage and crash, as well as the three-dimensional plastic structure is a novel material that can be used to create various shapes and structures that can be folded, programmed, and reprogrammed, and the shape and size can also be changed. And the stiffness of those structures.


Modeling the immune system (IS) means putting together a set of assumptions about its components (cells and organs) and their interactions. Simulations of a model show joint behavior of the components, which for complex realistic models is often impossible to find analytically. Simulations allow us to experiment on how initial concentrations and properties of the immune cells and viruses impact the IS behavior, and gain better quantitative and qualitative insight into how the IS works and why different behavior patterns occur. A simulation, once it has been created, must be reviewed both statistically and analytically as well as validated from the biological point of view. We analyzed Chao's immune system simulation [1][2] from a statistical and analytical point. We explicited both the Markov chain which was simulated and the underlying process on which Chao's stage-structured approach was built. Furthermore, we established a test protocol for timestep validation which Chao's simulator passed. We evaluated Chao's simulator's dependence on the random number generator, which was shown to be negligible. Finally, we evaluated the simulator output and our major result is the discovery of a secondary response to a primary infection, an occurrence is not shown in Chao's dissertation. A tertiary response to the infection is never possible due to the size of the secondary response caused by memory cells.


This is the first book-length examination of the fiction written by Richard Ford, who gained critical acclaim for "The Sportswriter," the story of suburbanite Frank Bascombe's struggle to survive loneliness and great loss. That novel, published in 1986, struck a chord with readers and reviewers alike, and Ford, a little-known writer who had for a time considered giving up the writing of fiction, was suddenly hailed in "Newsweek" as "one of the best writers of his generation." "The Sportswriter," along with its 1995 sequel "Independence Day," which became the first novel to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, made Ford's Frank Bascombe as much a part of the American literary landscape as John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom. With three other novels, a well-received volume of short stories, and a trilogy of novellas to his credit, Ford is now firmly established as a major figure among writers of the post-World War II generation. "Perspectives on Richard Ford" is the first collection of essays to study the body of Ford's fiction. The nine essays demonstrate that Ford, like few other writers of his time, powerfully depicts what it feels like to live in the secular late-twentieth-century world, a dangerous and uncertain place where human relationships are impoverished and where human existence is often characterized by emptiness, solipsism, and, above all, by a sense of alienation. The contributors tend to view Ford's narratives of alienation in a broad cultural context. His works dramatize the breakdown of the institutions of marriage, family, and community. His protagonists often typify the rootlessness and the nameless longing pervasive in a highly mobile, present-oriented society in which individuals, having lost a sense of the past, relentlessly pursue their own elusive identities in the here and now. The collection, which concludes with a compelling conversation between Ford and the editor, will prove to be an essential companion to the work of one our most intriguing contemporary writers.


Copper(II) complexes with the potentially tridentate Schiff bases N-[(3-ethoxy-2-hydroxyphenyl)methylidene]-N′-tosylbenzene-1,2-diamine (H2L1) and N-[(2-hydroxynaphthanyl)methylidene]-N′-tosylbenzene-1,2-diamine (H2L2) have been synthesized by electrochemical oxidation of the metal in an electrochemical cell containing a solution of the corresponding ligand in acetonitrile. Adducts of these compounds with 2,2′-bipyridine (2,2′-bpy), 4,4′-bipyridine (4,4′-bpy) or 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) were also obtained. The complexes have been characterized by microanalysis, mass spectrometry, EPR, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopies, as well as DFT calculations. The ligand H2L1 and the compounds [CuL1(H2O)]·H2O (1), [Cu2L12(4,4′-bpy)] (3), [CuL1(phen)] (4), [CuL2(2,2′-bpy)] (6), and [Cu2L22(4,4′-bpy)3] (7) have also been characterized by X-ray diffraction. The copper compounds 1, 4 and 6 are mononuclear with a square planar geometry around the metal for 1 and square pyramidal for 4 and 6. However, 3 and 7 are dinuclear complexes with a 4,4′-bpy ligand bridging two copper atoms with square planar (3) or square pyramidal (7) coordination. The supramolecular structures were studied by means of Hirshfeld surface analysis. The adducts of phen and 2,2′-bpy exhibit enhanced DNA cleavage ability compared to the [CuL(H2O)] complexes (L = L1 or L2), while the binuclear entities formed by 4,4′-bpy coordination present reduced nuclease efficiency.


We describe the upper Paleocene-lower Eocene planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy at Qreiya (southeastern exposure of Gebel Abu Had), about 50km ENE of Qena, Egypt. The ~54m thick section spans the Tarawan Chalk (~8.6m thick; Zone P4a+b) and the Esna Shale (~45m thick; Zones P4c-P7, partim ). The Tarawan/Esna contact is paraconformable, and coincident with the NP8/NP9 and P4a+b/P4c zonal boundaries. The Esna Shale is subdivided into units, and the Dababiya Quarry Beds (=CIE-interval) lie at the base of Unit Esna 2, whereas Unit Esna 3 is much reduced in thickness owing to an unconformity that separates Zones P6/P7 cutting out ~ 40+m of the upper Esna Shale. The Esna Shale/Thebes Limestone contact is probably also unconformable inasmuch as it lies within Zone P7, whereas at Dababiya it lies within Zone P8. The ~2.4m thick CIE-interval is located in the lower part of the Esna Shale, 7.2m above the top of the Tarawan Chalk and is divided into three distinct lithic components as at Dababiya. Quantitative analysis of the planktonic foraminifera spanning the interval from 2.6m below, through, and to 1m above the CIE, has revealed significant assemblage change patterns and enabled precise inter-locality correlation with the Dababiya Quarry and Owaina sections.


Glioblastoma is the most aggressive brain tumor characterized by diffuse infiltration into the normal brain parenchyma. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are known to possess the tumor-tropic migratory capacity and thus can be used as cellular vehicles for targeted delivery of therapeutic agents. In the present study, we evaluated the efficacy of herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) suicide gene therapy for glioblastoma using neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Although transduction of hiPSCs is preferable for a safe and stable supply in the clinical setting, high-level and/or constitutive HSV-TK expression was highly cytotoxic to hiPSCs. To overcome this problem, we used the tetracycline-inducible system to control the expression of HSV-TK. hiPSC-derived NS/PCs expressing HSV-TK were transplanted in an orthotopic xenograft mouse model of human glioblastoma. Glioblastoma cell growth in mice was dramatically inhibited following ganciclovir (GCV) administration. Survival of the mice was significantly prolonged with administration of GCV compared with control groups. Time-lapse imaging of organotypic brain slice cultures first demonstrated the directional migration of NS/PCs toward glioblastoma cells and the bystander killing effect upon GCV treatment. hiPSC-derived NS/PCs with HSV-TK/GCV suicide gene system may have considerable therapeutic potential for the treatment of glioblastoma.


This study examines responses to the development and governance of tourism on a small peripheral island. The Mediterranean island of Gozo, the second largest of the Maltese islands, is used as a case study. Responses are evaluated for three groups of respondents: the residents of Gozo, specific tourism-related actors in Gozo, and for specific tourism-related actors from the neighbouring main island of Malta. Malta is situated on the southern periphery of Europe and although a member of the European Union it remains on the socio-economic and political margins. Gozo is both geographically and economically peripheral to Malta. This puts Gozo on the periphery of the periphery, and thus it faces especially difficult core-periphery relations.Using interviews and other sources the study examines opinions about the processes of tourism development for the peripheral island of Gozo. Consideration is given to views about whether the processes of tourism development and tourism governance meet the needs of residents and specific tourism-related actors in Gozo. Attention is also paid to opinions about the most appropriate future development path for the island. Further, the differing perspectives between the residents and actors at the core and the periphery are evaluated. Core-periphery theory provides a geographical framework to understand disparities in power and development levels, and all these issues are evaluated in the context of core-periphery relations, and in the context of Gozo's internal and external networks of socio-economic and political relations, with some of these relations being largely local to the island and with others, by contrast, being with the main island of Malta and also further afield. Many dependency and core-periphery theorists have argued that peripheral islands will inevitably be dependent on their respective cores for economic and political support. This study revealed instances which both support and challenge some of these assumptions. In terms of formal political power, control over Gozo's tourism development clearly lies at the core, primarily with the government but also with the Malta Tourist Authority and Malta Environment and Planning Authority. However, analysis at the micro-level also reveals several instances where Gozitans have shown they have the potential to influence decisionsat the core, albeit through indirect and informal channels. These results challenge the dependency theorists' common portrayal of a subordinate island that is controlled and manipulated by its core, and instead highlight the potential power of local level actors in creating 'room for manoeuvre' in tourism development arenas.


This study was done to investigate of some hematological and biochemical factors of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss ) fry in west of Mazandaran in Iran. About 50 pools of blood samples from diseased fry were collected within 30 months from November 2002 till March 2005 from three hatchery farms in western part of Mazanderan province. In addition 30 pools of blood samples as control group were collected randomly from mentioned farms. Each blood samples were examined for whole blood examination and blood enzymes measurement. It consist of total leukocytes (WBC) and erythrocytes counts (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb) content, hematocrits (PCV), leukocytes differential count and blood indices such as MCV, MCH and MCHC. Also blood serums were analysed for total protein (TP) and blood enzymes. All the calculations were made using the SPSS © and t-test statistical method. In hematological findings nine parameters were revealed significant differences (P<0.05) with control group in t-test. It consisted of total WBC, Lymph, Neut, Hb and HCT, MCHC, AST, DL and total protein plasma. Also in total white blood cell count, Lymph and Neut had significant differences as compared with the control fish (P<0.05). Also blood serum components analysis revealed that only LDH and AST amount showed obvious significant differences (P<0.05). Regarding to results it could be concluded that hematological and biochemical studies could be a valuable tool for prognosis and primary diagnosis in some infectious diseases. So it could be recommended for monitoring and surveillance programs in coldwater hatchery health status in Iran.


Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterised by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. As might be expected of a disorder in which inhibitory deficits form part of the diagnostic criteria, deficits in response inhibition in ADHD have been evidenced in a number of studies. To date, the tasks used in such studies have required participants to inhibit the learned stimulus-response associations that result in unwanted behavior. However, no research has examined the inhibition of stimulus-stimulus associations, formally 'conditioned inhibition'. The present study used video game style conditioned inhibition procedures, developed for children and adolescents with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD and suitable for typically developing matched controls. Two computer-based tasks ('Mission to Mars' and 'Weapon-X') required participants to predict the occurrence of an outcome based on the stimuli presented. We selected 12 male participants with ADHD on medication (methylphenidate), but without comorbid Tourette Syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, learning disability or psychosis. This group showed overall normal inhibition of stimulus-stimulus associations, measured repeatedly over trials and with two task variants. There was no correlation between inhibitory learning and symptom severity ratings. However, participants with ADHD on higher dosages of methylphenidate, or longer duration of treatment with methylphenidate, showed improved ability to anticipate outcomes following the different stimulus presentations on non-inhibited versus inhibited trials. This effect was most clearly demonstrated on the Weapon-X task. Thus, methylphenidate dose-relatedly improved the expression of associative learning. This action may contribute to its therapeutic effects in improving cognitive function in ADHD.


One of the basic dilemmas of conflicts law, or private international law (PIL), is whether, in choosing the law applicable to cases involving conflicts of laws, one should aim for: (1) the law of the proper state without concern for the "justness" of the particular result ("conflict justice"); or (2) for the same quality of substantive results as in non-conflicts cases ("material justice").For centuries, the "conflicts justice" view has been dominant in all countries. The "material justice" view has had some recent following in the United States, but in the rest of the world it has had only marginal influence. In recent years, however, this view has gained significant ground, even in codified PIL systems. Without endorsing this view, this essay examines several recent PIL codifications and identifies a surprisingly high number of result-selective rules, namely choice-of-law rules that are specifically designed to accomplish a particular substantive result.The fact that these rules are far more numerous now than in the past suggests that the above dilemma is no longer an all-or-nothing proposition. Material-justice considerations are gaining increasing acceptance as one of the factors that should guide the pursuit of conflicts justice. The difficult question is not whether but rather when these considerations should receive preference in uncodified systems in which the choice of law is made by judges rather than legislators.


The dissemination of disease through international military traffic has been much discussed in recent years, and the problem has been evaluated from multiple viewpoints. Some persons have apparently been convinced that many diseases would be encountered abroad which might easily be introduced into the United States, particularly by aerial traffic, and fantastically devious means of infection have been suggested. Some opinions have not seemed to give adequate weight to past experience, or to improbabilities involved.
Military policy has necessarily been based upon careful evaluation of the entire problem by The Surgeon General with all reasonable regard to military expediency. World-wide commercial and military experience have been considered along with advice of American and foreign authorities in preventive medicine, and recommendations of the National Institute of Health, The National Research Council, the United States of America Typhus Commission, and other interested military and civilian groups.


The sandstone peak‐forest landscape in Zhangjiajie UNESCO Global Geopark of Hunan Province, China, is characterized by >3000 vertical pillars and peak walls of up to 350 m height, representing a spectacular example of sandstone landform variety. Few studies have addressed the mechanisms and timescales of the longer‐term evolution of this landscape, and have focused on fluvial incision. We use in situ cosmogenic nuclides combined with GIS analysis to investigate the erosional processes contributing to the formation of pillars and peak‐forests, and discuss their relative roles in the formation and decay of the landscape. Model maximum‐limiting bedrock erosion rates are the highest along the narrow fluvial channels and valleys at the base of the sandstone pillars (~83–122 mm kyr−1), and lowest on the peak wall tops (~2.5 mm kyr−1). Erosion rates are highly variable and intermediate along vertical sandstone peak walls and pillars (~30 to 84 mm kyr−1). Catchment‐wide denudation rates from river sediment vary between ~26 and 96 mm kyr−1 and are generally consistent with vertical wall retreat rates. This highlights the importance of wall retreat for overall erosion in the sandstone peak‐forest. In combination with GIS‐derived erosional volumes, our results suggest that the peak‐forest formation in Zhangjiajie commenced in the Pliocene, and that the general evolution of the landscape followed our sequential refined model: (i) slow lowering rates following initial uplift; (ii) fast plateau dissection by headward knickpoint propagation along joints and faults followed by; (iii) increasing contribution of wall retreat in the well‐developed pillars and peak‐forests and a gradual decrease in overall denudation rates, leading to; (iv) the final consumption of pillars and peak‐forests. Our study provides an approach for quantifying the complex interplay between multiple geomorphic processes as required to assess the evolutionary pathways of other sandstone peak‐forest landscapes across the globe. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


DẼMOS 2 is a proposed e-voting system that is end-to-end verifiable, meaning that its results can be verified for correctness from end-to-end. This is clearly an important characteristic of any e-voting system that aspires to widespread adoption, but it requires that voters and third parties possess the means to perform such verifications. It is in this area that the current DẼMOS 2 implementation is lacking, and this project is an attempt to rectify this through the development of a mobile phone app. for Android devices. The design of such an app. is here presented, but the implementation remains incomplete. Despite this, an evaluation of the app. as it currently stands is presented, followed by a detailing of avenues of further development. Ultimately, however, the supposed benefits of e-voting are brought into question.


Objective: C-reactive protein (CRP) is a protein found in the blood, the levels of which rise in response to inflammation. Its physiological role is to bind to phosphocholine expressed on the surface of dead or dying cells. In this study we aimed to examine the association between Helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) infection and serum levels of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP).
Background: Recently, many studies have suggested that there is an association between H.pylori infection and serum high levels of hs-CRP.
Subjects: 200 subjects with H.pylori infection (128 male, 72 female) aged 40-68 years (mean 49 years) and 50 healthy control subjects (36 male, 14 female) aged 35-70 years (mean 52.5 years) were included in this study. Blood samples were collected to determine serum hs-CRP.
Results: The mean serum level of hs-CRP in patients with H.pylori infection subjects (0.048±0.005 mg/dl) was significantly higher than in healthy control subjects (0.037±0.003 mg/dl). Serum level of hs-CRP was high in 24% of patients group, while it was high in 12% of healthy group. No significant differences were shown among H.pylori infected subjects and healthy subjects regarding to age, sex, smoking, body mass index, and socio-economic status.
Conclusion: Serum hs-CPR levels were higher in H.pylori infected patients, based on these results serum hs-CRP could be affected by H.pylori infection.


A simple criterion is proposed to quantitatively estimate the resistance of aggregates based on incremental mechanical shear disturbances. Aggregate strength can be affected by the hydrodynamic conditions under which flocculation occurs; therefore, an experimental method is standardized to determine the resistance of aggregate structures that are formed under defined conditions of salinity (NaCl 0–0.1 M), mixing time (3 min), and mean shear rate (G = 273 s−1). Kaolin particles were flocculated in saline solutions with an anionic flocculant of high molecular weight. The method involves increasing the mean shear rate (G = 0–1516 s−1). Each increment represents a new experiment that starts from the base of 273 s−1. Target aggregates are increasingly fragmented as mechanical disturbance increases. The monotonic relationship between the mean shear rate increments (ΔG) and the final size of the aggregates is used for a quantitative estimate of the resistance of the target aggregates since this resistance underlies this relationship. The evolution of aggregate size is analyzed by the Focused Beam Reflectance Measurement (FBRM) method, which may capture the chord length distribution on concentrated slurries. To estimate and compare the resistance of the target aggregates in solutions with different salinities, a pseudo-first-order model that describes the rupture degree as a function of shear rate increments obtains the characteristic shear rate. The rupture percentage is reached with considerably lower agitation increments at higher salinity than at low salinity. This criterion is expected to help improve the efficiency of solid–liquid separation processes, especially in plants operating with seawater, be it raw or partially desalinated.


Tragedy after tragedy has drawn the nation's attention towards gun violence. Yet the murder of 20 school children in Newtown, CT has done more to drive the national dialogue on gun control than any preceding mass shooting, not to mention the endemic murderous violence that plagues city streets day in and out. President Obama has responded by calling on Congress to (1) close background check loopholes; (2) ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; and (3) improve mental health services. All of these measures are necessary to curb gun violence. Yet, in a nation with more firearms per capita than anywhere in the world, they are not sufficient.Violence is depicted and even glorified in the media; law enforcement lacks the ability to track stolen or illegally traded arms; and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is vastly deficient (and not always consulted before a sale). The public health threat of firearms — whether through inner-city violence, mass murders, suicides, or inadvertent firearm discharges — is tremendous, and reasonable firearm restrictions are both critical and in high public demand. Yet Congress has stalled comprehensive gun safety legislation for years (e.g., mandatory trigger locks, fingerprint and tracking technology, training requirements, limits on mass sales). Moreover, President Obama's renewed call for change does not touch on these strategies. In short, federal, state, and city officials lack the basic tools needed to detect, prevent, and punish firearm related crime. Before Newtown becomes another sound bite, it must inspire the greatest bipartisan courage to at least stem the mass shootings and street killings that our newly found individual right to bear arms has made so prevalent.


SINGER WILLIE MAE "BIG MAMA" THORNTON'S story will be familiar to many Women & Music readers. Yet I retell it here in a way that emphasizes her voice as an expressive instrument through which she built her career as a musician and that uncovers the critical, personal voice of a black female artist. I am particularly interested in connecting my discussion of her voice, in both senses that I indicate, to an exploration of her transgressive sound and image and their impact on rock and roll. Thornton flouted the expectations of dominant black and white middle-class arbiters of propriety. She tapped into a liberated black femininity through which she freed herself from many of the expectations of musical, lyrical, physical, and sartorial practice for black women. I argue that these transgressions, central to her artistic voice, were at the heart of her musical identity, her appeal, and her influence. Her identity as a black woman, however, has made it difficult to hear and see Thornton in all of her resonant dimensions, especially in standard histories of rock and roll. I begin with a discussion of the ways black feminist and cultural anthropology perspectives have informed my approach to Thornton's music and career. Then, following an overview of her career, I listen for Thornton's voice, demonstrating her influence on two rock-and-roll artists and telling the story of a well-recognized but little-known figure who traversed the genres of rhythm and blues, blues, and rock, having an impact on all three. (Black) Feminist Perspectives on Rock-and-Roll History My motivation for exploring Thornton's rock-and-roll legacy stems in part from a frustration with the marginal position black women occupy in mainstream histories of the genre--for example, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll and multipart television documentaries produced by Time-Life and PBS during the 1990s. (1) Within these narratives, assumptions about musical genre and social identity come together in ways that are problematic for black women; the narratives position white male artists at the center of the story as the real rock and rollers and overlook black women's impact on rock and roll. In recent years, raceconscious feminist scholars have examined the involvement of women in a range of musical endeavors and explored the ways factors like race, class, and sexuality shape their experiences. (2) This research critiques and rectifies the absence of white women and women of color in narratives of music production. In her pathbreaking study of all-woman swing bands of the 1940S, feminist historian Sherrie Tucker exposes the race and gender assumptions that underpin the dominant narratives of swing history and render the women she writes about invisible; she also demonstrates that writing on swing is informed by discourses of race that differently affect the representation of black and white women musicians. (3) Tucker's sensitivity to the politics of representation and her recovery of lost musical voices of women is echoed in the work of feminist scholars concerned with the absence of black women in rock-and-roll history. These scholars have revealed the influential contributions of Thornton, gospel guitarist and vocalist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and girl groups of the 1960S. (4) This work also examines the race- and gender-rooted biases that have made it difficult to recognize the presence of innovative black women in the rock-and-roll context and their involvement in cross-racial exchanges. (5) Such attention to black women's cultural production broadens scholarly understanding of music making. Eileen Hayes argues that scholars in musicology and ethnomusicology should draw on black feminist thinking "to interrogate black women's practices as music creators, performers, listeners, and consumers" and to "illuminate the heterogeneity of black women's musical experience." (6) Daphne Brooks advises incorporating black feminist perspectives into rock criticism, suggesting that doing so can help to break down the oppressive race, gender, and genre paradigms that segregate musical productions according to race and gender in spite of frequent boundary crossing. …


The earliest growth of post‐metamorphic (post‐larval) shells in two species of Eohadrotreta is described from the Cambrian Shuijingtuo Formation of South China. Two different growth patterns can be observed by quantifying developmental variations in size and shape of successive stages of post‐metamorphic shell growth (including the pedicle foramen forming stage, pedicle foramen enclosing stage and intertrough increasing stage) of Eohadrotreta zhenbaensis and Eohadrotreta? zhujiahensis. The pedicle foramen is never enclosed within the metamorphic shell of E. zhenbaensis, while the enclosed pedicle foramen of E.? zhujiahensis is located directly outside the metamorphic shell after the pedicle foramen enclosing stage. A strongly allometric growth pattern of E. zhenbaensis is demonstrated by the early enclosure of the pedicle foramen; an accelerated lengthening of the ventral intertrough is associated with the development of a more complex dorsal median septum during the intertrough increasing stage. By contrast, E.? zhujiahensis demonstrates possible paedomorphic development by delayed enclosure of pedicle foramen and an associated decreased lengthening of ventral intertrough during the intertrough increasing stage. This ontogenetic developmental sequence represents the marginal accretionary formation and growth of the pedicle foramen, which resembles that of linguloid brachiopods. Furthermore, the developmental process of the pedicle foramen of Eohadrotreta seems to recapitulate the likely evolutionary transition from the Botsfordiidae, with open delthyrium, to the Acrotheloidea, with an enclosed foramen. This study provides a unique opportunity to obtain a complete understanding of the ontogenetic development of the earliest acrotretoids, and casts new light on the phylogeny of lingulate brachiopods.


The overwhelming amount of short text data on social media and elsewhere has posed great challenges to topic modeling due to the sparsity problem. Most existing attempts to alleviate this problem resort to heuristic strategies to aggregate short texts into pseudo-documents before the application of standard topic modeling. Although such strategies cannot be well generalized to more general genres of short texts, the success has shed light on how to develop a generalized solution. In this paper, we present a novel model towards this goal by integrating topic modeling with short text aggregation during topic inference. The aggregation is founded on general topical affinity of texts rather than particular heuristics, making the model readily applicable to various short texts. Experimental results on real-world datasets validate the effectiveness of this new model, suggesting that it can distill more meaningful topics from short texts.


Cardiac failure is still one of the mayor reasons for death in the Western population but the pathophysiology of the molecular processes in the heart is far from being completely understood. Therefore further basic research is necessary. With recent developments of optical technologies novel tools to investigate cardiac physiology and pathophysiology became available. They comprise non-linear imaging techniques such as second harmonic generation imaging and fast two-photon excitation imaging of cardiac tissue. In addition, high-speed multi-beam two-photon imaging as well as ultra-high speed single beam single photon 2D-confocal imaging offer novel approaches to study cellular and subcellular signalling events in cardiac tissue and/or single cardiac myocytes. Here we introduce and discuss these new technologies and their practical application to study cardiac physiology and pathophysiology.


The distribution of resources should influence mate availability and the costs and benefits of pursuing different mating strategies. Where resources are dispersed, males may be constrained in the extent to which they can monopolize more than 1 partner, resulting in social and genetic monogamy. There is abundant correlational evidence that resource distribution influences social and mating systems, but experiments that demonstrate a causal link between these variables are relatively rare. Here, we used a replicated experiment involving 160 animals to examine how the distribution of a key resource, crevice sites used as nesting habitat, shapes social and mating behavior of a family living lizard, Liopholis whitii. The distribution of crevice sites had significant effects on several important aspects of the social and mating system. When habitat was aggregated, adults had larger home ranges and overlapped with more individuals of the opposite sex, resulting in increased opportunity for social polygyny. Aggressive female territoriality appears to impose upper limits on opportunities for polygyny by restricting female–female home range overlap. Despite this, males in aggregated habitats still formed polygynous social groups more often than males in dispersed habitat. Aggregated habitat also increased the opportunity for sexual selection, resulting in greater variance in male reproductive success and a steeper Bateman gradient compared with males occupying dispersed habitat. These effects were independent of the increase in social polygyny. Overall, our study is consistent with the hypothesis that habitat structure is fundamentally important to the evolution of social and mating systems.


Cancer is often caused by cells that show not only excessive proliferation but also resistance to apoptosis. Thus, deciphering the signaling pathways that are disrupted in transformed cells that become resistant to apoptosis may provide insights for the control of human cancer. For example, the oncoprotein c-MYC, an important contributor to human tumors, acts both to increase proliferation and to promote cell death. Myc is a transcription factor that can both activate and repress gene transcription and thus influences many potential targets that might contribute to regulation of apoptosis. Patel and McMahon extended earlier studies showing that binding of Myc to another transcription factor, MIZ-1, and inhibition of MIZ-1-dependent transcription were important for promotion of apoptosis by c-MYC. The new work shows that a critical target of MIZ-1 is the antiapoptotic protein BCL2. In cultured human diploid fibroblasts, a form of c-MYC (c-MYCV394D) that fails to interact with MIZ-1 was also defective in inducing apoptosis. Furthermore, if expression of MIZ-1 was reduced in these cells by expression of short hairpin RNA (shRNA), the apoptotic effect of c-MYCV394D was restored, indicating that MIZ-1 is a key target of c-MYC in controlling apoptosis. However, MIZ-1 activates transcription of several hundred genes, and the authors wanted to know which were necessary and/or sufficient to reproduce the effects of MIZ-1 to promote cell survival. A search of the MIZ-1 target genes revealed in microarrays yielded a likely candidate--the gene encoding the antiapoptotic protein BCL2. Indeed, expression of BCL2 was decreased by wild-type c-MYC but not by the c-MYCV394D mutant, and inhibition of expression of BCL2 by shRNA rescued the effect of c-MYCV394D to promote apoptosis. Many earlier studies of mouse models and of human tumor cells have shown that BCL2 and c-MYC appear to work together in promoting cancer. At least in certain cell types, the new results indicate that transcription of the BCL2 gene is the essential target regulated through c-MYC and MIZ-1, thus providing a mechanistic explanation for the observed cooperation of BCL-2 and c-MYC in tumorigenesis. J. H. Patel, S. B. McMahon, BCL2 is a downstream effector of MIZ-1 essential for blocking c-MYC-induced apoptosis. J. Biol. Chem. 282, 5-13 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Solving the Stokes equation by an optimal domain decomposition method derived algebraically involves the use of non standard interface conditions whose discretisation is not trivial. For this reason the use of approximation methods such as hybrid discontinuous Galerkin appears as an appropriate strategy: on the one hand they provide the best compromise in terms of the number of degrees of freedom in between standard continuous and discontinuous Galerkin methods, and on the other hand the degrees of freedom used in the non standard interface conditions are naturally defined at the boundary between elements. In this paper we present the coupling between a well chosen discretisation method (hybrid discontinuous Galerkin) and a novel and efficient domain decomposition method to solve the Stokes system. An analysis of the boundary value problem with non standard condition is provided as well as the numerical evidence showing the advantages of the new method.


Description: Successful Supply Chain Vendor Compliance explains the technical, process and cultural elements that go into a successful compliance program. Even the largest companies find managing vendors a daunting task. If you get it wrong then you risk inadvertently penalizing potentially valuable suppliers with misguided, overly bureaucratic or costly processes. Worse the burdens placed on the vendors backfires on the customer entity itself as the customer is subjected to the increased operational costs of managing the ramifications of the ill-conceived or poorly implemented requirement through the vendor community, driving up its own operational costs and increasing frustrations for all, straining the customer-vendor relationship. Effective compliance programs balance the requirements with the capabilities of their suppliers, striving to educate instead of just inform. A well-run program should help vendors self-implement and control costs, not force vendors to rely on constant communication and increase costs for all trading partners involved. Norman Katz exposes the weaknesses in traditional vendor compliance programs and identifies the characteristics of well-managed programs that foster beneficial trading partner relationships. He shows how a well-executed vendor compliance program can control and decrease costs by reducing disruptions throughout the supply chain, from the distribution center to the data center to the corporate office. Competition is fierce, and the right vendor can help you define a business model, react quickly to changes, and differentiate between you and your competitors.


Who is a true prophet? Who has real access to divine realms of knowledge? Early Christian communities accused each other's prophets of madness and of making false claims to divine knowledge. This book argues that early Christians did not seek to answer questions about true prophecy or to define madness and rationality, but rather used this discourse in order to control knowledge, to establish their own authority and to define Christian identity. Christians launched these arguments in the context of the Greco-Roman world, where prophecy, visions, ecstasy and dreams - all considered part of the same phenomena - were the subject of cutting-edge philosophical, medical and even political debates. Early Christian prophecy has usually been interpreted according to a model which explains that at its origins, Christianity was characterized by vibrant spiritual gifts which declined as church order and institutions developed. Arguing that a model of struggle informed by feminist theory and postcolonial criticism provides a better framework for understanding early Christian texts, this work clarifies how early Christian arguments about rationality, madness and the role of spiritual gifts in history are attempts to negotiate authority and to define religious identity in the midst of many competing forms of Christianity. Laura Nasrallah uses New Testament and early third-century texts to trace the rhetoric of this debate - rhetoric that is still alive today as communities across the globe struggle to define religious identity.


At the conclusion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 1999 air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Savezna republika Jugoslavije: SRJ) the United States publicly committed itself to a policy of regime change towards the Belgrade government presided over by Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević. In addition, the May 1999 indictment of Milošević by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity marked an unprecedented act of judicial intervention that challenged hitherto dominant conceptions of the norm of Westphalian sovereignty. Those acts – state promotion of regime change and the indictment of a sitting head of state by an international criminal tribunal – both require an examination of the role of external agency in either bringing about or acting as a catalyst for regime change. The Milošević regime attempted to use the Westphalian notion of sovereignty to fend off external pressure; events leading to the regime change of October 2000 suggest that this defence was inadequate, as Western powers legitimized their intervention through appeals to humanitarian norms and by direct appeals to citizens of the SRJ.


According to Brazilian recommended technical procedures (mainly NBR 10,004), solid waste must be previously classified in order to be disposed of adequately. Non-inert industrial solid waste is being dumped in landfill areas, most of which operate inefficiently and are located near the population and important ecosystems. In order to evaluate the potential toxicity of solid waste produced by various types of industries, 21 samples were analyzed according to NBR 10,004 procedures. Of these, 18 were classified as non-inert solid waste. The main substances contributing to the classification of these samples as non-inert waste were: aluminum, iron, manganese, phenol, and surfactants. Aluminum, manganese, and phenol are the main toxicologically relevant substances for human and environmental health because they can alter the quality of groundwater situated under solid waste disposal areas.


The Great Recession offers a unique opportunity to analyze the performance of credit risk models under conditions of economic stress. We focus on the performance of models of credit risk applied to risk-segmented credit card portfolios. Specifically, we focus on models of default and loss and analyze three important sources of model risk: model selection, model specification, and sample selection. Forecast errors can be significant along any of these three model-risk dimensions. Simple linear regression models are not generally outperformed by more complex or stylized models. The impact of macroeconomic variables is heterogeneous across risk segments. Model specifications that do not consider this heterogeneity display large projection errors across risk segments. Prime segments are proportionally more severely impacted by a downturn in economic conditions relative to the subprime or near-prime segments. The sensitivity of modeled losses to macroeconomic factors is conditional on the model development sample. Models estimated over a period that does not incorporate a significant period of the Great Recession may fail to project default rates, or loss rates, consistent with those experienced during the Great Recession.


We conducted an experiment in a high-immersive virtual reality environment to study the effect of the presence of a virtual observer on cheating behavior. Participants were placed in a virtual room and played 30 rounds of a cheating game without a chance of their cheating being detected. We varied whether or not a virtual observer (an avatar) was present in the room, and, if so, whether the avatar was actively staring at the decision maker or passively seated in a corner watching his smartphone. Results display significantly less cheating with an active than with a passive avatar, but not less cheating than in a control condition without an avatar. This suggests that an active (virtual) observer can intensify reputational concerns, but that the presence of someone passive and uninterested may actually alleviate such concerns.


Student-Friendly Coverage of Probability, Statistical Methods, Simulation, and Modeling ToolsIncorporating feedback from instructors and researchers who used the previous edition, Probability and Statistics for Computer Scientists, Second Edition helps students understand general methods of stochastic modeling, simulation, and data analysis; make optimal decisions under uncertainty; model and evaluate computer systems and networks; and prepare for advanced probability-based courses. Written in a lively style with simple language, this classroom-tested book can now be used in both one- and two-semester courses. New to the Second Edition Axiomatic introduction of probability Expanded coverage of statistical inference, including standard errors of estimates and their estimation, inference about variances, chi-square tests for independence and goodness of fit, nonparametric statistics, and bootstrap More exercises at the end of each chapter Additional MATLAB codes, particularly new commands of the Statistics Toolbox In-Depth yet Accessible Treatment of Computer Science-Related TopicsStarting with the fundamentals of probability, the text takes students through topics heavily featured in modern computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, and associated fields, such as computer simulations, Monte Carlo methods, stochastic processes, Markov chains, queuing theory, statistical inference, and regression. It also meets the requirements of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Encourages Practical Implementation of SkillsUsing simple MATLAB commands (easily translatable to other computer languages), the book provides short programs for implementing the methods of probability and statistics as well as for visualizing randomness, the behavior of random variables and stochastic processes, convergence results, and Monte Carlo simulations. Preliminary knowledge of MATLAB is not required. Along with numerous computer science applications and worked examples, the text presents interesting facts and paradoxical statements. Each chapter concludes with a short summary and many exercises.


Although data disclosure is advantageous for many obvious reasons, it may incur some risk resulting from potential security breaches. An example of such privacy violation occurs when an adversary reconstructs the original data using additional information. Moreover, sharing private information such as address and telephone number in social networks is always subject to a potential misuse. In this dissertation, we address both the scalability and privacy risk of data anonymization. We develop a framework that assesses the relationship between the disclosed data and the resulting privacy risk and use it to determine the optimal set of transformations that need to be performed before data is disclosed. We propose a scalable algorithm that meets differential privacy when applying a specific random sampling.
The main contribution of this dissertation is three-fold: (i) we show that determining the optimal transformations is an NP-hard problem and propose a few approximation heuristics, which we justify experimentally, (ii) we propose a personalized anonymization technique based on an aggregate (Lagrangian) formulation and prove that it could be solved in polynomial time, and (iii) we show that combining the proposed aggregate formulation with specific sampling gives an anonymization algorithm that satisfies differential privacy. Our results rely heavily on exploring the supermodularity properties of the risk function, which allow us to employ techniques from convex optimization. Finally, we use the proposed model to assess the risk of private information sharing in social networks.
Through experimental studies we compare our proposed algorithms with other anonymization schemes in terms of both time and privacy risk. We show that the proposed algorithm is scalable. Moreover, we compare the performance of the proposed approximate algorithms with the optimal algorithm and show that the sacrifice in risk is outweighed by the gain in efficiency.


Background Survival of breast cancer patients with comorbidity, compared to those without comorbidity, has been well characterized. The interaction between comorbid diseases and breast cancer, however, has not been well-studied. Methods From Danish nationwide medical registries, we identified all breast cancer patients between 45 and 85 years of age diagnosed from 1994 to 2008. Women without breast cancer were matched to the breast cancer patients on specific comorbid diseases included in the Charlson comorbidity Index (CCI). Interaction contrasts were calculated as a measure of synergistic effect on mortality between comorbidity and breast cancer. Results The study included 47,904 breast cancer patients and 237,938 matched comparison women. In the first year, the strongest interaction between comorbidity and breast cancer was observed in breast cancer patients with a CCI score of ≥4, which accounted for 29 deaths per 1000 person-years. Among individual comorbidities, dementia interacted strongly with breast cancer and accounted for 148 deaths per 1000 person-years within one year of follow-up. There was little interaction between comorbidity and breast cancer during one to five years of follow-up. Conclusions There was substantial interaction between comorbid diseases and breast cancer, affecting mortality. Successful treatment of the comorbid diseases or the breast cancer can delay mortality caused by this interaction in breast cancer patients.


The Koran is a book apart, not only as Holy Scripture for Muslims, but as the supreme classic of Arabic literature. In its 114 Suras, or chapters, it comprises the total of revelations believed to have been communicated to the prophet Muhammad as a final expression of God's will and purpose for man. The revelations were received over a number of years, the first dating from AD 610, the last shortly before Muhammad's death in AD 632, and the definitive canon was established some twenty years later. The Koran is neither prose nor poetry but a unique fusion of both. In his attempt to convey the sublime rhetoric of the original, Professor Arberry has carefully studied the intricate and richly varied rhythms which - apart from the message itself - serve to explain the Koran's undeniable claim to rank among the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.