Cannabinoids have been implicated in the reduction of glioma growth. The present study investigated a possible relationship between the recently shown induction of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression by the endocannabinoid analog R(+)methanandamide [R(+)-MA] and its effect on the viability of H4 human neuroglioma cells. Incubation with R(+)-MA for up to 72 h decreased the cellular viability and enhanced accumulation of cytoplasmic DNA fragments in a time-dependent manner. Suppression of R(+)-MA-induced prostaglandin (PG) E2 synthesis with the selective COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (0.01-1 μM) or inhibition of COX-2 expression by COX-2-silencing small-interfering RNA was accompanied by inhibition of R(+)-MA-mediated DNA fragmentation and cell death. In contrast, the selective COX-1 inhibitor SC-560 was inactive in this respect. Cells were also protected from apoptotic cell death by other COX-2 inhibitors (NS-398 {[N-[2-(cyclohexyloxy)-4-nitrophenyl]-methanesulfonamide]} and diclofenac) and by the ceramide synthase inhibitor fumonisin B1, which interferes with COX-2 expression by R(+)-MA. Moreover, the proapoptotic action of R(+)-MA was mimicked by the major COX-2 product PGE2. Apoptosis and cell death by R(+)-MA were not affected by antagonists of cannabinoid receptors (CB1, CB2) and vanilloid receptor 1. In further experiments, celecoxib was demonstrated to suppress apoptotic cell death elicited by anandamide, which is structurally similar to R(+)-MA. As a whole, this study defines COX-2 as a hitherto unknown target by which a cannabinoid induces apoptotic death of glioma cells. Furthermore, our data show that pharmacological concentrations of celecoxib may interfere with the proapoptotic action of R(+)-MA and anandamide, suggesting that cotreatment with COX-2 inhibitors could diminish glioma regression induced by these compounds.


We present a nonrigid registration technique that achieves spatial, photometric, and visibility accuracy. It lets us photo-realistically augment 3D deformable surfaces under complex illumination conditions and in spite of severe occlusions. There are many approaches that address some of these issues but very few that simultaneously handle all of them as we do. We use triangulated meshes to model the geometry and introduce explicit visibility maps as well as separate illumination parameters for each mesh vertex. We cast our registration problem in an expectation maximization framework that allows robust and fully automated operation. It provides explicit illumination and occlusion models that can be used for rendering purposes.


OBJECTIVES
Examine whether racial/ethnic differences in mortality rates have changed in recent years among adults in late midlife, and if so, how.

METHODS
We analyze Health and Retirement Study data on non-Hispanic Whites (Whites), non-Hispanic Blacks (Blacks), and English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanics (Hispanic-English and Hispanic-Spanish), ages 50-64 from two periods: 1998-2004 (P1, n=8920) and 2004-2010 (P2, n=7224). Using survey-generalized linear regression techniques we model death-by-end-of-period as a function of race/ethnicity, and sequentially adjust for a series of period-specific baseline risk factors including demographics, health status, health insurance, health behaviors, and social networks. Regression decomposition techniques are used to assess the contribution of these factors to observed racial/ethnic differences in mortality rates.

RESULTS
The odds ratio for death (ORD) was not statistically different for Blacks (vs. Whites) in P1 but was 33% higher in P2 (OR=1.33; 95% CI=1.05-1.69). The adjusted ORD among Hispanic-English (vs. Whites) was not statistically different in both periods. The adjusted ORD among Hispanic-Spanish (vs. Whites) was lower (ORD=0.36; 95% CI= 0.22-0.59) in P1 but indistinguishable in P2. In P1, 50.1% of the disparity in mortality rates among Blacks was explained by baseline health status, 53.1% was explained by financial factors. In P2, 55.8% of the disparity in mortality rates was explained by health status, 40.0% by financial factors and 16.2% by health insurance status.

DISCUSSION
Mortality rates among Blacks and Hispanic-Spanish have risen since the mid-1990s. Hispanic-Spanish, may be losing their advantageous lower risk of mortality, long known as the "Hispanic Paradox."


Background Chemotherapy plays a crucial role in malaria control. However, the main obstacle to treatment has been the rise of parasite resistance to most antimalarial drugs. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) remain the most effective antimalarial medicines available today. However, malaria parasite tolerance to ACTs is now increasingly prevalent especially in Southeast Asia presenting the danger of the spread of ACTs resistance to other parts of the world. Consequently, this creates the need for alternative effective antimalarials. Therefore, this study sought out to determine antimalarial potential, safety, and resistance development of the extracts in a mouse model. Method Methanolic and ethyl acetate extracts were obtained by solvent extraction. The extracts were assayed for acute toxicity in vivo. Additionally, the two extracts were evaluated for antimalarial activity in vivo against Plasmodium berghei ANKA strain by the 4-day suppressive test at 500, 250, and 125 mg/kg/day. Packed cell volume was evaluated to determine anemia manifestation. Finally, continuous drug pressure experiment at 500 mg/kg and DNA amplification via PCR were conducted. The amplicons underwent through Sanger sequencing. Results There was no toxicity realized in the animals at 2000 mg/kg. Importantly, high parasitemia suppression of 75.52% and 75.30% using a dose of 500 mg/kg of methanolic and ethyl acetate extracts, respectively, was noted. The extracts were able to reverse packed cell volume reduction. Nigella sativa-resistant phenotype was selected as delayed parasite clearance. However, there was no change in the nucleotide sequences of PbMDR1 and PbCRT genes. Conclusion The results provide room for future exploitation of the plant as an antimalarial.


Composite tubes outperform traditional pipe materials in applications requiring low weight, corrosion resistance and high strength. However, the lack of simple and reliable end fittings have limited their use. A new end fitting design for composite tubes have been designed, produced and tested. The end fitting consist of two main parts, a bolted connection with radially placed bolts and a custom made composite tube. The tube is reinforced in the ends with fiber mats to achieve a layup suitable for a bolted connection. In addition a production method involving filament winding and fiber mats has successfully been developed. Two tests of the produced tube were performed: an internal pressure test and a tensile test. During the pressure test, the tube leaked at a low pressure and the quality of the end fitting could not be determined. Axial strength was tested with a tensile test and a very good result was obtained. The linear load limit was found to be 67,2 kN and the maximum axial load was 96,2 kN. This is in good agreement with the predictions. It was concluded that this new end fitting design is a promising solution for composite tube junctions.


As part of the research on high speed radial diesel engines, an analysis had been conducted on the use of the operating systems of the missile boats and comparison of the results with the manufacturer's recommendations. A graphic model had been set up (block – diagram) on high speed radial ship diesel engine. On the basis of research and empirical data collected on defects which cause the inability to use the engine, the total exploitation reliability of complex technical system and the statistical characteristics of the life of the system had been defined, starting from the assumption that the life of the technical system tested belongs to the Weibull distribution. Research results had been achieved by means of the simulation method (the simulation model) and then were tested with the use of the contemporary computer applications. By defining the levels of operational capability, the levels of reliability had eventually been set up and they need to be ensured through modified maintenance procedures so that the investigated technical system could meet the required criteria. In the research of new samples, the needed intervals of preventive replacement of critical system parts will be determined so that the demanded reliability would be ensured.


Recent geochronological studies have demonstrated the existence of several Neoproterozoic orthogneiss and metavolcanic are suites (ca. 900 to 600 Ma) in the southern part of the Tocantins province, a major Neoproterozoic orogenic area in central Brazil, exposed between the Amazon and Sao Francisco cratons. Nd and Sr isotopic characteristics of these metamorphic suites are primitive: initial 87 Sr/ 87 Sr ratios vary from ∼0.7024 to ∼0.7042 and initial ϵ Nd values are positive, varying between +0.2 and +6.9. The most primitive initial Sr and Nd isotopic compositions are very similar to model depleted- mantle compositions at the time of formation of the original magmas. The mantle- like characteristics of these are suites in western Goias contradict previous ensialic evolution models for the Tocantins province and reveal that crustal accretion processes were important in large areas of central Brazil during Neoproterozoic time.


A comprehensive one-dimensional analytical model of the graded-base Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/As/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor is presented and used to examine the influence of base grading on the current gain and the high-frequency performance of a device with a conventional pyramidal structure. Grading is achieved by varying the Al mole fraction x linearly across the base to a value of zero at the base-collector boundary. Recombination in the space-charge and neutral regions of the device is modeled by considering Schockley-Read-Hall, Auger, and radiative processes. Owing to the different dependencies on base grading of the currents associated with these recombination mechanisms, the base current is minimized, and hence the gain reaches a maximum value, at a moderate level of base grading (x=0.1 at the base-emitter boundary). The maximum improvement in gain, with respect to the ungraded base case, is about fourfold. It is shown that the reduction in base transit time due to increased base grading leads to a 30% improvement in f/sub T/ in the most pronounced case of base grading studied (x=0.3 at the base-emitter boundary). The implications this has for improving f/sub max/ via increases in base width and base doping density are briefly examined. >


This paper describes the details and the results of the subjective quality evaluation performed at EPFL, as a contribution to the effort of the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) for the definition of the next-generation video coding standard. The performance of 27 coding technologies have been evaluated with respect to two H.264/MPEG-4 AVC anchors, considering high definition (HD) test material. The test campaign involved a total of 494 naive observers and took place over a period of four weeks. While similar tests have been conducted as part of the standardization process of previous video coding technologies, the test campaign described in this paper is by far the most extensive in the history of video coding standardization. The obtained subjective quality scores show high consistency and support an accurate comparison of the performance of the different coding solutions.


From July to September 2008, air samples were collected aboard the research expedition icebreaker XueLong (Snow Dragon) as part of the 2008 Chinese Arctic Research Expedition Program. Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) concentrations were analyzed in all of the samples. The average concentrations (± standard deviation) over the entire period were 33 ± 16, 5.4 ± 3.0, and 13 ± 7.5 pg m⁻³ for α-, β- and γ-HCH, respectively. Compared to previous studies in the same areas, total HCH (ΣHCH, the sum of α-, β-, and γ-HCH) levels declined by more than 10 × compared to those observed in the 1990s, but were approximately 4 × higher than those measured by the 2003 China Arctic Research Expedition, suggesting the increase of atmospheric ΣHCH recently. Because of the continuing use of lindane, ratios of α/γ-HCH showed an obvious decrease in North Pacific and Arctic region compared with those for 2003 Chinese Arctic Research Expedition. In Arctic, the level of α-HCH was found to be linked to sea ice distribution. Geographically, the average concentration of α-HCH in air samples from the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, neither of which contain sea ice, was 23 ± 4.4 pg m⁻³, while samples from the area covered by seasonal ice (∼75°N to ∼83°N), the so-called "floating sea ice region", contained the highest average levels of α-HCH at 48 ± 12 pg m⁻³, likely due to emission from sea ice and strong air-sea exchange. The lowest concentrations of α-HCH were observed in the pack ice region in the high Arctic covered by multiyear sea ice (∼83°N to ∼86°N). This phenomenon implies that the re-emission of HCH trapped in ice sheets and Arctic Ocean may accelerate during the summer as ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean decreases in response to global climate change.


A mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a common injury that happens to people across a range of lifestyles. Rest has been regarded as the most effective remedy to restore impaired physiological functions in those who have experienced this kind of injury. However, recent data suggests that a gradual increase in physical activity post-injury can lead to quicker recovery from negative symptoms. The impact of physical activity on physiologic recovery is not completely understood and the purpose of this study was to better understand how physical activity and sleep influence physiological outcomes following a mTBI. The data collected in this study came from two groups of young adults: a healthy control (n=5) and those that had a mTBI (n = 5). The daily activity was measured using an activity monitor for a week immediately after injury. Physiological measurements of excitability and inhibition within the motor cortex and neurotransmitter concentrations were collected within 72 hours of injury and again at two months to determine if physical activity or sleep within one week after injury had an influence on physiologic recovery. Control participants had higher levels of total (d = 1.2), light (d = 1.3) and moderate physical activity (d = 0.7), and lower total sleep time (d = -1.9), compared with the mTBI group. Across the two months, relative to the control group the mTBI group showed similar changes in excitability (d = 0.13), but greater changes in inhibition (d = -0.66). Changes in the excitatory (d = 0.06) and inhibitory (d = -0.16) neurotransmitters were similar between groups. Neither physical activity, nor sleep quality were significantly associated with the change in motor cortex excitability (R 2 ≤ 0.18, p ≥ 0.22), inhibition (R 2 ≤ 0.3, p ≥ 0.08) or neurotransmitter concentrations (R 2 ≤ 0.15, p ≥ 0.20) between 72 hours and two months post-injury. These preliminary results suggest there is no direct effect of physical activity on physiological outcomes.


Malalai Joya is the youngest and most famous female MP in Afghanistan, whose bravery and vision have won her an international following. She made world headlines with her very first speech, in which she courageously denounced the presence of warlords in the new Afghan government. She has spoken out for justice ever since, and for the rights of women in the country she loves. "Raising My Voice" shares her extraordinary story. Born during the Russian invasion and spending her youth in refugee camps, Malalai Joya describes how she first became a political activist. When she returned to Afghanistan, the country was under the grip of the Taliban and she ran a secret school for girls. A popular MP with her constituents, she received global support when she was suspended from parliament in 2007 because of her forthright views. Malalai Joya's work has brought her awards and death threats in equal measure. She lives in constant danger. In this gripping account, she reveals the truth about life in a country embroiled in war - especially for the women - and speaks candidly about the future of Afghanistan, a future that has implications for us all.


In the literature of urban economics, primate city is a phenomenon that a very large city is formed among small cities in urban system of a region that a major part of population and its economic activities of that region is concentrated in it. According to urban economics theories, GFP is one of the factors that can be influential in forming a primate city phenomenon. Given service sector in the economy of Khuzestan Province and despite this province is industrial one, more than half of employed people are engaged in service sector. In this research, the effectiveness of service sector on forming the phenomenon of primate city in this province has been addressed by separating GDP based on sectors' VAT. To do this research, time series data during 1991 -2011 and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model by using Microfit software were used. The results indicated that service sector has significant impact on primate city of Khuzestan Province both in short-term and long-term. According to the findings, for balanced growth of urban system in the province, it is recommended that to change supportive policies from service sector to other economic sectors of the province, particularly agriculture sector.


This is the final Technical Completion Report of Projects No. W-830 funded by the Water and Wildlands Resources Center of the University of California. This report consists of two parts. Part 1 entitled, Hydraulic Characterization of Aquifers, Reservoir Rocks and Soils: A History of Ideas is an integrated review of the development of hydraulic characterization methods in the fields of Civil Engineering, Soil Physics, Groundwater Hydrology and Petroleum Engineering. The narrative portion of this part is followed by a set of over 500 references pertaining to hydraulic characterization which represent our current knowledge of hydraulic characterization methodologies in the earth sciences and engineering. The second part entitled, A Numerical-Model/Spreadsheet Integration for Hydraulic Characterization of Aquifers, Reservoir Rocks and Soils presents a new interpretive tool that is under development for hydraulic characterization of groundwater systems, petroleum reservoirs and soils. Both the literature survey presented in Part 1 and the development of the interpretive tool presented in Part 2 are continuing research efforts. The narrative portion of Part 1, after informal peer review is expected to be submitted for publication in an archival journal. A systematic review of the more-than 500 references is a challenging, time-consuming task. Efforts will continue on a detailed review of the compiled literature for eventual publication. The development of the interpretive tool is part of a Masters research project of a graduate student. A prototype computer software, AQTRUST is expected to be ready by the time the M.S. research is completed by the summer of 1997. A preliminary demonstration of the software will take place during the Fall Annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, in December, 1996. When future publications materialize from these continuing investigations, the support of the Water and Wildlands Resources Center will be appropriately acknowledged.


Most of the existing literature on judicial interpretation of federal constitutions focuses either on individual federations or on comparative studies of specific judicial techniques and/or specific fields. This paper argues that the general interpretative philosophy underlying the judicial approach has a huge impact on the balance of power in a federation; an originalist interpretation tends to favour the constituent units, while progressive or 'living' constitutionalism tends to have a centripetal effect. However, even the adoption of an originalist approach is not sufficient to fully counter the general centralising trend noticeable in the constitutional jurisprudence of all the federations studied. Further, the analysis suggests that constitutional courts often adopt a different approach to interpretation in federalism-related issues than they do in other areas of constitutional law, such as fundamental rights.


Rare earth and specialty elements (RESE) are functionally integral to several clean energy technologies, but there is no domestic source of virgin RESE in the United States. Manufacturing waste streams, which are relatively simple compositionally, and electronic wastes, which are chemically complex, could both serve as viable sources of secondary RESE if efficient methods existed to recover and separate these metals for reuse. Leveraging differences in RESE reduction potentials, high surface area, high conductivity carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could enable space- and solvent-efficient, selective recovery of RESE from mixed metal wastes. In this study, unaligned CNTs encapsulated in polyvinyl alcohol were used to develop an electrochemically active filter and tested for recovery of six metals or metalloids (Cu, As, Eu, Nd, Ga, and Sc) as a function of flow rate (1–5 mL min−1), pH (2–10), and voltage (0.1–3.0 V), with maximum recoveries of 86–96%, except for As, which was unretained. All metals were recovered as oxides, rather than their zero valent or reduced forms (except for Cu, which was partially reduced at low pHs). Deaeration experiments suggested electrochemical reduction of dissolved O2 and O2 derived from water splitting were jointly responsible for metal capture, where metal oxides were first formed via metal hydroxide intermediates, and this mechanism was enhanced at higher pHs. A synthetic, multi-metal waste stream of Cu and Eu was successfully separated on multiple stages with increasing voltages (97 ± 0.1% Cu and 65 ± 0.3% Eu recovery), indicating the approach might be useful for the treatment of electronic end-of-life and manufacturing derived wastes.


Excerpt] In the fall of 2012, Japan set forth economic policies aimed at turning around the country's historic deflationary slide that began in the 1990s. These policies led the Japanese yen to fall dramatically in value relative to the U.S. dollar, reversing what was a long upward trend of strength against the dollar. From September 2012 to May 2013, the yen–dollar exchange rate plummeted 22.5 percent. Although the rate of decline decelerated considerably over the remainder of the year, the yen fell an additional 2.4 percent against the U.S. dollar between May and December. A falling yen means the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar increases for goods imported from Japan. Parallel to the drop in the value of the yen, import prices of Japanese goods fell 3.5 percent from September 2012 to December 2013. The drop in the value of the yen particularly influenced prices in major product areas such as nonelectrical machinery, computers and electronic products, and chemicals, which combined make up nearly 40 percent of U.S. imports from Japan. The industry that is most affected by Japanese import prices is the transportation vehicles industry, which alone represents 42 percent of U.S. imports from Japan.


The mushroom body of the fruit fly brain is one of the best studied systems in neuroscience. At its core it consists of a population of Kenyon cells, which receive inputs from multiple sensory modalities. These cells are inhibited by the anterior paired lateral neuron, thus creating a sparse high dimensional representation of the inputs. In this work we study a mathematical formalization of this network motif and apply it to learning the correlational structure between words and their context in a corpus of unstructured text, a common natural language processing (NLP) task. We show that this network can learn semantic representations of words and can generate both static and context-dependent word embeddings. Unlike conventional methods (e.g., BERT, GloVe) that use dense representations for word embedding, our algorithm encodes semantic meaning of words and their context in the form of sparse binary hash codes. The quality of the learned representations is evaluated on word similarity analysis, word-sense disambiguation, and document classification. It is shown that not only can the fruit fly network motif achieve performance comparable to existing methods in NLP, but, additionally, it uses only a fraction of the computational resources (shorter training time and smaller memory footprint).


OBJECTIVES: In earlier studies we have demonstrated that 17-β-estradiol and an estrogen cell surface receptor can be found on various human cells where they are coupled to nitric oxide release. We also demonstrated the presence of estrogen signaling in Mytilus edulis ganglia. In the present report, we sought to determine a function for these ganglionic estrogen receptors, transcending a reproductive role for estrogen. MATERIAL & METHODS: Ganglionic microglial egress from excised pedal ganglia was examined microscopically following pharmacological treatments designed to determine a role for 17-β-estradiol in microglial regulation via nitric oxide. Additionally, we examined the tissue by RT-PCR and sequence analysis for the estrogen receptor β gene. RESULTS: In ganglia incubated with varying concentrations of 17-β-estradiolBSA there is a signifi cant drop in microglial egress at the 24 hour observation period (58.7 ± 7.4 vs. 17-β-estradiol-BSA exposed = 14.7 ± 1.5; P<0.01), which can be antagonized by tamoxifen and signifi cantly diminished by L-NAME, a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. By RT-PCR and sequence analysis Mytilus edulis pedal ganglia was found to express a 266 bp fragment of the estrogen receptor-β gene, which exhibits 100% sequence identity with the human counterpart. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that 17-β-estradiol-BSA is working on estrogen cell surface receptors since 17-β-estradiol-BSA does not enter the cytoplasm and that these receptors are coupled to constitutive nitric oxide release. This study demonstrates that 17-β-estradiol can down regulate microglial fMLP induced activation and activation following ganglionic excision.


The competitive replacement of corals by benthic algae is considered key to reef degra- dation. Such replacement could originate from direct competitive overgrowth of corals by algae or death of corals from other disturbances, followed by an increase in algal abundance. To assess the relative importance of these processes, this study experimentally tested the competitiveness of 6 Caribbean coral species against the brown alga Lobophora variegata on a fringing reef in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. This alga has a widespread distribution and is considered particularly aggres- sive towards corals due to its creeping growth form. We compared the growth of transplanted algae over living and dead coral, as well as coral tissue mortality in the presence and absence of trans- planted algae over a 1 yr period. Competitive trends were also related to changes in species abun- dance from 1973 to 2002 on the same reef. The results indicated that only 1 species, Agaricia agaricites, was competitively inferior to L. variegata and suffered more tissue mortality when exposed to the algae. Surveys of naturally occurring interactions showed that less competitive species were generally more overgrown by L. variegata, further reinforcing our results. Importantly, A. agaricites experienced the greatest decline in percent cover from 1973 to 2002 among the studied species. A large proportion of this decline occurred following the die-off of Diadema antillarum in 1983, which generally marks the onset of increased algal abundance on Caribbean reefs. We con- cluded that Caribbean corals have different competitive abilities against algae, highlighting the com- plexity and species-specific nature of coral-algal interactions. Although our data supports that prior death of corals may be generally required for algae to become established, competition with algae could play a significant role in structuring coral communities by reducing the abundance of poor competitive species. We suggest that a species-by-species approach is needed to understand the factors influencing transitions from coral to algal dominance on Caribbean reefs.


This paper reviews the selection methods used in the design of an ice-bank thermal energy storage (TES) application in the Carroll's building in Dundalk IT. The complexities of the interaction between the onsite wind turbine, existing campus load and the refurbished building meant that traditional calculation methods and programmes could not be used and specialist software had to be developed during the design process. The research reviews this tool against the actual results obtained from the operation in the building for one college term of full time use. The paper also examines the operation of the system in order to produce recommendations for its potential modification to improve its efficiency and utilisation. Simulation software is evaluated and maximum import capacity is minimised. Significant budget constraints limited the level of control and metering that could be provided for the project, and this paper demonstrates some investigative processes that were used to overcome the limitations on data availability.


The archaic centralized software systems, currently used to manage buildings, make it hard to incorporate advances in sensing technology and user-level applications, and present hurdles for experimental validation of open research in building information technology. Motivated by this, we --- a transnational collaboration of researchers engaged in development and deployment of technologies for sustainable buildings --- have developed SensorAct, an open-source federated middleware incorporating features targeting three specific requirements: (i) Accommodating a richer ecosystem of sensors, actuators, and higher level third-party applications (ii) Participatory engagement of stakeholders other than the facilities department, such as occupants, in setting policies for management of sensor data and control of electrical systems, without compromising on the overall privacy and safety, and (iii) Flexible interfacing and information exchange with systems external to a building, such as communication networks, transportation system, electrical grid, and other buildings, for better management, by exploiting the teleconnections that exist across them. SensorAct is designed to scale from small homes to network of buildings, making it suitable not only for production use but to also seed a global-scale network of building testbeds with appropriately constrained and policed access. This paper describes SensorAct's architecture, current implementation, and preliminary performance results.


According to previous researchers, parents of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) consistently report more stress than parents of typically developing children or children with other developmental disorders (e.g., Down syndrome). This has peaked interest in the field in a related area, that being, identifying the coping strategies parents use to deal with the stressors of rearing a child on the autism spectrum. The available literature on coping strategies primarily has focused on interviewing parents to find out what strategies they currently use and if these are effective, which has resulted in mixed findings. A selected synthesis of the stress literature pertaining to coping strategies is provided to highlight the high levels of reported stress already experienced by families of children with ASD and what strategies the parents report aid them in coping with the stress. This literature review is presented for two purposes: (a) highlight relevant findings and methodological issues with current research, and (b) discuss implications for researchers and practitioners working with children with ASD and their families who exhibit increased levels of stress.


Background Advance care planning has been discussed from a variety of perspectives. It aims to support a patient-centred process in which patients, together with their loved ones and their caregivers, are enabled to make informed decisions regarding future health care events. Although both accurate information about prospective health care problems and alternatives and help with personal decision making by advance care planning facilitators are crucial, the information given to patients in an ACP process is mostly rough, short, and left to physicians and thus does not fulfil the criteria of an 'evidence based patient choice' nor even of general standards for "informed consent" Aim To construct an evidence based paper and video-based Decision Aid Library for End of Life Care for best patient information supporting the ACP facilitation process Methods We screened the literature for evidence-based information and evidence-based decision aids regarding (1) general Goals of Care, (2) Resuscitation (3) Tube Feeding (4) Antibiotics, (5) Ventilation (6) Dialysis Withdrawal and (7) last place of Care and constructed a library of evidence-based decision aids, qualitatively pretested by staff and patients. Results Following a methodical screening process, a library of evidence-based papers and videos was constructed, which is currently being qualitatively evaluated by staff and patients as the first step in a grant-funded randomised controlled trial on the effect on ACP for palliative care patients in Switzerland. Discussion We will discuss the content and qualitative results of the Decision Aid Library at the Melbourne Conference Conclusion From an ethical point of view, best information is crucial for making informed choices. If the decision aid library proves to be useful, evidence-based information and decisions aids should become part of ACP programmes.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the landmarks and methodology to approach the thoracic paravertebral space in dogs; to evaluate if intercostal muscular response could be evoked by a nerve-stimulator; to radiographically assess the distribution pattern of a radio-opaque contrast medium after thoracic paravertebral injections.

STUDY DESIGN
Randomized, controlled, experimental trial.

ANIMALS
Two mongrel dog cadavers (anatomical study) and 24 mongrel dogs (experimental study).

METHODS
For the anatomic study 0.2 mL kg(-1) of new methylene blue (NMB) was injected at the 5th thoracic paravertebral space; for the experimental study dogs were divided into three groups and received 1 (T(5)), 2 (T(4) and T(6)) or 4 (T(4), T(5), T(6) and T(7)) paravertebral injections of iohexol. The paravertebral approach was performed with insulated needles using landmarks and a blind technique. When the needle tip reached the respective thoracic paravertebral space, the nerve-stimulator was switched-on and the presence/absence of intercostal muscular twitch was registered, thus a total volume of 0.2 mL kg(-1) of iohexol, divided into equal parts for each injection point, was administered. Radiological studies were performed with two orthogonal projections at different times. Positive injection was confirmed when the paravertebral space was occupied by iohexol in both projections.

RESULTS
NMB was distributed in the T(5) paraverterbal space. In the experimental study, when the needle tip reached the respective paravertebral space, intercostal twitching was obtained in 80% of the total injections with a stimulating current of 0.5 mA. The incidence of positive cases when the intercostal twitch was obtained with 0.5 mA was 83.3%. The main distribution pattern observed was cloud like without longitudinal diffusion.

CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Intercostal muscular responses obtained with a stimulating current of 0.5 mA could be useful to locate thoracic spinal nerves in dogs and in our study the injected solution was confined to one thoracic paravertebral space.


In many image processing applications, it is desirable to combine partially overlapping images into one larger scene. We introduce a supervised correlation filter method that automatically detects overlapping image pairs and estimates proper alignment. We use on-line composite filter design to achieve rotation- and overlap-invariant image pairing. We present stochastic system analysis that provides closed-form expressions that predict correlation plane response distribution, defines an overlap-invariant filter bank architecture, and obtains the optimum training set size. The resulting high-level image processing method is numerically efficient, suited for optoelectronic implementation, and competitive with manual reconstruction in speed and accuracy.


Smart contracts are a promising means of formalizing and reliably enforcing agreements between entities using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Research has revealed that a significant number of smart contracts are subject to programming flaws, making them vulnerable to attacks and leading to detrimental effects, such as asset loss. Researchers and developers call for a thorough analysis of challenges to identify their causes and propose solutions. To respond to these calls, we conducted two literature reviews and diverse expert interviews and synthesized scattered knowledge on challenges and solutions. We identified 29 challenges (e.g., code visibility, code updateability, and encapsulation) and 60 solutions (e.g., gas limit specification, off-ledger computations, and shadowing). Moreover, we developed 20 software design patterns (SDPs) in collaboration with smart contract developers. The SDPs help developers adjust their programming habits and thus support them in their daily development practices. Our results provide actionable knowledge for smart contract developers to overcome the identified challenges and offer support for comparing smart contract integration concepts across three fundamentally different DLT protocols (i.e., Ethereum, EOSIO, and Hyperledger Fabric). Moreover, we support developers in becoming aware of peculiarities in smart contract development and the resulting benefits and drawbacks.


Indonesia is currently the largest Muslim nation in the world; however, the understanding of when and especially how, Islam first reached maritime Southeast Asia is still far from clear. Written sources are sparse and often unreliable, archaeology is still in its infancy and the physical conditions in any case are not favourable to material survival.

This article contributes to this debate by highlighting rich but unexploited epigraphic material found in a Colonial period archive in the University of Leiden. The archive is an extensive photographic documentation of the Islamic cemeteries of Aceh in north Sumatra, the location of some of the earliest Muslim mercantile polities in the region.

The article is the first publication of the group of earliest locally produced tombstones from the polity of Samudera-Pasai. The article provides readings of these early epitaphs as well as exploring their material, manufacture and design, and the insights these provide into the multiple cultural traditions active in the area at the time. The article breaks new grounds in seeing these tombstones not simply as text – the dominant approach since the 19th century - but as "whole objects" within which the epigraphic and material data hold equal importance.

The research was funded by a grant from the Committee for South East Asian Studies (British Academy) and a Tweedie Exploration Fellowship from the University of Edinburgh; work was also done during a period as an Affiliated Fellow of the International Institute of Asian Studies (Leiden). This work is being further developed for a future book on the material culture of death in Islamic Southeast Asia.


The thesis will examine the role and impact of the concept of the community within the structural reorganisation of English local government between 1992 and 1995. The methodological approach adopted within this thesis has been to compare the use, application and significance of the community with a case study of a specific local authority and its preparations for reorganisation. The authority in question was Wychavon District Council located in the County of Hereford and Worcester. The conclusions from this case study were then compared to the role and significance of the community in the reviews of other local authorities in England. This study produced two important results. These were that there was an established body of literature which argued that the community could be of value to local government and that the community should be identified by measuring individuals sense of belonging and feelings of attachment, as well as such daily activities as shopping and working (which help to stimulate these feelings). The then Conservative Government even instructed the specially appointed Commission to apply this particular interpretation of the community to their reviews, and to attempt to base any new unitary authorities upon the social and spatial area it created. The Conservative Government also gave the Commission a Community Index to assist with the identification of communities, and appointed the pollsters MORI to support the Commission with the task of identifying the emotional and more subjective senses of community. The Commission eventually came to rely entirely on the MORI polls, and whilst these polls attempted to faithfully apply the Governments interpretation of the community, they unfortunately produced small and often complex communities, which the Commission felt could not be applied to its reviews. This therefore led to the community becoming a secondary consideration to the factors of cost and efficiency. Furthermore the problematic nature of the community - that is, the production of small and complex communities - was repeated in this thesis' own survey of community identities in the District of Wychavon. In fact this authority's proposals for reorganisation were based almost entirely upon the factors of cost, size and efficiency.


In medicine, both ethical and monetary costs of incorrect predictions can be significant, and the complexity of the problems often necessitates increasingly complex models. Recent work has shown that changing just the random seed is enough for otherwise well-tuned deep neural networks to vary in their individual predicted probabilities. In light of this, we investigate the role of model uncertainty methods in the medical domain. Using RNN ensembles and various Bayesian RNNs, we show that population-level metrics, such as AUC-PR, AUC-ROC, log-likelihood, and calibration error, do not capture model uncertainty. Meanwhile, the presence of significant variability in patient-specific predictions and optimal decisions motivates the need for capturing model uncertainty. Understanding the uncertainty for individual patients is an area with clear clinical impact, such as determining when a model decision is likely to be brittle. We further show that RNNs with only Bayesian embeddings can be a more efficient way to capture model uncertainty compared to ensembles, and we analyze how model uncertainty is impacted across individual input features and patient subgroups.


The presence of former members of Saddam Hussein's regime in the Islamic State is well documented in hundreds of news reports and recently published books, and has become a staple in almost every serious analysis of the group. Attempts to measure the actual impact of this influence on the evolution of the group have left us with a wide diversity of views about the group; some believe it is a religiously inspired group of apocalyptic zealots, while others see it as a pragmatic power aggregator whose leaders learned to govern as the henchmen of Iraq's former dictator. This article examines the impact that former Ba'athists made on who joined the Islamic State, how the organizational structure evolved, and the origins of its unique beliefs that inform strategy. The author relied on captured documents from multiple sources and Islamic State movement press releases collected since 2003 for this examination. The findings reveal that despite the prominence of some highly-visible former regime members in key positions after 2010, the organization was overwhelmingly influenced and shaped by veterans from the greater Salafi-jihadi movement who monopolized political, economic, religious, and media positions in the group and who decided on membership eligibility, structural growth, and strategic direction. This analysis should hopefully correct some inaccuracies about the origins and evolution of the group.


Cybercrime is a growing problem in the United States and worldwide. Many questions remain unanswered as to the proper role and scope of criminal law in addressing socially-undesirable actions affecting and conducted through the use of computers and modern information technologies. This Article tackles perhaps the most exigent question in U.S. cybercrime law, the scope of activities that should be subject to criminal sanction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the federal "anti-hacking" statute. At the core of current CFAA debate is the question of whether private contracts, such as website "Terms of Use" or organizational "Acceptable Use Policies" should be able to define the limits of authorization and access for purposes of criminal sanction under the CFAA. Many scholars and activists argue that such contracts should not, because they may result in ridiculous consequences such as the criminalization of misrepresenting one's "desirability" on an online dating website. Critics of such arguments rebut that failing to allow contract-based restrictions opens the door for hackers to engage in many types of activity not otherwise subject to criminal sanction. This Article examines the tension between these two positions, both from the standpoint of current U.S. jurisprudence and scholarship, and from the standpoint of the respective purposes of criminal and tort law in deterring and punishing socially-undesirable behavior. The Article concludes by proposing a legislative revision to the CFAA that substantially mitigates the risk of overbroad criminalization, while leaving intact the ability of the law to deter and punish the most serious acts affecting and utilizing computers.


Spoken Word Recognition covers the entire range of processes involved in recognizing spoken words - both in and out of context. It brings together a number of essays dealing with important theoretical questions raised by the study of spoken word recognition - among them, how do we understand fluent speech as efficiently and effortlessly as we do? What are the mental processes and representations involved when we recognize spoken words? How do these differ from those involved in reading written words? What information is stored in our mental lexicon and how is it structured? What do linguistic and computational theories tell us about these psychological processes and representations?The multidisciplinary presentation of work by phoneticians, linguists, psychologists, and computer scientists reflects the growing interest in spoken word recognition from a number of different perspectives. It is a natural consequence of the mediating role that lexical representations and processes play in language understanding, linking sound with meaning.Following the editors' introduction, the contributions and their authors are: Acoustic-Phonetic Representation in Word Recognition (David B. Pisoni and Paul A. Luce). Phonological Parsing and Lexical Retrieval (Kenneth W. Church). Parallel Processing in Spoken Word Recognition (William D. Marslen-Wilson). A Reader's View of Listening (Dianne C. Bradley and Kenneth I. Forster). Prosodic Structure and Spoken Word Recognition (Francois Grosjean and James Paul Gee). Structure in Auditory Word Recognition (Lyn Frazier). The Mental Representation of the Meaning of Words (P. N. Johnson-Laird). Context Effects in Lexical Processing (Michael K. Tanenhaus and Margery M. Lucas).Uli H. Frauenfelder is a researcher with the Max-Planck-Institut fur Psycholinguistik, and Lorraine Komisarjevsky Tyler is a professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Spoken Word Recognition is in a series that is derived from special issues of Cognition: International Journal of Cognitive Science, edited by Jacques Mehler. A Bradford Book.


During natural social gatherings, humans tend to organize themselves in the so-called free-standing conversational groups. In this context, robust head and body pose estimates can facilitate the higher-level description of the ongoing interplay. Importantly, visual information typically obtained with a distributed camera network might not suffice to achieve the robustness sought. In this line of thought, recent advances in wearable sensing technology open the door to multimodal and richer information flows. In this paper we propose to cast the head and body pose estimation problem into a matrix completion task. We introduce a framework able to fuse multimodal data emanating from a combination of distributed and wearable sensors, taking into account the temporal consistency, the head/body coupling and the noise inherent to the scenario. We report results on the novel and challenging SALSA dataset, containing visual, auditory and infrared recordings of 18 people interacting in a regular indoor environment. We demonstrate the soundness of the proposed method and the usability for higher-level tasks such as the detection of F-formations and the discovery of social attention attractors.


The obligation of national treatment makes an appearance in all five of the major active multilateral treaties concerning copyright and related rights, including the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention, the TRIPS Agreement, the WIPO Copyright Treaty ("WCT"), and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty ("WPPT"), a group I will collectively call the "five CRR treaties." It is principally lauded for its substantive bite, as a rule requiring that treaty parties extend protection to non-nationals on the same terms as they do to their own nationals. Yet there are reasons to question whether the national treatment obligations imposed by the five CRR treaties remain of paramount importance in practice. Together, those treaties now contain both far more specific substantive minimum guarantees than the Berne Convention did in its first incarnation in 1886, and a variety of specific exceptions and limitations to national treatment. At the same time, the choice-of-law framework in which "national treatment" may have meant more than non-discrimination has been substantially transformed.This paper reviews the operation of the national treatment principle in all major active copyright treaties, and assesses it continuing impact. Part I considers several aspects of the form of the national treatment rule in the context of copyright and related rights, and of intellectual property more generally. Part II considers the principal issues concerning the scope of application of the national treatment rule in the five CRR treaties. Part III offers some concluding remarks. Among those conclusions are that although national treatment continues to play an interstitial role in specific legal areas, its most important function may be as a symbolic carrier of the spirit of internationalism, a spirit that may be facing challenges as much from cultural preservationism as from economic protectionism.


UN Interventions: The Role of Geography This paper argues that UN military interventions are geographically biased. For every 1,000 kilometers of distance from the three Western permanent UNSC members (France, UK, US), the probability of a UN military intervention decreases by 4 percent. We are able to rule out several alternative explanations for the distance finding, such as differences by continent, colonial origin, bilateral trade relationships, foreign aid flows, political regime forms, or the characteristics of the Cold War. We do not observe this geographical bias for non-military interventions and find evidence that practical considerations could be important factors for UNSC decisions to intervene militarily. JEL Classification: D74, F52, F53, N40, R12


The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a new type of voltage source converter (VSC) for medium or high voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission. This paper proposes the installation of a new HVDC system, HVDC#3, by using MMC systems to transfer power between mainland and Jeju island power systems in Korea in 2020 beside the operation of two old line-commutated converter (LCC)-based HVDC systems. The control strategies of MMC-HVDC will be first analyzed. The operation of MMC-HVDC system for stabilizing Jeju power system will be then tested in two cases. First case is the operation of MMC for stabilizing power when wind power is variable. Other case is the control of MMC since a fault occurs in one of two old LCC-HVDC systems. The simulation results using PSCAD simulation program will confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Issues on commitment have captured the great interest of organizations and research scholars. The health-service organizations in Singapore are anxious to develop appropriate organizational strategies to enhance their nursing personnel's levels of commitment to the organization and profession, and hope that this may, in one way or other, help to ease the turnover among the nurses currently taking place in the organizations. The current study has, therefore, been carried out to investigate the commitment levels of nurses in the health-service organizations in the Asian Context of Singapore with an attempt to (a) establish the differences between the nurses' level of organizational commitment and professional commitment; (b) determine the effects of the nurses' personal variables on their organizational commitment; and (c) ascertain the relationships between the nurses's overall job satisfaction and their organizational commitment and professional commitment. A total of 2,424 usable questionnaires were collected from nurses in six government hospitals and four private hospitals. The results of the data analysis have indicated that (a) the nurses, irrespective of their organizational affiliation to the public or private sector, tended to show a higher level of commitment to the profession than to the organization; (b) the nurses in the private hospitals did not tend to show more commitment to the organization than their counterparts in the government hospitals; (c) the personal variables of age, tenure and salary level of the nurses in both the government and private hospitals seemed to have created an impact on their organizational commitment, and that of these variables, salary level seemed to have the greatest impact on the organizational commitment, and have an intervening effect on the relationships between age and tenure and the organizational commitment; and (d) the overall job satisfaction of the nurses in the government hospitals seemed to have been related more to their professional commitment than to their organizational commitment, but the overall job satisfaction of the nurses in the private hospitals did not appear to have significant relationships either with their organizational commitment or professional commitment. The possible contributing factors to these findings were analysed;the implications for the health-service and other organizations concerned, and the implications for future studies were discussed.


Public discussion of federal fiscal policy typically focuses on several familiar metrics of performance, including the total deficit, the level of public debt and percentage of federal spending committed to mandatory spending and net interest payments. While useful, these measures are based on accounting conventions developed years ago, and do not capture many of the ways in which the federal government now commits public resources, including obligated budget authority, guarantees associated with various government insurance programs, retirement benefits for federal workers and military personnel, and - most substantially - federal social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Collectively these programs and activities represent substantial and largely overlooked current commitments of future federal resources. After reviewing current measures of fiscal performance, the article presents several alternative ways to quantify federal financial performance over the first half of this decade utilizing more comprehensive measures of mounting federal financial obligations. So, for example, while the commonly reported total deficit of the federal government in FY2005 was $318 billion, a more comprehensive measure of fiscal results over the course of the same year would have shown a deterioration in the country's net financial position in excess of $3.3 trillion - that is, an order of magnitude larger. To promote more informed debate and encourage more responsible public leadership, the more comprehensive measures of fiscal performance described in this article should be adopted as the primary metrics for reporting the financial performance of the federal government. (US, Canada).


The pressure range of single crystal structure determination using a sealed source was extended to over 30 GPa with the improved techniques in this study. Rare gas solid helium was found to be the only pressure medium that can secure hydrostatic environment to very high pressure. The solid argon or neon induces significant divitoric stresses in crystals at relatively low pressure. The crystal volume was doubled at certain targeting pressure by using a new gasket material. The intrinsic background of a pressure cell was significantly reduced by a special collimator. These procedures improved the signal/noise ratio to 3 - 4 times. The quality of the structure refinement and the accuracy of atomic coordinates at 33 GPa are comparable with measurements at ambient conditions in a diamond cell.


In deltaic and turbiditic deposits along passive margins, such as the Lower Congo basin on the West African margin, the main deformation is not induced by a regional tectonic stress field but by the increase of the sedimentary load leading to gravitational instabilities. The local stress field in such an environment is drastically influenced by the lithological discontinuities, which can reorientate the principal stresses induced by sedimentary loading. In this paper we document the localization of particular faults, called sedimentary shear zones (SSZ); these are formed along the borders of a sandy channel embedded in more fine-grained sediments, as a function of the lithological contrast. Furthermore we describe the reorientation of the stress field, perpendicular to the channel borders in the channel interior. Examples from 3D seismic lines and field studies in SW Ireland and Tunisia are compared with results from analogue and geomechanical models, leading to an integrated interpretation for the formation of the SSZ.


This paper examines taste as a factor in beer9s arrival as a symbol of modernity in India, Japan, and China. From nineteenth-century colonial production of India pale ale to contemporary attempts by global brewing firms to profit from a burgeoning Chinese market, beer has had an important but largely unexamined role in modern Asian-European encounters. This paper follows distinct agents of transmission—merchants, migrants, and empire builders—and their interactions with local drinking cultures to shape the particular tastes and meanings associated with beer in these countries. The case studies illustrate the different relationships that each country had with Western imperialism: India as a subject of British occupation, China as a site of commercial competition between imperial rivals, and Japan as a nascent imperial power in its own right. Beer gained least acceptance in the Indian subcontinent, in part because of Hindu and Muslim moralizing, and it symbolized western modernity for those who wished to challenge traditional culture. South Asian preferences often focused more on alcohol content than on the taste of malt or hops. The Japanese became Asia9s most avid consumers of beer, adapting German lagers to local tastes. Chinese beer drinking has been limited to cities, and local brands are also bland, which reflects the place of beer within Chinese meals as a neutral grain. More broadly, I suggest that beer became a subject for nation-building efforts in Asia precisely because of its cosmopolitanism, which provided status to nationalist ideologues and supported their program of transcending regional rivalries.


A morphodynamic model is developed and analyzed to gain fundamental understanding on the basic physical mechanisms responsible for the characteristics of shoreface-connected sand ridges observed in some coastal seas. These alongshore rhythmic bedforms have a horizontal length-scale of order 10 km. It is found that the positive feedback between the topographic disturbances of a sloping bottom and the subsequent deflection of the mean coastal current is the main cause of the ridges. To be effective, this mechanism needs an averaged sediment transport mainly due to wave stirring during storms and an averaged current driven by pressure gradients rather than surface stresses. Even in the presence of significant tidal currents, their origin — related to the mean current instead of tidal oscillation — is essentialy different from that of tidal sand banks.


Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) fabricated using polyethylene (PE) and ethylene tetrafluoroethylene films are subjected to degradation tests in deionised water for electrolyser/fuel cell operation. After the degradation test, the decrease in ion-exchange capacity (IEC) of the AEM, hence decrease in ionic conductivity, is found to be influenced by the applied gamma radiation dose rate. The use of high radiation dose rate produces membranes with improved stability in terms of % IEC loss due to shorter, more uniformly distributed vinylbenzyl chloride (VBC) grafts. For LDPE-based AEMs, increasing the applied radiation dose rate during grafting from 30 to 2000 Gy h−1 significantly reduces AEM % IEC loss from 38 to 11%, respectively. Analyses of both the aged functionalised membranes and their resulting degradation products confirm the loss of not only the functional group, but also the VBC group, which have not been reported previously in the literature. Oxidation reactions taking place in solutions close to neutral can be the main contributor to the IEC loss in contrast to the widely reported E2 or SN2 attack on the head group in high alkalinity solutions. We therefore propose parallel degradation mechanisms to head group loss of AEM that involves peroxide radicals which is more dominant at low alkalinity solutions.


Wind is one of the most popular renewable energy sources and it has the potential to become the biggest energy source in future. Since the wind does not always blow constantly, the output wind power is not constant which may make some problem for the power grid. According to the grid code which is set by independent system operator, ISO, wind turbine generator systems need to follow some standards such as the predetermined acceptable power fluctuations. In order to smooth the output powers, the energy storage system and some power electronics modules are employed. The utilized power electronics modules in the wind turbine system can pursue many different goals, such as maintaining the voltage stability, frequency stability, providing the available and predetermined output active and reactive power. On the other side, the energy storage system can help achieving some of these goals but its main job is to store the extra energy when not needed and release the stored energy when needed. The energy storage system can be designed in different sizes, material and also combination of different energy storage systems (hybrid designs). Combination of power electronics devises and also energy storage system helps the wind turbine systems to smooth the output power according to the


Autophagy is a homeostatic and inducible process affecting multiple aspects of the immune system. This intrinsic cellular process is involved in MHC-antigen (Ag) presentation, inflammatory signaling, cytokine regulation, and cellular metabolism. In the context of T cell responses, autophagy has an influential hand in dictating responses to self and non-self by controlling extrinsic factors (e.g., MHC-Ag, cytokine production) in antigen-presenting cells (APC) and intrinsic factors (e.g., cell signaling, survival, cytokine production, and metabolism) in T cells. These attributes make autophagy an attractive therapeutic target to modulate T cell responses. In this review, we examine the impact autophagy has on T cell responses by modulating multiple aspects of APC function; the importance of autophagy in the activation, differentiation and homeostasis of T cells; and discuss how the modulation of autophagy could influence T cell responses.


In the current study, a novel approach was employed to produce a unique combination of ultrafine ferrite grains and low temperature bainite in a low carbon steel with a high hardenability. The thermomechanical route included warm deformation of supercooled austenite followed by reheating in the ferrite region and then cooling to bainitic transformation regime (i.e. 400-250°C). The resultant microstructure was ultrafine ferrite grains (i.e. <4μm) and very fine bainite consisting of bainitic ferrite laths with high dislocation density and retained austenite films. This microstructure offers a unique combination of ultimate tensile strength and elongation due to the presence of ductile fine ferrite grains and hard low temperature bainitic ferrite laths with retained austenite films. The microstructural characteristics of bainite were studied using optical microscopy in conjunction with scanning and transmission electron microscopy techniques.


Background: Designing and implementation of reverse logistics (RL) network which meets the sustainability targets have been a matter of emerging concern for the electronics companies in India. Objectives: The present study developed a two-phase model for configuration of sustainable RL network design for an Indian manufacturing company to manage its end-of-life and endof-use electronic products. The notable feature of the model was the evaluation of facilities under financial, environmental and social considerations and integration of the facility selection decisions with the network design. Method: In the first phase, an integrated Analytical Hierarchical Process Complex Proportional Assessment methodology was used for the evaluation of the alternative locations in terms of their degree of utility, which in turn was based on the three dimensions of sustainability. In the second phase, the RL network was configured as a bi-objective programming problem, and fuzzy optimisation approach was utilised for obtaining a properly efficient solution to the problem. Results: The compromised solution attained by the proposed fuzzy model demonstrated that the cost differential for choosing recovery facilities with better environmental and social performance was not significant; therefore, Indian manufacturers must not compromise on the sustainability aspects for facility location decisions. Conclusion: The results reaffirmed that the bi-objective fuzzy decision-making model can serve as a decision tool for the Indian manufacturers in designing a sustainable RL network. The multi-objective optimisation model captured a reasonable trade-off between the fuzzy goals of minimising the cost of the RL network and maximising the sustainable performance of the facilities chosen.


Abstract Across most of Europe, the countryside seems to show a polarized development in which large districts are depopulating, while certain areas, mainly around big- and mid-sized cities, are increasing in population. The latter development is often described in concepts of "rural gentrification" and "rurbanization", symbolizing a transformation of rural communities to communities with urban values and lifestyles. Most studies of the effects of these processes have focused on social and cultural consequences, as e.g. the displacements of lower-income households with higher-income residents and of rural culture and values with urban ones. This paper examines the phenomenon from another perspective, namely the effects of the "rurbanization" processes on countryside's labour markets and economic life. This paper aims at analysing the determinants of net migration to rural areas in general and to different types of regions, and the impacts of in-migration on rural labour markets, self-employment and other socio-economic conditions in Sweden for the period of 2003–2005. We find that net migration into rural areas increases with the size of adjacent local and regional centres, whereas net migration decreases with the average commuting distance of workers in the rural areas. When comparing in-migrants to rural areas with rural area stayers, our results indicate that the former has lower incomes, a lower employment ratio and a lower degree of entrepreneurial activities. These differences could—at least partly—be explained by the fact that rural area stayers were on average 6 years older than rural area in-migrants, i.e. the two groups were in different stages of their life cycles.


Phosphate esters and their hydrolysis reactions underpin many of the most important reactions in biology and have therefore been the focus of continued research. In this thesis, a range of theoretical studies on two phosphate ester hydrolysis reactions is presented. Particular attention is paid to the role of solvent in these reactions. The first reaction studied is the hydrolysis of dimethyl phosphate. A study using density functional theory examines three possible mechanisms for this reaction in the gas phase and the presence of solvent is also considered through the use of reaction field methods. The base-catalysed mechanism for this reaction receives further attention and the reaction energy profile in solution is adiabatically mapped using two different hybrid QM/MM potentials. The use of a QM/MM potential facilitates an atomistic representation of the solvent. Another study determines the potential of mean force for this reaction by simulating the reaction using QM/MM molecular dynamics simulations in conjunction with umbrella sampling methods. Both QM/MM studies demonstrate that, in solution, the rate-determining step for the base-catalysed reaction is the cleavage of the bond between the phosphorous and the leaving group. The QM/MM studies also established that the reaction proceeds via the formation of a short-lived pentacoordinated intermediate species. The second reaction studied was the base-catalysed hydrolysis of methyl ribose phosphate, a realistic model of the nonenzymatic hydrolysis of RNA. Since the hydrolysis of thio-substituted analogues of RNA have been the study of many experimental studies probing the mechanism of RNA hydrolysis, theoretical studies of the hydrolysis of two thio analogues of methyl ribose phosphate are also presented. The results of these studies provide valuable insight into the mechanism of RNA hydrolysis and concludes that the cleavage of P-O5' bond corresponds to the reaction transition state.


Abstract The past three decades have witnessed an increase in research on retranslation. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, this study examines the retranslation of political texts – specifically Work Reports by the Communist Party of China – as a special genre in its own right. By concentrating on the retranslation of a recurring set of Chinese political concepts, culture-specific items, and preferred usages into English from the early 1990s to the late 2010s, this study shows how and why the retranslations have been carried out, as motivated by the evolving ideologies of the original author – the Communist Party of China. The retranslations are shown to be influenced by the broader social, economic, and political dynamics within China, rather than by prevailing factors within the receiving culture or variables associated with the individual translators, as is commonly suggested in the literature. Our findings add to the existing body of research into retranslation by extending the genres and contexts of retranslation research.


The familiarity of faces is one of the key factors that come into play during human face analysis. However, there is very little research that studies face familiarity. In this paper, two methods are proposed to quantitatively measure the degree of familiarity of a face with respect to a known set. The methods are in accordance with the psychological study. In particular, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is extended to learn a localized non-overlapping subspace representation of commonly experienced facial patterns from known faces. The familiarity of a given face is then measured based on its reconstruction error after being projected into the learned extended NMF subspaces. A subjective study involving 50 subjects indicates the proposed familiarity measurement is in line with human judgments. Furthermore, the familiarity vector generated during the measuring process is employed for face recognition. Experiments based on the standard FERET evaluation protocol demonstrates the efficacy of the familiarity based representation for face recognition.


The Gemini redesign proposal for the Consumer Expenditure Survey includes an emphasis on records to aid in the reporting of difficult-to-recall expenditures. Research was needed to understand how this new interview protocol would affect the length, burden, and respondent use of records during the interview. For this study, two new protocols were tested: 27 participants were assigned to a "respondent-track" protocol and 25 participants to an "interviewer-track" protocol. In the respondent-track protocol, participants determined the order of questioning and maintained control of records. In the interviewertrack protocol, interviewers followed a fixed order of questioning and controlled the records during the interview. Analyses show that participants in the respondent-track group reported significantly more of their expenses using records as compared to the participants in the interviewer-track group. This difference may be explained by two causes: an interviewer effect, whereby one interviewer had significantly less records usage than the other five interviewers; and more use of electronic records in the respondent-track group. And, qualitative feedback from participants emphasized the importance of advance communication for setting participant expectations and understanding of the interview content.


We analyze the impact of lender recourse on mortgage defaults theoretically and empirically across U.S. states. We study the effect of state laws regarding deficiency judgments in a model where lenders can use the threat of a deficiency judgment to deter default or to shorten the default process. Empirically, we find that recourse decreases the probability of default when there is a substantial likelihood that a borrower has negative home equity. We also find that, in states that allow deficiency judgments, defaults are more likely to occur through a lender-friendly procedure, such as a deed in lieu of foreclosure.


Women continue to make only a small, and recently actually diminishing, contribution to patent activity in Germany. In 2016, female inventors accounted for just 4.4 per cent of all national patent applications filed with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. Among inventors from abroad living in Germany, however, the corresponding proportion was 8.2 per cent, twice as high as among inventors of German origin. It is therefore thanks to migration that the inventing community in Germany has become a little more female over the past decade. Women accounted for 8.4 per cent of patent applications from publicly funded basic research (e.g. at universities) and only 4.1 per cent of those from private companies, which account for the majority of all patent applications. In general, female inventors prefer to live in large conurbations. For example, they represent 6.1 per cent of patent applications from larger cities but only 3.0 per cent of those from sparsely populated areas. The main reason for the low proportion of women inventors is their choice of subjects at university and later careers. These tend to lead the majority of women graduates away from the fields of applied research and development where most patent applications originate. In Germany, intensive efforts to change this by the staging of events such as Girls'Day have largely failed to attract women to university courses in technology and the natural sciences and the contribution of female inventors to patent activity remains at a correspondingly low level.


This is a study regarding perception of mothers' towards home visiting after delivery done by health staff and factors influencing it. A cross sectional study was done in Temerloh District for 3 weeks involving 202 mothers. These mothers had uncomplicated pregnancy, uncomplicated delivery and had received the last postnatal home visiting from health staff Their names were gathered from birth record book from all the five Health Clinics in the district. Only those who fulfilled the required criteria were chosen as participants. The interview was done in mothers home by 5 trained research assistances. Results showed that 73.3% of mothers had good perception towards reasons why home visiting was done after delivery, 49.0% had good perception towards benefits and 97% had good perception on t quality of the service. The overall good perception of home visiting after delivery done by health staff was 83.2%. Majority of mothers would prefer to received the service from nursing staff, in the morning between 8 am to 11 am, within the first 3 days after delivery and between 5-8 visits. Ninety eight percents perceived that home visiting needs to be done and 82.7% perceived that they and their babies will faced health problems if the service was not carried out. Fifty-five percents admitted having health problems among themselves and their babies within 2 weeks after delivery. Constipation, pain and inflammation at the perineum, mastitis and less milk flow were problems faced by mothers in this study. Problems with defecation, feeding, rashes and jaundice were problems faced by their babies. Eighty percents of health problems were successfully managed by the health staff. Among 82.2% of participants who received help from others in care after delivery, 52.4% was given help by their mothers or motherin- law. Among 82.2% of mothers who practiced traditional belief (pantang larang), 62% claimed that health care given was not contradicting with their 1Iaditional practices. Factors like demography , economy, health problems after delivery, traditional practices, help receive from others and information regarding home visit were factors thought to influence mothers perception on home visiting after delivery .After logistic regression, family income was the only factor that significantly influencing mothers perception towards home visiting after delivery, p = 0.018 ( p < 0.05). In conclusion, home visiting after delivery need to be continued but it also needs review and some modification so that the service can be expanded to other family members as well. Various multidiscipline in medical field have to plan an effective home visiting program to improve the existing service.


Highly structured sequential environments in which speakers manage complex (or divergent) relevancies constitute a perspicuous site for explicating the role of prosody in action-formation because a range of turn constructional resources are regularly pressed into service to manage distinct aspects of them. To illustrate this, I focus on three prosodic practices used to form type-conforming tokens (e.g., yes and no ) deployed in responses to yes/no-type interrogatives (Raymond 2000, 2003). The environment for such responses are highly structured: the choice between alternative tokens establishes the basic valence of the responding action. Nevertheless, the relevancies they must manage can be complex – as in the case of 'double-barreled' actions. In conclusion I compare two of these practices with others that exploit different elements of turn construction to highlight the specificity of prosodic resources, per se and note other similarly structured environments that might permit similar analyses.


A new radar interferometer technique has been developed and used successfully at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory in Peru to study the strong nighttime plasma turbulence in the equatorial electrojet. The technique represents a major step forward in radar probing of turbulent irregularities such as (but not limited to) those in the electrojet. In many situations it provides far more information than previous Doppler measurements. We form the cross spectrum of the backscattered signals received from approximately overhead on two antennas, separated in this case along an east-west baseline, as well as the individual power spectra. From the phase of the cross spectrum at different Doppler frequencies we can determine the individual positions of plasma wave packets propagating vertically with different velocities, and we find, for example, that oppositely propagating waves always come from distinctly separated regions. The data allow us to study the eddy structure within the electrojet in far more detail than hitherto possible, and by using the irregularity patches as tracers and following their east-west motion, we can obtain a vertical profile of drift velocity. Our first observations of this sort have shown that at night the vertical Doppler velocity at times may substantially exceed the mean horizontal velocity of the patch and the small horizontal velocity near the top and bottom of the layer may actually be westward when the main motion is eastward.


This paper advocates that some limits of the rational agent hypothesis result from the improper assumption that one individual should be modeled as a single rational agent. We model an individual composed of two autonomous and interacting structures, conscious and unconscious. Each agent utility form depends both on external signals and other structures' actions. The perception of the signal depends on its recipient and its grid of interpretation. We study both the static and dynamic version of this interaction mechanism. We show that the dynamics may display instability, depending on the structures interactions'strength. However, if unconscious has a strategic advantage, greater stability is reached. By manipulating other structures�goals, the strategic agent can lead the whole system to an equilibrium closer to its own optimum. This result shows that some switch in the conscious�objective can appear. Behaviors that can't be explained with a single utility can thus be rational if we add a rational unconscious agent. Our results justify our hypothesis of a rational interacting unconscious. It supports the widening of the notion of rationality to multi-rationnality in interaction.


This study draws attention to the proliferation of tail risks in financial markets prior to and during the course of the recent global financial crisis. It examines the level of tail risks in selected equity, interbank lending and foreign exchange markets in selected EU Member States in relation to the United States. The extent of tail risks is assessed by applying general error distribution (GED) parameterization in GARCH volatility tests of the examined variables. The empirical tests prove that tail risks were pronounced across all of the examined European financial markets throughout the crisis. They were also significant prior to the crisis outbreak. The analyzed interbank lending markets exhibited more extreme volatility outbursts than the equity and foreign exchange markets. Several countercyclical monetary and macroprudential policies aimed at abating tail risks are identified and discussed. Flexible capital adequacy and contingent capital requirements for financial institutions are advocated.


Samples of Mexican obsidian that exhibit either "sheen" or "rainbow" optical properties were examined with a combination of EMP, SEM, TEM, as well as visible and IR spectroscopy. Electron-microprobe analyses of the sheen matrix give (in wt.%): 76.2 SiO_2, 0.2 TiO_2, 11.6 Al_2O_3, 2.2 FeO_(TOT), 0.07 MgO, 0.1 CaO, 4.8 Na_2O and 4.4 K_2O. The sheen is attributed to the presence of aligned flow-stretched hollow vesicles in the gemological literature. SEM images show that many of the flow-aligned lenticular areas are a second rhyolite glass with, on average, 74.6 SiO_2, 0.2 TiO_2, 12.7 Al_2O_3, 2.1 FeO_(TOT), 0.1 MgO, 0.9 CaO, 5.6 Na_2O and 4.6 K_2O. These two compositions do not overlap at the 2σ level. Their inferred indices of refraction differ by as much as 0.04, leading to optical interference along the elliptical interfaces of the two glasses. Thus we postulate that the sheen reflects differences in indices of refraction (η) between the matrix obsidian and the lower η of either gas-filled or glass-filled vesicles. In our sample, the presence of the second glass probably correlates with incorporation (and remelting?) of fragments of an earlier rhyolitic ash or tuff. Two different types of Mexican rainbow obsidian were studied. The first has layers of numerous trachytically oriented rods (0.2–2 by 10–20 μm) of hedenbergite (Ca_(0.88)Mg_(0.07)Fe_(0.98)Mn_(0.06)Si_(2.01)O_6). The composition of the matrix is: 76.3 SiO_2, 12.5 Al_2O_3, 1.7 FeO_(TOT), 0.01 MgO, 0.16 CaO, 4.4 Na_2O and 4.6 K_2O. The second type has trachytically aligned plagioclase (~An_(20)), also rod-shaped (as small as 0.5 × 2.0 μm). The composition of the matrix is: 76.1 SiO_2, 13.5 Al_2O_3, 0.7 FeO_(TOT), 0.09 MgO, 0.7 CaO, 3.75 Na_2O and 4.85 K_2O. Multiple hypotheses are considered for the possible cause of the rainbow effects: gas or fluid inclusions, a small component of scattering centers, differential indices of refraction, Bragg diffraction of visible light, and thin-film interference. Our data support the last hypothesis.


This research shows that a single auditory exposure to fictitious brand names may create the impression, one day later, that these brand names actually exist. It appears that the judgment that the brands are known is based on brand familiarity coupled with a failure to remember the exposure context. This demonstration, inspired by the false fame effect, is interpreted as the product of an implicit memory process. The result implies that measurement of explicit memory of an ad or other marketing communication may misrepresent (in this case, understate) the influence of that communication. However, the effect was obtained only when attention to the fictitious brand names was deliberate (as opposed to incidental). This suggests that there are lower attentional limits to the influence of one exposure to a brand name on creating familiarity without memory of the exposure context. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


The purpose of this thesis is to be able to conclude which of the two, cause fit communication or cause commitment communication, is the best strategy for companies to adapt when looking to reduce consumer skepticism when communicatingtheir CSR. CSR is nowadays a core component in every business yet so many managers find it hard to justify because they do not reap the benefits from engaging in CSR (Porter & Kramer, 2006). CSR has to be communicated in order for companies to reap the benefits from their endeavors (McElhaney, 2009). However, when companies do this consumers tend to get skeptical about the CSR motives of the company, which results in companies not gaining any benefits from their CSR at all (Bhattacharya, 2010). To solve this problem, researchers have suggested many different communication strategies to reduce consumer skepticism whencompanies communicate their CSR. In this thesis we test the consumer skepticism reducinge ffects of Cause Fit Communication and Cause Commitment Communication to conclude which of the two is the most efficient at reducing consumer skepticism. To fulfill our purpose we have used a quantitative method and constructed a survey where we have asked people about their perception of different companies' CSR communication when the companies used Cause Fit Communication or Cause Commitment Communication. The answers from the respondents were analyzed through which we could conclude which of the two strategies is better. From our findings it was very hard toconclude which of the two communicationstrategies was the best at reducing consumer skepticism. However, we could see that Cause Commitment Communication had the highest consumer skepticism reducing effects. After having conducted this research we truly believe that the two communication strategies can be just as efficient at reducing consumer skepticism as long as one follows the guidelines we have provided in this thesis.


Abstract Establishing the relation between oil price movements and macroeconomic performance is of great importance for firms and policymakers, alike. Prior studies established this relation using the assumption that the long-run relation is intertemporally constant. However, there is much recent evidence demonstrating that this assumption may not hold in practice. To address this issue and go beyond the restrictive time-invariant environment, we employ the use of the time-varying cointegration framework of Bierens and Martins (2010). We present evidence of the long-run oil-economy relation evolving over the 1974–2015 period, with major events such as the Gulf War and the financialisation of commodity markets proving to be driving forces across the U.S., European and G7 economies considered.


The measuring of logs is important in the sawmills process to the sawn products. The technology of automatic wood measurement is continuance developing. This study has the purpose to see how the different techniques and the routines works of measure frames for determining of wood value and sorting in sawmills. The study is performed as a literature study and a survey. The survey includes some of the Swedish sawmills that produce more than 10 000 cubic meters sawed products per year. The results of the study shows that the surveyed sawmills uses 2D shadow scanning, 3D log scanning technique and X- ray log scanner. They see benefits with each new developed measure frame technique. More detailed information can be given about the logs, which make that the logs early can be directed to the right final products and the logs sawing yield can be optimized.
A new measure frame is a big economic investment. Advanced technique also demands more technical knowledge how to use all of the capacity of the measure frames. In order to handling the equipment education has been given by the suppliers. What was considered sufficient. One had the opinion that the education at operator level cold be done more thoroughly. The sawmills considered that the routines of control and maintenance works good. For future development the surveyed wishes for is fully automatic measurement for determining of wood value, more exactitude for length measuring. Continued development of X-ray scanning. Quicker be informed if unwanted objects are within the measuring range. Further development of control dummy and control routines for measuring under bark.


Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor. Median survival is usually less than 1 year from the time of diagnosis, and even in the most favorable situations, a majority of patients die within 2 years. Standard therapy consists of surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In this case report, we described a 38 y old woman with GBM survived 7 years after a series of treatments. For the patient, the tumor was found extensively infiltrate the sagittal sinus, the surgery unable completely remove of tumor, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and individualized anti-cancer herbs therapy were further applied. After all therapy, the patient was awake, with moderate bone window tension, palpable mass, right partial hemianopia, good right limb muscle strength. In summary, comprehensive treatment schedule including thorough surgical removal of tumor, systematic radiation, standard chemotherapy and individualized anti-cancer herbs therapy can help to prolong the survival of patients with GBM and gliosarcoma.


Objectives To summarize the effectiveness of community, workplace, and health care system–based programs and policies aimed at supporting and promoting breastfeeding and determine the association between breastfeeding and maternal health. Data sources We searched PubMed®/MEDLINE®, the Cochrane Library, and CINAHL® from January 1, 1980, to October 12, 2017, for studies relevant to the effectiveness of health care system–based, workplace, and community breastfeeding programs and policies. For evidence on breastfeeding and maternal health, we updated the 2007 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report on this topic and searched the same databases from November 1, 2005, to October 12, 2017. For studies of breastfeeding programs and policies, trials, systematic reviews, and observational studies with a control group were eligible; we excluded primary care–based programs delivered as part of routine care. For studies related to breastfeeding and maternal health, we included systematic reviews, case-control studies, and cohort studies. Review methods Pairs of reviewers independently selected, extracted data from, and rated the risk of bias of relevant studies; they graded the strength of evidence (SOE) using established criteria. We synthesized all evidence qualitatively. Results We included 128 studies (137 publications) and 10 systematic reviews. Of these, 40 individual studies were relevant to the effectiveness of breastfeeding programs or policies, and the remainder were relevant to one or more maternal health outcomes. Based on evidence from one large randomized controlled trial (RCT) (Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial [PROBIT], N=17,046) enrolling mothers who intended to breastfeed and nine cohort studies (1,227,182 women), we graded the SOE for the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) as moderate for improving rates of breastfeeding duration. Evidence from eight cohort studies of BFHI (135,983 women) also demonstrates improved rates of breastfeeding initiation (low SOE). Low SOE (k=4 studies; 1,532 women) supports the conclusion that health care education or training of staff alone (without additional breastfeeding support services) does not improve breastfeeding initiation rates. Women, Infants and Children (WIC, a Federal supplemental nutrition program) interventions that focus on peer support are effective in improving rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration (low SOE). We found limited evidence for other (community-based) interventions and no comparative studies on workplace or school-based interventions or harms associated with interventions. For maternal health outcomes, low SOE supports the conclusion that ever breastfeeding or breastfeeding for longer durations may be associated with lower rates of breast cancer, epithelial ovarian cancer, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, but not fractures. Because of heterogeneity and inconsistent results, we found insufficient evidence on whether breastfeeding is associated with postpartum depression, cardiovascular disease, or postpartum weight change. Conclusions The body of evidence for breastfeeding programs and policies was diverse in terms of interventions and settings. Current evidence supports the benefit of BFHI for improving rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration; however, evidence from one large RCT (PROBIT) has limited applicability, and observational studies do not clearly establish the magnitude of benefit. For women enrolled in WIC, low SOE supports peer-support interventions for improving breastfeeding outcomes. The identified associations between breastfeeding and improved maternal health outcomes are supported by evidence from observational studies, which cannot determine cause-and-effect relationships.


Section 1 Principles of Epidemiology. Scope of Epidemiology. Measuring Health and Disease. Causation. Cohort Studies. Case Control Studies. Randomised Controlled Trials. Section 2. Measurement. Clinical Diagnosis. Clinical Importance. Treatment Effectiveness. Clinical Risk. Prognosis. Section 3 Assessment of Clinical Evidence. Theory of Critical Appraisal of Medical Evidence. Practical Aspects of Critical Appraisal of Medical Evidence. Section 4 Environmental and Occupational Health. Epidemiology of Environmental and Occupational Health. Environmentally Linked Diseases. Occupationally Linked Diseases. Infectious Disease. Section 5 Application of Epidemiology to Environmental Problems. Investigation of Disease Outbreaks. Environmental Health Surveys. Ionising Radiation. Section 6 Application of Epidemiology to Health Care. The Need for Health Care. Evaluation of Health Care. Measuring Health Care Outcomes. Evaluation of New Technologies. Section 7 Compounds of Health Care. International Health. National Health Service in the UK. Preventive Health Care, Health Promotion and Screening. Primary Health Care. Secondary Health Care. The Move to Community Care. Managing Waiting Lists


This investigation was inaugurated by the Health Service of the Czechoslovak Army eight years ago, for the purpose of producing a reliable combined vaccine against cholera and dysentery, which might be used in the eventuality that troops would be stationed in areas where these diseases are prevalent. Due to events preceding the present holocaust the experiments were necessarily interrupted and reopened during recent years in the United States.
A vaccine was sought which would protect against infections with V. cholerae, Sh. dysenteriae and Sh. paradysenteriae Y, the latter being chosen because of its ability to confer partial immunity against the most common Shigella strains, namely Sh. paradysenteriae V, W and Z.
In order to determine which type of Sh. dysenteriae vaccine would confer maximum immunity, alcohol and heat killed organisms, and formolized and phenolized bacillary suspensions were tested. Organisms extracted with trichloracetic acid, formamate and diethylene glycol were utilized.