Because DNA fidelity is crucial for cell survival and physiology, there are elaborate mechanisms to ensure that DNA is replicated properly and that DNA damage, such as double-stranded breaks (DSBs), is repaired before completion of the cell cycle. The repair processes are regulated by signaling through checkpoint pathways that involve kinases and various adaptors, as well as the enzymes and molecules that repair the damaged DNA. Yoo et al. used Xenopus egg extracts and sperm chromatin to study the role of the adaptors claspin and BRCA1 and the kinases ATR and Chk1 in checkpoint responses to DSBs and stalled DNA replication forks. The interaction between claspin and DNA was increased by the addition of the restriction enzyme Eco RI to cause DSBs or aphidicolin to stall DNA replication. Claspin mediates the interaction with and phosphorylation of Chk1 by ATR. The interaction between claspin and Chk1 requires that claspin is also phosphorylated on Ser864 and S895 in a manner dependent on ATR, although ATR is not the kinase responsible for directly phosphorylating these residues of claspin. Both claspin and BRCA1 appeared to contribute to Chk1 activation in response to EcoRI-created DSBs, because only when both adaptors were removed from the extracts by immunodepletion was Chk1 phosphorylation blocked. Immunodepletion of claspin alone blocked phosphorylation of Chk1 in response to aphidicolin-induced stalled DNA replication forks. Yoo et al. mutated 12 potential phosphorylation sites in claspin that matched the consensus motif for ATR-mediated phosphorylation and found that activation of Chk1 in response to aphidicolin-induced stalled replication forks was unaffected, whereas the activation of Chk1 in response to DSBs was decreased. Mutation of Thr817 and Ser819, but not either residue alone, abolished Chk1 activation in response to DSBs. Furthermore, phosphorylation of the wild-type protein on Thr817 and Ser819 was detected in the egg extracts, and these residues were phosphorylated in extracts containing DNA with DSBs or stalled replication forks. In vitro, ATR phosphorylated a claspin fragment containing Thr817 and Ser819, and immunodepletion of ATR from the extracts blocked phosphorylation of Ser819 (based on loss of immunoreactivity of claspin with phosphorylation-dependent antibodies against this site). Although Thr817 and Ser819 are phosphorylated in response to both kinds of DNA structures (stalled forks and DSBs), this phosphorylation appears only to be critical for mediating Chk1 activation in response to DSBs. H. Y. Yoo, S.-Y. Jeong, W. G. Dunphy, Site-specific phosphorylation of a checkpoint mediator protein controls its responses to different DNA structures. Genes Dev. 20, 772-783 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The traditional modular account of memory segregates visual associative
memory and visual perception, with the former underpinned by the medial temporal
lobes (MTL) and the latter by posterior visual regions. By contrast, the
representational account of memory envisages visual associative memory as a
perceptual-mnemonic continuum that can be traced from early visual cortex to anterior
MTL structures. In this thesis, we tested these fundamentally different memory models
by using a novel between-group design with young grapheme-colour synaesthetes,
older adults and young controls, each of whom have their respective strengths and
weaknesses in memory and perception. Specifically, grapheme-colour synaesthetes
possess enhanced perceptual mechanisms, allowing them to experience black letters,
words or digits as inherently coloured. They also show enhanced early visual cortex
sensitivity in response to non-synaesthesia inducing stimuli (Barnett et al., 2008) as
well as enhanced memory for verbal and visual stimuli. Using psychophysical
techniques and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we compared these
three groups on a range of cognitive processes involved in visual associative memory:
encoding, working memory, associative retrieval and recognition.


We propose a novel confidence metric, namely, attribution-based confidence (ABC) for deep neural networks (DNNs). ABC metric characterizes whether the output of a DNN on an input can be trusted. DNNs are known to be brittle on inputs outside the training distribution and are, hence, susceptible to adversarial attacks. This fragility is compounded by a lack of effectively computable measures of model confidence that correlate well with the accuracy of DNNs. These factors have impeded the adoption of DNNs in high-assurance systems. The proposed ABC metric addresses these challenges. It does not require access to the training data, the use of ensembles, or the need to train a calibration model on a held-out validation set. Hence, the new metric is usable even when only a trained model is available for inference. We mathematically motivate the proposed metric and evaluate its effectiveness with two sets of experiments. First, we study the change in accuracy and the associated confidence over out-of-distribution inputs. Second, we consider several digital and physically realizable attacks such as FGSM, CW, DeepFool, PGD, and adversarial patch generation methods. The ABC metric is low on out-of-distribution data and adversarial examples, where the accuracy of the model is also low. These experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the ABC metric to make DNNs more trustworthy and resilient.


This study examines first-generation college (FGC) students' information seeking in coursework-related situations and the relationship between personality and source use behavior. A web survey was used to collect data. Four-hundred and fifty FGC students participated in the study. A two-step cluster analysis was used to identify three subgroups of personality profiles from the sample. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Results show that extroverts used human sources more frequently across all coursework-related situations and tended to consult peers in the same course in their information seeking processes. Conscientious students tended to consult professors and advisors in their coursework-related information seeking processes. Calm and open-minded extroverts consulted human sources (both experts and non-experts) more often and used more diverse sources than nervous and close-minded introverts. The study enriches FGC student literature in information behavior and further incorporates personality traits as predictors of information use. The study also implies that universities and academic libraries should support orientation programs and organizations that can help FGC students, especially introverts, develop their social networks and have an easy transition into college.


The purpose of this paper aims to clarify the relationship between servant leadership and organizational trust, and tries to demonstrate the mediator role of leader trust and organizational communication in this relationship. The study sample included 258 employees of Guilan province Tax Administration and for sampling we used cluster method. Previous studies have also focused on the positive impact of servant leadership in organizational trust and in this article the results show that there is a significant relationship between servant leadership, organizational trust, leader trust and organizational communication.


Task-decomposition planners make use of schemata that define tasks in terms of partially ordered sets of tasks and primitive actions. Most existing task-decomposition planners synthesize plans via a top-down approach, called task reduction, which uses schemata to replace tasks with networks of tasks and actions until only actions remain.

In this paper we present a bottom-up plan parsing approach to task-decomposition. Instead of reducing tasks into actions, we use an incremental parsing algorithm to recognize which partial primitive plans match the schemata. In essence, our approach exploits the observation that schemata are a convenient means for reducing search. We compile the schemata into a declarative search control language (like that used in machine learning research), which rejects plan refinements that cannot be parsed.

We demonstrate that neither parsing nor reduction dominates the other on efficiency grounds and provide preliminary empirical results comparing the two. We note that our parsing approach allows convenient comparison (and combination) of different search control technologies, generates minimal plans, and handles expressive languages (e.g., universal quantification and conditional effects) with ease.


Alcoholism is a psychiatric disorder of multifactorial etiology, wherein interaction between genetic and environmental factors results in heightened alcohol seeking behavior. However, there is still much to be explored and understood about how imbalances between the biological-psychological-social axes can influence the quality an individual's mental health. The necessity to preserve an organism's homeostasis is noteworthy, an idea already proclaimed by Claude Bernard (the fixity of the inner environment is the condition of the free life), how the sum of events throughout an individual's life contributes to the transition between a healthy statesa (an overlap of order and internal equilibrium) and a non-healthy statesa (an overlap of disorder and internal disequilibrium). In addition, Himmelsbach paid attention to the importance of homeostatic adaptation (by changing receptor subunit composition, for example) related to tolerance to and withdrawal from drugs of abuse. More recently, P Sterling and J Eyer proposed the term allostasis to refer to the existence of a dynamic internal equilibrium, which better adjusts to change observed in the organism's function. Pharmacological and genetic mechanisms associated with neuromodulator also corroborate the above idea since signal transduction adjustments and epigenetic modifications make it possible to influence an individual's behavior, at least in part and with probable delay (i.e., temporal difference between behavioral and biological change).


Abstract. A reanalysis of the North Atlantic spring bloom in 2007 was produced using the real-time analysis from the TOPAZ North Atlantic and Arctic forecasting system. The TOPAZ system uses a hybrid coordinate general circulation ocean model and assimilates physical observations: sea surface anomalies, sea surface temperatures, and sea-ice concentrations using the Ensemble Kalman Filter. This ocean model was coupled to an ecosystem model, NORWECOM (Norwegian Ecological Model System), and the TOPAZ-NORWECOM coupled model was run throughout the spring and summer of 2007. The ecosystem model was run online, restarting from analyzed physical fields (result after data assimilation) every 7 days. Biological variables were not assimilated in the model. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of physical data assimilation on the ecosystem model. This was determined by comparing the results to those from a model without assimilation of physical data. The regions of focus are the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean. Assimilation of physical variables does not affect the results from the ecosystem model significantly. The differences between the weekly mean values of chlorophyll are normally within 5–10% during the summer months, and the maximum difference of ~20% occurs in the Arctic, also during summer. Special attention was paid to the nutrient input from the North Atlantic to the Nordic Seas and the impact of ice-assimilation on the ecosystem. The ice-assimilation increased the phytoplankton concentration: because there was less ice in the assimilation run, this increased both the mixing of nutrients during winter and the area where production could occur during summer. The forecast was also compared to remotely sensed chlorophyll, climatological nutrients, and in-situ data. The results show that the model reproduces a realistic annual cycle, but the chlorophyll concentrations tend to be between 0.1 and 1.0 mg chla/m3 too low during winter and spring and 1–2 mg chla/m3 too high during summer. Surface nutrients on the other hand are generally lower than the climatology throughout the year.


Is it possible to claim ownership of the Buddhist dharma; the teachings of the Buddha? Does a group's relationship to its cultural productions constitute a form of ownership? Can a religious image be copyrighted? This article will focus on the emergence and transformation of the Moji-Mandala or Gohonzon (御本尊), created by the Japanese monk Nichiren (1222-1282). Nichiren's followers were persecuted, and some were executed when the scroll was found in their possession. Nichiren's hanging mandala was previously available only to individuals seriously practicing Nichiren's Buddhism. Currently, Nichiren's mandala is reproduced electronically over the internet by websites claiming to represent various Buddhist lay organizations. The digital revolution has increased the ability of individuals to appropriate and profit from the cultural knowledge of religious groups that are largely unprotected by existing intellectual property law.


OBJECTIVE
It has been suggested that the primary focus of the pathological process in schizophrenia is on the limbic system, and there have been several postmortem reports of changes in the histological structure or volume of the hippocampus, as well as a larger number of MRI reports of volume reductions. There are conflicting findings, however, with both techniques.

METHOD
The authors conducted a study of the gross and subfield structure and cellular composition of the hippocampus in postmortem brains from 30 patients with DSM-IV-diagnosed schizophrenia (13 women, 17 men) and 29 comparison subjects with no psychopathology (14 women, 15 men). Stereological sampling procedures were applied to 25-microm-thick coronal paraffin sections taken at 5-mm intervals throughout the formalin-fixed hippocampus. Subfields were defined as the dentate fascia, the hilus (CA4), an amalgamation of the CA2 and CA3 subfields, the CA1 subfield, and the subiculum. Volumes, cell densities, and cell numbers of the subfields were assessed microscopically, and the volume of the hippocampus was estimated from both photographs and histological slides of the coronal slices.

RESULTS
As assessed from histologically stained slides, the volumes of the hippocampus and its subfields did not differ between patients and comparison subjects. Left-sided reduction in hippocampal volumes estimated from photographs, which may have included parahippocampal tissue, was not confirmed on histological examination. No significant differences were observed between patients and comparison subjects in the cellular composition of the hippocampus.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings do not support a primary alteration of the hippocampus in schizophrenia.


Personality and Political Leadership Explored: Richard Nixon and the Family Assistance Plan Mick Collins This thesis explores the notion of personality as it impacts presidential behavior. Relying on the arguably fragmented field of personality and policymaking, the paper offers a case study of President Richard Nixon's experience with the Family Assistance Plan, a landmark piece of welfare reform. In contending that character is most evident in situations that are less structured or that permit individual expression, I argue that President Nixon's personality greatly impacted his rhetorical style and was also evident through his reluctance to conduct bargaining with members of Congress. To add rigor to the analyses, I borrow heavily from the work of Erwin Hargrove (1998) who, in putting forth a model of political leadership that draws upon elements of moral commitment, character, integrity and cultural discernment, holds that effective democratic leadership combines strong personal aptitude with a coherent assessment of what action history will permit. Furthermore, this thesis contends that President Nixon failed to discern the grains of history that had characterized past welfare reform; the proposed major overhaul of welfare, commenced in the aftermath of the War on Poverty, was attacked from both the left and right, and thus failed to make it intact through the 91st Congress.


Jarosites are a family of minerals with the general formula AFe3(SO4)2(OH)6
(A=H3O+, NH+
4 , K+, Na+, Rb+, Ag+, 1
2 Pb2+). Long known to earth scientists
and the mining community, jarosites provide the most studied examples of model
kagome magnets: materials where the magnetic exchange interactions are frustrated
by the kagome geometry of vertex-sharing triangles. In most jarosites this frustration
is insufficient to prevent the formation of magnetic order at low temperatures and
two ordering transitions are observed. The primary transition at 60 < TN1=K < 65
is to an umbrella spin structure, which
ops into the kagome plane at the secondary
transition, TN2 , between 45 and 55 K. The exception to this behaviour is hydronium
jarosite (A=H3O+) which instead undergoes a critical freezing transition to an
unconventional spin glass state at a much lower temperature, Tg ~ 17 K.
This thesis presents studies of the chemistry, crystallography and magnetism of
the jarosites with the general aim of relating the observed magnetic responses to their
chemistry and crystal structures. The investigations presented here concentrate on
hydronium jarosite and relate the changes to the synthesis chemistry and crystal
chemistry to the spin-glass transition temperature. A combination of powder and
single-crystal X-ray diffraction and SQUID magnetometry are used to show that the
spin-glass transition in hydronium jarosite is correlated to the degree of distortion
of the coordination around the moment bearing Fe3+ ions. Samples with the most
symmetric coordination of the magnetic Fe3+ ions feature the lowest values of Tg.
As the defining influence in spin glasses is typically thought to be disorder, this
observation is remarkable. Further, these studies show that in hydronium jarosite the
key to the spin glass transition is a uniform (translationally invariant) energy scale
that is associated with the crystallographic distortion. In so doing, they support the
proposal that the spin-glass transition in hydronium jarosite is driven by anisotropy.
Further, elemental analyses show that the Fe stoichiometry has little effect upon
the displayed magnetic properties of the jarosites. Rather, these are found to be
most sensitive to small crystallographic changes in the Fe-O coordination octahedra
associated with substitution of the A-site cation. In terms of the ratio between the
Fe-O equatorial and apical bond lengths, greater deviation from Oh symmetry is
shown to correlate with higher values for Tg and TN2 .


Abstract. Primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs) may impact human health and aerosol-climate interactions. The role of PBAPs in the earth system is associated with large uncertainties, related to source estimates and atmospheric transport. We used a chemistry-climate model to simulate PBAPs in the atmosphere including bacteria, fungal spores and pollen. Three fungal spore emission parameterizations have been evaluated against an updated set of spore counts synthesized from observations reported in the literature. The comparison indicates an optimal fit for the emission parameterization proposed by Heald and Spracklen (2009), although the model significantly over-predicts PBAP concentrations in some locations. Additional evaluation was performed by comparing our combined bacteria and fungal spore simulations to a global dataset of fluorescent biological aerosol particle (FBAP) concentrations. The model predicts the sum total of measured PBAP concentrations relatively well, with an over- or under-prediction of less than a factor of 2 compared to FBAP. The ratio of bacteria to fungal spores reflects a greater difference, however, and the simulated bacteria concentrations outnumber the simulated fungal spore concentrations in almost all locations. Further, the modeled fungal spore results under-predict the FBAP concentrations, which are used here as a rough proxy for spores. Uncertainties related to technical aspects of the FBAP and direct-counting spore measurements challenge the ability to further refine quantitative comparison on this scale. We estimate that the global PBAPs mass concentration (apart from desert dust and sea salt aerosols), i.e. of fungal spores and pollen, amounts to 19 % and 52 % of the total aerosol mass, respectively.


LetH be a partitioned tridiagonal Hermitian matrix. We characterized the possible inertias ofH by a system of linear inequalities involving the orders of the blocks, the inertia of the diagonal blocks and the ranks the lower and upper subdiagonal blocks. From the main result can be derived some propositions on inertia sets of some symmetric sign pattern matrices.


Focused-ion-beam directly milling strategy was used to fabricate photonic resonators on crystalline silicon-on-insulator substrate. In order to reduce damages such as implanting ions, amorphous layers and re-deposition process which are induced by the ions, a sacrificed silica layer was used as an etching mask and a silicon thermal oxidation process was performed. The transmission spectra of both photonic crystal cavities and micro-ring resonators were measured. The resulting data demonstrate that the Q factors are significantly improved after the oxidation treatment.


This article examines the Australian jurisprudence of silence in the context of the 'right to silence' claimed by some criminal defendants during trial, and advances the position that, despite arduous effort to describe, classify, evaluate and protect silence, the law makes a lot of noise about a silence that isn't really there. But a re‐examination of Weissensteiner illustrates what is evident in so much of the case law: in criminal enterprises and in criminal procedure, speech and silence exist on a spectrum, and in shifting contexts. There are times when silence is impossible, and times where it is irresistible. The law is rarely sensitive to the contexts in which silence falls and those in which silence is broken. This article contributes to the emerging jurisprudence of silence. It argues that silence must be heard and interpreted, and it calls for silence to be distinguished from noise, sound, utterance and inadmissible speech.


This work tackles the problem of controlling operations at an automated container terminal. In the context of large supply chains, there is a growing trend for increasing productivity and economic efficiency. New optimization models and algorithms are provided for scheduling and routing equipment that is moving containers in a quay area, loading/unloading ships, transporting them via Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) to Automated Stacking Cranes (ASCs), organizing them in stacks. In contrast with the majority of the approaches in the related literature, this work tackles two dynamics of the system, a discrete dynamic, characteristic of the maximization of operations efficiency, by assigning the best AGV and operation time to a set of containers, and a continuous dynamic of the AGV that moves in a geographically limited area. As an assumption, AGVs can follow free range trajectories that minimize the error of the target time and increase the responsiveness of the system. A novel solution framework is proposed in order to tackle the two system dynamics. Various metaheuristic algorithms are tested to solve the problem in a near-optimal way. Computational experiments are presented in order to show the feasibility of the proposed framework on a practical case study, and to assess the performance of advanced scheduling and routing algorithms on numerous system settings.


We use validated radiation transport models of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation instrument and its response to both primary galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and secondary radiation, including lunar protons released through nuclear evaporation, to estimate their relative contributions to total dose rate in silicon (372 μGy/d) and dose equivalent rate at the skin (2.88 mSv/d). Near the Moon, we show that GCR accounts for ~91.4% of the total absorbed dose, with GCR protons accounting for ~42.8%, GCR alpha particles for ~18.5%, and GCR heavy ions for ~30.1%. The remaining ~8.6% of the dose at Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter altitudes (~50 km) arises from secondary lunar species, primarily "albedo" protons (3.1%) and electrons (2.2%). Other lunar nuclear evaporation species contributing to the dose rate are positrons (1.5%), gammas (1.1%), and neutrons (0.7%). Relative contributions of these same species to the total dose equivalent rate in skin, a quantity of more direct biological relevance, favor those with comparatively high quality factors. Consequently, the primary GCR heavy ion components dominate the estimated effective skin dose. Finally, we note that when considering the lunar radiation environment, although the Moon blocks approximately half of the sky, thus essentially halving the absorbed dose rate near the Moon relative to deep space, the secondary radiation created by the presence of the Moon adds back a small, but measurable, absorbed dose (~8%) that can and should be now accounted for quantitatively in radiation risk assessments at the Moon and other similar exploration targets.


Research towards an innovative solution to the problem of automated updating of road network
databases is presented. It moves away from existing methods where vendors of road network databases either go
through the time consuming and logistically challenging process of driving along roads to register changes or
use update methods that rely on remote sensing images. For this approach we hypothesize that users of road
network dependent applications (e.g. in-car navigation system or NavSat) could passively record drive
trajectories with the on-board GPS, which would inform digital road network data providers if the user was on a
road that departs from the known roads in the database. Then such drive characteristics would be collected using
the on-board GPS on behalf of the provider. These data would be processed either by an on-board artificial
neural network (ANN) or transferred back to the NavSat provider and input to an ANN along with similar track
data provided by other service users, to decide whether or not to automatically update (add) the "unknown road"
to the road database. As part of this work, in this paper we carry out an exploratory study on the trajectory
information recorded with GPS. Trajectory data collected in London are analysed using a Snap-Drift Neural
Network (SDNN) which categorises them into their strongest natural groupings, by combining clustering with
feature detection in a single ANN. We investigate how the SDNN groups spatio-temporal variations associated
with road traffic conditions. These variations are present in the recorded GPS trajectory data. For our approach
which relies on users to passively record drive trajectory which are then processed as roads or not roads
(Ekpenyong et al., 2007a), it is important to investigate how these variations affects the recorded GPS which
influences the grouping by the SDNN. For our approach a question like – how would SDNN groups GPS
recorded on a road segment in the morning (supposedly heavy traffic) to that recorded in the day (less traffic)?
This issue is investigated in this paper.


Since the mid-1980s, cosmogenic 10Be, with a 1.5 Myr half-life, has proven to be an extremely useful tool for studies of the solid Earth and surface processes. Measured at very low concentrations using a particle accelerator, 10Be reveals tantalizing clues to the behavior of the Earth's geodynamo, permits "geochemical imaging" of physical and magmatic processes in subduction zones, and provides ages and uplift and incision rates essential for understanding active tectonic processes. This paper emphasizes the utility of atmospheric and in situ -produced 10Be in understanding these solid Earth processes, using igneous and sedimentary rocks, deep-sea and lacustrine sediment, and ice cores as archives.

One focus of this contribution is on studies of the geodynamo and subduction zone processes that utilize 10Be produced by galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) in the atmosphere and subsequently adsorbed onto marine sediments. Following the extensive treatment of geomagnetic effects on cosmic radiation by Stormer (1955), Elsasser et al. (1956) recognized that variations in cosmogenic nuclide production rates could be used as proxies for changes in intensity of the Earth's magnetic field. A year earlier, Peters (1955) had also proposed that 10Be may be favorable for recording Cenozoic marine sedimentation rates and other geophysical variations. High-resolution 10Be-depth profiles in marine sediments have the potential to evaluate the suggestion of asymmetric sawtooth variation in the geomagnetic field paleointensity and to assess the speculation that Milankovitch variations in Earth's orbital parameters may influence the geodynamo. Globally coherent and systematic co-variations in paleointensity and 10Be concentrations in marine sediments and ice cores offer promise as a tool for correlating and dating marine sediments unsuited to other methods. The use of geomagnetic field paleointensity variations, derived magnetically and from cosmogenic nuclides, shows promise as an interhemispheric correlation tool at sub-Milankovitch time scales. …


Object detection and recognition from LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data has been a research topic in the fields of photogrammetry and computer vision. Unlike point clouds collected in well-controlled indoor environments, point clouds in urban environments are more complex due to complexity of the real world. For example, trees sometimes close to signs or buildings, which will cause occlusions in the point clouds. Current object detection or reconstruction algorithms will have problems when recognizing objects with severe occlusions caused by trees etc. In this paper, a robust vegetation removal method and a DBSCAN based pole-like object detection method are proposed. Based on observation that major difference between vegetation and other rigid objects is their penetrability with respect to LiDAR, we introduce a local roughness measure to differentiate rigid objects from non-rigid ones (vegetation in this paper). First, a local sphere with a small radius is generated for each input point. Three principal components of the local sphere are then calculated, and a plane is determined. The roughness is obtained through calculating the standard deviation of distances from all inside points to the plane by a weighted summation of the normalized distances. The further the point to the plane, the smaller the weight is. Finally, a graph cuts based method is introduced to classify the input point sets into two groups. The data term is defined by the normalized roughness of the current point, and the smoothness term is defined by the normalized distance between the point and its nearest neighbour point. In terms of pole-like object detection, first, a uniformed 2D grid is generated through projecting all the points to the XY-plane. The seed points of the pole-like objects are obtained by determining the x and y coordinates by the centres of the highest density cells of the grid and the z coordinate by the mean height of the point sets of each object. Finally, a DBSCAN based method is introduced to obtain the rest points of each pole-like object. Experimental results show that the proposed vegetation removal method achieves state-of-the-art results from both mobile LiDAR and airborne LiDAR data. The proposed pole-like object detection approach turns out to be very efficient.


The quality of wastewater treatment plants effluents in Canada, and more specifically in Quebec is of a huge concern. Hence, several technologies have been widely used in order to protect water resources from the discharge of many undesirable components. The main objective of this study was to design/scale-up, install, and operate a new hybrid, compact wastewater treatment system (Submerged Membrane Electro-Bioreactor; SMEBR) that would yield an excellent quality effluent, reduce membrane fouling, and improve sludge properties. SMEBR combined three phenomena; membrane filtration, electrokinetics, and biological treatment. Three Phases were performed in this study. In Phase 1 (4 Stages), SMEBR laboratory scale system treating synthetic wastewater operated under different operating conditions to screen out and determine the operating ranges of the technological design parameters. These included the determination of the membrane critical flux and variation of aeration intensity (Stage 1), variation of current density (Stage 2), variation of the electrical zone volume with respect to the total volume of the effective liquid in SMEBR (Stage 3), and variation of hydraulic retention time (HRT) (Stage 4). Phase 2 focused on the scaled-up pilot SMEBR treating raw municipal wastewater. It was divided into 3 Stages where in Stage 1 the pilot SMEBR was designed (Stage 1a), installed (Stage 1b), and operated (Stage 2) in the municipal wastewater treatment plant in the City of l'Assomption (Quebec, Canada) for 7 weeks. A comparative study to the conventioanl MBR was also performed in Stage 2. Stage 3 investigated the relationship between the transmembrane pressure (TMP) and the sludge properties in SMEBR and MBR as well as the interaction among the sludge properties. In Phase 3, the scale-up process was verified using raw wastewater under steady state conditions; and conducted in conjunction to the pilot facility in Phase 2. The design scale-up protocol was also provided for full scale applications. At steady state operation, the removal efficiencies of COD, ammonia (as NH3+-N) and phosphorous (as PO43--P) in SMEBR were 92%, 99% and 99%, respectively. Furthermore, the monitored transmembrane pressure (TMP) had not shown any significant increase which could lead to the conclusion that the membrane fouling was marginal. In SMEBR system, sludge filterability and dewaterability were significantly enhanced by 78% when the mean particle size diameter of the sludge flocs decreased from 69 to 17.5 µm. Specific cake resistance was minimized to 0.15x1014 m/kg (82% reduction). Moreover, SMEBR enhanced sludge settleability by 30% while the sludge volume index (SVI) had decreased from 170 to 119 mL/g. SMEBR significantly improved sludge flocculation while zeta potential had changed from -26.2 to -14.2 mV. Electrodes were found to last for five months before replacement. SMEBR was a "self-purification" system as some of the generated aluminum and major metals were retained and adsorbed on the surface of the electrodes, and small amounts would leave with the effluent or present in the wasted sludge. SMEBR without any additional unit was able to remove undesirable metals from wastewater. High removal rates of Pb (100%), Ni (98.1%), Cu (100%), and Cd (94.6%) were reported. SMEBR energy requirements were less than 1 kWh/m3 with a total energy cost of CAD $0.052/m3. It could be concluded that SMEBR showed superiority in performance over MBR and can be successfully applied to small and large scale wastewater treatment plants.


Plectranthus is a large and widespread genus with a diversity of the ethnobotanical uses. In traditional medicine, the juice of stem and leaves of Plectranthus hadiensis when mixed with honey, is used as a remedy for diarrhea. The chemical composition of the essential oil of Plectranthus hadiensis is determined by GC-MS analysis and the antimicrobial efficacy of the oil has evaluated in the previous studies. The aim of the present study is to carryout molecular docking of the essential oil constituents against the bacterial proteins present in murD ligases 1UAG, 2X5O, 3UDI and 3TYE a dihydropteroate synthase enzyme. Caryophyllene, germacrene and cubebene are found to be more effective. These compounds act on multi targets and serve as antibacterial agents.


Nowadays, a variety of numerical methods and numerical formulations exits to solve complex or coupled field problems in three dimensions. Most of them are generally applicable to nearly arbitrary kind of field problems. On the other hand, some highly optimized methods are available, which are predestined for the solution of a specific kind of problem. Especially in the case of weakly coupled multiphysics problems, a mixture of several numerical methods is very advantages to benefit from different properties of numerical methods for diverse physical sub-problems. A very promising approach for a flexible coordination of the related solution process is the application of software agents. Then, the results of one sub-problem are converted into boundary values or volume source distributions for another sub-problem and software agents choose solution methods independently for each subproblem. Furthermore, two main aspects have to be considered in applications of numerical methods. First, the solution of a boundary value problem should be computed efficiently and second, the solution is evaluated for visualization and interpretation of obtained results. In practice, it is difficult to choose a single appropriate method, which is well suited both for the solution of a problem and its evaluation, since the demands differ in both cases. Here, a concept is presented to apply various numerical methods successfully to the solution and evaluation of complex field problems. Attention is mainly turned on the integration of boundary element methods into the concept of mixed numerical formulations.


Pecan orchards are the largest agricultural water consumer in the lower part of the Mesilla Valley, NM, USA. Knowledge of fractional canopy (FC) cover allows better crop water use assessment and orchard management. FC can be estimated from vegetation indices (VIs), such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), the simple ratio (SR), and the triangular vegetation index (TVI), using satellite imagery. The main objective of this research is to develop an approach to determine the FC from a simultaneous imagery campaign consisting of aerial imagery, orchard floor photographs, and satellite images. All the required data were collected based on satellite overpass times at three different times during the initial part of the growing season to enhance the quality of data and reduce errors. The data were processed using the software package Environment for Visualizing Images (ENVI® 4.6.1; ITT Research Systems Inc.). The orchard floor digital photographs were used as a ground truth data set that gave a good correlation to the aerial photography. The aerial images were then used to determine the relationship between the FC and the VIs using these 'corrected FCs'. The results showed significant correlation between NDVI and FC (R 2 = 0.80; p < 0.0001). Likewise, the calculated SR not only showed good correlation to the FCs but also verified the calculated NDVI. The results indicated that the methodology of this research can be applied to other tree crops as an aid in estimating the FC.


In this paper we consider the complexities associated with the internal workplace disclosure of sexual harassment for rural employees. We acknowledge the existence of certain accompanying 'special issues' for rural women and predict that these elements (such as the traditionally conservative bush attitudes about violence against women, the added cultural dimensions of small-town gossip and self-reliance and the impact of isolation) would have some impact on the inclination of rural women to report workplace sexual harassment. To test that hypothesis, a sample of female employees and a sample of employers from different areas considered as 'rural' were interviewed. In defining 'rural' for this purpose we adopted a social constructionist approach. We report on participants' experiences and attitudes about making an internal sexual harassment complaint. We discuss the barriers to disclosure that respondents perceive. We identify the types of rural workplaces (occupation, rurality, gender ratios) which tend to utilise sexual harassment policies and offer training, and we consider the impact of these on the likelihood of reporting. We also investigate whether other variables, such as the type of harassment experienced, employees' attitude about what constitutes sexual harassment and reporting, age, seniority and/or education affect reporting. We conclude that disclosure practices could be improved by the implementation of visiting sexual harassment consultants/officers who would visit rural communities to educate, hear complaints, help with the development of policies, provide advice referral to counseling mediation and provide follow up.


IMPORTANCE
To improve the quality of health care, many researchers have suggested that health care institutions adopt management approaches that have been successful in the manufacturing and technology sectors. However, relatively little information exists about how these practices are disseminated in hospitals and whether they are associated with better performance.

OBJECTIVES
To describe the variation in management practices among a large sample of hospital cardiac care units; assess association of these practices with processes of care, readmissions, and mortality for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI); and suggest specific directions for the testing and dissemination of health care management approaches.

DESIGN
We adapted an approach used to measure management and organizational practices in manufacturing to collect management data on cardiac units. We scored performance in 18 practices using the following 4 dimensions: standardizing care, tracking of key performance indicators, setting targets, and incentivizing employees. We used multivariate analyses to assess the relationship of management practices with process-of-care measures, 30-day risk-adjusted mortality, and 30-day readmissions for acute myocardial infarction (AMI).

SETTING
Cardiac units in US hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS
Five hundred ninety-seven cardiac units, representing 51.5% of hospitals with interventional cardiac catheterization laboratories and at least 25 annual AMI discharges.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Process-of-care measures, 30-day risk-adjusted mortality, and 30-day readmissions for AMI.

RESULTS
We found a wide distribution in management practices, with fewer than 20% of hospitals scoring a 4 or a 5 (best practice) on more than 9 measures. In multivariate analyses, management practices were significantly correlated with mortality (P = .01) and 6 of 6 process measures (P < .05). No statistically significant association was found between management and 30-day readmissions.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
The use of management practices adopted from manufacturing sectors is associated with higher process-of-care measures and lower 30-day AMI mortality. Given the wide differences in management practices across hospitals, dissemination of these practices may be beneficial in achieving high-quality outcomes.


Planetary boundaries and a scarcity of natural resources will require a significant boost of investment into clean and renewable energy and a more efficient use of resources in developing, emerging and advanced economies alike. In this context, the financial sector will have to play a key role in providing 'green finance' for sustainable investment and development. Against this backdrop, this book investigates the challenges for developing and emerging economies in enhancing green financing for sustainable, low-carbon investment, using Indonesia as a case study. Based on surveys in the Indonesian banking and corporate sectors and expert interviews, the book devises innovative policy recommendations for governments to develop a framework conducive to fostering green investments.


The South African labour movement's strength has often been attributed to the vitality of local democratic structures and institutionalised mechanisms of worker control that govern unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Workers and shop-stewards continue to participate actively in local union activities and sustain democratic processes but, in an apparent contradiction, the arrival of political democracy has been associated with a decline in the intensity and vitality of local union democracy. As a result the model of union democracy is shifting from participatory to representative. This article draws on the results of the fourth leg of a longitudinal survey of COSATU members and shop-stewards and compares these results with surveys conducted in 1994, 1998 and 2003. The article explores the functioning of union democracy at the workplace and compares the attitudes of ordinary members and their elected representatives. At issue is whether this decline in the intensity of shop-floor democracy has resulted in a growing representation gap between workers and their elected representatives. The article concludes by examining the implications for union democracy of the recruitment of a large proportion of shop stewards into the South African Communist Party.


Historically, wine production and consumption have been at home in Europe. The most important countries mentionable are France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The European Union (EU 27) occupies a leading position on the world wine market. Globally, it accounts for 49.9% of growing areas and 39.1% of grape production, according to FAO data for the year 2006. The European Union (EU 27) produces 60.0%of wine and accounts for 55.4%of wine imports and 72.8%of exports. Wine production and consumption is increasing in Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, Uruguay and in the United States, and decreasing in many traditionally wine growing countries. As a result of growing globalization, the EU wine market has to face changing circumstances and increasingly sharp competition. In the last 10 years, European imports from non-EU countries have doubled, and countries such as the United States, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and Australia have developed aggressive marketing policies, while promoting products at highly competitive prices. Wine production in 2006 represented 5 percent of the value of EU agricultural output. EU wine consumption is falling steadily, although sales of quality wines are increasing. Over the last ten years, imports have grown by 10 percent per annum, while exports are increasing slowly. According to current trends, excess wine production will exceed 10-15% of annual production by 2010, although the EU spends around half a billion euros every year to solve the problem of its wine surplus. The European Union and the United States signed a bilateral accord in 2005, which helps EU winemakers to build on their current success. The annual EU wine exports to the USA are worth more than 2 billion US$, which is around 40% of EU wine exports in term of value. The new provisions on the common organisation of the wine market are also discussed in this paper. The intention is to develop leadership in this specific, lifestyle-associated market segment. The objectives of new reform are to maintain EU dominance over the world wine export markets, to simplify the legislation in this field and to assist rural development objectives within the Common Agricultural Policy. EU regulations favour the wine industry and European wine will meet the demand of consumers for individualised, customised products, which are natural, environmentally-friendly and healthy.


Extracted from text ... NEWS & VIEWS FOR MAGISTRATES
3
Irecently attended the launch of the
South African Chapter of the
International Association of Women
Judges (IAWJ) in Boksburg. IAWJ works
towards the advancement of human
rights, eliminating gender discrimination
and making the courts accessible to all.
While echoing the same objectives, the
speakers were concerned that not
enough has been done in South Africa
post-1994. The question posed repeatedly
was: "How can we stop the continued
violations of the rights of women
and children?"
Soma Naidoo, senior magistrate
Durban, spoke about the gendered
approach to judicial work in many courts
around the ..


This document provides reference information for implementing a cross-
protocol network proxy that performs translation from the HTTP
protocol to the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). This will
enable an HTTP client to access resources on a CoAP server through the
proxy. This document describes how an HTTP request is mapped to a CoAP
request and how a CoAP response is mapped back to an HTTP response.
This includes guidelines for status code, URI, and media type
mappings, as well as additional interworking advice.


The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach to compare occupational health and safety (OHS) performances of countries. Additionally, another aim is to debate the impacts of using recorded data and ratios for OHS performance evaluations.,The number of fatal accidents (NFAs), fatal accident rates (FARs), numbers of lost days (NLDs) and accident severity rates (ASRs) are determined as main criteria and six economic activity areas (EAAs) are considered as sub-criteria. Two different initial decision matrices are used as the initial decision matrix, the first of which consists of recorded data of countries related to NFAs and NLDs, and the second consists of FAR and ASR values as ratios. Importance weights of main and sub-criteria regarding the recorded data and ratios are determined using four different weighting ways. Countries are ranked via utilizing Multi-Attributive Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis considering two different initial decision matrices.,It can be stated that an evaluation based on ratios for comparison of OHS performance provides more realistic results. Additionally, increasing the effect of the FAR values using the 6,000 equivalent lost days factor is also important in terms of differentiating the data of the countries in question.,To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study in literature that discusses the ranking of countries by means of recorded data and ratios considering different criteria. Additionally, this study is a first in terms of the number of countries evaluated and the comparison of these countries according to their respective EAAs.


This doctoral project encompasses an investigation of embodiment1 in relation to
ideas about human transfiguration and self perception through art practice.
The research addressed ways in which objects can participate in and add debate
to the relationship between biomedical interventions, human embodiment and
self perception. These have been addressed through examination of
transfiguration and hybridization of human and animal form, extension and
commodification of bodily materials, and ethical issues that arise. An artistic
investigation of embodiment, in relation to ideas concerning human
transfiguration and self perception has resulted.
The project draws upon an international movement by artists to deal with new
perceptions of life and subjectivity through new and diverse applications of
biological technologies. Focus is upon the aspects of these technologies which
are generally not addressed by the scientific field; issues of psychological,
conceptual and cultural significance.
Examples of attitudes towards the human body and biological technologies in
recent history, for example J. Huxley's The Tissue Culture King, provide a
background to contemporary issues in the field. Ideas about the formulation of
subjectivity in relation to physical form are grounded in the writings of Lacan and
Caillois. The significance of human tissues and their ability to represent complex
ideas about human identity, and the ethical issues raised by bodily
commodification are expressed by Waldby, Andrews, and Nelkin. The research
and it outcomes are located alongside contemporary artists in the field such as
Motohiko Odani, Ken Rinaldo, TC&A, and O'Reilly who address the conceptual
field through approaches ranging from science fantasy to visceral biotech and
performance works.
Findings are presented in a body of cross media works involving three streams
spanning traditional modes of making from non-biological object based forms;
biological artworks involving tissue culturing bodily materials; and performance
works made through direct experience with biotechnology.
The project has concluded that first hand engagement with biotech processes
and bodily materials achieved critical engagement with the research ideas. First
hand explorations in biotech practices have the ability to open alternative
experiences and representations of the body, outside of those which are dictated
by dominant culture.
The presentation of bodily materials outside of their usual location within the
fixed body, as in artworks created in the second and third streams of
investigation, have the ability to open new experiences and readings of
embodiment, and its relationship to evolving biological technologies.


In this paper, stochastic frontier production model was used to analyze the resource use efficiency of part-time food crop farmers in Idah, North Central Nigeria. The result shows that farm size, labour and planting materials are significant determinants of farm output in part-time food crop farming.
Analysis of inefficiency factors reveal the significant inefficiency variables to include; level of education, household size and farming experience. The result also shows that over 72% of part-time farmers were above average in resource use efficiency; maximum efficiency is 0.98, while minimum efficiency is 0.36 with mean efficiency of 0.65. The study also revealed that rising age and household size contribute to resource use inefficiency in part-time food crop farming, while level of education and years of farming experience increased resource use efficiency among the sample farmers. Implications are that policies that would encourage relatively younger and educated persons and provide them easy access to improved
seeds and fertilizers will go a long way in enhancing resource use efficiency in part-time food crop farming.


Objective: Ethnomedicinally, the entire plant and its parts are generally utilized by local people for the treatment of different aliment conditions without standard ization. The standardization of crude drug is a crucial part of establishing its correct identity. Prior to any crude drug can be included in an herbal pharma copeia, pharmacognostic and physicochemical parameters and standards to be established. Aralia racemosa L. perennial herb belongs to family Araliaceae. It is commonly known as American Spikenard. It is traditionally used in the treatment of Rheumatism, Whooping cough, skin diseases, pleurisy, diaphoretic, diuretic, pulmonary diseases, asthma, rheumatism, diarrhea, stimulant, expectorant, syphilis, Inflammation and Hay fever. In the view of lack of pharmacognostic study of leaf of Aralia racemosa L. Methods: The macroscopical, microscopical and physicochemical parameters were assessed according to WHO Quality Control Methods for herbal materials. The leaves of Aralia racemosa. L was subjected for successive solvent extraction and preliminary phytochemical screening was carried out, along with florescence analysis of leaf Powder with different reagents were evaluated. Results: Macroscopy of the leaves showed oval to rounded shape with tooted margin, cordate base and pointed tip. Microscopic studies revealed the presence of anisocytic stomata, bicolateral vascular bundles, lignified fi bers, spiral vessels and rosette shaped calcium oxalate crystals. Physicochemical parameters such as moisture content, extractive values, ash content and fluorescent behavior of leaf powder were also determined. Preliminary Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of various phytochemical constituents viz., glycosides, tannins, flavonoids, saponins and steroids. Conclusion: The results of current study could be served as a diagnostic tool for the standardization of this medicinal plant and will helpful in characterization of the crude drug.


This research paper investigated a gender shift in the identity search within Young Adult Fantasy novels between the mid-twentieth century and the contemporary period utilizing an emergent Structuralist pattern of four Emotional Discourses. The author argued that an adolescent's search for identity (within the context of the Young Adult Fantasy genre) during the mid-twentieth century focused on personal reflection and self-realization regardless of gender; whereas, the comingof- age journey for self-discovery in contemporary novels, or series of novels, (of the same genre) hinged on gender. Applying these discourses, readings from Earthsea and Twilight series texts analyzed the discourses (challenges and identifications) of both male and female characters to determine how each made decisions. Structuralist analysis showed female teens today gain identity through self-sacrificing means while contemporary male adolescents and both teens of both sexes discovered identity through self-realization in the midtwentieth century. With the inception of the young adult genre in the mid-twentieth century, character identity for both male and female adolescents developed through independent choice and internal consideration. Initially, this genre contrasted the ways women in literature were identified, generally by their relationships to others, such as wife or mother. However, a trend in contemporary young adult fantasy seems to shift the motivation behind adolescent female identity search from self-realization to self-sacrifice. Utilizing a structuralist lens and various psychoanalytical theories, a pattern of emotional discourses emerges in the young adult coming-of-age stories. Close readings and explication of representative texts utilizing this overarching blueprint expose this new trend. As a result of this analysis, I argue that an adolescent's search for identity (within young adult fantasy) during the mid-twentieth century focuses on personal reflection and self-realization regardless of gender; whereas, the coming-of-age journey for self-discovery in contemporary novels (of the same genre) hinges on gender. While boys continue to pursue their identity through internal means, girls' identity decisions center on their relationships with others, specifically romantic interests and familial connections.


"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand." —Putt's Law Early Praise for Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat: "This is management writing the way it ought to be. Think Dilbert, but with a very big brain. Read it and weep. Or laugh, depending on your current job situation." —Spectral Lines, IEEE Spectrum, April 2006 "It's a classic. It reads at first like humor, but one eventually realizes that it's all true. The first edition changed my life. I loaned my copy to a subordinate at IBM, and he didn't return it to me until he was my boss." —Dave Thompson, PhD, IBM Fellow (retired), Member National Academy of Engineering, and IEEE Fellow "Putt's humor ranges from sharp to whimsical and is always on target. Readers will be reminded of many personal experiences and of lessons in life they wish they ha learned earlier in their careers." —Eric Herz, former IEEE executive director and general manager "Anyone who thinks 'engineering management' is an oxymoron needs to read this terrific book — then they will know." —Norman R. Augustine, author of Augustine's Laws and retired Chairman & CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation Putt's Law is as true today as it was when techno-everyman Archibald Putt first stated it. Now, in Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat: How to Win in the Information Age, Putt is back with the unvarnished truth about success in the modern, technology-driven organization. As you learn the real rules of the technology world, you'll meet such characters as the successful technocrat, Dr. I. M. Sharp. You'll find out how he wrangles career victories from corporate failures, nearly bankrupting the firm with his projects while somehow emerging the hero. You'll also meet such unfortu ates as Roger Proofsworthy, top-level perfectionist yet low in the hierarchy, and come to understand how he assiduously preserves his spot near the bottom of the totem pole. Whether you work in business, IT, or are a freelance technocrat, you'll want to study Putt's hard-won wisdom and laugh—all the way to the bank!


This article discusses the initiatives made by the Government of India towards the building ICT infrastructure and access to scholarly information in the institutions of higher learning. The author emphasizes various schemes and ongoing projects of the UGC and other Government bodies to bridge the digital divide among the Universities and Colleges in various states in India. The paper gives description rather than to draw any conclusion and also highlight some of the challenges and barriers to bridge the digital divide.


While networks like the Internet lack a central control and develop into a hub-based scale-free topology, current work demonstrates that most wide-area networks, which are under a central administration develop into small-world like topologies. The testing of fault-tolerant algorithms requires most realistic network models. In this work we show methods that produce such network graphs by working out adequate parameters for graph generators and introduce a new functional similarity index, which allows the selection of graphs that possess topologies with similar influence on algorithms as real existing graphs.


A new wavelet-based image denoising algorithm, which exploits the edge information hidden in the corrupted image, is presented. Firstly, a canny-like edge detector identifies the edges in each subband. Secondly, multiplying the wavelet coefficients in neighboring scales is implemented to suppress the noise while magnifying the edge information, and the result is utilized to exclude the fake edges. The isolated edge pixel is also identified as noise. Unlike the thresholding method, after that we use local window filter in the wavelet domain to remove noise in which the variance estimation is elaborated to utilize the edge information. This method is adaptive to local image details, and can achieve better performance than the methods of state of the art.


Over the past 3 decades the prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased markedly in Ireland and worldwide. In the Republic of Ireland it is currently estimated that 60% of adults and 25% of children are overweight or obese. Obesity is a chronic disorder described by the World Health Organization as a condition of abnormal or excessive fat accumulation to the extent that health may be impaired. Excess body weight is associated with a significant burden of chronic disease, with attendant negative effects on overall life expectancy, disability-free life expectancy, quality of life, healthcare costs and productivity.
While the personal and social cost of this global phenomenon are incalculable, researchers and policy makers in a number of countries have estimated the economic costs of overweight and obesity. Estimates of the economic burden of illness provide critical information for priority setting, policy development and investment in both prevention and health services. The lack of reliable data to estimate the cost of obesity in Ireland was noted in a report from the National Taskforce on Obesity (2005).
safefood is a North–South body responsible for the promotion of food safety on the island of Ireland. It has coordinated several major initiatives to raise awareness of the problem of overweight and obesity among the general public and policy makers in both jurisdictions.
safefood commissioned the 2012 report 'The cost of overweight and obesity on the Island of Ireland', which was based on a study carried out by a research consortium with input from specialists in public health medicine, health economics and obesity epidemiology from the Health Service Executive (HSE), the Institute of Public Health (IPH) in Ireland and a number of Irish universities, led by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College Cork.
In the report, the direct healthcare costs and indirect costs to society of adult overweight and obesity in 2009 were estimated at €1.13 billion for the Republic of Ireland and €510 million for Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, 35% of these costs were direct healthcare costs and 65% were indirect costs. The direct costs represent 2.7% of the total healthcare costs for 2009. For Northern Ireland, 25% of the costs were direct healthcare costs and 75% were indirect costs; the direct costs represent 2.8% of the total healthcare expenditure for 2009.
Given the scale of the estimated costs associated with current levels of excess body weight in adults, and given the high current rates of overweight and obesity in childhood, there is a clear need to address the projected lifetime costs of childhood overweight and obesity. safefood has therefore commissioned this report on current and projected lifetime costs of childhood overweight and obesity on the island of Ireland as part of its ongoing work to guide and inform our response to this public health crisis. The current study (led by Professor Ivan Perry, School of Public Health, University College Cork) is based on collaboration between University College Cork, the IPH in Ireland, the Department of Public Health, HSE Mid West, the National University of Ireland, Galway, Temple Street Children's University Hospital and the United Kingdom (UK) Health Forum (UKHF).


As the death toll of Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID‐19) continues to rise worldwide, it is imperative to explore novel molecular mechanisms for targeting SARS‐CoV‐2. Rather than looking for drugs that directly interact with key viral proteins inhibiting its replication, an alternative and possibly add‐on approach is to dismantle the host cell machinery that enables the virus to infect the host cell and spread from one cell to another. Excellent examples of such machinery are host cell proteases whose role in viral pathogenesis has been demonstrated in numerous coronaviruses. In this review, we propose two therapeutic modalities to tackle SARS‐CoV‐2 infections; the first is to transcriptionally modulate the expression of cellular proteases and their endogenous inhibitors and the second is to directly inhibit their enzymatic activity. We present a nonexhaustive collection of clinically investigated drugs that act by one of these mechanisms and thus represent promising candidates for preclinical in vitro testing and hopefully clinical testing in COVID‐19 patients.


Two trials with 47 second-and third-litter sows and one trial involving 40 gilts were conducted to evaluate self-feeding a diet containing 96% dehydrated alfalfa during gestation. Sows were maintained in outside lots (approximately 2 1/2 acres) until the 100 110th day of gestation. The control gestation ration (15% protein sorghum-soybean meal) was fed in individual feeding stalls at 2 kg (4.4 lbs.) per head per day. All sows were fed a 16% protein diet ad libitum during the 28-day lactation period. Trial I using Yorkshire sows started in July with sows farrowing in September. Trial II using Duroc sows started in September with sows farrowing in November and December. Gilts bred in March and April and farrowing in June were used in trial III Intake of self-fed sows was measured weekly. In the first trial, feed intake of self-fed sows averaged 3.88 kg (8.54 lbs.) daily with a gestation weight gain of 29 kg (53.8 lbs.). Self-fed sows in trial II consumed an average of 2.90 kg (6.38 lbs.) daily and gained 23.3 kg (51.3 lbs.) during gestation. Self-fed gilts in trial III consumed an average of 2.56 kg (5.63 lbs.) daily and gained 19.6 kg (43.2 lbs.) from 30 days post-breeding to farrowing. Control gilts gained 39.1 kg (86.0 lbs.) during gestation.; Swine Day, Manhattan, KS, November 11, 1976


We present an improvement to the DP-SLAM algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) that maintains multiple hypotheses about densely populated maps (one full map per particle in a particle filter) in time that is linear in all significant algorithm parameters and takes constant (amortized) time per iteration. This means that the asymptotic complexity of the algorithm is no greater than that of a pure localization algorithm using a single map and the same number of particles. We also present a hierarchical extension of DP-SLAM that uses a two level particle filter which models drift in the particle filtering process itself. The hierarchical approach enables recovery from the inevitable drift that results from using a finite number of particles in a particle filter and permits the use of DP-SLAM in more challenging domains, while maintaining linear time asymptotic complexity.


This pathbreaking book is the first to provide a rigorous and comprehensive examination of Internet culture and consumption. A rich ethnography of Internet use, the book offers a sustained account not just of being online, but of the social, political and cultural contexts which account for the contemporary Internet experience. From cybercafes to businesses, from middle class houses to squatters settlements, from the political economy of Internet provision to the development of ecommerce, the authors have gathered a wealth of material based on fieldwork in Trinidad. Looking at the full range of Internet media -- including websites, email and chat -- the book brings out unforeseen consequences and contradictions in areas as varied as personal relations, commerce, nationalism, sex and religion. This is the first book-length treatment of the impact of the Internet on a particular region. By focusing on one place, it demonstrates the potential for a comprehensive approach to new media. It points to the future direction of Internet research, proposing a detailed agenda for comparative ethnographic study of the cultural significance and effects of the Internet in modern society. Clearly written for the non-specialist reader, it offers a detailed account of the complex integration between on-line and off-line worlds. An innovative tie-in with the book's own website provides copious illustrations amounting to over 2,000 web-pages that bring the material right to your computer.


The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 legislation were intended to reform health care in the United States. Since then several modifications have been added to the Act for strengthening patient privacy and better management of health information. The HIPAA Omnibus Final rule was implemented on 17th of January, 2013 and was effective on March 26, 2013 with compliance deadline set at September 23, 2013. The final HIPAA rule will provide improved standards for privacy protections and security safeguards for consumer health data; however, HIPAA rules may impede the conduct of important health research. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) recommends implementation of the Privacy rule with its intent to protect privacy while permitting continuation of authorized public health activities. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief outline of HIPAA, an overview of the HIPAA Omnibus Final rule and its impact on public health.


A detailed geological and structural analysis was carried out in the Madonie Mts., along the central-northern sector of the Sicilian-Maghrebian Chain, in order to define the tectonic evolution of the area in relation to the rotation episodes occurred since the Middle Miocene. Upper Triassic-Middle Miocene successions are characterized by two fold systems with sub-perpendicular axes, the first one trending between NNW-SSE and SSW-NNE, characterized by 15–55° angle of plunging, the second one trending between WSW-ENE and WNW-ESE, characterized by sub-horizontal axes. The second system of folds is coaxial to major south-verging breaching thrust of the Madonie Mts. over the Upper Miocene-Lower Pliocene thrust-top deposits. Conversely, these latter show only one fold and thrust system, roughly coaxial to the second system recognized in the Upper Trias-sic-Middle Miocene successions. The structural analysis, compared with published paleomagnetic data, revealed that the Neogene thrusting was accompanied by vertical-axis clockwise rotations. In particular, Upper Triassic-Middle Miocene successions recorded both major 70° Langhian to Tortonian regional rotations and locally ∼30° Pliocene rotations related to activity of strike-slip fault zone. So, the structures formed during the first deformation stage were totally rotated up to ∼100°. Conversely, structures of the Upper Miocene-Lower Pliocene deposits were involved only in the Pliocene clockwise rotations, these latter related to activity of strike-slip faulting.


In this letter, we describe a novel gain measurement approach for semiconductor edge-emitting lasers, with which TE and TM gain spectra can be easily obtained by collecting the amplified spontaneous emissions at dual facets of the device. An unstrained and continuously-operated GaAs/AlGaAs single quantum well laser strip is used to illustrate this method. The measured gain spectra are compared with theoretical gain curves to analyze the gain polarization characteristics and the relevant subband structure in the valence band of the well using the measured gain spectra.


This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on road traffic accident prediction models (APMs) and crash modification factors (CMFs). The focus is on motorways and higher ranked rural roads and the study was performed within a European road authorities' research project. The priorities for the review were determined by a questionnaire survey on model availability and needs, addressed to national road authorities in Europe and worldwide. The salient literature was reviewed and existing models were assessed in terms of theoretical approaches, model characteristics, implementation conditions, data requirements and available results. The review of CMFs focused on their background and development, the various methods for developing them and the key issues in their application. The review resulted in the development of an APM and CMF inventory that forms the basis for an online repository, with the aim of assisting the practical application of gathered experience on accident prediction.


BIOLOGICAL CONTROLWEST BOULDER RIVER, MONTANA-- As the menace posed by biological invaders grows, many scientists and governments are fighting fire with fire by importing natural enemies of exotic weeds and pests. But the "good" exotics may become problems themselves, attacking nontarget native species or reshuffling ecosystems in unwanted ways. And even biocontrol researchers admit that the long-term fate of introduced agents is often unknown.


BACKGROUND
Hazardous oral anticancer agents (OACs) require the same safe-handling considerations in the home setting as in controlled healthcare environments. Effective home management strategies for OAC administration emphasize caregiver protections, proper storage, safe administration, spill management, and proper waste disposal to reduce the risk for hazardous drug exposure.

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to establish a framework for oral chemotherapy education for healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers using a checklist and teach-back tool focused on OAC safe handling.

METHODS
A literature search was performed to establish a framework for education on home administration of OACs. Seven articles were selected to review.

FINDINGS
Developing education initiatives aimed at increasing patients' and caregivers' knowledge of and skills and confidence in administering OACs at home can ensure the safe management of treatments. To establish safe-handling practices for OAC home administration, nurses can implement a standard framework for patient and caregiver education.


We construct secret-key encryption (SKE) schemes that are secure against related-key attacks and in the presence of key-dependent messages (RKA-KDM secure). We emphasize that RKA-KDM security is not merely the conjunction of individual security properties, but covers attacks in which ciphertexts of key-dependent messages under related keys are available. Besides being interesting in their own right, RKA-KDM secure schemes allow to garble circuits with XORs very eciently (Applebaum, TCC 2013). Until now, the only known RKA-KDM secure SKE scheme (due to Applebaum) is based on the LPN assumption. Our schemes are based on various other computational assumptions, namely DDH, LWE, QR, and DCR. We abstract from Applebaum's construction and proof, and formalize three generic technical properties that imply RKA-KDM security: one property is IND-CPA security, and the other two are the existence of suitable oracles that produce ciphertexts under related keys, resp. of key-dependent messages. We then give simple SKE schemes that achieve these properties. Our constructions are variants of known KDM-secure public-key encryption schemes. To additionally achieve RKA security, we isolate suitable homomorphic properties of the underlying schemes in order to simulate ciphertexts under related keys in the security proof. From a conceptual point of view, our work provides a generic and extensible way to construct encryption schemes with multiple special security properties.


This paper contains research performed on the effectiveness of methods that aims to clear transient faults on MV networks without causing momentary supply loss to customers due to ARC operations, which is achieved by "instantaneous" interruption of fault currents. This is done by momentarily disconnecting the NECR's neutral earth connection. Currently the research also includes the implementation of single pole breakers which are able to trip independently from each other within 25ms. Implementing these methods of clearing transient faults will result in less stress being placed on breakers, joints, conductors and transformers within the MV network. It will also yield a better QoS performance with regards to dips and momentary interruptions. Lastly, the scheme will result in up to 50 times less burn wounds on people or animals in the unfortunate case of making contact with the MV network.


Topsoil loss from erosion in the intermountain dry-farming area
reduces crop yields. This study tested the hypothesis that the effects
of erosion on water storage and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield
could be partially alleviated by applying appropriate fertilizers. Two
sites were used, one on Rexburg silt loam, a coarse-silty, mixed,
frigid Calcic Haploxeroll, and the other on Newdale silt loam, a
coarse-silty, mixed frigid Calciorthidic Haploxeroll. Topsoil-depth
treatments were + 15, 0, —15, or —30 cm changes relative to the
original surface. After making the soil depth changes, 54 kg P ha-1
were incorporated on one half of each topsoil depth plot and the
other half received no P. These P or no P plots were split for applications
of 0, 34 or 68 kg N ha-1. Phosphorus had no effect on
wheat yield. Without fertilizer N, yields on —15 and —30-cm plots
were reduced 46 and 55%, respectively, but increased 69% from the
addition of 15 cm of topsoil, compared with the 0-cm plot. Removing
15 and 30 cm of topsoil also reduced the upper limit of N-fertilized
production to 80 and 65%, respectively, of production on undisturbed
N-fertilized plots. Three kilograms fertilizer N ha-1 each crop year
offset each centimeter of soil removed, but only to the new lower
production limit. All plots had similar amounts of stored, available
soil water in the spring, but a large fraction of this water remained
unused at harvest on plots with 15 and 30 cm of topsoil removed
because the low-yielding wheat did not use as much water. Profile
water differences at harvest were no longer apparent by the next
spring, following winter recharge. Unused water at harvest, which
partially filled the soil profile, reduced winter infiltration and contributed
to subsequent runoff from precipitation on those plots. Adding
N fertilizer was only a partial solution to topsoil deficiencies.


Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, Winter 7:2, 2006 Seeking Asylum in Ireland Nogugu Mafu Community Development Student, Institute of Technology, Tralee The aim of this paper is to relate in brief the story of my life as a refugee in Ireland. It will focus on my reasons for leaving Zimbabwe, my home country, and some general reasons why people find themselves in a position where they should make the very crucial decision to either continue to live in their own country and deal with whatever hardship or persecution , give up and stare death in the face, or move to another place and contend with the challenges of trying to fit in and survive. Writing from a personal point of view, these challenges will obviously be based on my own experiences, which in my opinion reflect to a reasonable extent the experiences of most refugees, while at the same time not assuming that there are no exceptions. The challenges will include my life as an asylum seeker in direct provision (accommodation centres designated for people seeking asylum), as a single mother away from the support of family and friends, and as a refugee trying to start a new life in a foreign country. Another aim of this document is to clarify the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee, terms that to some people very often have the same meaning. The paper will also give a brief overview of the general treatment of refugees worldwide not only in Ireland or the western world . Finally, I wish to use this article to give words of encouragement to all the displaced persons of this world who may get a chance to read this article, to help them realise that it is possible to have a "home away from home" and to rise above the dehumanising experiences of being a refugee. It is my heartfelt wish, too, to extend my humble gratitude through this article to different statutory and voluntary organisations and people who have devoted their lives to the worthy cause of helping asylum seekers and refugees in this country and indeed in other parts of the world .


Cybersecurity research involves publishing papers about malicious exploits as much as publishing information on how to design tools to protect cyber-infrastructure. It is this information exchange between ethical hackers and security experts, which results in a well-balanced cyber-ecosystem. In the blooming domain of AI Safety Engineering, hundreds of papers have been published on different proposals geared at the creation of a safe machine, yet nothing, to our knowledge, has been published on how to design a malevolent machine. Availability of such information would be of great value particularly to computer scientists, mathematicians, and others who have an interest in AI safety, and who are attempting to avoid the spontaneous emergence or the deliberate creation of a dangerous AI, which can negatively affect human activities and in the worst case cause the complete obliteration of the human species. This paper provides some general guidelines for the creation of a Malevolent Artificial Intelligence (MAI).


Foot lesions are highly prevalent in captive flamingos (Phoenicopterus spp.); however, the etiology of these lesions remains mainly speculative. The objectives of this study were to identify climatic factors (latitude, temperature, and housing) and surface factors influencing the risk of four different types of foot lesions (hyperkeratosis, nodular lesions, papillomatous growths, and fissures) in captive flamingos. The study was based on photos of 445 pairs of flamingo foot soles. Data originating from 337 birds in 10 different zoos were included. The odds of birds having hyperkeratosis, papillomatous growths, and fissures were higher for flamingos living north of the 53rd degree of latitude, for flamingos exposed to a mean temperature of 158C or less during the previous 4 wk, and for birds housed in indoor exhibits for at least 90% of the time during the previous 4 wk (compared to flamingos housed outdoor for at least 90% of the time in the same time period). Concrete-type floors increased the odds of flamingos having hyperkeratosis and fissures. Certain substrates increased the odds of one type of lesion while decreasing the odds of having other lesion types. In conclusion, both climate and substrate appear to affect the odds of developing different types of foot lesions.


Nucleic acids are powerful triggers of innate immunity and can adopt the unusual Z-conformation. The p150 isoform of adenosine deaminase acting on RNA 1 (ADAR1) prevents aberrant interferon (IFN) induction and contains a Z-nucleic acid binding (Zα) domain. We report that knock-in mice bearing two point mutations in the Zα domain of ADAR1, which abolish binding to Z-form nucleic acids, spontaneously induced type I IFNs and IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) in multiple organs. This included the lung where both stromal and haematopoietic cells displayed ISG induction in Adar1mZα/mZα mice. Concomitantly, Adar1mZα/mZα mice showed improved control of influenza A virus. The spontaneous IFN response in Adar1mZα/mZα mice required MAVS, implicating cytosolic RNA sensing. Finally, analysis of A-to-I changes revealed a specific requirement of ADAR1's Zα domain in editing of a subset of RNAs. In summary, our results reveal that endogenous RNAs in Z-conformation have immunostimulatory potential that is curtailed by ADAR1.


This paper presents a low-complexity multiuser decoding technique that can be implemented in real time for a convolutionally coded direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system. The main contribution, denoted here as the iterative prior update (IPU), consists of iterative interference cancellation and prior updates on sequences of coded bits combined with M-algorithm and list decoding. We illustrate performance gains over other low-complexity sequence detection and decoding strategies and argue that the algorithm converges within a few iterations and requires only a small size buffer for keeping track of the priors along iterations. The fact that the we can use existing available architectures for Viterbi decoding with slight modifications and can meet the real-time processing constraints makes the IPU algorithm an attractive alternative for cellular systems.


Aim/Purpose: This identifies the factors that influence the application of mobile learning in order to improve the student learning process at universities in Indonesia based on the student's perspective regarding factors that affect mobile learning, which is still rarely done in the Indonesian context.

Background: The pandemic has had an impact on education in Indonesia so teaching and learning activities utilize online learning applications (online) to support the learning process (online teaching and learning). Although mobile learning is increasingly being used in universities in Indonesia, there have not been many studies on the factors that drive mobile learning adoption.

Methodology: The research method used was the quantitative method. Research based on the elaboration of the mobile learning adoption model was conducted based on students' perceptions of mobile learning adoption using the perceived interactivity of the mobile learning model and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that has been modified to describe the adoption of mobile learning.

Contribution: This research contributes to knowledge in identifying and analyzing mobile learning adoption using three types of perceived interactivity; namely, perceived interactivity between users, perceived interactivity between users and mobile learning applications, and perceived interactivity with mobile learning infrastructure, and evaluating the perceived interactivity impact of mobile learning adoption on perceived ease of use, satisfaction, and ongoing intention to use mobile learning. This study also evaluates the impact of mobile learning adoption on perceived usefulness, satisfaction, perceived enjoyment, and continuance intention to use mobile learning.

Findings: It was found that the factor in mobile learning based on the student's perspective became one of the components of the mobile learning interactivity model. The components are grouped into user-perceived interactivity (student-to-teacher, student-student, student-to-content), perceived interactivity within the application (perceived ease of use, perceived ubiquity, quality of learning content), and perceived interactivity in infrastructure (network quality, system quality).

Recommendations for Practitioners: The significant influence of adopting mobile learning in Indonesia is the Indonesian government which needs to provide a perception of quality interactivity and interesting and fun learning content so that users will feel comfortable when using mobile learning. The ease of use of mobile learning applications must also be adjusted to the needs of users and the learning content needed by users so that mobile learning can be better.

Recommendation for Researchers: This work confirms that nine of the twelve variables used have a significant influence on the adoption of mobile learning in universities in Indonesia. The nine variables are student-to-student interactivity, student-to-content interactivity, perceived ease of use, perceived ubiquity, quality of learning content, system quality, perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and satisfaction.

Impact on Society: For universities, the development of mobile learning adoption in universities must be designed by considering interactivity in learning, learning content that is in accordance with user learning outcome targets set by the faculty, and user study programs, as well as taking into account aspects of learning technology, such as user information security and user interfaces that can provide convenience for mobile learning users, so that the quality of information, the quality of learning, and the learning system can be well received by users.

Future Research: Future studies will be able to cover all regions of Indonesia, represented by several public and private universities, by considering several additional factors, including user safety in using mobile learning.


This paper presents the literature review of studies published in 2004-2014 (Web 2.0 period) in the area of consumer online trust. Based on the content analysis of 138 papers, this study highlights three major research themes: (1) trust models, (2) technological, and (3) social factors impacting online trust. It also explores topics in each major theme found in direct studies of online consumer trust. Since this literature review uses the concept-centric approach, it points out not only the major trends in research but also three understudied areas: (1) green trust, (2) trust recovery, and (3) the role of ethics in developing online trust.


ABSTRACT: To have a virtue is to possess a certain kind of trait of character that is appropriate in pursuing the moral good at which the virtue aims. Human beings are assumed to be capable of attaining those traits. Yet, a number of scholars are skeptical about the very existence of such character traits. They claim a sizable amount of empirical evidence in their support. This article is concerned with the existence and explanatory power of character as a way to assess the possibility of achieving moral virtue, with particular attention paid to business context. I aim to unsettle the so-called situationist challenge to virtue ethics. In the course of this article, I shall defend four claims, namely, that virtues are more than just behavioral dispositions, that at least some virtues may not be unitary traits, that psychologists cannot infer virtues from overt behavior, and that the situationist data do not account for the observational equivalence of traits. Since it rests on a misconception of what virtue is, the situationist objection remains unconvincing.


The participatory guarantee systems (PGS) for organic certification do not involve a third party certification body; therefore, the lower certification costs involvedmake it particularly suitable for rural communities in developing countries. Its success is related to the chance of being recognised at a national as well as international level and to its role in promoting the local rural development. The goal of the present study is to explore how social cohesion, trust and market relate one to another along the supply chain and to explain the interaction between participatory organic certification and the development of rural communities. The analytical approach, based on the work of Henry Farrell, considers how the level of formalism among the agents involved in the certification process interacts with the flexibility and scope of the relationship, including the extension of the market area in which the social control can provide guarantees comparable to those a third party certification body can give. We analysed the case of Rede Ecovida, a network of organic and conventional farmers and other stakeholders operating along the production chain, including local NGOs. The data and information collection has been carried out involving an empirical survey analysing the reasons leading to perform organic farming and set up a participatory organic certification, and an evaluation of the participatory organic farming impact on trade relationships. Collected data have been integrated with the results of another survey on the Rede Ecovida. The survey had an exploratory nature since the estimators are biased, coming form an non random and non representative sample. Results showed the positive effect of the participatory approach on the local economic, social and environmental development, and its still very low chances to have access to the export market. An interesting finding regards the role of the farmers network (Rede Ecovida) in promoting trust in the organic products beyond the boundaries of local communities. Key-words: organic certification, transaction costs, participatory guarantee systems, developing countries, local markets.


TEACHER PLANNING PROBLEM SPACE OF EXPERT TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATING TEACHERS by Erin Leslie Davis Although expert technology integrating teachers exist, designing meaningful technology integrated learning remains a challenge. To address this problem, the purpose of this single case study was to examine how experts plan for technology integration. The conceptual framework of this study drew from information processing theory and combined two existing constructs: the notion of a problem space (Simon & Newell, 1971) with a process model of teacher planning (Yinger, 1980). The resulting combination was a new construct called the teacher planning problem space. The significance of this study was in the application of this new construct to focus on thoughts, decisions, and judgments of teachers during the planning process for technology integration rather than a focus on the act of teaching a lesson. Participants included a purposeful sample of six technology-integrating experts designated as such by their distinction as the winners of an innovation award sponsored by the Public Broadcasting Service and The Henry Ford. Winning the award bounded the case and the unit of analysis was how each teacher negotiated the teacher planning problem space. Data collection included a survey, interviews, audiovisual materials, and documents. Qualitative content analysis methods where used for interpreting the data, with these interpretations presented as a single case. The results indicated expert technologyintegrating teachers continuously sought to improve instruction for their students and technology served to facilitate this goal. Learning from experience including mistakes as well as knowledge of technology's affordances were the major contributors to these teachers' flexibility, troubleshooting, and fearlessness when implementing innovative practices with technology. The teacher planning problem space model resulting from this study provides theoretical implications for examining teacher planning. Practical implications include suggestions for administrative policies regarding lesson plan requirements and planning strategies for integrate technology. TEACHER PLANNING PROBLEM SPACE OF EXPERT TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATING TEACHERS by Erin Leslie Davis


Background: TB and HIV form a lethal combination, as each fuels the progress of the other in the infected patients. This study assessed the haematological parameters of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients with and without HIV infection attending the shyam shah medical college, Rewa. Aims: To study hematological parameter namely Hb (Hemoglobin), total RBC count, Total WBC count, ESR (Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate) and platelets in pulmonary tuberculosis. Methods: To analytical study of all 120 (TB with HIV 60 / TB without HIV 60) TB patients who were attending Department of Medicine, Shyam Shah Medical College, Rewa (M.P.). And patientsrefered from Anti-retroviral therapy centre, with sputum positivity for AFB (acid fast bacillius).Results: In our study, 83.3% were males and 16.6 % were females in the TB with HIV group. 70% of patients were in the age group of 25 – 45 years in the TB with HIV group, whereas 86.6% of patients were in age group of 25 – 45 years in the TB without HIV. 90% of patients were underweight with BMI less than 18.5, in TB with HIV group, and 73.3% of patients were underweight in TB without HIV group. 80% were anemic in the TB with HIV and 66.6% were anemic in TB without HIV group. 63.4% of patients with TB and HIV had thrombocytopenia, whereas only 10% of patients had thrombocytopenia in TB without HIV group. Patients with tuberculosis per se have increased ESR count, whereas TB-HIV coinfection has drastically reduced the ESR count. Among patients with TB and HIV 83.3% of patients had ESR less than 60 mm/hr., whereas 96.6% of TB without HIV patients had ESR greater than 60 mm/hr. since, ESR is a marker of chronic inflammatory states like TB and HIV is a immunosuppressive state, the co-infection of TB with HIV has drastically reduced ESR values in these patients.Conclusion:ESR values are drastically reduced in TB patients with HIV, rather TB patients per se. hence, an ESR less than 60 European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 04, 2021 171