OBJECTIVE
To determine whether cross-reactivity exists between canine chromogranin A (CgA) and anti-human CgA antibody and investigate the usefulness of plasma CgA concentration measurements as an index of acute stress responses in dogs.

ANIMALS
12 healthy Beagles.

PROCEDURE
Canine CgA was extracted and purified from canine adrenal glands of cadaver dogs for studying cross-reactivity with anti-human CgA antibody. Western blotting with anti-human CgA antibody was performed. Blood samples were collected from dogs at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 120, and 180 minutes after IV administration of saline (0.9% NaCl) solution or insulin. Canine plasma CgA concentrations were determined by use of a CgA ELISA kit with rabbit antiserum against the carboxy-terminal fragment of human CgA. Plasma cortisol and catecholamine (ie, norepinephrine and epinephrine) concentrations were measured by use of an ELISA and a high-performance liquid chromatography method, respectively.

RESULTS
Purified canine CgA was specifically detected by use of western blot analysis and an ELISA with anti-human CgA antibody. An increase in plasma CgA concentrations was observed in insulin-induced hypoglycemic dogs. Changes in plasma CgA concentration were correlated with changes in plasma cortisol or catecholamine concentrations of hypoglycemic dogs.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Use of the CgA ELISA kit for determination of human plasma CgA concentrations is applicable to the measurement of canine plasma CgA concentrations. Canine plasma CgA concentrations, along with measurements of plasma cortisol and catecholamine concentrations, correctly reflect insulin-induced hypoglycemic stressed conditions in dogs. Measurement of canine plasma CgA concentrations may provide a useful index for evaluation of an acute stress response.


One decade after the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, central Taiwan experienced more strong ground shaking [Central Weather Bureau (CWB), intensity VII] induced by a ML 6.2 earthquake on 5th November 2009. This earthquake occurred in the Mingjian Township of Nantou County, only 12 km southwest of the Chi-Chi earthquake epicenter. The broadband microearthquake monitoring network operated by the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) observed numerous aftershocks in the five days following the mainshock. The relocated aftershocks and the mainshock focal mechanism indicated a NE-SW striking fault dipping 60° toward the northwest. This fault plane is inside the pre-Miocene basement and the rupture extends from the lower crust to 10 km depth just beneath the basal décollement of the thin-skinned model that is generally used to explain the regional tectonics in Taiwan. The fault plane is vertically symmetrical with the Chelungpu fault by the basal décollement. The NW-SE compressive stress of plate collision in Taiwan, as well as the deep tectonic background, resulted in the seismogenic structure of the Mingjian earthquake at this location.


Relocation is one of the tasks that corporate real estate management is responsible for. They are important events for organizations as there can be a variety of short and long term impacts due to the relocation. Large portion of previous research has focused on longer distance relocations i.e. relocation between cities or countries although short distance relocations have certain impacts, too. The case with especially smaller organizations is often that they do not withhold required expertise on relocations as they are not conducted on regular basis.This paper focuses on contributing to the knowledge of the relocation phenomenon. The aim is to examine the scale and volume of companies' HQ relocations. This is done by analyzing the relocation distances and the amounts of relocated companies in order to formulate an understanding of how far and how often companies have relocated. The study uses quantitative data of address changes of Finnish limited liability companies between years 2006 – 2011. The findings of this study indicate that the vast majority of relocations are short distance relocations. Over two thirds of all of the moves were relocations of less than ten kilometres by distance. The average distance that the companies relocated was circa 29 kilometres and the median only less than five kilometres. Further, according to the analysis, some 27 percent of all of the companies had relocated at least once during the five and half year time period of the dataset and some six percent during the last year of the data.The findings of the study give an overall image of the scale and volume of the relocations phenomenon within the private sector in Finland. It is concluded that the vast majority of relocations are actually short distance ones and that average organizations do not conduct relocations that often. Thus, in addition to long distance relocations, the focus in future research should be set more on the impacts of these types of relocations as well.


This talk consists of two approaches to provide robust classification performance in real world applications, i.e., emotion recognition from facial expression and speech recognition in noisy environment. The emotional facial expression recognition incorporating a hierarchical committee machine won the emotion-from-images competition at the third Emotion Recognition in the Wild (EmotiW2015) challenge. [1] We trained multiple deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) as committee members and combined their decisions with two strategies: (1) in order to obtain diverse decisions from deep CNNs, we incorporated several different network architectures, input normalization, and random weight initializations for training these deep models, and (2) in order to form a better committee in structural and decisional aspects, we constructed a hierarchical architecture of the committee with exponentially-weighted decision fusion. For the recognition of seven emotional categories in the wild, we achieved a test accuracy of 61.6 %. Moreover, on other public databases, our hierarchical committee of deep CNNs yielded superior performance, outperforming or competing with the state-of-the-art results for these databases. To achieve high accuracy for noisy speech recognition, we also incorporated top-down attention which automatically assigned attention gain on input and/or hidden variables for higher confidence on the classification decision. [2=4] Although it is basically similar to recent attentive networks, unlike image recognition tasks in big background, the segmentation of speech even in noisy environment is relatively easy task and we applied the top-down attention only at test phase. Also, several top candidate classes were attended and only the class with the mximum confidence was selected as the final decision. This approach successfully resulted in sequential recognition of superimposed patterns and continuous speech recognition in noisy environment.


The dynamics of black hole spacetimes play a crucial role in astrophysics, high energy physics and fundamental physics. In this thesis I have investigated the dynamics of black holes in generic spacetimes by extending established numerical relativity methods to higher dimensional or non-asymptotically flat spacetimes. Additionally, I have explored BH spacetimes perturbed my massive scalar fields. By developing and further improving NR techniques I have been able to push our knowledge to new grounds.


We examine the revelation of preferences of justices whose true ideologies are not known when entering the Court but gradually become apparent through their judicial decisions. In a 2-period president-Senate-Court game, we show that some new justices vote disingenuously and so move the perceived ideology of the overall Court closer to their ideally preferred outcome, which influences the selection of future justices. Justices will sometimes have an incentive to exaggerate the extremeness of their preferences and at other times will seek to appear more moderate. Systematic changes in judicial behavior can be predicted on the basis of the characteristics of the cases; the initial ideologies of the justices, the president, and the Senate; and the probabilities of retirement of the justices. These results have important implications for interpreting judicial voting behavior: particularly, it is not safe to infer changes in actual judicial preferences from changes in expression of judicial preferences.


This article investigates the business cycle implications of the planning phase of business investment projects. Time to plan is built into a Kydland-Prescott time-to-build model, which assumes that investment projects take four periods to complete. In the Kydland-Prescott time-to-build model, resources for these projects flow uniformly across the four periods; in the time-to-plan model, few resources are used in the first period. The investigation determines that incorporating time to plan in this way improves the model's ability to account for three key features of U.S. business cycles: their persistence, or the fact that when output growth is above (or below) average, it tends to remain high (or low) for a few quarters; the fact that productivity leads hours worked over the business cycle; and the fact that business investment in structures and business investment in equipment lag output over the cycle.


The genetic code is redundant, with most amino acids coded by multiple codons. In many organisms, codon usage is biased towards particular codons. A variety of adaptive and non-adaptive explanations have been proposed to explain these patterns of codon usage bias. Using mechanistic models of protein translation and population genetics, I explore the relative importance of various evolutionary forces in shaping these patterns. This work challenges one of the fundamental assumptions made in over 30 years of research: codons with higher tRNA abundances leads to lower error rates. I show that observed patterns of codon usage are inconsistent with selection for translation accuracy. I also show that almost all the variation in patterns of codon usage in S. cerevisiae can be explained by a model taking into account the effects of mutational biases and selection for efficient ribosome usage. In addition, by sampling suboptimal mRNA secondary structures at various temperatures, I show that melting of ribosomal binding sites in a special class of mRNAs known as RNA thermometers is a more general phenomenon.


Background: The provision of clinical pharmacy related services involves not only medication therapy, but decisions about medication selection, dosages, routes and methods of administration, medication therapy monitoring, and the provision of medication-related information and counselling to individual patients. Objective: To evaluate the clinical pharmacist's interventions with a focus on resolving drug related problems (DRPs). Methods: This is a prospective study that was performed in a tertiary mental health hospital in Abha city, Saudi Arabia. The clinical pharmacy team conducted a clinical rotation on a daily basis for rendering clinical pharmacy services. Based on the clinical pharmacist's assessment, the identified DRP's were identified and communicated with other clinicians to concerned patient-centered care and the resulting outcomes were measured. Also, the acceptance rate for the clinical pharmacist ' s interventions was evaluated. Results: A total of 824 DRPs were identified for 420 cases. The most common DRPs reported were found to be regarding Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (n=345, 41.87%) followed by need for counselling (n=175, 21.24%), drug selection (n=180, 21.84%), over or under dosage (n=87, 10.6%), adverse reactions (n=20, 2.43%), compliance (n=14, 1.7%), and under treatment (n=3, 0.36%). For all the identified DRP's a total of 446 interventions (54.13%) were proposed and accepted by the clinicians. Conclusion: Present study showed that introducing clinical pharmacist within the psychiatry team improves the therapeutic optimization and the clinical pharmacist is a trustworthy team member.


The integration of wind turbines into modern power grids has significantly increased during the last decade. Wind turbines equipped with doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) have been dominating wind power installation worldwide since 2002. In this paper, superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) unit is proposed to improve the dynamic performance of a wind energy conversion system equipped with DFIG during voltage sag and voltage swell events. The converter and the chopper of the SMES unit are controlled using a hysteresis current controller and artificial neural network based controller respectively. Detailed simulation is carried out using MATLAB/SIMULINK software to highlight the impact of the SMES unit in improving the overall system performance under voltage sag and voltage swell conditions.


We describe a biological event detection method implemented for the BioNLP 2009 Shared Task 1. The method relies entirely on the chunk and syntactic dependency relations provided by a general NLP pipeline which was not adapted in any way for the purposes of the shared task. The method maps the syntactic relations to event structures while being guided by the probabilities of the syntactic features of events which were automatically learned from the training data. Our method achieved a recall of 26% and a precision of 44% in the official test run, under "strict equality" of events.


Background: Flavonoids, polyphenolic compounds that are ubiquitous in nature, have been known for their pharmacological as antifungal, diuretic, antihistamin, antihypertension, insecticide, bactericide, antiviral, antioxidant, and enzim inhibitor. Flavanones found in all parts Scutellaria indica, has the ability to inhibit arginase, flavanols found in the seeds of Theobroma cacao L. Previous study showed that Caesalpinia ferrea C. Mart stem bark contains flavonoid compound. Objective: The objective of this study to analyze arginase inhibitory activity and to determine the total flavonoid content of Caesalpinia ferrea C. Mart stem bark by using AlCl3 colorimetric method. Methods: Dried Caesalpinia ferrea stem barks were refluxed with three different solvent with gradual gradient polarity i.en-hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. Each extract was tested to determine arginase inhibitory activity. Total flavonoid content was determined on extract showed the highest arginase inhibitory activity. Results: Methanolic extract showed arginase inhibitory activity of 12.81% and flavonoid content was 2 mgQE/g. Phytochemical screening on Caesalpinia ferrea stem bark ethyl acetate extract showed that it contains flavonoids, tannins, saponins, steroids, and terpenoids, meanwhile Caesalpinia ferrea stem bark methanolic extract contains flavonoids, tannins, saponins, and steroids. Conclusion: Caesalpinia ferrea C. Mart stem bark extracts were not potential to inhibit arginase.


GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC) is a recombination-associated process that favors the fixation of G/C alleles over A/T alleles. In mammals, gBGC is hypothesized to contribute to variation in GC content, rapidly evolving sequences, and the fixation of deleterious mutations, but its prevalence and general functional consequences remain poorly understood. gBGC is difficult to incorporate into models of molecular evolution and so far has primarily been studied using summary statistics from genomic comparisons. Here, we introduce a new probabilistic model that captures the joint effects of natural selection and gBGC on nucleotide substitution patterns, while allowing for correlations along the genome in these effects. We implemented our model in a computer program, called phastBias, that can accurately detect gBGC tracts about 1 kilobase or longer in simulated sequence alignments. When applied to real primate genome sequences, phastBias predicts gBGC tracts that cover roughly 0.3% of the human and chimpanzee genomes and account for 1.2% of human-chimpanzee nucleotide differences. These tracts fall in clusters, particularly in subtelomeric regions; they are enriched for recombination hotspots and fast-evolving sequences; and they display an ongoing fixation preference for G and C alleles. They are also significantly enriched for disease-associated polymorphisms, suggesting that they contribute to the fixation of deleterious alleles. The gBGC tracts provide a unique window into historical recombination processes along the human and chimpanzee lineages. They supply additional evidence of long-term conservation of megabase-scale recombination rates accompanied by rapid turnover of hotspots. Together, these findings shed new light on the evolutionary, functional, and disease implications of gBGC. The phastBias program and our predicted tracts are freely available.


This paper reports the results of an empirical examination of the effectiveness of one type of knowledge management technology, namely 'contextual knowledge repository', for supporting individual decision makers in a predictive judgement task context. 31 volunteer subjects participated in the study. The results indicate that a given technology was fairly useful, but insufficient to maximally enhance individual decision making. On one hand, subjects were found to extract more knowledge and make significantly smaller decision errors than their notional naive counterparts. On the other hand, subjects tended to extract less knowledge and make significantly larger decision errors compared to notional optimal counterparts. These findings suggest that individuals could potentially benefit from those knowledge management technologies that would provide additional explicit analytical and procedural knowledge, or those that would facilitate sharing of tacit knowledge through interaction with others. Future research is necessary to address these issues.


Background/Aims: Beta (I²)- thalassaemia is a public health problem in Malaysia. The carrier rate is estimated to be 4.5 by micro-mapping studies particularly among Malays who comprise 53.5 of the population in Malaysia (1). The common diagnostic method in Malaysia for mutation detection is by amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS). It allows single mutation detection in each reaction but is labour intensive and time consuming when many mutations need to be identified. The purpose of this study was to develop a diagnostic tool for effective mutation detection of beta thalassaemia in Malay patients and compare its efficacy with ARMS-PCR, the current method in use. Methods: Reverse dot blot hybridization (RDBH) technique was incorporated in the development of two strip assays RDBH-Strip M(6) and RDBH-Strip C(6) to identify common beta thalassaemia mutations in the Malays. The panels of selected mutations were based on the mutation frequencies in Malaysia reported in previous studies. RDBH-Strip M(6) was applied as step 1 and RDBH-Strip C(6) was applied as step 2 for unidentified mutations. The strips were validated with the gold standard method, ARMS-PCR. Results: One hundred and thirty seven Malay patients with 274 alleles were studied. In Step 1 mutation detection, 238 alleles (86.9%) were identified in 119 of patients by RDBH-Strip M(6). Step 2 resulted in a further detection of 20 alleles in another 10 patients by RDBH-Strip C(6). The combination of both strips resulted in the identification of 258 alleles in 129 (94.6%) of 137 Malay patients. The strip assays were 100% sensitive and specific when compared with ARMS-PCR method. Conclusion: Two strip assays utilising the RDBH technique were developed to identify common I²-thalassaemia mutations in Malays. The RDBH Strip M(6) identified 86.9% of the mutations and the RDBJ-Strip C (6) detected further 7.3% alleles. This two step strategy was found to be rapid and cost effective for the direct diagnosis of I²-thalassaemia mutations in the Malays. The remaining unidentified mutations would require DNA sequencing. It can serve as a specific molecular diagnostic tool for effective diagnosis of I²-thalassaemia mutations in this ethnic group.


We propose a generalized transformation for a nonmagnetic invisibility cloak with minimized scattering. In comparison with the previous transformation, it has been demonstrated that the unphysical singularity at the inner boundary and the limitation of the thickness of the cloak shell can be removed by choosing the appropriate transformation function. Furthermore, our generalized transformation is used to design two different nonmagnetic cloaks without considering the unphysical singularity and the limitation of the thickness. Based on the effective medium theory, an alternating layered system composed of two isotropic materials is employed to realize these cloaks. Moreover, through calculating the scattering cross section of the cloak, it is found that such a nonmagnetic cloak can only work in a narrow frequency range.


Existing models of relative motion between the South America and Africa plates significantly misrepresent the azimuth of Lower Cretaceous seafloor spreading in the South Atlantic Ocean. An improved model is derived from fits of fracture zones, magnetic reversal anomalies, and the edges of a rifted large igneous province at the Northeast Georgia Rise and Agulhas Plateau. An absolute date for this rifting event is not known but, by assuming least change in spreading rates during magnetic chron C34, rifting can be estimated to have occurred at ~100 Ma. This modelling demands a plate divergence history that involves diachronous opening of the South Atlantic, consistent with published estimates of the ages of breakup from sedimentary basins on the South American and African passive margins. The diachronous opening lasts approximately 40 million years, during which time it must be accommodated by significant intracontinental deformation. A reconstruction using the intra-C34 rotation also illustrates the earliest possibility for direct deep-water connection between the central and south Atlantic oceans. One further consequence of this model is that a total reconstruction derived from it and closure of the central Atlantic between North America and Africa suggests that the Venezuelan and Gulf of Mexico basins may be conjugates formed during the earliest opening of the central Atlantic, and not separate marginal basins.


Among the most commonly used classes of pesticides are toxins produced by the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, known as Bt toxins. The primary threat to the efficacy of Bt toxins is the evolution of resistance by pests. In major pests, resistance to Bt toxins in the Cry1A family is linked to alterations in cadherin proteins that act as primary toxin receptors in the midgut of susceptible insects. Now Soberón et al. (see the Perspective by Moar) show that engineered Bt toxins can overcome insect resistance. Furthermore, in investigating the effectiveness of these engineered proteins, the authors provided evidence for the means by which these toxins cause mortality in insects. M. Soberón, L. Pardo-López, I. López, I. Gómez, B. E. Tabashnik, A. Bravo, Engineering modified Bt toxins to counter insect resistance. Science 318, 1640-1642 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] W. J. Moar, K. J. Anilkumar, The power of the pyramid. Science 318, 1561-1562 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


Dilute TbxTh1−x alloys have been thoroughly studied in the light of a possible valence instability and Kondo effect in Tb3+ and Tb4+ ions. We review the experimental data for the specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, magnetoresistivity, and the change of the superconducting properties of Th. In analogy to Tm (Tm2+ and Tm3+) and Pr (Pr3+ and Pr4+) impurities in metals, Tb involves two electronic configurations each with a magnetic Hund's rule ground multiplet. Two classes of models for valence admixtures of two magnetic configurations have been investigated in the past. Depending on the form of the hybridization and the jj coupling within the 4f shell, the models either have a singlet or a magnetic ground state. As for Tm impurities the latter class of models, related to the undercompensated Kondo effect, appears to describe the system TbTh more appropriately. A qualitative explanation of the data is attempted within a scheme that combines Kondo screening with crystalline field splitting.


Recent studies have shown that the indigenous population has been subject to social exclusion (Medel, 2016; Tetreault,2012; Rionda,2010; Del Popolo et al.,2009; World Bank,2004; Uquillas et al.,2003; Appasamy,1996). However, in the case of Mexico, there is no indicator to measure the degree of social exclusion. This article presents a methodology for estimating social exclusion index (IES) by estimating main components. Our proposal is to incorporate the index of social exclusion as a factor that can explain the current status of poverty in the localities that have a high concentration of indigenous population and high economic marginalization in the state of Veracruz, and thus analyze the scope social policy to combat poverty, as the case Development Program Priority Areas (PDZP).


The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is progressing the development of a joint capability for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). The premise for its evolution has been derived from anecdotal operational experience, the lead of the United States, and ADF's Network Centric Warfare concept. There is, however, no specific requirement yet stated and endorsed for what such a capability will practically deliver, particularly as an operational outcome. As an integrating capability, joint ISR is envisioned as providing considerable value-add to the individual ISR operations that are routinely conducted using systems owned or accessed by Defence. This is not different to the rationale for any form of joint operation, that combining systems from a range of environments permits the undertaking of more complex missions with improved likelihood of success. This paper examines the capstone doctrine for joint military operations, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, and develops capability guidance for the integrated ISR capability in terms of the key force attributes of Reach, Know, Exploit. The paper also discusses how Defence ISR must consider expanded utility across the options Government has available to employ. By developing this alignment, a clear operational purpose for a joint ISR capability and the characteristics of future ISR systems are described.


We present first evidence for the production of single top quarks in the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron ppbar collider. The standard model predicts that the electroweak interaction can produce a top quark together with an antibottom quark or light quark, without the antiparticle top quark partner that is always produced from strong coupling processes. Top quarks were first observed in pair production in 1995, and since then, single top quark production has been searched for in ever larger datasets. In this analysis, we select events from a 0.9 fb-1 dataset that have an electron or muon and missing transverse energy from the decay of a W boson from the top quark decay, and two, three, or four jets, with one or two of the jets identified as originating from a b hadron decay. The selected events are mostly backgrounds such as W+jets and ttbar events, which we separate from the expected signals using three multivariate analysis techniques: boosted decision trees, Bayesian neural networks, and matrix element calculations. A binned likelihood fit of the signal cross section plus background to the data from the combination of the results from the three analysis methods gives a cross section for single top quark production of 4.7 +- 1.3 pb. The probability to measure a cross section at this value or higher in the absence of signal is 0.014%, corresponding to a 3.6 standard deviation significance. The measured cross section value is compatible at the 10% level with the standard model prediction for electroweak top quark production.


We aimed to determine variation in treatment of newly diagnosed infantile spasms, focusing on details of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) administration using a Redcap questionnaire sent to members of the Child Neurology Society. Two hundred fifty-seven members responded. Eighty-four percent prescribers used ACTH to treat infantile spasms. Seventy-six percent always admit patients. There is no difference between prescriber type (epileptologist or other) and prescriber location (state-funded or non-state-funded hospital) for decision to admit. Electroencephalographic (EEG) confirmation of spasms and education for injection were the commonest reasons to admit. Only 45% of prescribers accurately estimated the cost of ACTH. Participants in the hospital vial program were significantly more likely to always admit patients for ACTH than those who did not participate in such a program (P = .02). Although having the hospital sample vial allows time to complete investigation of infantile spasms and eliminates delays in initiating ACTH, it adds significantly to the cost of therapy.


Forest areas are particularly susceptible to fires, which are often manmade. One of the most fire affected forest regions in the world is the Mediterranean. Libya, in the Mediterranean region, has soils that are considered to be arid except in a small area called Aljabal Alakhdar (Green mountain), which is the geographic area covered by this study. Like other forests in the Mediterranean it has suffered extreme degradation. This is mainly due to people removing fire wood, or sometimes converting forested areas to agricultural use, as well as fires which may alter several soil chemical and physical properties. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of fires on the physical properties of soil of Aljabal Alakhdar forest in the north-east of Libya. The physical properties of soil following fire in two geographic areas have been determined, with those subjected to the fire compared to those in adjacent unburned areas in one coastal and one mountain site. Physical properties studied were: soil particle size (soil texture), soil water content, soil porosity and soil particle density. For the first time in Libyan soils, the effect of burning on the magnetic susceptibility properties of soils was also tested. The results showed that the soils in both study sites, irrespective of burning or depth fell into the category of a silt loam texture, low water content, homogeneity of porosity of the soil profiles, relatively high soil particle density values and there is a much greater value of the soil magnetic susceptibility in the top layer from both sites except for the soil water content and magnetic susceptibility, fire has not had a clear effect on the soils' physical properties. Keywords—Aljabal Alakhdar, the coastal site, the mountain site, fire effect, soil particle size, soil water content, soil porosity, soil particle density, soil magnetic susceptibility.


We have carried out numerical hydrodynamic simulations of radio jets from active galactic nuclei using the PLUTO simulation code, with the aim of investigating the effect of different environments and intermittency of energy injection on the resulting dynamics and observable properties of the jet-inflated lobes. Initially conical jets are simulated in poor group and cluster environments. We show that the environment into which a radio jet is propagating plays a large role in the resulting morphology, dynamics, and observable properties of the radio source. The same jet collimates much later in a poor group compared to a cluster, which leads to pronounced differences in radio morphology. The intermittency of the jet also affects the observable properties of the radio source, and multiple hotspots are present for multiple outburst jets in the cluster environment. We quantify the detectability of active and quiescent phases, and find this to be strongly environment-dependent. We conclude that the dynamics and observational properties of jets depend strongly on the details of energy injection and environment.


MIXED VALENT METAL PINCER COMPLEXES AND REACTIVITY OF METAL COMPLEXES OF EXTENDED PINCER LIGANDS Jeewantha S. Hewage, B.Sc., M.Sc. Marquette University, 2015 Historically, the study of mixed valence complexes has been critical for advancing our understanding of electron transfer processes in biological and abiological systems. The recent use of mixed valence complexes in electrochromic materials, and the promise of their use in future technological or molecular electronic applications, has spurred further interest in this class of compound. Previous studies by our research group have shown that gallium(III) or tricarbonylrhenium(I) complexes of pincer-type ligands with diarylamido anchors and either pyrazol-1-yl (pz) or diarylphosphino (PAr2) flanking donors are electroactive species with quasi reversible ligand-centered oxidations. Moreover, the one-electron oxidized derivative with pz flankers, [Ga(L)(L)] was found by both spectroscopic and electrochemical means to be a Robin Day Class II species with weak electronic communication occurring between pincers across the main group metal bridge. Cursory electrochemical studies suggested that stronger interactions occurred on replacing gallium(III) with other metal centers. This dissertation elaborates on these initial, prior, findings by describing more detailed synthetic protocol to various [M(L)2] complexes where M = Ni, Co, Rh, Ir, n = 0-3 (depending on M), and where L has different organic groups decorating the periphery. Electrochemical measurements and indepth spectroscopic analyses of oxidized and reduced forms of the complexes were used to better quantify the effects of metal and ligand substitution on their electronic properties including the extent of electronic communication in mixed valence derivatives. Another goal of the work was to prepare in multimetallic pincer complexes via both covalent and self-assembly approaches and study their electronic properties. Thus, the preparation and properties of [Re(CO)3]2(-L-L) with dinucleating pincers (L-L) is described. Initial successes and difficulties with the preparation and characterization of coordination networks based on these pincers and those with different Lewis donors at the paraaryl position are outlined next. Finally, 'Extended Pincers' (EP), ligands comprised of an N,N'-diarylformamidinate anchor with flanking pz and/or PAr2 ortho-aryl donors were prepared since they should support multimetallic complexes with unusual metal-metal bonds or reactivity due to proximity of the metal centers. Their group 1 and group 11 metal complexes may serve as useful reagents for future chemistry.


Dynamic assessment of the effective surgical workforce recommends 27,300 general surgeons in 2030; 2,525 more than are presently being trained. Rural shortages are already critical and there has been insufficient preparation for this need. A literature review of the factors influencing the choice of rural practice was performed. A systematic search was conducted of PubMed and the Web of Science to identify applicable studies in rural practice, surgical training, and rural general surgery. These articles were reviewed to identify the pertinent reports. The articles chosen for review are directed to four main objectives: 1) description of the challenges of rural practice, 2) factors associated with the choice of rural practice, 3) interventions to increase interest and preparation for rural practice, and 4) present successful rural surgical practice models. There is limited research on the factors influencing surgeons in the selection of rural surgery. The family practice literature suggests that physicians are primed for rural living through early experience, with reinforcement during medical school and residency, and retained through community involvement, and personal and professional satisfaction. However, more research into the factors drawing surgeons specifically to rural surgery, and keeping them in the community, is needed.


Model credibility index is defined to be a sample size under which the power of rejection equals 0.5. It applies goodness-of-fit testing thinking and uses a one-number summary statistic as an assessment tool in a false model world. The estimation of the model credibility index involves a bootstrap resampling technique. To assess the consistency of the estimator of model credibility index, we instead study the variance of the power achieved at a fixed sample size. An improved subsampling method is proposed to obtain an unbiased estimator of the variance of power. We present two examples to interpret the mechanics of building model credibility index and estimate its error in model selection. One example is two-way independent model by Pearson Chi-square test, and another example is multi-dimensional logistic regression model using likelihood ratio test. INDEX WORDS: Model credibility index, Goodness-of-fit test, Bootstrap resampling, Consistency of the estimation EVALUATING VARIANCE OF THE MODEL CREDIBILITY INDEX


In this article, we describe the preliminary results of an ongoing project to improve the dynamics of innovative teams. We investigate how to design a system that allows employees in an open space to swap the place with a colleague for one day. We call this system "Pick my desk and go" and we combine notions from people analytics and organizational design to illustrate how the system enhances collaboration among team members and knowledge exchange. We tested the system for a period of eight weeks and we collected empirical evidences and insights from semi-structured interviews that support our claim concerning the effectiveness of the system to improve team creativity. We conclude the paper by illustrating the features of the next version of the system in order to increase its effectiveness as a persuasive system.


INTRODUCTION
Young adults with spina bifida often have cognitive difficulties. As a result, young adults with disabilities are facing challenges with respect to housing, education, relationships and vocation which increases risk of unemployment.

AIM
The aim is to describe a method to develop a smartphone application together with young adults with spina bifida as an assistive technology for cognition.

METHOD
In a Participatory Action Research approach, young adults (n = 5) with spina bifida were individually interviewed with Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). The participants' restrictions in everyday life activities, identified by COPM, were discussed in a focus group formed by the young adults and the result was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Developing the application the principles of Human-Centered-Design and Universal Design was followed.

RESULT
An application made for iOS with a focus on usability and worthiness, done by creating a clear and intuitive interface, with a calendar function useful for example to initiate and plan social activities was developed.

CONCLUSION
The method seems useful when the outcome from the project, a beta version of an application for iOS Smartphone, was achieved in agreement with the participants. The study highlight the importance of involving individuals with disabilities when developing smartphone applications.


Dimensionality reduction methods are widely used in information processing systems to better understand the underlying structures of datasets, and to improve the efficiency of algorithms for big data applications. Methods such as linear random projections have proven to be simple and highly efficient in this regard, however, there is limited theoretical and experimental analysis for nonlinear random projections. In this study, we review the theoretical framework for random projections and nonlinear rectified random projections, and introduce ensemble of nonlinear maximum random projections. We empirically evaluate the embedding performance on 3 commonly used natural datasets and compare with linear random projections and traditional techniques such as PCA, highlighting the superior generalization performance and stable embedding of the proposed method.


Gestural Interface Technology (GIT) has changed the way technology is adopted in classrooms for all ages. The accessibility of control through touch means that technology such as Apple's iPad can be used in early childhood education. In this paper, we introduce a framework for fully-engaged communication, developed from educational pedagogy and critical engagement in information systems. The intersection of these dimensions creates a view of a GIT life world approach which allows it to be used to understand multiple layers of engagement that exist within an early childhood education environment.


Smith examines changing attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs about the production and consumption of food in Russia from the late 18th century through the mid 19th century. She focuses on the way that competing ideas based either in "traditional" Russian practice or in new practices from the "rational" West became the basis for Russians' understanding of themselves and their society.The Russians who participated in the process of self-definition were variously private authors and reformers, or public servants of the Russian imperial state. Some had great success in creating a sense of themselves as ultimate authorities on a given topic. For example, a series of cookbook authors developed a system of writing Russian cookbooks in ways that borrowed from, but were still quite different from, foreign sources. Others found the process of mediating these ideas more difficult; agricultural reformers, in particular, sometimes found traditional practices, now deemed irrational, hard to eliminate. "Recipes for Russia" looks at the process of nation building within the framework of the modern world - that is, it looks at the way individuals sought to define their nationality not only against outside influences, but also by incorporating those outside influences into some coherent, yet national, whole.While Smith looks at food as part of Russian culture, she also connects it with the social, legal, and economic background that formed the culture, while examining the prereform period in significant detail. As a result, "Recipes for Russia" illuminates the great changes of this period, both in the food habits of Russians and in their views of themselves and of their nation. Readers interested in Russian history and in foodways will enjoy this original study.


Ultrashort pulsed laser processing is an effective technology for high-precision cutting, ablation, and drilling of almost all types of material, with low thermal input to the substrate. Polymers which are usually transparent for the laser pulses can be efficiently processed. The material is heated very fast resulting in direct evaporation of the irradiated material volume. On one hand, incubation effects occur due to changed surface roughness, voids, and chemical changes of the material, leading to a variation of energy absorption. On the other hand, if a high repetition rate and high pulse energy are applied to achieve high productivity at polymer cutting, heat accumulation occurs leading to melting and heat affected zones. An estimation of the pulse number dependent material modification and heat input which leads to these effects is not easily accessible for quantitative measurements. Furthermore, numerous process parameters influence the interaction making process analysis and optimization extensive. A versatile tool towards improved knowledge on ultrashort pulsed processes is pump-probe imaging. By using this, effects on a very short timescale such as nonlinear laser absorption, propagation of material waves and plasma generation can be visualized. The recording device in the setup which is applied for the analysis of polymer cutting and drilling in this paper is a high-speed camera with frame rates of up to 50 kHz. This enables recording video sequences contrary to taking a single picture. The authors utilized this to enable the observation of effects of heat accumulation which evolves after a large amount of pulses. Simultaneously, the authors were able to maintain the stated advantages of the pump-probe configuration. Therefore, under variation of several process parameters such as pulse repetition rate, pulse energy, and lateral pulse to pulse separation video sequences were recorded. By a variation of the pump-probe delays of 0 up to 5 ns, material wave propagation can be identified and optimized for evaluation. The points of origin of the observed waves are considered as the regions of highest nonlinear energy deposition; thus, the deposited energy distribution can be estimated. As every single pulse up to a pulse number of 1000 pulses is imaged, the transition from high penetration depth of the first incident pulses to strong surface absorption for an increasing pulse number due to incubation can be shown. Furthermore, strongly absorbing spots in the bulk volume caused by impurities and material modification lead to vapor generation under high pressure. Finally, the confined pressure is assumed to be a main reason for crack formation.Ultrashort pulsed laser processing is an effective technology for high-precision cutting, ablation, and drilling of almost all types of material, with low thermal input to the substrate. Polymers which are usually transparent for the laser pulses can be efficiently processed. The material is heated very fast resulting in direct evaporation of the irradiated material volume. On one hand, incubation effects occur due to changed surface roughness, voids, and chemical changes of the material, leading to a variation of energy absorption. On the other hand, if a high repetition rate and high pulse energy are applied to achieve high productivity at polymer cutting, heat accumulation occurs leading to melting and heat affected zones. An estimation of the pulse number dependent material modification and heat input which leads to these effects is not easily accessible for quantitative measurements. Furthermore, numerous process parameters influence the interaction making process analysis and optimization extensive....


Coronary artery disease is by far the single biggest killer in the UK.
Atherosclerosis is the underlying cause of coronary artery disease.
Hypercholesterolemia is one of the major risk factors in the aetiopathogenesis
of atherosclerosis. 3-Hydroxy Methyl Glutaryl CoA reductase (HMG CoA)
inhibitors, known as statins, reduce cholesterol levels and offer mortality and
morbidity benefit for those with coronary artery disease.The cardiovascular
benefits from statins tend to be significant even in individuals with normal
cholesterol levels which suggests that there are non-lipid lowering benefits of
statins termed "pleiotropic" effects.
Statins attenuate infarct size expansion due to lethal reperfusion injury either
prior to ischaemia or at the onset of reperfusion by activating the pro-survival,
Reperfusion Injury Salvage Kinase (RISK) pathway. As the duration of
treatment acutely at the onset of reperfusion is too short to make any impact on
cholesterol levels, it was hypothesized that the protection observed is due to a
pleiotropic effect of the statins.
The mechanism by which statins activate the RISK pathway is not entirely clear.
Thus experiments with Langendorf perfused isolated rat heart preparation were
used to obtain insights into potential mechanisms for statin's pleiotropic effects
in the setting of ischaemia-reperfusion by using Atorvastatin. Infarct size
analysis and Western blot analysis were performed to measure cellular injury
and protein activation respectively. Atorvastatin was shown to produce a
reduction in infarct size when administered acutely during reperfusion at a dose
of 50 micromol/l. Atorvatstatin has affinity to the glucocorticoid receptor at levels comparable to
potent glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids have also been shown to activate pro
survival kinases. It was thus hypothesized that the acute cardiovascular effects
of Atorvastatin may also be mediated by the glucocorticoid receptor, and would
be blocked in the presence of the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist, RU486.
However studies undertaken demonstarted inconclusive results as RU486 was
itself shown to be protective and it would appear that it worked by an alternative
mechanism.
Since it is known that pre-ischaemic delivery of Atorvastatin also activates
adenosine, an agent known to be cardioprotective. It was hypothesized that
Atorvastatin administered during reperfusion may also protect the heart by an
adenosine-dependent mechanism. However, despite the infarct sparing action
of preischaemic administration of Atorvastatin being confirmed to be dependent
on adenosine binding to its receptor, the protection of Atorvastatin administered
during reperfusion was shown to be independent of adenosine.
Finally, the acute effects of statins are believed to be due to their action on the
HMG CoA reductase enzyme which results in a decrease in mevalonic acid and
isoprenyl intermediates.The isoprenyl intermediates such as Rho A, are
inhibitors of the various components of the RISK pathway. We were able to
demonstrate for the first time that mevalonic acid abrogates the infarct size
reduction of Atorvastatin administered during reperfusion. Western blot analysis
did not reveal a significant reduction in active Rho A levels, however there was
a trend towards a reduction and this reflected in the infarct size studies.
Although not conclusive, these results would suggest that the acute
cardiovascular effects of Atorvastatin, when given at reperfusion, were due to
its pleiotropic effects on Rho A.


The deployment and configuration of distributed applications is a human intensive and highly complex process that poses significant challenges to data center operators. The process involves many cross-cutting concerns such as connectivity, performance, and security requirements, as well as resource availability, policies and best practices. These interdependencies represent a significant source of complexity, cost, and risk in data center management. In this paper we address this problem using a new approach that leverages concepts from the model-driven architecture research domain. We describe a prototype application deployment automation system based on model transformation techniques. We show how model transformation techniques can replace the manual process of writing and adapting scripts and workflows, reduce the deployment complexity, guarantee configuration integrity and consistency, and allow for a separation of concerns.


Electronic structure calculations are used to investigate the binding energies of defect pairs composed of lattice vacancies and phosphorus or arsenic atoms ( E centers) in silicon-germanium alloys. To describe the local environment surrounding the E center we have generated special quasirandom structures that represent random silicon-germanium alloys. It is predicted that the stability of E centers does not vary linearly with the composition of the silicon-germanium alloy. Interestingly, we predict that the nonlinear behavior does not depend on the donor atom of the E center but only on the host lattice. The impact on diffusion properties is discussed in view of recent experimental and theoretical results.


As our ability to store information increases, the mechanisms we employ to access that information become ever more important. In this paper, we present Archosum, a prototype of an organizational system that attempts to encapsulate the benefits of both hierarchical and keyword systems. By introducing abstract entities, Archosum provides a simple interface with which users can build and maintain powerful relationship-based organizations. We compared Archosum to two alternative systems in a user study. Through this study we begin to expose some of the advantages and disadvantages to each of these three approaches to designing an organizational system. Furthermore, we begin to consider how organizational systems will work when distinct users create organizations for collections and how sharing might be facilitated using Archosum.


Premise Microsatellite primers were developed for Puya raimondii (Bromeliaceae), an endangered species distributed in the Andean Mountains of Bolivia and Peru. Methods and Results Genome skimming of P. raimondii, P. macrura, and P. hutchisonii resulted in the selection of 46 pairs of cross‐species microsatellite markers. Of these, 12 microsatellite primer pairs produced clear and polymorphic bands in P. raimondii. These primer sets were then used for the detection of potential polymorphisms in 84 P. raimondii individuals collected from four populations in Peru. The number of alleles per locus ranged from one to six, and the observed and expected levels of heterozygosity ranged from 0.000 to 0.8929 and from 0.000 to 0.7662, respectively. Conclusions The microsatellite markers developed in this study will be useful for future population genetic analyses and breeding system studies in P. raimondii.


This is a baseline study of researchers' awareness, access and use of locally published academic journals. Specifically the study addressed the following research questions: to what extent researchers in Tanzanian public universities awareness of the available indexed and non-indexed scholarly journals? What problems do researchers encounter when accessing local journals? And what are the researchers' usage patterns of locally published journals? The study was conducted in five universities, which are: University of Dar es Salaam, Ardhi University, Sokoine universities of agriculture, Open University of Tanzania and Muhimbili University of health and allied sciences. The findings show that majority of researchers in higher learning institutions are aware of the available locally published journals within and outside areas of specialization. The findings further show that researchers, to large extent, use articles published from these journals to support their researches. Irregular publication of journals, lack of electronic versions for some journals and missing journal volumes and issues are among the factors that restrict access and use of local journals. It is recommended that for the journals to be published regularly, journal publishers with the support of their parent organizations should find ways of making them both sustainable and cost-effective, including adopting new models of journal publication. Libraries are also argued to improve the visibility of the journals by providing abstracting and indexing services.


The groundnut, Arachis hypogaea Linn, samples were collected from the majorly grown areas of western Kenya to investigate the viscoelastic properties pertinent to grain handling, storage and processing. In particular, the study conducted at the University of Nairobi, Department of Environmental and Biosystems laboratories in July 2010, aimed at investigating the stress-strain properties of bulk groundnuts in relation to Maxwell polymer viscoelastic model. The Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion was also applied to bulk groundnuts. Three samples were prepared for triaxial tests; each weighing 1062.4 g. The moisture content of the samples was 7.6%. The sample size for triaxial testing was 100 mm diameter and 199 mm height. Density of the samples during the tests was 678.6 kg/m 3 . Confining stresses of 200, 400 and 600 kPa were used and Axial Strain Rate (ASR) of 0.5 mm/min was used for the triaxial compression tests. For the senstar universal testing machine relaxation time was about 30 min for each of the samples. Relaxation data was recorded after every 30 sec for the duration of the test (30 min). These results showed that the Maxwell model for viscoelastic polymers can be applied to accurately describe the behaviour of bulk groundnuts.


Introduction: Benzodiazepines are a large group of drugs used as hypnotics, anxiolytics, and tranquillisers, anti convulsants, pre-medication and for intravenous sedation. Extended use of benzodiazepines may lead to dependence and misuse. Use of benzodiazepines, for anxiety disorder and insomnia, is therefore just recommended for short-term use. Current European prescribing guidelines for usage of benzodiazepines for general anxiety is 4 weeks and 1-2 weeks for acute insomnia. Despite prescribing recommendations long-term use is widespread in medical practice, especially among elderly. For many years now concerns have been expressed over the inappropriate use of benzodiazepines in Ireland. Aim: The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of exploiting government General Medical Services (GMS) data to provide periodic drug utilisation reports, and assess benzodiazepine and related drug usage in the North Eastern Health Board (NEHB) region during the period January 2001 to June 2003. Method: Prescription data over the GMS population, NEHB, from the GMS Payments Boards data records was interrogated by using the database program Filemaker pro 5, and the database analysis program SPSS11. Results: The results shows that the prescribing of benzodiazepines and related drugs gradually increased during the study period and was mainly due to an increasing for the benzodiazepine-related drugs zolpidem and zopiclone. The total average number of Defined Daily Doses (DDDs) per prescription items for all included drugs was for the period for 22 days supply. All the hypnotics had average number of DDDs per prescription higher than the recommend, for 14 days supply. As an example, Flunitrazepam, which is classified as a Schedule 3 controlled drug was on average prescribed for 33 days supply. In 2002 48.9% of the users had prescriptions in 3 or more consecutive months, 30.3% received prescriptions in â?¥ 6 consecutive months and 9.7% had prescriptions in every month during 2002. Conclusion: Although this study has several limitations the results show that the prescribing of benzodiazepines and related drugs in the GMS population, NEHB during January 2001 to June 2003 are high and that many patients seems to be long-term users, which is in conflict with best clinical practice.


The separation of nitrogen and methane from hydrogen-rich mixtures is systematically investigated on a recently developed binder-free zeolite 5A. For this adsorbent, the present work provides a series of experimental data on adsorption isotherms and breakthrough curves of nitrogen and methane, as well as their mixtures in hydrogen. Isotherms were measured at temperatures of 283–313 K and pressures of up to 1.0 MPa. Breakthrough curves of CH4, N2, and CH4/N2 in H2 were obtained at temperatures of 300–305 K and pressures ranging from 0.1 to 6.05 MPa with different feed concentrations. An LDF-based model was developed to predict breakthrough curves using measured and calculated data as inputs. The number of parameters and the use of correlations were restricted to focus on the importance of measured values. For the given assumptions, the results show that the model predictions agree satisfactorily with the experiments under the different operating conditions applied.


The synthesis of Schiffs base ligand of 2-hydroxy 1-napthaldehyde with glycine in abundantly availa-ble water as a solvent is claimed in this paper. For the synthesis of this classical Schiffs base, potassium hydroxide (KOH) is used as a base under ultrasonic conditions. Various reaction parameters were explored to find out optimal reaction conditions viz. effect of solvent, temperature, time, and ultrasound wave. The synthesized ligand was iden-tified by comparing with standard product on TLC and further confirmed by melting point, IR and mass analysis. The ligand is then used for complexation with transition metal (iron) using ultrasound as a facilitator.


BACKGROUND
 Cancer is a major cause of morbidity, disability, and mortality worldwide, and breast cancer is the most common cause of death in women. Different modalities of cancer treatment can have adverse effects that reduce the quality of life of patients and lead to treatment interruptions, if not managed properly. The use of mobile technologies has brought innovative possibilities for improving health care. Mobile apps can help individuals manage their own health and well-being and may also promote healthy lifestyles and information access.

 OBJECTIVE
 The aim of this study was to identify available evidence on the use of mobile apps to provide information and facilitate communication regarding self-care management related to the adverse effects of toxicities owing to breast cancer therapy.

 METHODS
 This systematic review includes studies which were identified using a search strategy adapted for each electronic database: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, LILACS, LIVIVO, PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. In addition, a gray literature search was performed using Google Scholar. All the electronic database searches were conducted on April 17, 2019. Two investigators independently reviewed the titles and abstracts of the studies identified and then read the full text of all selected papers. The quality of the included studies was analyzed by the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool and the Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies.

 RESULTS
 A total of 9 studies which met the eligibility criteria—3 randomized clinical trials and 6 nonrandomized studies published in English from 2010 to 2018—were considered for this systematic review; 396 patients with breast cancer, as well as 40 experts in the medical and nursing fields, and 3 software engineers were included.

 CONCLUSIONS
 The evidence from the studies included in this systematic review is currently limited but suggests that mobile apps for women with breast cancer might be an acceptable information source that can improve patient well-being; they can also be used to report symptoms and adverse treatment-related effects and promote self-care. There is a need to test more evidence-based apps in future randomized clinical trials.


Background: Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9 (CRISPR/Cas9) is a gene-editing technique that creates advancement in biomedical technology. It is a form of gene alteration method that was investigated and examined from Streptococcus pyogenes dependable on Cas9 nuclease enzyme through microbiological and genetic examination. This system consists of a nucleic acid, RNA, specifically guide RNA (gRNA), and a nuclease enzyme, Cas9. The potential implications of CRISPR/Cas9 include cancer, cystic fibrosis, familial hypercholesterolemia, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Objective: The objective was to show the most impactful publications through a bibliometric analysis of the top 50 most-cited papers regarding the topic of CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool. Methods: The most-cited research articles relative to CRISPR Cas9 were collected using Scopus. The order of the most-cited papers was conducted by categorizing the studies in an ordinal manner from the most-cited to the least-cited studies. The studies were stratified by selecting the top 50 most-cited papers with the title "CRISPR Cas9." Results: A number of 2230 research papers regarding CRISPR Cas9 were retrieved. 42% of the papers from the top 50 most-cited papers were published in 2014. The total citation count for each of the top 50 studies ranged from 183 to 1824, and the mean number of citations was 420. The first five articles were cited more than 1000 times and the remaining articles were cited more than 100 times. The journal "Nature" has published the most studies relevant to CRISPR Cas9 with a total of 23 studies, Cell with 8 studies, followed by Science and Nucleic Acids with 4 studies published and Genetics with 2 and the remaining journals with one publication each. Conclusion: It is clear that the future of CRISPR Cas9 is promising as demonstrated by the highly impactful studies in the topic with high citation counts in a relatively short period of time after publication.


Novel computational methods such as artificial neural networks, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems and genetic programming are used in this chapter for the modeling of the nonlinear behavior of composite laminates subjected to constant amplitude loading. The examined computational methods are stochastic nonlinear regression tools, and can therefore be used to model the fatigue behavior of any material, provided that sufficient data are available for training. They are material-independent methods that simply follow the trend of the available data, in each case giving the best estimate of their behavior. Application on a wide range of experimental data gathered after fatigue testing glass/epoxy and glass/polyester laminates proved that their modeling ability compares favorably with, and is to some extent superior to, other modeling techniques.


If a man in prison claims he was made "to feel like a woman," this is commonly understood to mean that was degraded, dehumanized, and sexualized. This association of femininity with punishment has significant implications for the way our society understands not only the sexual abuse of men in prison, but sexual abuse generally. These important implications are usually overlooked, however, because law and society typically regard prison feminization as a problem of gender transposition: that is, as a problem of men being treated like women. This Article argues that feminization is punitive for both men and women: it is as unnatural and as wrong for women to be degraded, dehumanized, and sexualized under coercive circumstances as it is for men to be. This Article suggests that examining the sexual abuse of men in prisons can help disrupt the persistent and uncritical linking of feminization and women. By reading the sexualized abuse of men in prison as a form of forced drag, this Article hopes to expose the artificiality and violence of compelled feminization. The proper approach to assessing forced feminization is to focus on its oppressive structure, not on the gender of its victims. When we do so, we can see what all victims along the spectrum of sexual and domestic abuse have in common, and to form our social and legal responses accordingly. The phenomenon of male sexual abuse in prison thus provides a potentially illuminating opportunity to think about the structure and consequences of sexual abuse in general. This is significant not least because social and legal responses to sexual abuse outside of the prison setting – where sexual abuse is overwhelmingly experienced by women and committed by men – are constrained by pernicious gender stereotypes and a massive failure of empathy. Understanding the phenomenon of male prison sexual abuse is thus essential not only for addressing a specific problem in carceral institutions, but forces law and society to consider sexual abuse in a productively counter-intuitive way.


Combining Q-methodology with focus groups offers a novel opportunity to explore how researchers and managers can collectively address natural resource management issues. We explored the potential utility of this pairing for prioritizing long-term vegetation recovery research needs after wildfire at a two-day workshop. The approach entailed individual Q-sort activities, followed by focus group discussion about differences and similarities in Q-sort outcomes between managers and researchers. We found that Q-methodology was a versatile discussion tool that offered opportunities for building shared definitions of management issues and identifying new pathways for collaboration between diverse participants. Group discussion around research needs also fostered opportunities for identifying organizational barriers and fostering partnerships to overcome them. Collecting social data on research needs prior to designing or conducting data collection efforts can help ensure that outputs have practical value and utility for land management.

 Establishing shared research priorities between researchers and managers is one way to ensure that scientific advancements have practical applications. Using outputs from Q-sort activities as a prompt to initiate discussion between researchers and managers is an effective technique for understanding divergent prioritizations, identifying organizational and scientific barriers, and establishing feasible next steps for collective action to produce application-oriented research. Employing mixed-method social data collection early in the land management planning process is increasingly valuable; many recent policies for forest and natural resource management require the incorporation of collaborative components.


Using a dataset free of survivorship bias, we investigate the performance and performance persistence of Norwegian mutual funds in the period 2000-2010. To evaluate mutual fund performance we apply a multi-period version of the Carhart 4-factor model to obtain Jensen's alpha. We assess the statistical significance of the alpha point estimates by comparing them to alpha distributions generated from bootstrap simulations. We find that mutual fund investors in aggregate realize risk-adjusted net returns that underperform the benchmark by approximately the fund fees. Additionally, the evidence implies that the managers of the funds that lie in the right tail of the cross-section of mutual fund alpha estimates inhabit stock-picking skills, while the managers of the worst performing funds are both mistiming the market and picking bad stocks. Depending on various statistical methodologies we find different levels of performance persistence. When we reevaluate performance on a monthly basis, our evidence indicates short-term persistence among superior funds. Moreover, the performance of inferior funds strongly persists up to one year.


Fibrillins are major glycoprotein components of microfibrils in the extracellular matrix. They are polymerised in a complex beads-on-a-string appearance and form isolated aggregates or are closely associated with elastin in elastic fibres. Fibrillins are critical actors of the biomechanical function of connective tissue and regulators of the bioavailability of signalling molecules, especially TGF-β. Mutations in the FBN1 and FBN2 genes are associated with inherited diseases now termed fibrillinopathies. These diseases represent a wide spectrum of disorders including Marfan and neonatal Marfan syndrome, acromelic dysplasias, progeroid-marfanoid syndrome, the stiff skin syndrome and congenital contractural arachnodactyly. Clinical symptoms are varied, thus highlighting the importance of fibrillins in tissue development and integrity. The identification of over 3000 mutations in FBN1 and over 100 in FBN2 has provided only a few instances of genotype–phenotype correlations but have provided clues in the functional role of fibrillin domains.

Key Concepts

Fibrillin is a structural component of the extracellular matrix but is involved in cytokine signalling through its role of a niche for inactive procytokines.
There are three fibrillin genes encoding fibrillins 1, 2 and 3 that all share a conserved modular domain organisation with various degrees of homology.
Marfan syndrome is a highly variable and rare autosomal dominant disease with plurisystemic features and life-threatening vascular complications.
Marfan syndrome is mostly associated with mutations in the FBN1 gene with no clear genotype/phenotype correlation, thus undescoring the existence of genetic modifiers that underlie clinical variability.
Acromelic and geleophysic dysplasias, stiff skin syndrome and progeroid syndrome also display mutations in the FBN1 gene, constituting with Marfan syndrome the group of type 1 fibrillinopathies.
Contrary to Marfan syndrome, all other type 1 fibrillinopathies are associated with mutations in specific domains of the protein.
Mutations in the FBN2 gene are found in congenital contractural arachnodactyly.
No disease-related mutation has been reported yet in the FBN3 gene.
Eighteen spontaneous, radiation-induced or transgenic mice models with mutations in the FBN1 and FBN2 genes are available.

Keywords:

Marfan syndrome;
acromelic dysplasias;
stiff skin syndrome;
progeroid syndrome;
congenital contractural arachnodactyly;
FBN1 ;
FBN2 ;
FBN3 ;
TGF-β;
mouse models


The Omani field under study was acquired by Petrogas (a local Omani company) from Elf-Oman. The field extends over 63 km 2 and is a major part of the Butabul permit. Haushi, the hydrocarbon-bearing formation, consists of tight upper sandstone containing most of the remaining oil (practically unmoved), a dolomite drain from which most of the active wells are producing and a prolific sand drain that has been nearly swept. A pinchout that terminates the sand drain over the eastern part of the accumulation is a major characteristic of the field. Another feature is an active edge water aquifer attached to the sand drain and contributing to pressure support of most of the producers. Numerous field-scale reservoir simulation runs were performed to understand the intricate fluid flow mechanisms, to investigate better production options and to recommend a better management program. A total of one hundred and eighty one runs were carried out to initialize the model, history match it and perform the different sensitivities. During the preliminary history matching exercise, simulating the different profiles was a difficult task. The turning point was the superimposition of regional reservoir pressures, which indicated the existence of three distinct fluid flow regions. A western block attached to an active aquifer; a central block under the combined influence of the aquifer dynamic front and a significant crossflow from the pinching out sand drain into the relatively less permeable dolomite drain, and an eastern block with waterflooded as well as depleted wells. In the field, most of the shut-in wells (W3, W16, W19, W20 and W21) produced from the western part of the reservoir and have been watered out by the aquifer. Other wells (W4, W9, Wll and W14) are still active and produce from the central part. W1, W5, W15 and W22, located on the eastern block, are waterflooded by W3, a producer that has been converted to an injector. W8 is another eastern block well that contributes to production. Other eastern block wells like W6, W7, W10 and Wl 7 have been shut-in due to completion and mechanical problems. Thereafter, having identified the governing fluid flow mechanisms and affected areas, a successful history matching campaign was achieved in terms of estimating initial volumes in place, fingerprinting reservoir pressures and production profiles. Prediction and sensitivity runs then followed. Strategies on how to upgrade the reservoir performance were also established.


Date of Award 2016 Document Type Open Access Thesis Degree Name Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Department Stonecoast First Advisor Jeanne Marie Beaumont Abstract Crisis Across the Dog-Starred Verse: Tales of Heroism, Horror, and Apocalypse is a collection of formal and free-verse poems. Although a few pieces are confessional in nature, many of the poems borrow from the genres of speculative fiction: horror and science fiction specifically. The thesis is not divided into sections, rather it alternates visions of a confessional real world and fantasy space. Many poems cover the death of my dog and our adventures in the multiverse, while others like "Together We Are Monsters" are meditations on monsters and pornography. Two longer pieces, however, "Campus of the 21st Century," and "The Yellow House" push away from the contemporary short form model and towards long, narrative poetry in the mode of short stories. Recommended Citation Arroyo, David, "Crisis Across the Dog-Starred Verse: Tales of Heroism, Horror, and Apocalypse" (2016). Stonecoast MFA. 1. https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/stonecoast/1  Download


Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) have proved to be effective nanocarriers with many advantages over other non-lipid-based systems. The development of new SLN formulations is often hindered through poor drug loading capacity and time-consuming optimisation of lipid/stabiliser combinations. One challenge in the development of new SLN formulations is understanding the complex interactions between amphiphilic stabilisers and hydrophobic lipids; the nature of these interactions can significantly impact SLN properties, including the internal polarity within the nanoparticle core. Herein, we report the use of pyrene to probe the internal lipid microenvironment inside SLNs. We investigate the effect of using different poloxamer stabilisers on the internal polarity of SLNs formed using the common solid lipid, Compritol 888 ATO. We show that the polarity of the internal lipid environment is modified by the length of the poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) block of the poloxamer stabiliser, with longer PPO blocks producing SLNs with less polar lipid cores. Blending of stabilisers could also be used to tune the polarity of the core lipid environment, which may allow for adjusting the polarity of the lipid to assist the loading of different therapeutics.


Once upon a time not long ago, two responsible college professors, Lynn the psychologist and Kathy the literary scholar, fell in love with the television show "Supernatural" and turned their oh-so-practical lives upside down. Plunging headlong into the hidden realms of fandom, they scoured the Internet for pictures of stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki and secretly penned racy fan fiction. And then they hit the road crisscrossing the country, racking up frequent flyer miles with alarming ease, standing in convention lines at 4 A.M.They had white-knuckled encounters with overly zealous security guards one year and smiling invitations to the "Supernatural" set the next. Actors stripping in their trailers, fangirls sneaking onto film sets; drunken confessions, squeals of joy, tears of despair; wallets emptied and responsibilities left behind; intrigue and ecstasy and crushing disappointment it s all here.And yet even as they reveled in their fandom, the authors were asking themselves whether it s okay to be a fan, especially for grown women with careers and kids. Crazystalkerchicks that s what they heard from "Supernatural" crew members, security guards, airport immigration officials, even sometimes their fellow fans. But what Kathy and Lynn found was that most fans were very much like themselves: smart, capable women looking for something of their own that engages their brains "and" their libidos."Fangasm" pulls back the curtain on the secret worlds of fans and famous alike, revealing "Supernatural "behind the scenes and discovering just how much the cast and crew know about what the fans are up to. Anyone who s been tempted to throw off the constraints of respectability and indulge a secret passion or hit the road with a best friend will want to come along."


Polycrystalline material generally exhibits degradation in its mechanical properties and shows more tendency for intergranular fracture due to segregation and diffusion of hydrogen on the grain boundaries (GBs). Understanding the parameters affecting the diffusion and binding of hydrogen within GBs will allow enhancing the mechanical properties of the commercial engineering materials and developing interface dominant materials. In practice during forming processes, the coincidence site lattice (CSL) GBs are experiencing deviations from their ideal configurations. Consequently, this will change the atomic structural integrity by superposition of sub-boundary dislocation networks on the ideal CSL interfaces. For this study, the ideal ∑ 3 111 [110] GB structure and its angular deviations in BCC iron within the range of Brandon criterion will be studied comprehensively using molecular statics (MS) simulations. The clean GB energy will be quantified, followed by the GB and free surface segregation energies calculations for hydrogen atoms. Rice-Wang model will be used to assess the embrittlement impact variation over the deviation angles. The results showed that the ideal GB structure is having the greatest resistance to embrittlement prior GB hydrogen saturation, while the 3° deviated GB is showing the highest susceptibility to embrittlement. Upon saturation, the 5° deviated GB appears to have the highest resistance instead due to the lowest stability of hydrogen atoms observed in the free surfaces of its simulation cell. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are then applied to calculate hydrogen diffusivity within the ideal and deviated GB structure. It is shown that hydrogen diffusivity decreases significantly in the deviated GB models. In addition, the 5° deviated GB is representing the local minimum for diffusivity results suggesting the existence of the highest atomic disorder and excessive secondary dislocation accommodation within this interface.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


Evidence-based decision-making is critical for implementing conservation actions, especially for human-wildlife conflicts, which have been increasing worldwide. Conservation practitioners recognize that long-term solutions should include altering human behaviors, and public education and enforcement of wildlife-related laws are two management actions frequently implemented, but with little empirical evidence evaluating their success. We used a system where human-black bear conflicts were common, to experimentally test the efficacy of education and enforcement in altering human behavior to better secure attractants (garbage) from bears. We conducted 3 experiments in Aspen CO, USA to evaluate: 1) on-site education in communal dwellings and construction sites, 2) Bear Aware educational campaign in residential neighborhoods, and 3) elevated law enforcement at two levels in the core business area of Aspen. We measured human behaviors as the response including: violation of local wildlife ordinances, garbage availability to bears, and change in use of bear-resistance refuse containers. As implemented, we found little support for education, or enforcement in the form of daily patrolling in changing human behavior, but found more support for proactive enforcement, i.e., dispensing warning notices. More broadly we demonstrated the value of gathering evidence before and after implementing conservation actions, and the dangers of measuring responses in the absence of ecological knowledge. We recommend development of more effective educational methods, application of proactive enforcement, and continued evaluation of tools by directly measuring change in human behavior. We provide empirical evidence adding to the conservation managers' toolbox, informing policy makers, and promoting solutions to human-wildlife conflicts.


This volume combines original data in various fields from the offshore Levant Basin and adjacent continental slopes and platforms. The first group of papers document the tectonic structures and sedimentological patterns associated with the development of the Levant Basin. They identify the successive rifting events from the Late Palaeozoic to the Early Cretaceous, followed by a moderate tectonic activity. The contribution of external factors like global sea-level and climate changes to the sedimentation processes during the Mid-Cretaceous is discussed in the second set of papers. The final group presents new kinematics and age constraints on the Late Cretaceous to Neogene tectonic phases and discusses the relationship of the structures with the closure of the Neo-Tethys and separation of the Arabia plate. This collection of research papers demonstrates new concepts on the opening and crustal thinning of the Levant Basin and gives updated interpretations of the latter tectonic structures of the Levant.


Abstract The identification of native sources and vectors of introduced species informs their ecological and evolutionary history and may guide policies that seek to prevent future introductions. Population genetics provides a powerful set of tools to identify origins and vectors. However, these tools can mislead when the native range is poorly sampled or few molecular markers are used. Here, we traced the introduction of the Asian seaweed Gracilaria vermiculophylla (Rhodophyta) into estuaries in coastal western North America, the eastern United States, Europe, and northwestern Africa by genotyping more than 2,500 thalli from 37 native and 53 non‐native sites at mitochondrial cox1 and 10 nuclear microsatellite loci. Overall, greater than 90% of introduced thalli had a genetic signature similar to thalli sampled from the coastline of northeastern Japan, strongly indicating this region served as the principal source of the invasion. Notably, northeastern Japan exported the vast majority of the oyster Crassostrea gigas during the 20th century. The preponderance of evidence suggests G. vermiculophylla may have been inadvertently introduced with C. gigas shipments and that northeastern Japan is a common source region for estuarine invaders. Each invaded coastline reflected a complex mix of direct introductions from Japan and secondary introductions from other invaded coastlines. The spread of G. vermiculophylla along each coastline was likely facilitated by aquaculture, fishing, and boating activities. Our ability to document a source region was enabled by a robust sampling of locations and loci that previous studies lacked and strong phylogeographic structure along native coastlines.


The Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) is commonly used to screen cognitive function in a clinical setting. The measure has been published in over 50 languages; however, the validity and reliability of the MMSE has yet to be assessed with the culturally Deaf elderly population. Participants consisted of 117 Deaf senior citizens, aged 55-89 (M = 69.44, SD = 8.55). Demographic information, including state of residence, age, and history of depression, head injury, and dementia diagnoses, were collected. A standard form of the MMSE was used with modification of test administration and stimuli including translation of English test items into a sign-based form and alteration of two items in order to make them culturally and linguistically appropriate. Significant correlations were observed between overall test score and education level (r = .23, p = .01) as well as test score and age (r = -.33, p < .001). Patterns of responses were analyzed and revealed several items that were problematic and yielded a fewer correct responses. These results indicate that clinicians need to be aware of cultural and linguistic factors associated with the deaf population that may impact test performance and clinical interpretation of test results. On the basis of these data, there is an increased risk of false positives obtained when using this measure. Further research is needed to validate the use of this measure with the culturally Deaf population.


Background: Obesity is a chronic, inflammatory state. Blood monocyte concentrations/proportions have been previously used to assess immune inflammatory status in humans. Although mouse monocytes exist in three subsets, shifts among these cells types have not been documented during a period of diet-induced weight gain. Purpose: Thus, our purpose was to determine longitudinal changes in mouse monocyte subsets during 12 weeks of low, moderate or high-fat feeding. Methods: 40 CD-1 mice were randomly divided into 4 groups (N=10 per group): stock control (13.5% fat, CN), 30% fat (F30), 45% fat (F45) and 60% fat (F60). Non-lethal, saphenous vein blood samples (~70 L) were collected bi-weekly throughout the 12-week treatment. Monocyte subsets (non-classic CD115+/Gr-1Low, intermediate CD115+/Gr-1Int and classic CD115+/Gr-1High) were assessed using 3-color flow cytometry. Body weight and body composition were assessed using digital weighing and MRI scanning. Data were analyzed using a repeated measures (4 x 7 ) ANOVA; significance was set at P<0.05. Results: Consuming the 30%, 45% and 60% fat diets for 12 weeks significantly increased bodyweight by 31%, 49% and 66%, respectively, compared to baseline values by (P<0.05). By week 12, only F60 and F45 body weights were significantly heavier compared to stock controls (P<0.05). While body fat in each treatment group was significantly higher than stock controls from weeks 2-12 (P<0.05), no significant difference was detected between treatment groups. At week 12, total monocyte concentration was 123% greater in F60 compared to CN mice (P<0.05) while classic, intermediate and non-classic subset concentrations were 441%, 204% and 110% greater, respectively, compared to CN (P<0.05). Furthermore, the ratio of inflammatory (classic and intermediate) to non-inflammatory (non-classic) monocytes was 0.89 in F60 compared to 0.41 in CN (P<0.05). Conclusions: Consumption of a 60% fat diet led to an elevation in total monocytes as well as an increased proportion of monocytes that respond to inflammatory stimuli, suggesting immune


Examining the meanings of the experiences of advanced practice nurses (APNs) who chose to work with older adults and why they continue to work with this population was the focus of this hermeneutic qualitative research study. Twelve geriatric APNs currently practicing in two South Central states were interviewed using an open-ended interview guide. Using Gadamerian hermeneutics, the researchers identified Gerontology Found Me as the significant expression that reflected the fundamental meaning of the experience as a whole. Four themes emerged that further described the meanings of the participants' personal, educational, and professional experiences: Becoming a Gerontology Nurse, Being a Gerontology Nurse, Belonging to Gerontology, and Bringing Others to Gerontology. This study concluded that APNs' personal and professional experiences were more influential than educational experiences to become geriatric nurses, and having these personal and professional experiences of being in relationship with older individuals further contributed to their choice of gerontology.


This paper reports on the study of ferromagnetic tunneling junctions produced by magnetron sputtering technique and deposited under oxidation conditions that lead to low potential barrier height, low asymmetrical barrier and quantum tunneling as the charge transport mechanism. The exponential growth of the effective area-resistance product with the effective barrier thickness, and the concentration of the tunnel current in small areas of the junctions, were identified by fitting room temperature I-V curves, for each individual sample, with either Simmons' [J. Appl. Phys. 34, 1793 (1963); 35, 2655 (1964); 34, 2581 (1963)] or Chow's [J. Appl. Phys. 36, 559 (1965)] model. This result suggests the presence of effective tunneling areas or hot spots, leading to a non-uniform current distribution and showing quantum tunneling as the charge transport mechanism. This mechanism, is also, verified through I-T curves.


The macrophage-derived protein AIM is taken up by adipocytes and induces a reduction in adipose tissue mass. The adipose tissue of obese animals is under a state of prolonged inflammation, which is thought to be induced by infiltrating macrophages. This inflammatory state is associated with insulin resistance of adipose tissue, but whether macrophages influence adipocytes independently of their proinflammatory effects is unknown. Kurokawa et al. investigated the effects of the protein AIM (apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage), which this group previously showed is found in macrophages at atherosclerotic lesions; AIM can be secreted, but its functions are unclear. The authors showed that more macrophages infiltrated the adipose tissue of mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) than accumulated in the adipose tissue of lean mice, and these macrophages were proinflammatory and secreted AIM into the surrounding tissue. Adipocytes, which did not express AIM, endocytosed AIM through the cell-surface scavenger receptor, CD36. Incubation of cultured adipocytes with recombinant AIM protein (rAIM) reduced the size of lipid droplets and increased the efflux of free fatty acids compared with those of untreated cells. Adipocytes in AIM–/– mice were larger than those in wild-type (WT) mice, and AIM–/– mice fed a HFD exhibited an accelerated increase in adipose tissue mass compared to that of WT mice. This increase in adipose tissue mass was inhibited by injection of AIM–/– mice with rAIM. When internalized into adipocytes, AIM interacted with fatty acid synthase (FAS) in a manner that inhibited its ability to synthesize saturated fatty acids. Thus, the authors speculate that the purpose of macrophage-derived AIM might be to decrease the progression of obesity by limiting the increase in adipose tissue mass. J. Kurokawa, S. Arai, K. Nakashima, H. Nagano, A. Nishijima, K. Miyata, R. Ose, M. Mori, N. Kubota, T. Kadowaki, Y. Oike, H. Koga, M. Febbraio, T. Iwanaga, T. Miyazaki, Macrophage-derived AIM is endocytosed into adipocytes and decreases lipid droplets via inhibition of fatty acid synthase activity. Cell Metab. 11, 479–492 (2010). [PubMed]


The history of the European oil and gas industry reflects local as well as global political events, economic constraints and the personal endeavours of individual petroleum geoscientists as much as it does the development of technologies and the underlying geology of the region. The first commercial oil wells in Europe were drilled in Poland in 1853, Romania in 1857, Germany in 1859 and Italy in 1860. The 23 papers in this volume focus on the history and heritage of the oil and gas industry in the key European oil-producing countries from the earliest onshore drilling to its development into the modern industry that we know today. The contributors chronicle the main events and some of the major players that shaped the industry in Europe. The volume also marks several important anniversaries, including 150 years of oil exploration in Poland and Romania, the centenary of the drilling of the first oil well in the UK and 50 years of oil production from onshore Spain.


We investigated sixth graders' individual concepts of negative integers right before they were introduced to the "world" of the negatives. In order to investigate students' first ideas of negative numbers, we initially investigated their ideas concerning the order relation of integers. With a qualitative data analysis utilizing a theoretical lens concerning individual concept formation, we gained insight into the students' individual procedures and conceptions as well as into how the procedures are linked to the students' previous knowledge.


PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LAND AND WATER TREADMILL RUNNING Rachel K. Rife Department of Exercise Sciences Master of Science Objective: To determine if water treadmill running with (WTR-S) or without water shoes (WTR-NS) could produce similar cardiorespiratory responses as land treadmill running (LTR). Design and Setting: A repeated measures design was used to assess the differences between LTR and WTR-S and WTR-NS. All testing was done in either a research laboratory or an athletic training hydro-therapy room. Subjects: Eighteen trained runners (9 men and 9 women) volunteered for this study. All 18 subjects participated in three running conditions. Measurements: Treadmill speed, HR, and SF were assessed at four exercise intensities representing 50%, 60%, 70%, and 80% of land VO2max for all three running conditions. Results: WTR with and without water shoes produces similar cardiorespiratory responses to LTR. The VO2/HR relationship showed that at a HR of 150 bpm, VO2 was significantly less (p < 0.0001) when running on a land treadmill (34.66 ml/kg/min) compared to a water treadmill with shoes (37.51 ml/kg/min) and without shoes (37.21 ml/kg/min) were nearly identical. At a HR 150 of bpm, the VO2 in males (40.52 ml/kg/min) was 8.12 ml/kg/min higher than that of their female (32.40 ml/kg/min) counterparts. At a treadmill speed of 6 mph, stride frequency during LTR was 23.6 steps/min greater (p < 0.0001) than WTR-S and 21.8 strides/min greater than WTR-NS. VO2 was on the average 4.12 ml/kg/min higher (p < 0.0001) during WTR-S compared to WTR-NS running condition at the same treadmill speed. Conclusion: Statistical analysis indicated that 50%, 60%, 70%, and 80% of land VO2max was achieved in the water. Therefore, WTR can be used during rehabilitation of athletes unable to fully weight bear to prevent deconditioning. Wearing the AQinc water running shoe increases the metabolic demand by 4.12 ml/kg/min at any given water treadmill speed. Gender differences existed in the absolute HR/VO2 relationship but not in the relative HR/VO2 relationship among the three running conditions.


The certification process of safety critical products for European and other international standards typically
demand environmental stress, endurance and electro magnetic compatibility testing. Theoretical, or `static testing'
also a requirement. Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a tool used for static testing. FMEA is a
bottom-up technique that aims to assess the effects of all component failure modes in a system. Its use is traditionally
limited to hardware systems. With the growing complexity of modern electronics traditional FMEA
is suffering from state explosion and re-use of analysis problems. Also with the now ubiquitous use of microcontrollers
in smart instruments and control systems, software is increasingly being seen as a `missing factor'
for FMEA.


This paper demonstrates two sand control techniques that could overcome the technical limitations associated with the sand production phenomenon in Ahwaz oil field (in the southwest of Iran). The techniques are based on the consolidation process with resins and the oxidation of hydrocarbons. In this work, unconsolidated sand packed models of cylindrical geometry were utilised in order to perform a series of experiments during which various controlling parameters (compressive strength, permeability, and porosity) were investigated. The results showed that for consolidation process with resins, it was possible to produce consolidated sand samples with compressive strength between 740 and 1,330 psi; permeability between 3,000 and 4,100 md, and porosity between 27% and 34.5%. In contrast, for in-situ combustion technique, compressive strength between 580 and 1,040 psi, permeability between 3,100 and 5,100 md, and porosity between 23% and 42% were obtained. At the end, it is concluded that the consolidation process with epoxy resin (ML 503) is the most efficient method according to National Iranian South Oil Company standards. However, for field scale applications an economical proof is needed.