Vanillin, a food additive, has been evaluated as a potential agent to treat sickle cell anemia. Earlier studies indicated that vanillin had moderate antisickling activity when compared with other aldehydes. We have determined by high performance liquid chromatography that vanillin reacts covalently with sickle hemoglobin (HbS) both in solution and in intact red blood cells. Hemoscan oxygen equilibrium curves show a dose- dependent left shift, particularly at low oxygen tensions. Rheologic evaluation (pO2 scan Ektacytometry) of vanillin-reacted HbS erythrocytes shows a dose-dependent inhibition of deoxygenation-induced cell sickling. Ektacytometry also suggests that vanillin may have a direct inhibitory effect on HbS polymer formation. Vanillin has no adverse effects on cell ion or water content. X-ray crystallographic studies with deoxyhemoglobin (HbA)-vanillin demonstrate that vanillin binds near His 103 alpha, Cys 104 alpha, and Gln 131 beta in the central water cavity. A secondary binding site is located between His 116 beta and His 117 beta. His 116 beta has been implicated as a polymer contact residue. Oxygen equilibrium, ektacytometry, and x-ray studies indicate that vanillin may be acting to decrease HbS polymerization by a dual mechanism of action; allosteric modulation to a high-affinity HbS molecule and by stereospecific inhibition of T state HbS polymerization. Because vanillin is a food additive on the GRAS (generally regarded as safe) list, and because it has little or no adverse effects at high dosages in animals, vanillin is a candidate for further evaluation as an agent for the treatment of sickle cell disease.


Background: To describe the distribution of obesity, hypertension, dysglycaemia and dyslipidaemia (which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease) using a Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) site in western Kenya. Design: Descriptive cross-sectional population survey. Setting: Webuye Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) site in western Kenya. Participants: Persons aged 18 years and above. Interventions: Body mass index (BMI), blood pressure levels, fasting blood sugar and fasting lipid profile. Main outcome measures: Cardiovascular disease risk factors in a rural Kenyan population. Results: The mean age was 44 years and 57% were female. The distribution of BMI was: mean = 20 kg/m2 (range 24–36); 18.5–25 kg/m2 = 57%;< 18.5 kg/m2 = 35%. Distribution of blood pressure levels: Normal in 40%; pre-hypertensive 40%; hypertension stages 1 and 2 was 13% and 8% respectively. Nearly all affected were unaware of their elevated blood pressure. Impaired fasting glucose was found in 4.5% while 6.5% were diabetic. Fasting serum lipid profile was normal in over 85% of the population. Conclusions: This rural population had low BMI with 92% having a BMI below 25 kg/m2 and about 20% of them being in hypertension stage 1 and 2 and nearly all unaware of it. Despite the majority having below normal BMI, it was noted that rates of hypertension increased with increasing BMI. There was significant presence of dysglycaemia but not dyslipidaemia.


In tissue engineering, biodegradable porous scaffolds have been employed to replace damaged tissues. These scaffolds are fabricated by conventional techniques such as fiber-bonding, solvent casting, particulate leaching and advanced ones like selective laser sintering, 3-dimentional printing and fused deposition modeling. The main issues limiting conventional techniques are inability to fabricate scaffolds with a highly interconnected porous structure and favorably regular construction with reproducible morphology. Hence researchers go towards advanced techniques with more flexibility. In this study, FDM and electrospinning (ES) techniques have been applied in order to develop multi-layered scaffolds consisting of micro- and nano-fibers for bone tissue engineering applications. While microfibrous layers were fabricated via FDM process, nano-fibrous layers were developed using ES technique. Although FDM technique has unique features, its fiber size limits to micro sizes. One of the trends that are useful for eliminating this issue is getting benefit of adding nano-fibers to scaffold's construction. These nano-fibers not only reduce total pore size of the scaffold, but also could improve cell functions. While poly (lactic-acid) (PLA) was used for FDM process, a mixture of poly (caprolactone) (PCL) and gelatin (PCL-gelatin) were applied for electrospinning process to develop interconnected pores with appropriate mechanical properties and degradation rate. The multi-layered scaffolds were examined using electron microscopy (SEM) and their mechanical properties were evaluated. The porosity of the scaffolds was about 40% and results also demonstrated that nano-fibers with size of 200 nm in diameter had good adhesion to micro-fibers and may provide better cell attachment and proliferation.


The research area of robotic grasping of soft objects is difficult for multiple reasons: high cost computation of deformation, and the changes of the wrench space, contact areas, as well as point wise contact modes inside the areas. This thesis describes modeling of grasped soft objects and recovering their gravity-free shapes. Chapter 1 will introduce the background and related work. Chapter 2 will focus on grasping and picking up soft objects. In the beginning, some results will be shortly described on resisting a third force applied on a 2D rigid body . The results will show that one of the forces must lie on an edge of the friction cone in order to achieve the optimized total normal force. Studying grasping of soft 2D objects will pave the way for picking up 3D objects. Even though there are some similar methods used in both situations, such as the four events of contact establishment, contact break, stick-to-slip and slip-to-stick, which can happen in the finger's squeezing process, there is still some significant difference between the 2D and 3D cases. This difference goes beyond just adding one more dimension, because the gravity effect has to be considered in 3D cases. In Chapter 3, the focus will be on recovering the shape of a 3D object. Since we use its shape under gravity to construct the stiffness matrix and compute deformations, errors are observed in the experiment. The reason behind this, is that the stiffness matrix in conventional FEM practice already encodes the effect of gravity, which is considered again in the constitutive equation used for computing deformation. Then a numerical iteration method will be introduced to recover the gravity free shape.


This chapter assesses the global political economy of the environment. The growth of the world economy is transforming the Earth's environment. Nothing is particularly controversial about this statement. Yet, sharp disagreements arise over the nature of this transformation. Is the globalization of capitalism a force of progress and environmental solutions? Or is it a cause of the current global environmental crisis? The chapter addresses these questions by examining the debates around some of the most contentious issues at the core of economic globalization and the environment: economic growth, production, and consumption; trade; and transnational investment. It begins with a glance at the general arguments about how the global political economy affects the global environment. The chapter then traces the history of global environmentalism — in particular, the emergence of international environmental institutions with the norm of sustainable development. It also evaluates the effectiveness of North–South environmental financing and international environmental regimes.


There is often interest in predicting an individual's latent health status based on high-dimensional biomarkers that vary over time. Motivated by time-course gene expression array data that we have collected in two influenza challenge studies performed with healthy human volunteers, we develop a novel time-aligned Bayesian dynamic factor analysis methodology. The time course trajectories in the gene expressions are related to a relatively low-dimensional vector of latent factors, which vary dynamically starting at the latent initiation time of infection. Using a nonparametric cure rate model for the latent initiation times, we allow selection of the genes in the viral response pathway, variability among individuals in infection times, and a subset of individuals who are not infected. As we demonstrate using held-out data, this statistical framework allows accurate predictions of infected individuals in advance of the development of clinical symptoms, without labeled data and even when the number of biomarkers vastly exceeds the number of individuals under study. Biological interpretation of several of the inferred pathways (factors) is provided.


Prisoners have high rates of physical and mental morbidity and of re-offending. There have been concerns that autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may be overrepresented and under-diagnosed in this population. The aims of this study were to examine the effectiveness of an instrument which was developed to screen for ASDs in prisons and to establish whether male Scottish prisoners differ from community controls with respect to facial emotion recognition, as measured by behavioural testing, and differ on a neural basis while performing complex social judgements, as measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A total of 2458 prisoners (approximately 40% of the convicted prison population) were examined using the screening tool, of whom a further 127 were interviewed in depth and were assessed for facial emotion recognition ability. FMRI was used to examine haemodynamic changes in a small sample of liberated prisoners (9) during a social judgement (approachability) versus control (gender judgments) task. The screening tool had poor sensitivity (28.6%) and specificity (75.6%) and was not effective or useful in screening for ASDs in this population. Significant deficits in negative facial emotion recognition were found in the prisoner group in comparison with ageand sex-matched community controls. Region of interest analysis of fMRI data in the bilateral amygdala revealed significantly greater activation in the left amygdala in ex-prisoners versus controls during the social judgement task. The identification of these abnormalities in facial emotion recognition and social judgement are in keeping with current literature on antisocial populations. They may offer the opportunity for development of interventions aimed at reducing reoffending in the future.


This work presents categorization experiments performed over noisy texts. By noisy, we mean any text obtained through an extraction process (affected by errors) from media other than digital texts (e.g., transcriptions of speech recordings extracted with a recognition system). The performance of a categorization system over the clean and noisy (word error rate between /spl sim/ 10 and /spl sim/ 50 percent) versions of the same documents is compared. The noisy texts are obtained through handwriting recognition and simulation of optical character recognition. The results show that the performance loss is acceptable for recall values up to 60-70 percent depending on the noise sources. New measures of the extraction process performance, allowing a better explanation of the categorization results, are proposed.


Extracted from text ... Peter Barroni and Bennett Asiaii
iInitiative for SubDistrict Support, Health Systems Trust
iiChief Directorate: District Health Systems, Department of Health
The District Health System
The District Health System (DHS) is the
vehicle through which the
delivery of Primary
Health Care will take place. As Primary Health Care is the
foundation of the
health
system it is critical for the
overall functioning of the
system that there is a wellfunctioning
DHS in place.
During 2001 the
concept of the
District Health System (DHS) became more entrenched
with a number of crucial milestones being reached:
_ the
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The crux of this paper in to present the hydrogeological examination of seasonal variation in groundwater levels of Bangar region Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, India. The research area is the main river basin in Chambal and Kshipra River and the main source of surface water is rainfall and effluent seepage from the groundwater. These reservoirs are artificial recharge of groundwater in the downstream side. The area is covered by the Deccan trap lava flows and the tropical forms of the land include the lava plain, lava plateau and the lava hills. The fifteen wells have been examined in research area and different relevant data recorded during the pre and post monsoon session. The different details investigations in wells include; wells diameter, depth of wells, static water level, location, fluctuation and type of wells. The diameter of wells 4 to 13 meter and the depth of wells 5 to 23 meter b.g.l., the static water level range of variation from 3 meter b.g.l. post monsoon and 8 meter b.g.l. in pre monsoon. The fluctuation range is 2.5 to 13.6 meter b.g.l. The aspects of hydrogeological setting investigated in the study were the subsurface unconsolidated material characteristics (stratigraphy, lithology, hydraulic conductivity, and porosity), seasonal groundwater depths and spring discharge, topography and rainfall of the area. The form of water table may change and vary via seasonal changes, topography and structural geology. In some regions, winter precipitation is often higher than summer precipitation so the groundwater storage is not fully recharged in summer.


The target assembly of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) consists of a nozzle, which has to form a stable lithium jet. Therefore, a flat uniform velocity distribution at the nozzle outlets cross-section with a simultaneously low turbulence intensity is required to ensure a safe operation. These boundary conditions necessitate a detailed knowledge on the turbulent flow in contraction nozzles in order identify turbulence models accurately predicting experimental findings within the velocity range of interest for nuclear target and hence can then act as design optimization tool. In order to validate commercially available Computational Fluid dynamic codes (CFD) and the turbulence models incorporated in them a series of experiments using water as model fluid are conducted in the Liquid-Metal-Laboratory KALLA at the research center Karlsruhe. A number of turbulence models with different extensions for the near wall treatment were tested versus the experimentally obtained data. Based on this comparison a hydraulic analysis of the contraction nozzle flow is performed taking into account the relaminarization of the accelerated flow, the occurrence of secondary motions and their impact on the development of the boundary layer. In summary the V2F turbulence model exhibits the best agreement between numerical and experimental data and thus can be considered to be most suitable for the simulation of the accelerated nozzle flow for free surface target applications.


Climate change is expected to affect agriculture. Yield stability across environments is a critical breeding goal when dealing with unstable climate and input reductions in farming systems. The objective of this study was to determine climatic and genetic factors contributing to genotype (G), environment (E), and genotype × environment (GE) variability for maize (Zea mays L.) grain yield under some stress conditions like drought, cold, and pest attack. A large sample of Spanish maize populations was evaluated along with checks at three diverse locations during 3 yr. Factorial regression was performed to obtain a biological explanation of the G, E, and GE interaction for yield. The commercial hybrids had more yield and stability than most populations; therefore, breeding programs focusing on yield have released hybrids with high yield and stability under stress conditions. The populations with a reasonable compromise between yield and stability were Andoain and Lira. The main genotypic covariate was kernel depth, followed by ear length, although other covariates were important for each location. The main climatic covariates for yield were related to days with mean temperature over 15°C and maximum temperature in September, but they were not consistent across locations. Therefore, if yield under stress conditions is a breeding goal, several climatic variables, especially those related to high temperatures, and genotypic traits such as kernel depth and ear length should be considered.


For the wide implementation of Levisticum officinalе C. Koch in Transcarpathia into production it is necessary to widen its sort composition, as it is rather poor in Ukraine. Solving this problem is possible by enriching the source material with the samples of different ecological and/or geographical origin, by studying the influence of abiotic factors on the formation of green mass and seed productivity, separating the specimens best adapted to the conditions of growing, involving them into the selection process and creating new, highly productive sorts on this basis. The scientists of the Transcarpathian State Agricultural Experimental Station (TSAES) conducted researches (during 2011-2016) on the adaptive potential of the source material of the type of Levisticum officinalе C. Koch, which counts seven samples (Ukraine – 5 samples, Poland – 1, and Romania – 1), the selection work on creating new varieties for the given region is being done. The investigations were made on soddy podzolic gleyed low-humus soils with low content of nutrients. The results were obtained on the basis of generally accepted methods of investigation, i.e.: laboratory, field, visual, measuring-weighing, biochemical, mathematically statistic, and comparative-calculating. In the conditions of Transcarpathia the spicy greens of the high quality L. officinalе C. Koch are being gathered on days 25-30, the output of the essential oil makes up from 0.72 tо 1.89% on c.d.s., depending on the climate conditions of growing. The plants pass through all the stages of development, the bush is 55.4 to 92.7 сm in height, the plants form a big amount of rosette-shaped stems (11-34 pieces), the productivity of spicy greens is between 9.9 and 42.1 t hа1. The scientists of TSAES created the following sorts – Mriya (А. с. 06131 Ukraine, first registered in the State register of plant varieties of Ukraine) and Coral (Pat. on the variety № 140830). Economic effect from growing of the Coral variety in the conditions of Transcarpathia is 10230 UAH/ha and the level of profitability is 28.4%. The geographic position and agroclimatic conditions of Transcarpathia, as well as the unpretentiousness of L. officinalе C. Koch. tо the conditions of growing contribute to the enrichment of the local flora with useful plants; and the rich chemical composition contributes to the spread of this culture in the given region.


There is robust evidence that the level of implementation of the Last Planner® System (LPS) is increasing geographically and geometrically in construction. The I nternational Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) community has reported this growth at IGLC conferences over this period. However, no study has explored how the LPS and its implementation has developed or improved. This study explored developments in the LPS from the review of IGLC conference papers. Qualitative research design utilising content analysis was adopted for this study comprising 57 IGLC reports on LPS implementation across 16 countries. The study reveals components of LPS implemented, with measuring of PPC, Weekly Work Planning meeting and recording reasons for non-completion the most reported. The study developed a timeline for the LPS development and revealed that some of the papers reviewed have no defined methodology. The study concludes that the LPS has developed in terms of its level of implementation, theory development, and as a vehicle to improve construction management practice across the major continents of the world, with elements that had little presence at the onset now prominent. The study recommends that more attention should be given to the relationship between practical applications and research methods to aid the establishment of sound theory to improve practice.


BACKGROUND
Uncomplicated urinary tract infection (UTI) is the most common bacterial infection in women, characterised by dysuria and urinary frequency. Urinary alkalisers are widely used in some countries for the symptomatic treatment of uncomplicated UTI, and they are recommended in some national formularies. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support their use for UTI and some healthcare guidelines advise against their use.

OBJECTIVES
We aimed to look at the benefits and harms of the use of urinary alkalisers for the treatment of uncomplicated UTIs in adult women.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Specialised Register to 19 January 2016 through contact with the Trials Search Co-ordinator using search terms relevant to this review.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs on the use of (any) urinary alkalisers (either exclusively or non-exclusively) for the symptomatic treatment of uncomplicated UTI amongst women aged 16 and over, were included. Studies were eligible if they included patients whose diagnosis of UTI was decided by symptoms alone, or positive urine dipstick test or urine culture; and patients with recurrent UTI, provided patients had no symptoms of UTI in the two weeks prior to the onset of symptoms that lead them to seek medical advice. Studies were ineligible if they studied patients with complicated UTIs; immune-compromising conditions; acute pyelonephritis; or chronic conditions such as interstitial cystitis.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Three authors independently assessed and screened papers, and this was repeated by two separate authors (independently). An additional investigator acted as arbitrator, where necessary. There were no papers which fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this review, and therefore no data extraction was performed.

MAIN RESULTS
Our search identified 172 potential studies for inclusion. However, following assessment none fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this review.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Until relevant evidence is generated from randomised trials, the safety and efficacy of urinary alkalisers for the symptomatic treatment of uncomplicated UTI remains unknown.


The education of marginalised peoples and communities is a topic of great contemporary importance. Closing the Gap in Education? increases our understanding of the nature and challenges of marginalisation in southern world societies. The book also canvasses possible directions for change that might improve the social participation of young people. It is both timely and distinctive.
Closing the Gap in Education? emanates from a conference organised by the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements, in partnership with Monash South Africa, held in 2009 at Monash's Johannesburg campus. Leading scholars and public figures from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand participated.
The authors provide illuminating accounts of marginalisation which point to the inadequacy of many current educational policies. Several contributors question the usefulness of notions of closing gaps and bridging divides, suggesting alternative ways to frame the debates.
In explaining the key terms – marginalisation, gaps, divides, peripheries – the contributors consider capabilities, social practices, neo-liberalism, human capital theory, raciology, redistribution, the education debt, the politics of hope, history as a cultural resource and other concepts. They do so as academics and activists committed to social justice in education. The achievement of social transformation is particularly emphasised.
Closing the Gap in Education? makes a most important contribution to understanding education in marginalised communities. It is a thought-provoking work, relevant to all readers interested in education, policy, government, global, media and indigenous studies.


Following the mid-19th Century emergence of mass coal mining in the Rhondda Valley, the
once pastoral farm land had by 1924 increased its population by an astonishing 5500%. From
this peak, the Second World War initiated a rapid process of 'shrinking' impacting both its
economy and urban density, as well as reducing its population by an alarming 52%.
Now in the 21st century, the post-industrial Rhondda is a visibly troubled landscape of
shrinking territories. In order to address this complex condition, the research explores the
concept of temporary urbanism and its potential to re-activate space.
Temporary urbanism is an alternative and dynamic concept in urban design used to
describe a broad range of theories, agendas, everyday urban situations and architectural or
artistic projects, all of which are characterised by a definitively short or ambiguous lifespan.
Temporary urbanism can be expedient and low-cost, employed to unite communities,
support entrepreneurship, enliven public space or even occupy frozen construction sites.
When a strategy of temporary urbanism is explored on case study sites in the Rhondda,
the inquiry reveals key tactics specific to the Valley such as; attracting tourism, reinforcing
heritage, engaging the industry, encouraging inter-generational exchange, stewardship and
collaborative partnerships. However, the research also reveals issues and dilemmas associated
with temporary urbanism, predominantly the question of legality, deregulation, the role of
the 'designer', limitations of conventional site analysis, key agents and relationships, as well
as the politics of post-industrial landscapes.
The research concludes that the territorial synchronisation of small-scale temporary use
projects within the Valley's existing infrastructure and events networks, could serve as viable
catalysts for re-activating residual space and a tool of empowerment for local communities.


We report single-cell infrared (IR) imaging of onion (Allium cepa) root cells using an IR super-resolution microscope based on vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG). The resolution of recorded IR images was less than 2 μm and IR super-resolution was achieved by virtue of the VSFG detection. In addition, IR spectra measurements were successfully performed on distinct intra-cellular assemblies. The IR absorption intensity of the cell nuclear edge and the nucleolus in the 3055–3130 cm−1 region was stronger than that from the cytoplasmic part. This is because the cell nucleus and nucleolus contain larger amounts of nucleic acid. Thus, the obtained IR spectra reflect differences in chemical composition among different cellular structures. In addition, the ability of our novel IR super-resolution microscope to obtain distinct information on both VSFG and two-photon fluorescence is demonstrated.


In this paper, we study latent factor models with dependency structure in the latent space. We propose a general learning framework which induces sparsity on the undirected graphical model imposed on the vector of latent factors. A novel latent factor model SLFA is then proposed as a matrix factorization problem with a special regularization term that encourages collaborative reconstruction. The main benefit (novelty) of the model is that we can simultaneously learn the lower-dimensional representation for data and model the pairwise relationships between latent factors explicitly. An on-line learning algorithm is devised to make the model feasible for large-scale learning problems. Experimental results on two synthetic data and two real-world data sets demonstrate that pairwise relationships and latent factors learned by our model provide a more structured way of exploring high-dimensional data, and the learned representations achieve the state-of-the-art classification performance.


ABSTRACT A widely used Bible course curriculum suffers from a number of constitutional infirmities and is unlikely to be found constitutional if used as written in public schools. The curriculum, which is produced and distributed by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), fails to present the Bible in the objective manner required for public school courses that teach about religion. The curriculum favors Protestantism over Catholicism and a literal interpretation over nonliteralist approaches to the Bible. As written, the curriculum would require teachers and students to make a number of faith statements. This article examines case law on the subject of Bible instruction in the public schools, offers a detailed analysis and critique of the NCBCPS curriculum, and suggestions for public schools contemplating adding a course in the Bible to their curricula. The critique focuses on questions related to the authorship of the course and recommended supplementary materials, the course content, and the language employed in the course materials. I. INTRODUCTION Like prayer, the teaching of evolution, and displays of the Ten Commandments, the inclusion of Bible courses in public school curricula has long been a contentious issue. Social conservatives responded to a series of highly publicized school shootings with calls to restore religion, including Bible study courses, to public school classrooms. According the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), well over 100 school districts in approximately 30 states use the organization's curriculum. Those districts whose Bible study courses are based on NCBCPS materials are at substantial risk of litigation. A close examination of these materials reveals a number of constitutional infirmities. Through the inclusion and omission of various elements related to the study of the Bible and the ancient Near East, the NCBCPS curriculum presents the Bible as a factual historical document. Moreover, the materials favor Protestantism over Roman Catholicism. The primary effect of this curriculum is the promotion of conservative, evangelical Protestantism. This article analyzes the NCBCPS curriculum to give school administrators and their attorneys information about areas that are particularly problematic when they teach or contemplate teaching such courses, including questions related to (1) authorship or sponsorship of the both the course itself and recommended supplementary materials, (2) the course content, and (3) the language employed in both written materials and oral presentation to students. In addition, this analysis will provide school board attorneys with information that will enable them to better advise their clients regarding the propriety of initiating or continuing public school Bible courses based on the NCBCPS curriculum. In the wake of highly publicized school shootings in Paducah, Kentucky (1997), Jonesboro, Arkansas (1998), Springfield, Oregon (1998), and Columbine, Colorado (1999), social and religious conservatives have called for greater inclusion of religion in public schools. These calls have been translated into a variety of political initiatives, including bills allowing and/or requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments and permitting school prayer. Some activists have also urged that schools institute courses devoted to study of the Bible. A People for the American Way report indicated that Bible courses in the fourteen Florida districts that offered them suffered some constitutional infirmities.' In response to this report, the Florida Department of Education replaced its two Bible history courses, Bible History: Old Testament and Bible History: New Testament, with courses stressing a literary perspective and transferred them to the department's humanities. as opposed to its social studies, course list.2 IMAGE FORMULA36 No textbook for high school Bible courses is available, yet schools can teach religion courses successfully, and indeed, correctly developed and implemented courses in the Bible itself could be taught. …


Thiazolidinedione ligands of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) are used in the clinic to treat type 2 diabetes; however, these agents are not without unwanted side effects. A new ligand N-(9-fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl)-L-leucine (FMOC-L-Leu) appears to overcome some of these side effects. FMOC-L-Leu activated PPARγ trascriptional activity. Analysis of the ligand and receptor interaction showed that two FMOC-L-Leu molecules bind to a single receptor and that the conformation of the receptor is altered when bound. FMOC-L-Leu promoted the interaction of PPARγ with the cofactors p300 and SRC-1, but not with TIF2. Its interaction with TIF2 is preferentially stimulated by a thiazolidinedione compound, rosiglitazone. In terms of stimulating adipocyte differentiation, FMOC-L-Leu was less potent than rosiglitazone both in cultured cells and in mice. However, in two different in vivo insulin sensitivity tests, FMOC-L-Leu enhanced glucose clearance in normal mice, whereas rosiglitazone did not. In mouse models of type 2 diabetes, the diet-induced insulin-resistant mouse and db/db mice, FMOC-L-Leu improved glucose homeostasis without promoting the weight gain seen in the rosiglitazone-treated animals. Thus, FMOC-L-Leu and drugs with similar chemical structure may be new pharmacological tools in the arsenal against type 2 diabetes. S. Rocchi, F. Picard, J. Vamecq, L. Gelman, N. Potier, D. Zeyer, L. Dubuquoy, P. Bac, M.-F. Champy, K. D. Plunket, L. M. Leesnitzer, S. G. Blanchard, P. Desreumaux, D. Moras, J.-P. Renaud, J. Auwerx, A unique PPARγ ligand with potent insulin-sensitizing yet weak adipogenic activity. Mol. Cell 8, 737-747 (2001). [Online Journal]


Dieting to control body weight involves cycles of deprivation from palatable food that can promote compulsive eating. The present study shows that rats withdrawn from intermittent access to palatable food exhibit overeating of palatable food upon renewed access and an affective withdrawal-like state characterized by corticotropin-releasing factor-1 (CRF1) receptor antagonist-reversible behaviors, including hypophagia, motivational deficits to obtain less palatable food, and anxiogenic-like behavior. Withdrawal was accompanied by increased CRF expression and CRF1 electrophysiological responsiveness in the central nucleus of the amygdala. We propose that recruitment of anti-reward extrahypothalamic CRF-CRF1 systems during withdrawal from palatable food, analogous to abstinence from abused drugs, may promote compulsive selection of palatable food, undereating of healthier alternatives, and a negative emotional state when intake of palatable food is prevented.


This response to Barbara Herrnstein Smith's article, "The Chimera of Relativism: A Tragicomedy," presents some thoughts on how the debates about "relativism" upon which Smith comments could be refigured in the light of this symposium's theme of "comparative relativism." If the notion of relativism can be rendered relative unto itself, as the notion of a "comparative" relativism would seem to suggest, then how might one understand its "position" within the kinds of debates in which Smith's paper, by way of commentary, also participates? In particular, if part of Smith's aim is to defuse some of the unfair thoughts that have fueled the antirelativist industry in academia, then how might one think of the character of such "anti-anti-" moves themselves? What manner of academic debate does a properly relative notion of relativity allow for? The response herein to these questions takes off from the obvious thought that, properly squared, relativism cannot be understood as a "position"—one that should or could be "defended," albeit in the Geertzian "anti-anti-" mode that Smith's article seems sometimes to adopt. Rather, it would imply a somewhat different way out of the tribal deadlocks that Smith so elegantly helps put to rest (relativists vs. positivists, etc.); namely, a manner of debate in which a generalized relativity of thinking, including the relativity of that thought itself, would make a merit of academic opposition at all levels. This piece suggests, in other words, a manner of debating in which the "anti-" would be both proffered and received as a manner of compliment rather than attack.


Abstract. The region of central and eastern Europe is an area characterised by a relatively high seismic risk. Since 2001, to monitor the seismicity of this area, the OGS (Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale) in Italy, the Agencija Republike Slovenije za Okolje (ARSO) in Slovenia, the Zentralanstalt fur Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG) in Austria, and the Universita di Trieste (UniTS) have cooperated in real-time seismological data exchange. In 2014 OGS, ARSO, ZAMG and UniTS created a cooperative network named the Central and Eastern European Earthquake Research Network (CE3RN), and teamed up with the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, to implement an earthquake early warning system based on the existing networks. Since May 2014, the earthquake early warning system (EEWS) given by the integration of the PRESTo (PRobability and Evolutionary early warning SysTem) alert management platform and the CE3RN accelerometric stations has been under real-time testing in order to assess the system's performance. This work presents a preliminary analysis of the EEWS performance carried out by playing back real strong motion recordings for the 1976 Friuli earthquake (MW= 6.5). Then, the results of the first 6 months of real-time testing of the EEWS are presented and discussed.


Background and Hypothesis: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a useful tool in monitoring the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Previous surface-based analysis has focused on changes in cortical thickness associated with the disease1. The objective of this study is to analyze MRI-derived cortical reconstructions for patterns of atrophy in terms of both cortical thickness and cortical volume. We hypothesize that Alzheimer's Disease progression will be associated with a more significant change in volume than thickness.
Experimental Design or Project Methods: MRI data was obtained from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). All subjects with baseline and two-year 3T MRI scans were included. Segmentation of MRIs into gray and white matter was performed with FreeSurfer2,3,4,5. Subjects whose scans did not segment accurately were excluded. Surfaces were then registered to a common atlas with Ciftify6, and anatomically-constrained Multimodal Surface Matching (aMSM) was used to analyze longitudinal changes in each subject7. This produced continuous surface maps showing changes in cortical surface area and thickness. These maps were multiplied to create cortical volume maps8. Permutation Analysis of Linear Models (PALM) was used to perform two-sample t-tests comparing the maps of the Alzheimer's and control groups9.
Results: Preliminary analysis of nine Alzheimer's subjects and nine control subjects produced surface maps displaying patterns that were expected given previous research findings10,11. There was increased volume and thickness loss in Alzheimer's subjects relative to controls, with relatively high loss in structures of the medial temporal lobe. Future analysis of a larger sample will determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the Alzheimer's and control groups in terms of thickness loss and volume loss.
Conclusion and Potential Impact: If significant results are found, surface-based analysis of cortical volume may allow for detection of atrophy at an earlier stage in disease progression than would be possible based on cortical thickness.

References
1. Clarkson MJ, Cardoso MJ, Ridgway GR, Modat M, Leung KK, Rohrer JD, Fox NC, Ourselin S. A comparison of voxel and surface based cortical thickness estimation methods. NeuroImage. 2011 Aug 1; 57(3):856-65.
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This study aimed to unveil the relationship between the mental health and the emotional social intelligence among the talented students from schools at Ajloun city. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher used the mental health test, which was prepared depending on Maslow theory in addition to the emotional intelligence test, depending on Bar-on theory of emotional intelligence. To ensure the validity and reliability of the study, the sample consisted of 100 talented students who were randomly selected from talented schools. The researcher came up with the findings using up the arithmetic averages, standard deviations, the multi variance analysis and correlation coefficient. The study showed that the talented students have high degrees at the mental health scale, the social intelligence and its dimensions, the emotional intelligence and its dimensions, the results also assured that there was a positive correlation between the degrees at the mental health scale, the social intelligence and its dimensions, and the emotional intelligence and its dimensions. These results were discussed in the light of the theoretical framework and previous studies, the study also concluded some recommendations.


Numerous secreted factors, including growth factors and cytokines, have been implicated in regulating hepatocyte proliferation. Huang et al. report that bile acids are essential stimulatory factors for liver regeneration in mice. An increase in bile acids stimulates regeneration and requires the bile acid nuclear receptor FXR. The authors propose a homeostatic mechanism for determination of liver size, in which FXR and perhaps other nuclear receptors sense the levels of endogenous metabolites to determine the liver's functional capacity. When liver function is decreased as a result of injury, the resulting accumulation of bile acids activates FXR, which stimulates signaling pathways to protect the liver from bile acid toxicity and also promotes liver growth to handle the overload. W. Huang, K. Ma, J. Zhang, M. Qatanani, J. Cuvillier, J. Liu, B. Dong, X. Huang, D. D. Moore, Nuclear receptor-dependent bile acid signaling is required for normal liver regeneration. Science 312, 233-236 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This study focuses on the academic publication processes in Saudi Arabia, the barriers that affect
researchers' ability to carry out and publish research and the potential advantages and disadvantages
offered by the Internet in the area of academic publishing. It addresses the readiness of researchers to adopt
innovative approaches to publication including those based on electronic media. There are potential
problems faced by researchers wishing to publish; these include length of time required to publish, low
publication numbers, referees' demands and conditions, mailing difficulties, lack of communication
between researchers and journals, delays in researchers' addressing the reviewers' amendments, the
weaknesses of financial support, the cost of using and publishing articles, weaknesses in the distribution of
academic journals, their limited international spread because of the use of the Arabic language more than
other languages, delays in the printing of research because of the low capability of Universities' printing
houses, (resulting from a lack of human and machinery resources), and finally the limited numbers of
academic journals written in Arabic. In the view of the author, given that publication of papers and
distribution of knowledge through the Internet is faster, more efficient and more effective than the
traditional approach; many of the current procedures could be improved through the use of this medium.
The data collection and analysis presented in this study addresses the extent to which such benefit could be
realised in practice. This research reviews the limitations of research publishing in Saudi Arabia by
focusing on the nature of academic journals, in terms of their numbers and purpose, the barriers that
academic staff faced when they wished to publish their research work in local or international academic
journals, and the attitudes of academics towards electronic publishing and publishing in general. The
research comprises interviews, case studies, and questionnaire methods. The most prominent findings from
this study are the lack of encouragement for academic staff to conduct and publish research, lack of
financial support to the research publishing sector, lack of a research publishing infrastructure and a lack of
private sector support for funding research and publishing. An interesting finding is that unlike many other
countries, there is no culture of volunteering for work that does not provide direct financial benefit. This
could be an important factor affecting the adoption of an online open publishing approach in which
reviewers and editors are not paid directly for the work. This research leads to recommendations aimed at
giving more focus to academic staff, the application of some regulations and incentives to encourage
increased academic research and publishing, increasing the financial support to the research publishing
sector, to automate the research publishing process, discarding some unnecessary elements of the process,
encouraging and rewarding voluntary work in supporting research publishing, and encouraging the private
sector to improve and support academic research in general and research publishing specifically. In
conclusion, this study focuses on the academic publication process; the potential advantages and
disadvantages offered by the Internet, and the attitudes of scholars towards electronic publishing. This
research ultimately aims at proposing and implementing suitable processes and policies to solve these
problems and to identifying means of overcoming the research publishing barriers in Saudi Arabia.


To examine the global pattern of the net primary production (NPP)/gross primary production (GPP) ratio of the Earth's land area along geographical and climatic gradients. The global planetary ecosystem. The 4-year average annual NPP/GPP ratio of the Earth's land area was calculated using 2000-03 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The global pattern of the NPP/GPP ratio was investigated by comparing it among each typical terrestrial ecosystem and plotting it along a geographical and climatic gradient, including latitude, altitude, temperature and precipitation. The global terrestrial ecosystem had an average NPP/GPP ratio value of 0.52 with minor variation from 2000 to 2003. However, the NPP/GPP ratio showed considerable spatial variation associated with ecosystem type, geographical location and climate. Densely vegetated ecosystems had a lower NPP/GPP ratio than sparsely vegetated ecosystems. Forest ecosystems had a lower NPP/GPP ratio than shrub and herbaceous ecosystems. Geographically, the NPP/GPP ratio increased with altitude. In the Southern Hemisphere, the NPP/GPP ratio decreased along latitude from 30 degrees to 10 degrees and it exhibited high fluctuation in the Northern Hemisphere. Climatically, the NPP/GPP ratio exhibited a decreasing trend along enhanced precipitation when it was less than 2300 mm year(-1) and a static trend when the annual precipitation was over 2300 mm. The NPP/GPP ratio showed a decreasing trend along temperature when it was between -20 degrees C and 10 degrees C, and showed an increasing trend along rising temperature when it was between -10 degrees C and 20 degrees C. Within each ecosystem, the NPP/GPP ratio revealed a similar trend to the global trend along temperature and precipitation. The NPP/GPP ratio exhibited a pattern depending on the main climatic characteristics such as temperature and precipitation and geographical factors such as latitude and altitude. The findings of this research challenge the widely held assumption that the NPP/GPP ratio is consistent regardless of ecosystem type.


In the developing countries, decision makers face difficulty in
 allocating development resource at the local level due to the unavailability of an objective
 method that justifies the allocation. Poverty measurement methods, such as consumption based
 poverty measurement or Human Development Index could be used for the process, but those
 techniques are difficult to apply at the local level because of the constraint of resource.
 Therefore, a simple technique to categorize villages in terms of their development levels is
 always desired. This research is an attempt to address this problem. It has used socioeconomic
 and natural aspects to categorize villages in a district of Nepal. 24 variables are used to
 design five indexes - poverty index, social index, women empowerment index, infrastructure and
 institutional index and natural resources index. Correlation tests are applied to see the
 relationship between income data and indexes, and among the indexes themselves. The result shows
 a significant correlation between income and poverty index whereas no statistically significant
 correlation between income and other indexes. As expected, natural resources index shows
 significant correlation with other indexes. Based on the results, it can be asserted that income
 can be represented by an index prepared from certain variables in the rural context. Also the
 natural resources index can represent the development levels: the better the natural resources
 of a village the better the development. These variables and indexes help to compare the
 villages; when mapped in GIS, local planners and policy makers can understand the analytical
 results. This helps them to compare the level of development of their village to the district
 and national achievement which further helps them in bargaining resources with the concerned
 agencies.


BACKGROUND
Alpha lipoic acid is a potent antioxidant that plays numerous roles in human health. This study examined the effect of ALA on rat sciatic nerve ischemia reperfusion damage.

AIMS
Protective effect of alpha lipoic acid (ALA) on sciatic nerve following ischemia-reperfusion in rats was investigated by using light microscopy and biochemical methods. Provided that the protective effect of ALA on sciatic nerve is proven, we think the damage to the sciatic nerve that has already occurred or might occur in patients for various reasons maybe prevented or stopped by giving ALA in convenient doses.

STUDY DESIGN
Animal experiment.

METHODS
Forty-two adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (250-300 grams) were used in this study. Rats were randomly divided into six groups including one control (Group 1), one sham (Group 2), two ischemia-reperfusion (Groups 3 and 4) and two treatment groups (Groups5 and 6). Doses of 60 and 100 mg/kg ALA were given (Group 5 and 6) intra peritoneally twice, 1 and 24 hours before the ischemia to each treatment group. Ischemia was carried out the abdominal aorta starting from the distal part of the renal vein for two hours followed by reperfusion for three hours. In immunohistochemical methods, fibronectin immunoreactivity was analyzed. For biochemical analyses, the tissues were taken in eppendorf microtubes and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) enzyme activities as well as malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitricoxide (NO) levels were measured.

RESULTS
Fibronectin was observed to have increased significantly in the ischemia group; on the other hand, it was observed to have decreased in parallel to the doses in the ALA groups. Biochemical studies showed that SOD and GSHPx declined with ischemia-reperfusion, but the activities of these enzymes were increased in the treatment groups in parallel with the dose. It was found that increased MDA levels with ischemia-reperfusion were decreased in parallel with ALA dose. There were no statistically significant changes in NO.

CONCLUSION
Increased fibronectin observed after ischemia/reperfusion of rat sciatic nerve is reduced after the administration of ALA. This indicates that the function of fibronectin, to reconnect cut nerve segments and regenerate nerves, is more prominent than its function in tissue healing after ischemia. ALA administered before ischemia decreases MDA and increases SOD and GSHPx. We think that ALA may protect against the pathological changes in ischemic nerve and may be used to devise more efficient treatments.


This paper examines how the loss of 6300 jobs from the closure of MG Rover (MGR) in the city of Birmingham (UK) in April 2005 affected the employment trajectories of ex-workers, in the context of wider structural change and efforts at urban renewal. The paper presents an analysis of a longitudinal survey of 300 ex-MGR workers, and examines to what extent the state of local labour markets and workers' geographical mobility—as well as the effectiveness of the immediate policy response and longer-term local economic strategies—may have helped to balance the impacts of personal attributes associated with workers' employability and their reabsorption into the labour markets. It is found that the relative buoyancy of the local economy, the success of longer-run efforts at diversification and a strong policy response and retraining initiative helped many disadvantaged workers to find new jobs in the medium term. However, the paper also highlights the unequal employment outcomes and trajectories that many lesser-skilled workers faced. It explores the policy issues arising from such closures and their aftermath, such as the need to co-ordinate responses, to retain institutional capacity, to offer high-quality training and education resources to workers and, where possible, to slow down such closure processes to enable skills to be retained and reused within the local economy.


Bio-based polymers are materials that are produced from renewable resources. Their biodegradable properties are the driver of worldwide interest among researchers and manufacturers in recent years due to the demand and need for alternatives to fossil fuel based polymers. The use of biodegradable polymers creates a sustainable industry. In contrast, the raw materials for synthetic polymers derived from petrochemicals will eventually deplete and most of them are non-biodegradable. Despite these advantages, bio-based polymers account for only a tiny fraction of the total global plastic market.

Non-biodegradability issues of synthetic pharmaceutical inactive ingredients strongly emphasized innovators towards the development of biopolymers. Recently natural biodegradable excipients gained significant attention due to their sustainability and engineered applications. Innovative technologies to transform these materials into value-added chemicals via novel graft-polymerization or co-processing techniques for the production of high-performance multifunctional and low-cost polymers with tunable structures are key parts of its sustainable development.

Biopolymers Towards Green and Sustainable Development elaborates on important issues that surround bio-based polymers. It gives the reader an overview of biopolymers, the impact of non-biodegradable polymers on the environment and health, emerging sources of biodegradable polymers, structural and morphological characterization techniques, thermomechanical properties, biodegradable plastics from biopolymers, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and textile applications, and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. with a brief on bibliometric. Moreover, a brief bibliometric meta-analysis on bio-based pharmaceutical excipients provides an update about teams involved in the development of polymeric research that may be of interest to anyone who wants to work on sustainable biopolymer projects.

Key Features

- provides an updated summary on recently discovered natural polymeric materials

- gives a thorough breakdown of the vast range of biopolymer applications including fabrication of conventional and novel drug delivery, polymeric scaffolds, composites, microneedles, and green synthesis of metallic nanoparticles,

-summarizes pharmacology and pharmacokinetics of the inactive pharmaceutical ingredient and excipients

- presents a bibliometric meta-analysis indicating potential collaboration between country, organization, institution, and authors with a view on recent ongoing trends with biopolymers.


ABSTRACT. Dense ponderosa pine forests in the southwestern United States inhibit understory production and diversity and are susceptible to high-severity wildfire. Restoration treatments involving overstory thinning and prescribed burning are being implemented to increase understory productivity and diversity and to reduce the risk of severe wildfire. However, disturbances associated with treatments may favor invasion of nonnative species, and the severity of the disturbance may be related to the level of nonnative species establishment. We examined understory community composition, species richness, and plant cover responses to 3 stand-scale replicates of 4 different tree-thinning intensities. Restoration treatments altered the composition of the understory community regardless of thinning intensity. Understory richness and cover were highly variable among experimental blocks, but we observed strong trends of increasing richness and cover in the treated stands. Immediately following restoration treatments, nonnative species cover comprised 6% of the total cover where treatment-induced disturbances were the greatest. However, the initial increase in nonnative species did not persist and was reduced by half 6 years after treatment. Plant community composition was still in flux by the sixth year after treatment, indicating that continued monitoring is necessary for evaluating whether restoration targets are maintained over time.


The evolution of the human brain has been marked by a nearly 3-fold increase in size since our divergence from the last common ancestor shared with chimpanzees and bonobos. Despite increased interest in comparative neuroanatomy and phylogenetic methods, relatively little is known regarding the effects that this enlargement has had on its internal organization, and how certain areas of the brain have differentially expanded over evolutionary time. Analyses of the microstructure of several regions of the human cortex and subcortical structures have demonstrated subtle changes at the cellular and molecular level, suggesting that the human brain is more than simply a 'scaled-up' primate brain. Ongoing research in comparative neuroanatomy has much to offer regarding our understanding of human brain evolution. Through analysis of the neuroanatomical phenotype at the level of reorganization in cytoarchitecture and cellular morphology, new data continue to highlight changes in cell density and organization associated with volumetric changes in discrete regions. An understanding of the functional significance of variation in neural circuitry can further be approached through studies of atypical human development. Many neurodevelopmental disorders cause disruption in systems associated with uniquely human features of cognition, including language and social cognition. Understanding the genetic and developmental mechanisms that underlie variation in the human cognitive phenotype can help to clarify the functional significance of interspecific variation. By uniting approaches from comparative neuroanatomy and neuropathology, insights can be gained that clarify trends in human evolution. Here, we explore these lines of evidence and their significance for understanding functional variation between species as well as within neuropathological variation in the human brain.


ABSTRACT In England there has been substantial policy development and an academic drive to promote the goal of 'living well' for people with dementia and their family members. This article critically evaluates the feasibility of this intention, with reference to the experience of those caring for people with the condition. Qualitative data are utilised from a study which explored how couples negotiate relationships and care. The focus of this paper is the perspectives of spousal carers and the challenges they encounter within their caring role. Views were obtained via semi-structured joint interviews where the carer participated alongside the person with dementia. The extent to which living well with dementia is a credible aspiration for carers is examined via three themes: identity subsumed under care responsibilities; the couple as an isolated family unit; and barriers to professional support. The findings highlight that experience of caring is highly complex and fraught with multiple practical, emotional and moral pressures. It is asserted that research into dementia and care relationships must avoid a zero sum situation, prompted by living well discourses, where attempts to bolster the position of people with dementia compound the marginalisation and stigmatisation of informal carers.


Euthanasia is an act of violence against the weak, who are not properly cared for but killed. At the same time, euthanasia undermines in an insidious way the peaceful coexistence within society. In the Paschal Mystery, God responded to the dominance of force by non-violent action. Euthanasia, then, is morally wrong, ultimately destroying the alliance between God and men and the right relationship among persons in society. Rather than resorting to violence, every possible form of help must be offered to the suffering and abandoned. Since Christians already participate in Christ's resurrection, their vocation is to transmit His peace into the everyday realities of life, where border disputes are often settled by violence. Euthanasia is one such violent response, which impedes both faith in Christ's resurrection and the achievement of peace among the people of our world. Traditional arguments against suicide relevant to our case will be revisited in the light of the theology of peace that derives from Christ's resurrection.


This paper proposes a framework to analyze China's One Belt One Road Initiative (hereinafter, "Initiative") as the development of its foreign aid policy, and helps Japan take appropriate action toward China's New World Order. The major results of this study are as follows. First, the Initiative envisions a new world economic zone across the Eurasian continent based on land traffic systems, as alternatives to the world economy dominated by the United States, European Union (EU), and Japan based on marine traffic. Second, the Initiative, however, shares development-investment characteristics with other emerging donors, and tends to give priority to the short-term interests of China's state-owned enterprises, the project builders of China's foreign aid, over the recipient's long-term development. Third, China's aid to African nations in the 2000s is blamed as economic deprivation in the name of aid, and the same problem occurred in Sri Lanka (Laos has managed to control China's aid harmlessly and succeeded in generating profit). Fourth, Laos' success is owed not only to its solid governance and concrete development scheme but also to the multinational aid environment whereby it can receive economic aid from Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and EU members, whereas Sri Lanka can only seek aid from China. Fifth, Japan needs to choose Initiative projects leading to the recipients' long-term development, and must keep a distance from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to strengthen the multinational aid environment in the One Belt One Road regions.


Abstract. Multi-criterial analysis is becoming one of the main methods for evaluation of influence of geographic environment on human activity, or human activity on geographic environment, respectively. Analysis results are often used in command and control systems, especially in armed forces and units of rescue systems. For analyses, digital geographic data – whose quality significantly influences the reached results – are used. Visualization of results of analyses in command and control systems are usually thematic layers over raster images of topographic maps. That is why this visualization must correspond to cartographic principles used for the creation of thematic maps. The article presents problems that an analyst encounters within the evaluation of the quality of the used data, performance of the analysis itself as well as preparation of data files for their transfer and publishing in command and control systems.


Recommendation system turn into a most important in web applications that provide many services and suggest some services automatically as per user's interest. In the achievement of current marketing field, different individual services in business play important roles. In websites, one of the precious tools of personal service is personalize recommendation technique. This technique makes great worth in internet marketing activities of e-Commerce. To construct the recommendation system, the collaborative filtering is very useful technologies in the field of recommender systems .Now a days the utilization of internet is expanding quickly, people approaches to internet to retrieve and share the information through numerous online tools. The achievement of the recommendation system relies on upon the value of the system. The usefulness can be measured in terms of accuracy, reliability, flexibility and diversity. To emphasis on improving recommendation accuracy, but diversity is neglected. There are many problems in today's web related to the accuracy of recommendation engine. So there are various techniques are used to improve the diversity and accuracy of recommendation system.


Most studies on consanguinity have been conducted on contemporary populations and have focused on the prevalence and types of preferred intra-familial marriage. With its comprehensive birth, marriage and deaths records dating back to the late 17th century, and the legal bar on first cousin marriage removed in the mid-19th century, Sweden offers unique opportunities to examine the factors that determine by whom, where and why consanguineous marriages were contracted. The present study covers the period 1780-1899 and presents a detailed portrait of cousin and sibling exchange marriages in the Skellefteå region of northern coastal Sweden. The combined prevalence of first, second and third cousin marriage increased from 2.3% in 1790-1810 to 8.8% in 1880-1899, and multi-generation consanguinity also increased significantly over the study period. The distribution and prevalence of first cousin marriages was strikingly non-random, with a significantly greater propensity for consanguinity among land-owning families, especially involving first-born sons, within specific pedigrees, and in a number of more remote inland communities. Additional factors associated with a greater likelihood of consanguineous marriage included physical or mental disability among males, and among females the prior birth of an illegitimate child. Besides the inherent interest in the social and demographic structure of this region of northern Sweden during the course of the 19th century, in future studies it will be important to determine the degree to which the observed patterns of consanguineous and sibling exchange marriages in these past generations could have influenced present-day genetic structure.


This paper will focus on the Catholic Church in Israel's experience of and reflections on Jewish-Christian dialogue after Nostra Aetate . The dialogue from this perspective is unique for reasons tied to the context of the dialogue. Firstly, of all the countries of the world, only in Israel are Christians a minority in a Jewish majority. Secondly, Catholics and Jews live in a state defined as Jewish. Thirdly, as most Catholics in Israel are Arabs, dialogue with Jews is also dialogue within the context of a national conflict, between Israelis and Palestinians. Religion has come to play an important role in this conflict. Fourthly, many Jews and Christians in Israel do not have their roots in the Western Christian world but rather in the Middle Eastern Muslim world, which cannot be ignored in the dialogue. All these factors make the interpretation and implementation of section 4 of Nostra Aetate and other guidelines on the dialogue particularly interesting. What perspectives on and challenges to the dialogue between Jews and Christians are discernible in the ongoing experience of the Israeli Jewish-Palestinian Christian dialogue today? Two appendices provide the full texts of recent documents from the Catholic Church in the region.


Abstract This paper examines two common objects in humanitarian assistance: a therapeutic food called Plumpy'nut, and a tape for measuring malnutrition known as the muac band. It argues that humanitarian relief has become a standardised package reliant on such objects, which receive excessive commitment from aid workers and are ascribed with almost magical powers. Drawing on the Marxist notion of commodity fetishism, the paper proposes a three-part model for examining this phenomenon, in which humanitarian objects are bound up in processes of concealment, transformation and mystification. First, these objects are perceived as rootless, recent discoveries, allowing the complex history and ambivalent results of technology to be concealed. Second, they facilitate a single-minded attention to efficiency and aggregate survival, which transforms the way humanitarian action is understood. Third, these objects are imbued with a mystical and autonomous spirit, redefined as irreplaceable elements of aid. This 'fetishism of humanitarian objects', the paper concludes, prevents a more flexible and people-centred approach to relief.


Catheter-associated urinary tract infections, caused by a build-up of biofilm on the catheter surface, are one of the most common nosocomial infections. For this work, we prepared a compositional variant of Tecoflex®, a commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), with peptide-like cationic pendant functional groups to study their effect on biofilm growth. Tecoflex® is used for fabrication of catheters and therefore a variant that shows decreased biofilm accumulation could have the potential to combat nosocomial infections. The cationic pendant groups were incorporated into the polyurethane composition similar to Tecoflex® by copolymerization of an amine functionalized N-substituted diol to give a cationic polyurethane (Tecoflex-NH3+). The antimicrobial properties of this cationic polyurethane were investigated using Escherichia coli, a Gram-negative bacterium and as confirmed by microscopy studies and bactericidal assays, the cationic polyurethane coating exhibited a contact-killing mechanism, and it significantly slowed down the build-up of biofilm compared to Tecoflex® coating. Moreover, the cationic polyurethane demonstrated minimal toxicity towards mammalian cells.


Water quality tool has been optimized by application of Water Quality Index (WQI) method. WQI measures the quality of underground water in North West Jaipur city and agglomerates during April to May 2010. Ground water collected from pointed places as Bore well and Tube well sources. Various parameters are used to calculate WQI including pH, Total Dissolved Solids, Turbidity, Total Hardness, Chloride, Nitrate, Electrical Conductance, Sodium and Potassium .Ground water quality of North West Jaipur as WQI confines WQI index of 103.98 exhibits "Poor Water Quality" observed and developed in pointed areas obtained as quality modals in which three defined aspects (1) Arithmetic mean, (2) Standard Deviation, (3) Coefficient variation, are included and optimized. WQI provides comprehensive information for water quality assessment of Jaipur. Water quality in North West region of Jaipur specially of Brahmpuri, Jhotwara, Bindiaka and Railway station pointed areas were found poor quality of underground water. It has been concluded and optimized that high value of Total Hardness, TDS, Nitrate and Electrical Conductance defines the poor quality of water lead to higher side of WQI.Results shows Jhotwara and Railway Station area have very high value of hardness (upto 631 mg/L) as compared with mean value of hardness in North-West. Accordingly, hard water is not suitable because of the precipitating materials as scale and sludges have adverse effects on human being.


Objectives: To examine N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) variability in plasma and urine samples of patients with stable heart failure (HF) during a 24-month follow-up. Design: Prospective study. Setting: Teaching hospital based study. Patients: 74 clinically and functionally stable patients (NYHA class 2±0.5) out of 114 patients diagnosed with HF were followed up, and NT-proBNP plasma and urine levels were measured at baseline, 12 and 24 months. Results: Significant differences in mean urinary levels (p<0.01) were found during follow-up, but no changes were found in plasma. Bland–Altman plots showed few variations in plasma percentages in the three intervals (stage I–basal; stage II–stage I; stage II–basal) with a coefficient of reproducibility (CR) of 22%, 21% and 25%, respectively. Changes in NT-proBNP urinary levels had a CR of 7.1%, 6.8% and 9.4% at the three intervals, respectively. A good correlation was found between plasma and urinary levels of NT-proBNP (p<0.001) and between the different NT-proBNP plasma (p<0.001) and urine measurements (p<0.001). Conclusions: NT-proBNP plasma and urine levels show good stability in a 24-month follow-up of patients with stable heart failure. Thus, assessment of urinary and plasma NT-proBNP concentrations may be a useful tool for monitoring patients with HF during follow-up. The results suggest that variations in peptide concentrations exceeding 22% in plasma and 7% in urine in a 12-month follow-up and 25% and 9% in a 24-month follow-up may indicate pathophysiological changes.


The Intertext series has been specifically designed to meet the needs of contemporary English Language Studies. The core book, Working with Texts, is the foundation text which provides an introduction to language analysis. It is complemented by a range of 'satellite' titles which provide students with hands-on practical experience of textual analysis through special topics. They can be used individually or in conjunction with Working with Texts. The Language of Newspapers explores the ways in which the press portrays current events. From the ideological bias of the press, to the role of headlines in newspaper articles and ways in which newspapers relate to their audience, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of newspaper language. The second edition has been substantially rewritten and includes a range of new texts. Features include: * a new introduction, taking account of recent developments in the media * recent newspaper articles on a range of subjects, from Jeffrey Archer's conviction to the journalist captured for suspected spying in Afghanistan * a new introduction, taking account of recent developments in the media * new activities and commentaries to support student-directed study * a 'further resources' section with details of on-line newspapers and websites to visit.


We present a new numerical method for the solution of the problem of diffraction of light by a doubly periodic surface. This method is based on a high-order rigorous perturbative technique, whose application to singly periodic gratings was treated in the first two papers of this series [ J. Opt. Soc. Am. A10, 1168, 2307 ( 1993)]. We briefly discuss the theoretical basis of our algorithm, namely, the property of analyticity of the diffracted fields with respect to variations of the interfaces. While the algebraic derivation of some basic recursive formulas is somewhat involved, it results in expressions that are easy to implement numerically. We present a variety of numerical examples (for bisinusoidal gratings) in order to demonstrate the accuracy exhibited by our method as well as its limited requirements in terms of computing power. Generalization of our computer code to crossed gratings other than bisinusoidal is in principle immediate, but the full domain of applicability of our algorithm remains to be explored. Comparison with results presented previously for actual experimental configurations shows a substantial improvement in the resolution of our numerics over that given by other methods introduced in the past.


The American Social Health Association (ASHA) surveyed people with human papillomavirus (HPV) about their experiences with the disease and its effect on their lives. A sample of 837 was chosen from the subscribers to HPV News , ASHA's quarterly journal for people with HPV. Of the sample, 489 returned completed surveys, which addressed medical history, health care experiences, personal impact, and demographic information. Data analysis was descriptive. Data illustrated that the psychosocial impact of HPV can be serious. More than threequarters of respondents reported feelings of depression and anger, and two-thirds feelings of shame. Sexual enjoyment and activity were also negatively affected by HPV. Additionally, respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the diagnosing health care providers' counselling on emotional and sexual issues. These results may be instructive to those delivering health services by providing insight into the significant personal impact of HPV on those infected.


Abstract. In writings on the open source software development model, it is often argued that it is successful as a result of the gift economy that embraces activities in online communities. However, the theoretical foundations for this argument are seldom discussed and empirically tested. Starting with the 'classic' theories of gift giving, we discuss how they need to be developed in order to explain gift‐giving practices in digital domains. In this paper, we argue that the gift economy is important, not only because it creates openness, but also because it organizes relationships between people in a certain way. Open source software development relies on gift giving as a way of getting new ideas and prototypes out into circulation. This also implies that the giver gets power from giving away. This power is used as a way of guaranteeing the quality of the code. We relate this practice to how gifts, in the form of new scientific knowledge, are given to the research community, and how this is done through peer review processes.


As contemporary tourism moves increasingly towards adopting an experience economy, tourist experience based on intangible cultural heritage is becoming the important element of destination image, as a set of consumer perceptions about the destination. Sustainable tourist valorization of intangible cultural heritage may be particularly important for image of countries like Montenegro, with limited resources, including natural resources, capital and population of 620029 inhabitants (Monstat, 2011). Another reason is related to the country's tendency to diversify its tourism offer and attract new market segments who are motivated by cultural heritage, manifestations, ethnographic values, etc. In this paper, the authors evaluate current issues in Montenegrin tourism and the need for improving a tourist destination image based on safeguarding and promotion of intangible cultural heritage. Marketing respond on those issues may increase Montenegro's contribution to a common European identity and strengthen a sense of belonging the destination within a common European cultural space. The research in this paper is focused on desk research, induction, deduction, statistics, and analyzing the case studies.


Previously, we showed using a computational agent-based model that a group of animals moving together can make a collective decision on direction of motion, even if there is a conflict between the directional preferences of two small subgroups of "informed" individuals and the remaining "uninformed" individuals have no directional preference. The model requires no explicit signaling or identification of informed individuals; individuals merely adjust their steering in response to socially acquired information on relative motion of neighbors. In this paper, we show how the dynamics of this system can be modeled analytically, and we derive a testable result that adding uninformed individuals improves stability of collective decision making. We first present a continuous-time dynamic model and prove a necessary and sufficient condition for stable convergence to a collective decision in this model. The stability of the decision, which corresponds to most of the group moving in one of two alternative preferred directions, depends explicitly on the magnitude of the difference in preferred directions; for a difference above a threshold the decision is stable and below that same threshold the decision is unstable. Given qualitative agreement with the results of the previous simulation study, we proceed to explore analytically the subtle but important role of the uninformed individuals in the continuous-time model. Significantly, we show that the likelihood of a collective decision increases with increasing numbers of uninformed individuals.


Background Serological studies for influenza infection and vaccine response often involve microneutralization and hemagglutination inhibition assays to evaluate neutralizing antibodies against human and avian influenza viruses, including H5N1. We have previously characterized lentiviral particles pseudotyped with H5-HA (H5pp) and validated an H5pp-based assay as a safe alternative for high-throughput serological studies in BSL-2 facilities. Here we show that H5-HAs from different clades do not always give rise to efficient production of H5pp and the underlying mechanisms are addressed. Methodology/Findings We have carried out mutational analysis to delineate the molecular determinants responsible for efficient packaging of HA from A/Cambodia/40808/2005 (H5Cam) and A/Anhui/1/2005 (H5Anh) into H5pp. Our results demonstrate that a single A134V mutation in the 130-loop of the receptor binding domain is sufficient to render H5Anh the ability to generate H5Anh-pp efficiently, whereas the reverse V134A mutation greatly hampers production of H5Cam-pp. Although protein expression in total cell lysates is similar for H5Anh and H5Cam, cell surface expression of H5Cam is detected at a significantly higher level than that of H5Anh. We further demonstrate by several independent lines of evidence that the behaviour of H5Anh can be explained by a stronger binding to sialic acid receptors implicating residue 134. Conclusions We have identified a single A134V mutation as the molecular determinant in H5-HA for efficient incorporation into H5pp envelope and delineated the underlying mechanism. The reduced binding to sialic acid receptors as a result of the A134V mutation not only exerts a critical influence in pseudotyping efficiency of H5-HA, but has also an impact at the whole virus level. Because A134V substitution has been reported as a naturally occurring mutation in human host, our results may have implications for the understanding of human host adaptation of avian influenza H5N1 viruses.


We survey and evaluate selected participatory tools that have been proven effective in natural resources management and research during our extensive experience with forest communities. We first establish a framework for our analysis by identifying a set of criteria for evaluating each tool. Next we provide a brief description of each tool, followed by an evaluation and comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of all the tools examined and how well they can be adapted to diverse contexts. We also provide suggestions for avoiding common pitfalls. Our findings suggest that most tools are flexible enough to be adapted to a range of applications, and that results are more robust when tools are used in concert. Practitioners should not be disturbed when results are contradictory or unexpected; initial surprises can lead to unexpected discoveries. Given the complexity of natural resources and their management, picking the right tool does not guarantee that the data desired will be produced, but selecting the wrong tool does make success less likely. The tools assessed are Bayesian belief networks and system dynamic modeling tools, discourse-based valuation, the 4Rs framework, participatory mapping, scoring or the Pebble Distribution Method, future scenarios, spidergrams, Venn diagrams, and Who Counts Matrices.


Throughout the United States many rural areas face challenges to economic sustainability. Community currency attempts to confront these challenges by ensuring that wealth and resources are maintained within a region. The specific research question investigated in this article is, "Why do individuals participate in community currency movements and does that participation actually promote economic sustainability?" Social identity theory, social exchange theory and the concept of social capital guided the analysis for participation in the Humboldt Exchange. Key informant interviews and the Humboldt Exchange Survey 2008 were methods used to answer the research question. Survey data reveals that 44% of the Humboldt State University is aware of community currency, while 80% are unaware of the Exchange. Qualitative findings propose that individuals participate in the Humboldt Exchange because they have goods and services to exchange with others, whom they identify with, because doing so ensures that a certain amount of wealth and resources are maintained locally. However, as survey data shows, lack of awareness of the Humboldt Exchange essentially prohibits any form of economic sustainability, since this sustainability is only possible through considerable participation in the Exchange. International Journal of Community Currency Research Vol 12 (2008) pp.24-52


This case study uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine Inuit and First Nations perspectives and initiatives to foster sustainable entrepreneurship and economic development related to the forthcoming Mackenzie Gas Pipeline in Canada's Northwest Territories. The 1,220-kilometer pipeline will connect the Mackenzie Delta to the Alberta Oil Sands and North American markets. These findings will be of interest to business, government and Indigenous leaders involved in resource development. Key aspects include self-government and land claim agreements, approaches to entrepreneurship and economic development, sustainable development, human resource development initiatives, business service support and increased participation of women and Aboriginal peoples.


Binda, F. 2018. Liquid scintillators as neutron diagnostic tools for fusion plasmas. System characterization and data analysis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1646. 87 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0275-1. The neutrons produced in fusion devices carry information about various properties of the ions that are reacting in the machine. Measurements of the neutron flux and energy distribution can therefore be used to study the behaviour of the plasma ions under different experimental conditions. Several neutron detection techniques are available, each having advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. In this thesis we study neutron measurements performed with NE213 liquid scintillators. One advantage of NE213s compared to other neutron detection techniques is that they are simple to use, small and cheap. On the other hand, their response to neutrons makes the extraction of information about the neutron energy less precise. In the thesis we present the development of methods for the characterization and the data analysis of NE213 detectors. The work was performed using two instruments installed at the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak in the UK: the "Afterburner" detector, which is an NE213 installed on a tangential line of sight, and the neutron camera, which is a system composed of 19 NE213 detectors installed on different lines of sight (10 horizontal and 9 vertical).The analysis of data from the Afterburner detector was focused on resolving different features of the neutron energy spectra which are related to different properties of the ion velocity distribution. The analysis of data from the neutron camera was directed towards the investigation of the spatial distribution of ions in the plasma. However, the individual characterization of the camera detectors allowed the inclusion of information about the energy distribution of the ions in the analysis. The outcomes of the studies performed indicate that the methods developed give reliable results and can therefore be applied to extract information about the plasma ions. In particular, the possibility of performing neutron emission spectroscopy analysis in each line of sight of a neutron camera is of great value for future studies. Federico Binda, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Applied Nuclear Physics, Box 516, Uppsala University, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. © Federico Binda 2018 ISSN 1651-6214 ISBN 978-91-513-0275-1 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-345983 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-345983)


A jet stream entering a crossflow is investigated for injection through a single hole and an array of holes for blowing rates of 0.2 to 2.2. The naphthalene sublimation technique has been employed to study the local mass (heat) transfer in the injection hole and in the vicinity of the hole entrance. The Sherwood number is fairly uniform along the circumference of the inside hole surface even at the low blowing rate considered. This is quite different from the case without injection (zero blowing rate), when the Sherwood number is highly nonuniform. The transfer rate in the hole is weakly influenced by the crossflow and the zone, which is directly affected, is confined close to the hole exit (about 0.15 hole diameter in depth). The average Sherwood number is similar to that in the absence of crossflow except at low blowing rates. The Sherwood numbers on the hole entrance surface (backside) are the same as when there is no crossflow. Thus, the Sherwood numbers inside the hole and on the back surface can be closely approximated from experiments without crossflow.


Abstract The asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea are well known for preserving a prolific and diverse Late Pleistocene fauna. However, little taphonomic research has been done on these collections. To better understand the formation of this impressive assemblage, a taphonomic study of the bones of the large mammals from one asphalt deposit, Pit 91, was carried out, and results are presented here. The predominance of carnivore specimens in the Rancho La Brea deposits has long been explained by a scenario in which a prey animal was trapped in asphalt and attracted large numbers of carnivores who became trapped in turn. Hypotheses generated from this scenario were tested by collecting taphonomic data on over 18,000 specimens. Weathering data indicate that elements were deposited fairly rapidly. However, patterns of skeletal part representation for the seven most common species demonstrate that complete skeletons are not present. Water transport is ruled out as the primary process responsible for removing skeletal elements based on abrasion data. Instead, the feeding activity of carnivores (ravaging) appears to have been an important factor in the formation of the assemblage.


Digital games make up a significant but little known chapter in the history of the moving image in Australia and New Zealand.  Beginning in the early 1980s, the Australasian software industry developed a remarkable record of content creation. The ``Play It Again'' project is conducting research into the largely unknown histories of 1980s game development in Australia and New Zealand, ensuring that local titles make it into national collections and are documented and preserved, enabling the public to once again play these games. Microcomputers from the 1980s made extensive use of compact audio cassettes to distribute software as an inexpensive alternative to the floppy disk technology available at the time. Media from this era are at risk of degradation and are rapidly approaching the end of their lifespan. As hardware platforms and peripheral devices become obsolete, access to the data for future scholars and other interested parties becomes more difficult. In this article, we present a case study, wherein we investigate the issues involved in making digital copies with a view to the long term preservation of these software artefacts. A video game title stored on standard compact cassette for Commodore's popular VIC-20 machine, ``Dinky Kong'' by Mark Sibley was recorded using both inexpensive amateur and professional playback equipment. The audio files obtained were processed using freely available software, alongside a customised decoder written in MATLAB and Perl. The resulting image files were found to be playable using an emulator. More importantly, the integrity of the data itself was verified, by making use of error detection features inbuilt to the Commodore tape format, which is described in detail. Issues influencing the quality of the recovered image files such as the bit rate of the digital recording are discussed. The phenomenon of audio dropout on magnetic tape is shown be of some concern, however there exist signal processing techniques to compensate for such errors. The end result of the imaging process was a file compatible with a popular Commodore VIC-20 emulator, the integrity of which was verified by using inbuilt checksums.


Negative results on the the existence of Bayesian equilibria when state spaces have the cardinality of the continuum have been attained in recent years. This has led to the natural question: are there conditions that characterise when Bayesian games over continuum state spaces have measurable Bayesian equilibria? We answer this in the affirmative. Assuming that each type has finite or countable support, measurable Bayesian equilibria may fail to exist if and only if the underlying common knowledge $\sigma$-algebra is non-separable. Furthermore, anomalous examples with continuum state spaces have been presented in the literature in which common priors exist over entire state spaces but not over common knowledge components. There are also spaces over which players can have no disagreement, but when restricting attention to common knowledge components disagreements can exist. We show that when the common knowledge $\sigma$-algebra is separable all these anomalies disappear.


Malingering mental disorder for financial compensation can offer substantial rewards to those willing to do so. A recent review of UK medico-legal experts' practices for detecting claimants evidenced that they are not well equipped to detect those that do. This is not surprising, considering that very little is known regarding why individuals opt to malinger. A potential construct which may influence an individual's choice to malinger is their knowledge of the disorder, and when one considers the high levels of depression literacy within the UK, it is imperative that this hypothesis is investigated. A brief depression knowledge scale was devised and administered to undergraduate students (N = 155) alongside a series of questions exploring how likely participants were to malinger in both workplace stress and claiming for benefit vignettes. Depression knowledge did not affect the likelihood of engaging in any malingering strategy in either the workplace stress vignettes or the benefit claimant vignettes. Differences were found between the two vignettes providing evidence for the context-specific nature of malingering, and an individual's previous mental disorder was also influential.