Autism is a behaviourally defined disorder. The impairments in social communication and repetitive behaviours are individually non-specific. The disorder has indistinct boundaries both with other psychiatric disorders and with normal personality types. At the cognitive level, groups of people with autistic disorder can be differentiated from people without the disorder by their ability to reason about beliefs and knowledge (Theory of Mind) and by tests of visual disembedding (central coherence). This study examined whether young people with some of the behavioural features of autism but not necessarily a diagnosis, would show this distinctive cognitive profile. In a sample of 60 young people with additional learning support needs, we found that those with high levels of autistic traits (n=40) showed the same cognitive profile as has been found in people diagnosed with autistic disorder. This supports the view that autism is an extreme on a continuum of cognitive traits. Given the highly heritable nature of autism, we hypothesised that the parents of the young people with autistic traits will also display these cognitive features. The results indicated that there was no difference between the groups of parents on an advanced test of social cognition. Parents of people with high autistic traits were more resistant to one of the visual illusions and saw fewer reversals of an ambiguous figure when IQ was statistically controlled. These results in a sample with a low genetic load suggest ambiguous figures will be important in delineating the broader cognitive phenotype of autism.


Among patients who visited our hospital with a chief complaint of disorders involving the oromandibular region, with suspected carotid artery calcification based on panoramic radiography, and who underwent computed tomography for a detailed examination of these disorders, there were four patients in whom a definitive diagnosis of carotid artery calcification was made. We herein provide an overview of these cases, along with a brief review of the relevant literature. When imaging findings suggestive of carotid artery calcification are obtained on panoramic radiographs, dentists can request detailed examinations and treatment at specialized medical institutions in the early stage by providing patients with information about the risks of atherosclerotic diseases. Early detection and treatment may reduce the severity or risks of complications and damage caused by atherosclerotic diseases, as well as possibly contributing to improved quality of life. In this study, we evaluated carotid artery calcification visible on panoramic radiographs. However, it seems that further detailed analysis is needed to examine the association between carotid artery calcification and a past history of risk factors for arteriosclerosis.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the intestinal porcine epithelial cell-jejunum 2 (IPEC-J2) cell line as a model to study the innate immune function of live pigs. Growth rates of IPEC-J2 cells in T-75 flasks and 96-well plates were evaluated using a hemocytometer and spectrophotometer for cell quantity measurements to determine growth rate and doubling time. Growth rates of IPEC-J2 cells in T-75 flasks and 96-well plates were 0.4016 and 0.2851 times of doubling/day respectively with a doubling time of 1.73 d and 2.43 d, respectively. Confluent IPEC-J2 monolayers were tested at five time intervals (0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 h) and four LPS concentrations (0, 0.1, 1, and 10 μg/mL). Under these treatments, relative gene expression of GM-CSF, IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TLR1, TLR2, TLR3, TLR4, TLR6, TLR8 and TLR10 were evaluated by quantitative RT-PCR. There were no LPS concentration × culture time interactions observed for any gene (P > 0.13). Main effects were analyzed. The GM-CSF, IL-8, and TLR4 were significantly stimulated by LPS challenge at increasing culture time and the expression peaked at 2, 4, and 4 h respectively (P < 0.05). Expression of TNF-α tended to increase linearly with increasing LPS concentration and decrease linearly with increasing culture time (P = 0.10). TLR2 tended to be up regulated by increasing LPS challenge time (Quadratic effect, P = 0.08). Increasing culture time lead to a down regulation of IL-6 expression, and reached a low point at 4 h (Quadratic effect, P < 0.05). TLR3 tended to be down regulated with increasing culture time (Quadratic effect, P = 0.10). Results of the current study suggest that the IPEC-J2 cell line can be used as a model for evaluating the impact of specific bacteria on immune response in vitro.


In 1890, Coley observed that cancer patients who developed infections had smaller tumors. From this, he developed Coley's toxin and treated tumors with injections of infectious materials. In 1960s, Mahaley used monoclonal antibodies to treat central nervous system(CNS) tumors, that research and clinical investigations in brain tumor immunotherapy became a serious undertaking. There are several different approaches to immunotherapy, include the following: and dividing a malignant the underlying biology, combination will ultimately become the mainstay of Recent strides have been made in improving survival in these patients with both chemotherapy and immunotherapy . may be the case when chemotherapy is delivered during the effector phases. these two forms of may actually be synergistic in nature when appropriately administered. The proper combination of both chemotherapeutic agent and time of administration will maximize eficacy of treatment and offer an additional regimen for patients, especially those with heterogeneous types of tumors such as glioblastoma multiform, who are not likely to respond to single-agent modality treatments. immunotherapies for gliomas appear promising, but the unique characteristics of the CNS tumors need to be considered for rational design of therapeutics. Novel approaches to antitumor immunotherapy need to be independently and thoroughly evaluated against tumors within the CNS despite successes with these techniques outside the CNS. Identification of tumor-associated antigens provide selective targeting to the gliomas with a theoretical decreased risk for induction of autoimmunity. Many of the previous attempts to treat glioma patients with immunotherapies, such as lymphocyte transfer, vaccination with glioma cells, and the use of some cytokines, have not met with significant success. Emerging concepts within the field of immunology, advances in molecular technique, and a greater understanding of the interaction between the CNS and the immune system provide background for more rational and hope- fully more efficacious treatments.


Statistical physics governs the behavior of biological systems from the molecular scale (think protein stability and fluctuations) to the cellular scale (including heterogeneity and stochasticity of cellular behavior). This is not a claim that understanding statistical physics, a.k.a. statistical mechanics, implies an understanding of cell biology. But I do claim that cell biology cannot be understood without statistical physics. This blog is not intended as an introduction to 'statistical biophysics', let alone a comprehensive view, but rather attempts to shine a spotlight on a subset of interesting issues. The goal is to emphasize and clarify topics over a range of levels that may help researchers, teachers and students. For example, the first post discusses how to derive the exact relation between the mean first-passage time and the probability flux in a steady state, and the second is a light-hearted piece for beginning students on the analogy of hair-gel application to protein-ligand binding. Some planned posts include: potential dangers of the Markovian assumption in modeling dynamics, and how to clean a wall by sweeping the ground nearby.


This paper analyses the contributions of community and smallholder forestry (CSF) to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). A CSF-SDG positive feedback model is proposed; a model that holds that successful CSF positively contributes to 13 SDGs and 31 SDG targets. Recent CSF meta-studies have scrutinized factors leading to CSF success and found some 10 factors and conditions that contribute to that objective. If efforts towards reaching the SDGs support or enhance these factors leading to the greater success of CSF, this in turn would boost CSF contributions to the SDGs and their targets. As a result, CSF or active support for CSF, focusing on the 10 CSF factors that favor success, can be linked to 48 unique SDG targets. The analysis suggests that there is a significant opportunity to explore win-win options for efforts to support CSF and contribute to SDGs, but also for efforts to pursue the SDGs and targets that favor CSF, which will in turn boost the contribution of CSF to the SDGs. The case of CSF and its feedback links with the SDGs suggests that it may be relevant to identify interactions between the SDGs and other socio-ecological realities and related research.


Five-point algorithm is a powerful tool for relative orientation, because it requires no initial assumption of camera position. This algorithm determines an essential matrix from five point correspondences between two calibrated cameras, but results multiple solutions and some selecting process is required. This paper proposes Quasi-Five-Point Algorithm which is non-linear solver with seed solution of 8 point algorithm. The method tries to calculate the appropriate essential matrix without selecting process among multiple solutions. It is one of non-linear approach, but tries to find an appropriate seed before non-linear calculation. Using correspondences of 3 or more additional points, seed values of the solution is calculated. In this paper relationship between traditional parametric relative orientation and essential matrix is discussed, and after that quasi-five-point algorithm is introduced.


An emerging narrative of racial transcendence has taken root in our law, politics and public consciousness. The end of de jure racial discrimination in the United States, coupled with the adoption of equal opportunity laws during the Civil Rights Era, has fostered an assumption shared by many that we now live in a colorblind and, perhaps, post-racial society. America has elected its first African-American President, viewed by many as proof that our society has finally moved beyond race. Our courts have similarly employed a colorblind constitutionalism to disregard systemic racism as a relic of times past, while invalidating race-conscious attempts to remedy existing racial inequality. And yet social and economic disparities based on race persist. As the "Great Recession" rages on, disparities between the rich and poor and white and non-white have been exacerbated. The rate of income inequality between the richest Americans and the middle-class and poor has eclipsed the previous high set during the Great Depression. The wealth gap between white and non-white households, similarly, has escalated to its highest level in twenty-five years. As the degrees of economic inequality continue to rise during the current financial storm, so do startling race-based disparities in a variety of social contexts; including education, health outcomes, and rates of incarceration. The persistence of racial inequality creates a dilemma for the post-race, colorblind perspective. Racism, after all, is viewed through this lens as aberrational and non-systemic in nature. Historically, the artifice of "race" evolved to resolve such a moral dilemma by legitimating the existence of social, economic and legal inequality on the grounds of biological inferiority. A product of the scientific sophistry and political exigency that marked early European Modernity, the concept of biological difference was relied on for hundreds of years to justify the enslavement, genocide and unequal treatment of persons deemed "non-white." In the terrible wake of chattel slavery in the United States and the Holocaust of World War II, the Postwar World rejected biological theories of racial difference in the face of conclusive evidence of the socio-political reality of race. Race, it was finally agreed, had no natural biological or genetic meaning. Rather, it was recognized that the taxonomy of race was constructed as a means to impute socio-political meaning to perceived human differences in order to morally rationalize unequal human treatment. In the modern Postwar World, it was no longer legally, scientifically, or politically appropriate to justify the existence of racial inequality in terms of biological difference. Social inequities based on race were finally acknowledged as stemming from past and present structural discrimination. For a brief period during the Civil Rights Era, our society was thus able to enjoy significant advancements in the expansion of constitutional rights, the end of de jure public school desegregation, and the pursuit of other affirmative measures to address entrenched, structural racism. The desire by society to distance itself from moral responsibility for past and present racial disparities, however, did not completely fade. Extensive racial disparities continued to persist following the Civil Rights period, and an ideology of colorblind constitutionalism – that social policy should be blind to existing racial disparities – filled the void. The doctrine of "equal opportunity," for instance, has been employed to justify persistent racial disparities as the product of cultural depravity and a lack of individual responsibility. In a similar fashion, classic market theory has been oft relied on to rationalize continuing racial inequalities as the natural products of non-biased market processes, rather than the symptoms of past and present structural racism.As our society ascends into the 21st Century, we continue the struggle to take account of race and racial inequality. The moral need to reconcile pervasive racial disparities with the comforting perception of racial transcendence and absolution has never been stronger. The courts and public continue to rely on time-tested sophisms, such as the doctrine of equal opportunity and market theory, to explain why inequalities continue to exist in the assumed absence of structural racism. Yet these dated colorblind distancing strategies may no longer be sufficient to assuage the cognitive dissonance and moral shame stoked by acknowledging continuing inequality. After all, the devices of equal opportunity, colorblind constitutionalism, and market deregulation have been in force for decades – during which time we have seen racial disparities increase rather than decrease. The undiminished desire to interpret the world in post-race and colorblind terms has found a fresh, yet familiar, rationalization for existing inequality that sounds in genetic racial difference. Reminiscent of the discredited racial biologies of yore, the emerging scientific, social and legal trend is to treat race as a scientifically relevant grouping of persons. The modern field of population genetics has been relied on to support dubious claims that "race" can be distilled to a meaningful biological essence. A scientific analysis of a sample of deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") can purportedly empirically determine an individual's biological race, even though it relies on the same antiquated (and discredited) racial taxonomies first developed during the 1700s. As such, pharmaceutical companies are spending millions of dollars to develop and market race-based drugs. Private genetic companies have also popularized DNA testing with the misleading claim that they are able to scientifically isolate a person's racial and ethnic ancestry. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has similarly entered the fray by approving race-based biotechnology patents. And perhaps most disturbingly, modern genetic theories of race have obtained the official imprimatur of law, as state and federal courts throughout the United States routinely permit the admission of racial DNA probabilistic evidence. It is now, for instance, normal for courts in criminal cases to admit evidence that there is only a "1 in 40 million chance" that another "Hispanic-American" or "African-American" or "Caucasian" or "Native-American" or "Asian-American" or "Puerto-Rican" or "Caribbean-American" shares the same genetic profile as a criminal defendant. The reemergence of a biological understanding of race is not surprising, both given the recentness of our history of manipulating science to validate racial difference and the increasing cognitive and moral need to rationalize continuing racial inequalities as normal and natural in a "post-race" era. This Article links the modern trend to view race in genetic terms to the post-race worldview, while framing the doctrinal and constitutional argument against the legal acceptance of genetic racial theories. The first section of the Article will chart the historical invention of the race concept, while highlighting the critical role that science has played in shaping our understanding of race and difference. The section will also examine the Postwar rejection of biological theories of race, while further elaborating on the socio-political nature of race.Part II of the Article explores the conflicting ways in which our Postwar society has interpreted racial inequality. A model of race consciousness dominated the manner in which our society viewed existing racial disparities during the Civil Rights era, yet was soon displaced by colorblind and post-racial interpretative methodologies. This section examines this history, while relying on psychological theory to suggest that such post-race distancing moves are motivated by an implicit desire to move beyond race and conceal systemic racism.Part III of the Article analyzes the modern trend to view race in genetic terms, and explores the manner in which the field of population genetics has been relied on to normalize scientific racial distinctions. This section also analyzes the judicial acceptance of racial probabilistic interpretations of DNA evidence, and sets forth a doctrinal critique of the practice under the Federal Rules of Evidence. In particular, this section argues for an amendment to the Federal Rules of Evidence that would clearly establish the inadmissibility of such evidence at trial.The final section of the Article sets forth a substantive Due Process challenge to the legal acceptance of genetic theories of race. This section argues that the substantive Due Process doctrine underlying the 5th and 14th Amendments, as informed by the 9th Amendment, is violated whenever the State officially embraces genetic views on race. In particular, this section argues that such a practice violates the fundamental constitutional right to a common humanity by placing State imprimatur on discredited notions of racial biological difference.


The effects of flame structure on the extinction limits of CH4-O_-N 2 counterflow diffusion flames were investigated experimentally and numerically by varying the stoichiometric mixture fraction g,t. Z,t was varied by varying free-stream concentrations, while the adiabatic flame temperature Tad was held fixed by maintaining a fixed amount of nitrogen at the flame. Za was varied between 0.055 (methane-air flame) and 0.78 (diluted-methane-oxygen flame). The experimental results yielded an extinction strain rate K_ of 375 si for the methane-air flame, increasing monotonically to 1042 s1for the diluted-methane-oxygen flame. Numerical results with a 58-step C1 mechanism yie/ded 494 s -I and 1488 s -j, respectively. The increase in K_, with Z_t for a fixed T_d is explained by the shift in the O2 profile toward the region of maximum temperature and the subsequent increase in rates for chain-branching reactions. The flame temperature at extinction reached a minimum at Za = 0.65, where it was 200*(2 lower than that of the methane-air flame. This significant increa._e in resistance to extinction is sden to correspond to the condition in which the OH and O production zones are centered on the location o_ maximum temperature.


Biodiversity conservation requires a framework for prioritising limited resources to the many endangered species. One such framework that has seen much attention and is considered extensively in this thesis, is the Noah's Ark Problem (NAP). The NAP combines a biodiversity measure (Phylogenetic Diversity; PD) with species survival probabilities and conservation costs. The aim of the NAP is to allocate the limited conservation resources such that the future expected PD is maximised. Obtaining optimal solutions to the NAP is a computationally complex problem to which several efficient algorithms are provided here. An extension to the NAP is also developed which allows uncertainty about the survival probability estimates to be included. Using this extension we show that the NAP is robust to uncertainty in these parameters and that even very poor estimates are beneficial. To justify using or promoting PD, it must produce a significant increase in the amount of biodiversity that is preserved. We show that the increase attainable from the NAP is typically around 20% but may be as high as 150%. An alternative approach to PD and the NAP is to prioritise species using simple species specific indices. The benefit of these indices is that they are easy to calculate, explain and integrate into existing management frameworks. Here we investigate the use of such indices and show that they provide between 60% and 80% of the gains obtainable using PD. To explore the expected behaviours of conservation methods (such as the NAP) a distribution of phylogenetics trees is required. Evolutionary models describe the diversification process by which a single species gives rise to multiple species. Such models induce a probability distribution on trees and can therefore be used to investigate the expected behaviour of conservation methods. Even simple and widely used models, such as the Yule model, remain poorly understood. In this thesis we present some new analytic results and methods for sampling trees from a broad range of evolutionary models. Lastly we introduce a new model that provides a simple biological explanation for a long standing discrepancy between models and trees derived from real data – the tree balance distribution.


Phase-only holographic projection has prompted a great deal of research and has often been cited as a desirable method of 2-D image formation, since such a technique offers a number of advantages over conventional imaging projection technology. Although holographic image formation was demonstrated some forty years ago, efforts at realizing a real-time 2-D video projection system based on this technique have not been successful, principally due to the computational complexity of calculating diffraction patterns in real time and the poor quality of the resultant images. In this paper, a new approach to hologram generation and display is presented which overcomes both of these problems, enabling-for the first time-a high-quality real-time holographic projector.


Farmers worldwide face an increasingly turbulent environment. Successful farmers are those that adapt to shifts in the environment to capture the opportunities from such disturbance and outperform those who do not adapt. Such farmers, the literature would suggest, are entrepreneurs, catalysts for change with a risk-taking propensity. The paper presents analysis of farmers grouped with respect to their attitude to risk. It identifies that those farmers that are risk seekers would be more accurately described as gamblers based on their performance over six years of volatility. The most successful group of farmers were risk neutral, had a strong business focus and skills, managing quite high levels of debt to good effect. They had a positive attitude to change and an ability to successfully adapt to changing conditions so best fit the broader definition of entrepreneur. The risk averse group carried less debt and also outperformed the risk seeking group with strong cash results and retained earnings. Farmers cannot be assumed to be successful catalysts for change just from their attitude to risk and a belief in their ability to manage risk; instead they are those whose results prove that they are successfully taking risks, have strong business skills and run efficient farm businesses.


Background and Hypothesis: Reduction of intraocular pressure (IOP) resulting from overproduction or impaired outflow of aqueous humor is, to date, the only approved medical treatment for the disease. IOP is determined by the balance between aqueous humor production at the ciliary body and drainage at the anterior chamber angle. A mathematical model describing aqueous humor (AH) flow was employed in order to study the effects of glaucoma medications and risk factors on IOP.
Experimental Design or Project Methods: IOP can be calculated as the unknown variable in the mathematical balance between AH inflow (Jin) and outflow (Jout). Model simulations using MATLAB were used to calculate IOP in conditions of varied trabecular meshwork resistance (R) over changes in episcleral venous pressure (EVP), uveosclearal outflow facility (Cuv), and ciliary capillary blood pressure (cBP) in order to simulate the effects of EVP reducing medications, prostaglandin analogs, and systemic BP, respectively.
Results: The simulated effects of EVP reducing medications and prostaglandin analogs led to IOP decrease of 13.12%, 5.51%, and 2.88% for conditions of R0, 3R0, and 6R0, respectively, where R0 is equal to the trabecular meshwork resistance when IOP = EVP. The simulated effects of prostaglandin analogs resulted an IOP decrease of 13.73%, 18.34%, and 19.83%, for conditions of R0, 3R0, and 6R0, respectively. The simulated effects of increasing systemic BP resulted in an IOP increase of 49.88%, 58.51%, and 60.71% for conditions of R0, 3R0, and 6R0, respectively.
Conclusion and Potential Impact: The model simulations predict differential efficacy in IOP reducing medications in patients of varied R as well as the differential impact of systemic BP on IOP in patients of varied R. This model has the potential to predict the IOP reducing effect of medications in an individual as well as the impact of risk factors such as systemic BP on IOP.


Topological maps are graphical representations of the environment consisting of nodes that denote landmarks, and edges that represent the connectivity between the landmarks. Automatic detection of landmarks, usually special places in the environment such as gateways, in a general, sensor-independent manner has proven to be a difficult task. We present a landmark detection scheme based on the notion of "surprise" that addresses these issues. The surprise associated with a measurement is defined as the change in the current model upon updating it using the measurement. We demonstrate that surprise is large when sudden changes in the environment occur, and hence, is a good indicator of landmarks. We evaluate our landmark detector using appearance and laser measurements both qualitatively and quantitatively. Part of this evaluation is performed in the context of a topological mapping algorithm, thus demonstrating the practical applicability of the detector.


This paper reports on a naturalistic study of peer-to-peer learning, in a live, online video meeting context. Over a six-month period a group of international students of animation attended 99 live, online "study group" events amounting to around 120 hours of live "broadcast meeting time". Some meetings were very large, with up to 34 participants, but the average participation was 10 students. These events were entirely self-organised, policed and managed by the student community. Some students emerged as natural mentors, and the group exhibited substantial supportive, mutually facilitative roles. This longitudinal study examines the impact of simple, live videoconferencing in an online peer learning context. The study also provides a formal measure of how learners can provide "symmetrical" support for each other in a live non-formal context, even without a formal scaffold of lectures and seminars.


THE GROUNDBREAKING BESTSELLERNOW UPDATED AND REVISED Are you unhappy with your current method of birth control? Or are you demoralized by your quest to have a baby? Do you also experience confusing signs and symptoms at various times in your cycle, but are frustrated by a lack of simple explanations? This invaluable resource will help you find the answer to your questions while giving you amazing insights into your own body. "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" has helped literally hundreds of thousands of women achieve pregnancy, avoid pregnancy naturally, or simply gain better control of their health and lives. This book thoroughly explains the empowering Fertility Awareness Method, which in only a couple of minutes a day allows you to: enjoy highly effective and scientifically proven birth control without chemicals or devices maximize your chances of conception before you see a doctor, or expedite your fertility treatment by quickly identifying impediments to pregnancy achievement increase the likelihood of choosing the gender of your baby gain control of your sexual and gynecological health This expanded new edition includes: a revolutionary new, fully intuitive charting system numerous new master charts, including separate ones for birth control, pregnancy achievement, and menopause the latest on fertility conditions and high-tech treatments comprehensive tables that clearly summarize fertility-related drugs and procedures


Abstract:Globalization has not entailed the "eclipse" of the nation-state. While state sovereignty has been eroded, international society still remains organized as a network or "club" of nation-states which jealously guard their borders, especially to control the massive labour migration unleashed by the forces of economic globalization. States increasingly establish their relations to individuals less on the basis of their relations to their "citizens" than through the processes of their management of these transhumant "pariahs" (to borrow Hannah Arendt's dichotomy). These developments make necessary a reaffirmation of the life of active citizenship within "civil society", a domain of public human action intermediate between the family and the state. Some impediments hindering, and also prospects for, grounding the concept of "civil society" within the politicial idioms and cultures of Southeast Asian civilization are noted, as are the impact of the region's colonial legacy and its characteristic post-colonial state structures. Tensions are noted in contemporary Southeast Asia between the impulse to achieve "modernity" via participation in the borrowed sophistication of "brand-name" international consumerism and the enlargement of active citizenship, civil society, and the human space of public civic culture.


The Federal Reserve (Fed) has maintained a general trend toward increased transparency and gradualism. This paper investigates the implications of these historical developments for the anticipation of monetary policy actions and adjustment of interest rates. In a theoretical framework, we establish the Fed's ability to manipulate overnight rates via an "anticipation" effect. The anticipation effect is defined as interest rate adjustments that take place prior to a policy announcement (or prior to when the complementary open market operations associated with that policy action take place) due to market's improved ability to predict future policy actions. Our empirical results document that most market rates adjust to anticipated policy actions prior to the actual announcement. Because the market responds to policy announcements instantly, the Trading Desk does not need to act immediately after the target change and can wait until the market incorporates the new information that comes with the policy announcement.


For C. G. Jung, 1925 was a watershed year. He turned fifty, visited the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and the tribesmen of East Africa, published his first book on the principles of analytical psychology meant for the lay public, and gave the first of his formal seminars in English. The seminar, conducted in weekly meetings during the spring and summer, began with a notably personal account of the development of his thinking from 1896 up to his break with Freud in 1912. It moved on to discussions of the basic tenets of analytical psychology--the collective unconscious, typology, the archetypes, and the anima/animus theory. In the elucidation of that theory, Jung analyzed in detail the symbolism in Rider Haggard's She and other novels. Besides these literary paradigms, he made use of case material, examples in the fine arts, and diagrams.


Is there evidence that biofilm has an important role in the etiology of non-healing diabetic foot ulcers? Biofilm is touted as the new reason for wound chronicity that has until recently been an unrecognized cause of our failures in wound healing. The term biofilm is not new. Historically it has been associated with recalcitrant infections in patients with orthopaedic implants. Recently, the wound healing literature has proposed that biofilm essentially acts as a protector of bacteria resulting in colonization, infection and impaired healing. Many pharmaceutical companies tout new anti-biofilm products. There is a new focus on animal studies with biofilm infections, and clinical studies with antibiofilm products. However, there is very little real clinical evidence that biofilm impedes diabetic wound healing.


Methamphetamine abusers often complain of feelings of depression that can complicate accurately diagnosing these individuals during treatments for methamphetamine abuse. This article presents an examination of temporal associations between documented methamphetamine use and reported ratings of depression among 162 gay and bisexual male methamphetamine abusers who participated in a 16-week randomized clinical trial of four behavioral therapies for methamphetamine abuse. Methamphetamine use was measured using thrice-weekly urine samples analyzed for drug metabolite. Self-reported depressive symptoms were collected weekly using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). At treatment entry, 73.2% of participants rated their depressive symptoms as mild or higher in severity (BDI≥10), with 28.5% reporting BDI scores in the moderate to severe range (BDI≥19). All participants reported significant decreases in depressive symptoms from baseline through the end of treatment, regardless of treatment condition, HIV status, or mood disorder diagnosis. A mixed regression model showed methamphetamine use for up to 5 days prior to the BDI score strongly predicted depressive symptoms (F1,968=18.6, P<.0001), while BDI scores had no significant association with subsequent methamphetamine use. Findings show that behavioral methamphetamine abuse treatment yields reductions in methamphetamine use and concomitant depressive symptom ratings that are sustained to 1 year after treatment entry.


The political novel, which enjoyed a steep yet short rise to international renown between the 1830s and the 1910s, is primarily concerned with the nation s political future. It offers a characterization of the present, a blueprint of the future, and the image of the heroes needed to get there. With the standing it gained during its meteoric rise, the political novel helped elevate the novel altogether to become the leading literary genre of the twentieth century worldwide.Focusing on its adaptation in the Chinese context, Catherine Vance Yeh traces the genre from Disraeli s England through Europe and the United States to East Asia. Her study goes beyond comparative approaches and nation-state- and language-centered histories of literature to examine the intrinsic connections among literary works. Through detailed studies, especially of the Chinese exemplars, Yeh explores the tensions characteristic of transcultural processes: the dynamics through which a particular, and seemingly local, literary genre goes global; the ways in which such a globalized literary genre maintains its core features while assuming local identity and interacting with local audiences and political authorities; and the relationship between the politics of form and the role of politics in literary innovation."


SARS is a viral respiratory illness caused by a previously unrecognized coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Because of the potential for a rapid spread of the disease, it is vitally important to identify drugs that effectively inhibit a known target of the SARS coronavirus. Because of its essential role in proteolytic processing, the main protease MPro, a cysteine protease, is considered an attractive target for antiviral drugs against SARS and other coronavirus infections. In this review, we will present both peptidic and non-peptidic inhibitors that have been designed against SARS MPro. The most challenging requirement in designing cysteine inhibitors is to obtain a selective non-covalent electrophilic isostere that can react with the catalytic nucleophile. Emphasis will be put on our recent results, both experimental and theoretical, in the search for potent wide-spectrum inhibitors. The antiviral activity of the octopeptide AVLQSGFR against SARS-associated coronavirus will be presented as well as the recent hits obtained from virtual high throughput screening (vHTS) based on the identification of six hydrogen bond pharmacophore points from KZ7088 docked into the active site of SARS MPro.


In globally distributed projects, virtual teams are often partially dispersed. One common setup occurs when several members from one company work with a large outsourcing vendor based in another country. Further, the introduction of the popular BizDevOps concept has increased the necessity to cooperate across departments and reduce the age-old disconnection between the business strategy and technical development. Establishing a good collaboration in partially distributed BizDevOps teams requires extensive collaboration and communication techniques. Nowadays, a common approach is to rely on collaboration through pull requests and frequent communication on Slack. To investigate barriers for pull requests in distributed teams, we examined an organization located in Scandinavia where cross-functional BizDevOps teams collaborated with off-site team members in India. Data were collected by conducting 14 interviews, observing 23 entire days with the team, and observing 37 meetings. We found that the pull-request approach worked very well locally but not across sites. We found barriers such as domain complexity, different agile processes (timeboxed vs. flow-based development), and employee turnover. Using an intellectual capital lens on our findings, we discuss barriers and positive and negative effects on the success of the pull-request approach.


Biofabric interpretation of skeletal accumulations consisting of "biologically standardized" nummulite tests (larger foraminifera) is based upon (1) the ratio of small-bodied A-forms (megalospheric) and large-bodied B-forms (microspheric), and (2) on their packing and imbrication features. In the Eocene Mokattam Formation of Egypt, Nummulites gizehensis occurs in limestones with four basic biofabrics. In wackestones, the nummulites "float" throughout the matrix, and A-forms strongly dominate over B-forms, approximating the ratio reported for undisturbed assemblages. Packstones, however, reflect various degrees of sedimentary reworking and winnowing of the original substratum by physical processes. For packstones with edge-wise imbrication and A-forms strongly dominating over B-forms, in situ winnowing of fine-grained matrix by waves can be inferred. In contrast, packstones composed of imbricated B-forms suggest hydraulic sorting and selective removal of A-forms by currents. Packstones composed almost entirely of A-forms represent transport-sorted allochthonous deposits. Biofabric analysis thus allows us to understand better the dynamics of skeletal accumulations such as nummulite banks, whose commonly complex and extensive buildups can form hydrocarbon reservoirs.


We propose an index of "true disability" by treating disability status as an unobservable phenomenon which is both causally related to a number of exogenous characteristics of an individual and correlated with a number of observed indicators of health, impairment and qualifications for employment. First, we define true disability and distinguish it from related concepts. We then discuss the importance of an objective and reliable measure of disability for research on the determinants of behavior. Next, we present the specification of our structural model for estimating true disability as a latent variable. Finally, we report the results of our estimation in a simple model of Labor force participation, and compare the effect of using the constructed index and a self-reported disability measure on understanding the determinants of behavior and choice.


In an ideal world, social science research would provide a strong basis for advocacy and social policy. However, advocates sometimes misunderstand or even ignore scientific research in pursuit of their goals, especially when research pertains to controversial questions of social inequality. To illustrate the chasm that can develop between research findings and advocates' claims, this article addresses two areas: (a) the effects of the gender diversity of corporate boards of directors on firms' financial performance and (b) the effects of the gender and racial diversity of work groups on group performance. Despite advocates' insistence that women on boards enhance corporate performance and that diversity of task groups enhances their performance, research findings are mixed, and repeated meta-analyses have yielded average correlational findings that are null or extremely small. Therefore, social scientists should (a) conduct research to identify the conditions under which the effects of diversity are positive or negative and (b) foster understanding of the social justice gains that can follow from diversity. Unfortunately, promulgation of false generalizations about empirical findings can impede progress in both of these directions. Rather than ignoring or furthering distortions of scientific knowledge to fit advocacy goals, scientists should serve as honest brokers who communicate consensus scientific findings to advocates and policy makers in an effort to encourage exploration of evidence-based policy options.


This paper is a comparative analysis between two digitally mediated live poetry performances: Frikativ by Jorg Piringer and This Loud by Amy X Neuburg. More specifically, I examine how these poets use digital technology in their live performances to challenge traditional notions of the human voice. My main argument is that their modes of exerting controlling over their voices ultimately serve similar purposes; those of establishing the voice as a relationship between speaker and listener, a phenomenon rather than a discreet object or bodily organ possible to observe on its own. This phenomenological point of view draws on Karen Barad's concept of posthumanist performativity as well as on philosophical works on the voice, such as Mladen Dolar's A Voice and Nothing More. Moreover, I give an historical account of sound poetry, tape poetry and tape loops as they relate to Frikativ and This Loud. In this, I also discuss live-looping; a technique used by both Piringer and Neuburg and connect it to Gilles Deleuze's ideas of difference and repetition. Finally, Piringer's and Neuburg's works is compared based on how they attempt to control the voices-as-relations in their performances. My conclusion is that Frikativ constantly destabilizes the establishment and recognition of voice-as-relation. This Loud, due to the extensive and focused use of live-looping, does not destabilize as much as it multiplies the possible configurations of voices-as-relations.


In this article we conceder the logistic regression model with high leverage points. For the logistic regression model with a binary response, we suggested a new robust approach called robust logistic regression (RLR) based on the robust mahalanobis distance (RMD) which depends on the minimum volume ellipsoid (MVE) estimators. The RMD is computed by using the algorithm of stochastic gradient descent (SGD). In order to assist the new suggested approach we compare it with some existing method such as maximum likelihood estimator and robust M-estimator in logistic regression model. The simulation study points that the RLR has supreme performances throw some measurement comparison.


Modeling volatility in financial markets is one of the factors that results in direct impact and effect on pricing, risk and portfolio management. This study aims to examine the volatility of stock indices in PSX that include; volatility clustering, fat tails and leptokurtosis behavior. To achieve the objective, ADF Unit root test has been performed to check the stationarity and it was concluded from the results that series were stationary at 1st difference. Series taken for this research consists of 11 sectors which includes Commercial Banks (DCB), Cement (DCEM), and Chemicals (DCHEM). Fertilizers (DFER), Investment Banks and Investment Companies (DIB), Insurance (DINS), Oil and Gas (DOG), Power generation and distribution (DPGD), Refinery (DREF) and Technology and Communication (DTC). This study applies; ARCH, GARCH, and EGARCH to evaluate the behavior of share price volatility of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) covering the period from Jan. 1 2009 through Dec.31 2016. The main findings suggests that EGARCH or GARCH models are the best fit for all the series as decision making criterion Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Schwarz Criterion(SC) are least in these models.


The aim of our work was to evaluate the long-term changes in symptoms (median 42 months) and to analyze data for any negative predictive factors for the application of the procedure, in patients who underwent to urethroplasty with dorsal buccal mucosa graft. During the period from 2010 to 2015 27 patients were examined. Than they underwent urethroplasty using dorsal buccal mucosa graft (graft of 4 x 2.5 cm). The evaluation of symptoms has been addressed through the application of the IPSS Quality of Life Questionnaire (International Prostatic Symptoms Score) and the evaluation of urinary flow has been carried out by a comparative analysis between the pre- and post-operative uroflowmetry. As our study has shown, data obtained by the screening tests in the post-operative follow-up indicate that there is an increase in the maximum flow of urine until 1 month after surgery. The results in the long-term follow-up are different because they show a partial reduction of the maximum flow although it is maintained around an average value of 23 ml/s being still higher than the maximum flow in the pre-operative period. According to our results it follows that there is a low failure rate of the procedure after a median of 42 months. Only in patients with urethral stenosis longer than 2 cm, a lower long term success is achieved. From what we could observe, this length of the stenosis seems to be the only negative predictive factor for long-term maintenance of a good Quality of Life in patients undergoing the procedure. The results obtained from our study confirm literature data according to which, the gold standard for 2-cm long bulbar urethral stricture whose lumen is well preserved with circumferential spongiofibrosis limited to 1-2 mm is the dorsal graft urethroplasty with buccal mucosa that in our study showed success rates higher of 80% after a median follow up of 42 months and a percentage of relapse-free patients of 82.1% ( median 3.5 years).


Adoption of improved maize (Zea mays L.) varieties in the rainforest agro-ecology of Nigeria largely depends on yielding potential and resistance to common foliar diseases. The present study aims at assessing the combining ability of a set of adapted and exotic drought-tolerant maize inbred lines under irrigated and rainfed conditions in Nigeria. Ninety-six hybrids generated using a North Carolina Design II scheme, and four checks were evaluated in a 10 × 10 triple lattice with three replications under full irrigation in the dry seasons of 2010 and 2011 and under natural disease inoculation in the rainy seasons of 2011 and 2012. Hybrids differed significantly for all measured traits. Both general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) were mostly highly significant (P < 0.01) for all agronomic traits and leaf blight. Additive genetic effects were more important than non-additive genetic effects in controlling grain yield and leaf blight (GCA > 70%). EXL03, EXL06, EXL16, ADL33, and ADL47 had positive and significant female and male GCA effects for grain yield, and significant but negative GCA effects for leaf blight.


This paper discusses an important issue of the avian influenza threat in Taiwan. Survey data were collected in Taipei during late March and early April. Utilizing the factor analysis, cluster analysis and regression analysis, we find that the consumers in Taiwan are well informed about the health risks linked to avian influenza and Television was the most common source to receive the information of avian influenza. However, socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, education and occupation were found to be insignificant factors to influence consumer awareness of the avian influenza in Taiwan.


The correction of BRDF (bidirectional reflectance distribution function) effects in imaging spectrometer data requires object specific spectrodirectional information. Such data may be acquired using goniometer systems such as the dual-view Field Goniometer System (FIGOS). Their use in an operational processing environment requires optimized solutions for their storage, assessment, pre-processing and application in the actual correction procedure. The final goal is the provision of a spectral albedo product to the end user.


Abstract. Early outlook on food production is important for policy making and can be formed on the basis of the recorded rainfall. Simplistically, a good monsoon produces a bumper harvest and scanty rainfall causes crop failure. Econometric modelling of past data shows that the reality is much more complex. Food production in a state is sensitive to rainfall in the state as well as other states depending on geography. Rainfall distribution in the growing season and pre-sowing months can matter significantly. Moreover, the rainfall effect can be favorable as well as adverse. In the sample period, sowing and growing season rainfall in the state had little favorable effect on area and yield in Punjab and its effect on Rice yield was even harmful in Punjab and West Bengal. Rainfall in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh however had beneficial effects on the respective state's and on each's other production. Rainfall in the Himalayas is a powerful impact on food production resulting from river dynamics and water management but the dominance of adverse effect over beneficial ones is a sign of poorly managed upstream downstream linkages. Because production is sensitive also to economic variables, the government, which can modulate subsidies and support prices, also has control over food production. Improving efficiency of water distribution with an integrated geographical perspective can also be a potent public instrument for production planning.


Micro solid oxide fuel cells (μ-SOFCs) based on MEMS fabrication processes have become an increasingly attractive option for portable power generation applications, due to their high power density and their compatibility with hydrocarbon fuels. For system packaging, the silicon-based fuel cell membrane module needs to be integrated together with other functional elements such as the gas processing unit and the post-combustor. Silicon wafer bonding techniques can be utilized to avoid thermo-mechanical stresses, however, the complete integration in silicon technology is very challenging; ceramic carriers combined with thick film technology are much more practical for total integration, but present other challenges. As ceramics may have a slight thermal mismatch with silicon, hermetic assembly by glass sealing can be problematic due to stress build-up. Moreover, the high necessary sealing temperatures are somewhat beyond the survival conditions of the current fuel cell modules. Therefore, a metallic thick-film silver die-attach approach is proposed as a potential bonding solution, due to its flexible fabrication requirements, the relatively low process temperatures and the high ductility and chemical stability of silver materials. Such a seal could potentially compensate the thermal mismatch between the silicon and the ceramic substrate as well as provide reasonable hermeticity in μ-SOFC operating conditions. In this work, we preliminarily evaluated several commercial thick-film silver products as interconnection materials in terms of mechanical strength, firing process and metallization approach, using shear testing and microstructure characterization. The failure mode of the die-attach was discussed in detail and related to their bonding mechanism. The influence of firing temperature and additional prior metallization on those thick-film bonds were also studied.


Adult Outpatients With Major Depressive Disorder Forming Positive Responses During Challenging Events by Michelle Renee Victoria MS, Walden University, 2007 MATS, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Clinical Psychology Walden University August 2013 Abstract Previous empirical research demonstrated that major depressive disorder (MDD) had a profound impact on adults. What remained unaddressed in the research was the ability of those with MDD to form positive responses during challenging life events. The purpose of this exploratory quantitative study was to examine the cognitive ability of MDD patients to form positive responses on a standardized psychological assessment. This study, guided by Beck's cognitive theory of depression, was designed to determine whether depressed individuals were prone to negativity and had decreased ability to form positive responses to challenging situations. A 2x2 ANOVA was used to analyze 116 participants who voluntarily completed the Changes in Outlook Questionnaire (CiOQ). Results indicated that the group diagnosed with MDD scored significantly lower than a control group on the positive response scale of the CiOQ and that men diagnosed with MDD scored significantly lower than women diagnosed with MDD on the positive response scale of the CiOQ. This research has positive social change implications in thatPrevious empirical research demonstrated that major depressive disorder (MDD) had a profound impact on adults. What remained unaddressed in the research was the ability of those with MDD to form positive responses during challenging life events. The purpose of this exploratory quantitative study was to examine the cognitive ability of MDD patients to form positive responses on a standardized psychological assessment. This study, guided by Beck's cognitive theory of depression, was designed to determine whether depressed individuals were prone to negativity and had decreased ability to form positive responses to challenging situations. A 2x2 ANOVA was used to analyze 116 participants who voluntarily completed the Changes in Outlook Questionnaire (CiOQ). Results indicated that the group diagnosed with MDD scored significantly lower than a control group on the positive response scale of the CiOQ and that men diagnosed with MDD scored significantly lower than women diagnosed with MDD on the positive response scale of the CiOQ. This research has positive social change implications in that practitioners may use the findings in developing more effective treatments to help those with MDD to learn to form positive responses in the midst of challenging life events. Practitioners may also develop their ability to recognize when men with MDD are depressed by using the CiOQ to obtain written responses from individuals who do not verbalize depression. This research may also be useful for future research and application within the field. Adult Outpatients With Major Depressive Disorder Forming Positive Responses During Challenging Events by Michelle Renee Victoria MS, Walden University, 2007 MATS, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Clinical Psychology Walden University August 2013


The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community, international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding.


Some surveys have identified people who have restricted access to work in environments with man-made electromagnetic exposures. This study attempts to determine their prevalence, an aspect not previously investigated in its own right. It is based on analyses of the two different types of surveys of people with Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance attributed to Electromagnetic Fields (IEI-EMF), or Electromagnetic Hyper-Sensitivity (EHS), either of the general population or of people with IEI-EMF/EHS. In addition, there are different definitions of IEI-EMF/EHS, with a range of subconscious, mild, moderate or severe symptoms, potentially leading in three stages to hyper-sensitivity. The current evidence is assessed as indicating that, in addition to subconscious sensitivity, the prevalence of IEI-EMF/EHS is between about 5.0 and 30 per cent of the general population for mild cases, 1.5 and 5.0 per cent for moderate cases and < 1.5 per cent for severe cases. The prevalence of people restricted in their access to work in a man-made electromagnetic environment is estimated at 0.65 per cent of the general population, at about 18% of the general population with moderate IEI-EMF/EHS. The estimate of 0.65% equates to 435,500 people in the UK's population of 67 million. Some reasons for possible under-reporting are discussed. Adjustments can enable some people with this disability to remain in employment, suggesting that rates of restriction in access to work may fall as employers become aware of what adjustments are needed.


Due to the free space optical communication severely affected by atmospheric turbulence, this paper studies the atmospheric channel characteristics and analyzes the advantage of the space time block coding, a MIMO scheme and an improved quasi-orthogonal spacetime block coding (QOSTBC) are proposed in order to improve the performance of free space optical communication system. This scheme uses the method of matrix diagonalization to eliminate the non-orthogonal items and for four transmit antenna systems,it can solve the limitations of the Alamouti Code. Using Monte Carlo simulation method,the channel capacity and BER of the system are numerically examined. The results show that by using new QOSTBC for the FSO system, it can effectively resist fading and the capacity of system is increased, he high spectral efficiency can be achieved, the error performance is improved effectively.


One million dollars - that's what Harvey Metcalfe, lifelong king of shady deals, has pulled off with empty promises of an oil bonanza and instant riches. Overnight, four men - the heir to an earldom, a Harley Street doctor, a Bond Street art dealer and an Oxford don - find themselves penniless. But this time Harvey has swindled the wrong men. They band together and shadow him from the casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot and the hallowed lawns of Oxford. Their plan is simple: to sting the crook for exactly what they lost. To the penny. 'Marvelously plotted, with just the right amounts of romance, wit and savoir-faire' - "Publishers Weekly".


Web platforms and literature on design methods allow users to search for existing methods based on the method's name and stage of use. Little support is provided to assess whether a method is appropriate for the task at hand and the context where the method will be applied.In this explorative study, patterns in searching, selecting, assessing and exchanging experiences with peers in professional practice were analyzed across a range of disciplines. This work reports on our findings from interviews conducted with practicing engineers and designers.Several similarities in the way practitioners find, select and assess new methods were found and interesting differences were identified for the practices in exchanging experiences with peers.In this work, we present the findings of our interview study along with directions for future work to better understand design processes in professional practice.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


Housing corporations are willing to partly adjust rents to market conditions. At the moment rental prices in the social subsidised housing sector in the Netherlands are regulated and only partly reflect the underlying house values. On the other hand the Dutch commercial rental housing sector is relatively small and information on commercial rents is hardly available. In this paper a method of determining emarket rentsi is presented, that is based on the number of reactions, i.e. people that showed interest in a house conditional on the non-negotiatiable asking rent. When the number of reactions is relatively high (low), it is assumed that the fixed asking rent is lower (higher) than the market rent. The number of reactions is explained by 1) the ratio of the house value and the rental price, 2) the ratio of a house quality rating and the rental price, 3) the rental price itself and 4) the rental date, where the house value is the yearly apprai sed value used for the property tax. The market rent is defined such that the probability of not renting the house is small, say 5%. Rents can be adjusted based on the outcomes of the model, such that the probability of not renting the house is 5%. Results are presented for different regions in the Netherlands, based on a large database containing rents, values and reactions. The results are compared to market rents that are determined by user costs of housing.


Fracture toughness testing on standard specimens in the ductile to brittle transition regime is well established and was first standardized by ASTM in 1997. However, its applicability to structural components and its potential conservatism, due to the high constraint condition in standard specimens, remain a subject of concern. In this work a study of the transferability of the fracture toughness measurements from laboratory specimens to structural components is performed. The structural component of interest is the Reactor Pressure Vessel subjected to an accidental loading condition called Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS). As the actual component cannot be reasonably tested, an original experimental set-up is developed to simulate PTS representative loading conditions. A semi-elliptical crack is introduced by fatigue in a disk shape specimen which is biaxial loaded in the ductile to brittle transition regime. The developed disk specimen is called PTS-D specimen. Master Curve tests on 15 PTS-D specimens are performed and compared to standard size specimens having deep and shallow cracks. The reference temperature obtained on PTS-D is equivalent to the one obtained on half-inch compact tension specimens. To support the experimental results, finite element calculations are performed. It turns out that, in the tested range, constraint in PTS-D specimens is high. However, loss of constraint appears earlier than in standard specimens. It is found that the Beremin approach combined with analytical tool allows rationalizing all test results.


The aim of this thesis is to study the effect that linguistic context exerts on the activation and processing of word meaning over time. Previous studies have demonstrated that a biasing context makes it possible to predict upcoming words. The context causes the pre-activation of expected words and facilitates their processing when they are encountered. The interaction of context and word meaning can be described in terms of feature overlap: as the context unfolds, the semantic features of the processed words are activated and words that match those features are pre-activated and thus processed more quickly when encountered. The aim of the experiments in this thesis is to test a key prediction of this account, viz., that the facilitation effect is additive and occurs together with the unfolding context. Our first contribution is to analyse the effect of an increasing amount of biasing context on the pre-activation of the meaning of a critical word. In a self-paced reading study, we investigate the amount of biasing information required to boost word processing: at least two biasing words are required to significantly reduce the time to read the critical word. In a complementary visual world experiment we study the effect of context as it unfolds over time. We identify a ceiling effect after the first biasing word: when the expected word has been pre-activated, an increasing amount of context does not produce any additional significant facilitation effect. Our second contribution is to model the activation effect observed in the previous experiments using a bag-of-words distributional semantic model. The similarity scores generated by the model significantly correlate with the association scores produced by humans. When we use point-wise multiplication to combine contextual word vectors, the model provides a computational implementation of feature overlap theory, successfully predicting reading times. Our third contribution is to analyse the effect of context on semantically similar words. In another visual world experiment, we show that words that are semantically similar generate similar eye-movements towards a related object depicted on the screen. A coherent context pre-activates the critical word and therefore increases the expectations towards it. This experiment also tested the cognitive validity of a distributional model of semantics by using this model to generate the critical words for the experimental materials used.


Increasing the participation of patients in healthcare decision making may prolong the length of stays in hospital and increase the cost of care, a new US study has found. Extrapolating the study's results to the national scale, the researchers concluded that patient participation could cost an extra $8.7bn (£5.7bn; €6.7bn) a year.

Three other studies published online at the same time by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine showed that, though some patients wanted a bigger role in their treatment decisions, doctors often failed to explain the pros and cons of interventions or to be candid with patients about prognoses.

The first study, that showing the increased cost of decision sharing, gathered data from 21 754 patients admitted to the University of Chicago Medical Center. It found that 71% of patients said that they preferred to leave medical decisions to their physicians.1 Patients with higher educational levels and who had private insurance were more likely to say that they would like to take part in decision making. But after controlling for such factors as age, race or ethnicity, self reported health assessment, comorbidities, and admission diagnoses, the researchers found that patients keen on being involved in healthcare decision making had longer stays in hospital and higher hospital treatment costs.

Compared with the 8181 (38%) patients who had a strong desire to leave decision making in the hands of their doctors, the 6287 (29%) patients who …


An inherent characteristic of socioeconomic systems (SES) is their development, which is a prerequisite for their existence. Analysing the development, as well as comparing the subjects at a variety of levels (companies, countries, regions, etc.) for other purposes requires the development process to be measured in a quantitative manner. The development process is characterised by its dynamics, which in turn may be measured using two indicators: the intensity of the development; and its consistency over the reference period. The former measurement is represented as a ratio between the development values at the begining of the period and those at the end, while the consistency of the SES economic development will be demonstrated as a ratio of the length of the reference period to the sum of the lengths of the trajectories representing the development over individual time periods. The calculations of the economic development of number of countries carried out through this research have confirmed that the proposed methodology has been named, with certain qualifications, the MDDSS (Measuring of the Dynamic of the Development of a Socioeconomic System).DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.29.3.20444


ABSTRACT Three main ethnic groups live in the South American country of Ecuador: Mestizos, Amerindian natives, and African-derived populations, or Afro-Ecuadorans. Mestizos and Afro-Ecuadorans can be considered trihybrid populations containing genes originating in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as is the case with equivalent populations in other Latin American countries. The proportion and the dynamics of the admixture process remain unknown. However, a certain sex asymmetry of the admixture process can be expected for historical reasons. We typed 11 Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (STRs) in these three ethnic groups to provide adequate allele and haplotype frequencies for forensic genetic purposes and to quantify admixture proportions in male lineages. In addition, a data set of 15 autosomal STRs in the same samples were reanalyzed for the same purpose. Contributions to Mestizo Y chromosomes were estimated to be 70% European, 28% Amerindian, and 2% African, whereas in autosomes the contributions were 19%, 73%, and 8%, respectively, which underlines the sexual asymmetry in mating, with Europeans contributing mostly males. European Y-chromosome haplotypes in Mestizos were similar to those in Spain. Moreover, about 10% of European Y chromosomes were found in the Amerindian Kichwa. As for Afro-Ecuadorans, their contributions to the male line are 44% African, 31% European, and 15% Native American; the last value is the highest percentage reported so far for an African-derived American group. Autosomal admixture was estimated as 56% African, 16% European, and 28% Amerindian.


Purpose: Upper eyelids of the Asian population have several unique anatomical characteristics that result in the characteristic absence of a native eyelid fold; however, 40% to 60% of the Asian population do exhibit a naturally occurring fold. Aging-associated soft tissue atrophy and loss of skin elasticity can lead to periorbital volume loss and subsequent development of multiple eyelid folds in patients previously with a native single-fold. The authors describe a nonsurgical technique for the management of multiple eyelid folds in Asian patients using hyaluronic acid gel (HAG) injection. Methods: In this retrospective review, 6 upper eyelids of 5 Asian patients who underwent HAG injection for multiple eyelid folds were identified. Patients were injected with HAG superior to the native eyelid fold in a superficial plane just deep to the orbicularis oculi muscle and in the suborbicularis oculi plane of the superior sulcus. Results: Five Asian patients with prior history of a single naturally occurring upper eyelid fold who developed age-related unilateral multiple eyelid folds underwent injection with HAG. All patients tolerated the procedure well and without complication. Restoration of a single-fold with bilateral upper eyelid symmetry was achieved successfully in all patients. Conclusions: Multiple eyelid folds may occur in Asian patients with an established naturally occurring single eyelid fold as a result of periorbital volume loss. HAG injection in the periorbital region provides a nonsurgical solution to restore volume and reform a single eyelid fold.


Abstract Modification of event beds by the burrowing nereidid polychaete Alitta virens (Sars) was examined using laboratory microcosms, to assess its importance as an ecosystem engineer in pristine sediments. In all microcosms, the nereidids modified their environment to permit long-term occupation, but different behavioral strategies and burrow morphologies were observed based on sediment characteristics and nutrient availability. Alitta virens utilized scavenging, surface deposit feeding, suspension feeding, microbial gardening, deposit feeding at depth, and cannibalism. Suspension feeding using mucus nets is used by many nereidids but has not been documented previously in A. virens; extended use of the technique may indicate low availability of biotic sediments for deposit feeding. Alitta virens typically produced burrows similar to Arenicolites and Skolithos, but morphologies resembling Polykladichnus, Planolites, Palaeophycus, and Thalassinoides were formed under differing sedimentary conditions and over different time scales. In the rock record, such ichnological diversity might be interpreted as indicating paleoecological diversity, rather than the response of one taxon to changing conditions. Alitta virens is an allogenic ecosystem engineer, its behavior changing the physical and geochemical characters of its environment. These changes, combined with the widespread occurrence and population longevity of A. virens, demonstrate that burrowing polychaetes are important ecosystem engineers in shallow marine environments, and are likely to have been so over geological time scales.


Among the 5,500 (or more) well-described species of thrips worldwide, nearly 1% are known as economically important pests. Because these tiny pests can feed on multiple plants, their damage potential to nursery and greenhouse production is immense: thrips inflict millions of dollars loss every year. Thrips hide easily in tiny spaces, reproduce rapidly, and can survive in a lot of climates. And they are invisibly small! Thrips infestations present a huge problem in the regional and international trade of plant materials and products, due to the quarantine risks and damage associated with several species in the order.
This 7-page fact sheet presents a program to manage important thrips pests, including western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis), chilli thrips (Scirtothrips dorsalis), weeping fig thrips (Gynaikothrips uzeli), gladiolus thrips (Thrips simplex), and privet thrips (Dendrothrips ornatus) known to damage several horticultural crops of economic importance in the United States. The publication will help growers take appropriate measures to minimize economic damage. Written by Vivek Kumar, Garima Kakkar, Cristi Palmer, Cindy L. McKenzie, and Lance S. Osborne, and published by the UF Department of Entomology and Nematology, September 2016.
ENY-987/IN1145: Thrips Management Program for Horticultural Crops (ufl.edu)


Beyond the traditional methods of tabulations and public-use microdata samples, statistical agencies have developed four key alternatives for providing non-government researchers with access to confidential microdata to improve statistical modeling. The first, licensing, allows qualified researchers access to confidential microdata at their own facilities, provided certain security requirements are met. The second, statistical data enclaves, offer qualified researchers restricted access to confidential economic and demographic data at specific agency-controlled locations. Third, statistical agencies can offer remote access, through a computer interface, to the confidential data under automated or manual controls. Fourth, synthetic data developed from the original data but retaining the correlations in the original data have the potential for allowing a wide range of analyses.


Olusanya, O., & Barry, A. (2015). Letter to the Editor: Why do pregnant South African women drink alcohol? A call to action for more qualitative investigations.  The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4 (2), 171-174. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i2.213 Even though the adverse effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy have been well documented, millions of babies each year continue to be affected by fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). This is concerning given that FASD is completely preventable. FASDs have been documented across a variety of races and geographical regions worldwide, yet the highest known prevalence rates are recorded in Africa. Specifically, for every 1000 children born in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, approximately 59.3 to 91.0 are determined to have fetal alcohol syndrome, the most severe form of FASD. While the risk factors contributing to FASDs have been examined quantitatively among South African women, there is a dearth of qualitative investigations that articulate and contextualize the underling motivations, beliefs, and attitudes that influence these risk factors. Qualitative investigations have been conducted in other geographic regions (e.g., Australia), but are not generalizable to South Africa. Qualitative investigations, which explore the familial, social, cultural, and economic factors that influence maternal drinking, are needed to inform future health promotion programs and interventions aimed at decreasing and ultimately eliminating maternal alcohol consumption among South African women.


This paper examines the effects of the Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC) on couples in Britain. We develop a simple model of household decisions which explicitly accounts for the role played by the tax and benefit system. Its main implications are then tested using panel data from the British Household Panel Survey collected between 1991 and 2002. Overall, the financial incentives of the reform had negligible effects on a wide range of married mothers' decisions, such as eligible (working at least 16 hours per week) and full-time employment (working at least 30 hours per week), employment transitions, childcare use, and divorce rates. Women's responses, however, were highly heterogeneous, depending on their partners' labour supply and earnings. Mothers married to low-income men showed larger responses in employment, especially if they had younger children. They were more likely to remain in the labour force and had higher rates at which they entered it. While more likely to receive the tax credit, they also experienced a greater risk of divorce. We find virtually no effect for women with higher-income husbands. Likewise, there are no statistically significant responses among married men.


This study characterizes the assemblages of Hymenoptera that visit flowers of the genera Aspalathus Linnaeus, Lebeckia Thunberg, Wiborgia Thunberg and Rafnia Thunberg, the Cape Group of Crotalarieae (sensu Polhill1981) (Papilionaceae) , and evaluates the potential of their members as pollinators. All the assemblages from the western and eastern Cape are characterized by the presence of Megachilinae (Megachilidae) and Xylocopinae and/or Anthophorinae (Anthophoridae), and those from the west (excluding Rafnia) by the presence of Masarinae (Vespidae). Although not restricted to Polhill's Cape Group, the Megachilinae and Xylocopinae are potential pollinators. Two species of Masarina Richards (Masarinae) are apparently restricted to Aspalathus, Lebeckia and Wiborgia, and are potential pollinators of the smaller-flowered species of these genera. Two species of Ceramius Latreille (Masarinae) are apparently restricted to Aspalathus and are potential pollinators and, within their distribution ranges, the most dependable visitors of this genus. Apis mellifera Linnaeus (Apidae) and Eumeninae (Vespidae) visit all four genera but are probably of little importance as pollinators. Apis mellifera is certainly able to obtain nectar from the smaller-flowered species without tripping the flowers. The implications of these findings for seed production in the rooibos tea industry are discussed.


Three subtype-specific antisera were generated against peptides corresponding to portions of the amino terminus, interdomain 1-2, and carboxy terminus of the rH1 sodium channel primary sequence to confirm the expression of this protein in the adult rat heart and to determine selected biochemical properties of this protein that might contribute to its subtype-specific characteristics. All three antisera identify a 240-kD band on Western blots of partially purified cardiac membrane proteins and by immunoprecipitation of iodinated partially purified membrane proteins. Unlike other characterized mammalian sodium channels, no beta subunit is detected in association with the rH1 alpha subunit. The rH1 alpha subunit is a complex sialoglycoprotein as evidenced by its interaction with wheat germ agglutinin-Sepharose and by reduction in its apparent molecular weight after treatment with neuraminidase; deglycosylation with N-glycanase confirms that the rH1 protein contains significantly less carbohydrate than other sodium channel proteins characterized to date (5% versus 25% to 30%). Consistent with electrophysiological studies indicating a role of phosphorylation in channel regulation, the rH1 alpha subunit can be phosphorylated by the catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A. The possible functional significance of these findings is discussed.


Dentist Background and Aims: Despite the reduction of incidence of dental caries in recent years, this disease is common and many efforts were conducted to decrease the prevalence of dental caries. On the other hand secondary caries lesions are the main reason for replacement of direct restorations. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate suitable methods of preparation and restorative materials to reduce caries recurrence. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, eighty human teeth were collected and stored in normal saline. The teeth were soft-tissue debrided and cleaned with water/pumice slurry and rubber cups in a low-speed handpiece. Speciments were randomly divided in two main groups. Cavities were prepared with diamond burs or Er:YAG laser (10 Hz, 300 mJ, 3W). Each group was divided into 4 sub-groups, and restored with a glass-ionomer cement (Fuji IX), resin modified glass-ionomer (Fuji II LC), total etch bonding + composite resin or self-etch bonding + composite resin. The specimens were submitted to pH cycling. Speciments were then sectioned, polished and Vickers microhardness measurements were performed on each specimen. Differences among the medians were analyzed using two way ANOVA test at a 95% confidence level and Tukey test. Results: Statistical analysis showed significant difference in the type of substrate (enamel, dentin) in both main groups (P<0.0001) but no differences in the caries lesion development between the cavities restored with the same material and prepared with diamond burs or Er:YAG laser. Conclusion: The Er:YAG laser used for cavity preparation and different types of restorative materials used did not show the ability to guarantee significantly more acid-resistance tooth structure against


Egg clutches from two mosquito species were incubated under controlled conditions and the larval development time was recorded. Both the egg raft-laying mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus and the individual egg layer Aedes aegypti displayed significant intraspecific variation between clutches when it came to larval development at the same temperature. Furthermore, embryonic incubation temperature was found to influence subsequent larval growth rate in some cases. These hitherto undocumented phenomena are indicative of development rate plasticity that appears to be conserved across mosquito genera. The derived development rate data were used to calculate the minimum number of egg clutches required to give a representative mean day-degrees value for a population of each species. These values were six and five clutches, respectively. A simple population simulation was given to illustrate the impact of different larval development rates when overlapping generations of problem mosquitoes breed. The implication of this work for mosquito population modelling is that the extent of developmental rate variation needs to be taken into account. Furthermore, such conserved variation in larval development rate illustrates the extent of selective pressures on this life history trait.


This review describes what is known about the flow-related habitat requirements of Tasmanian native fish, as they relate to movement and migration, spawning, rearing and feeding. Brown trout are also included in this review, due to their widespread distribution and frequent dominance of Tasmanian stream fish assemblages.

The Tasmanian stream fish fauna is comprised of some 28 species, the majority of which are migratory (diadromous, mainly catadromous), requiring free movement within the stream drainage network and access either to an estuary, the coast or a lake. Population densities of most species decline upstream from the sea, with brown trout, eels and, occasionally Galaxias brevipinnis, being dominant in middle to upper elevation drainage reaches (Davies 1989). This is a pattern also observed elsewhere in south-eastern Australia and New Zealand (Gehrke and Harris 2000, McDowall and Taylor 2000, Joy and Death 2004).

Despite the high level of activity in the area of environmental flow management, information on flow requirements for south east Australian freshwater fish species is remarkably limited. The pool of Australian information in this area is very small, and sources from New Zealand and occasionally overseas are drawn on. In addition, requirements for habitat and flow characteristics cannot be readily separated. This review therefore identifies key aspects of habitat requirements as they relate to flow, both directly and indirectly, but does not attempt a full description of each species� ecological requirements.

Habitat use by freshwater fish varies considerably between species. There are close relationships between the physical habitat used by fish and flow, both directly in terms of the relationship between the energetics of swimming and feeding and hydraulics, and indirectly by determining the distribution and composition of stream substrate, food resources, cover etc.

This review briefly describes general aspects of fish and flow relationships, and then identifies what is known about habitat and flow requirements of Tasmanian riverine freshwater fish species. The Gobies, predominantly brackish water or estuarine species, are not discussed.


In this work, an EEG-based control
paradigm assisted by micro-facial-expressions (microFE-BCI) was developed, focusing
on the mainstream defect as the insufficiency of real-time capability,
asynchronous logic, and robustness. The core algorithm in microFE-BCI contained
two stages (asynchronous 'ON'
detection & microFE-BCI
based real-time control) with four steps
(obvious non-microFE-EEGs exclusion,
interface 'ON' detection,
microFE-EEGs real-time decoding,
and validity judgment).
It provided the asynchrounous function, decoded 8 instructions from the latest
100 ms EEGs, and greatly reduced the frequent misoperation. In the offline
assessment, microFE-BCI achieved 96.46%±1.07 accuracy for interface
'ON' detection and 92.68%±1.21
for microFE-EEGs real-time decoding,
with the theoretical output timespan less than 200 ms. This microFE-BCI was
implemented into a software, and applied to two online manipulations for
evaluating the stability and agility. In object-moving
with a robotic arm, the averaged IoU
was 60.03±11.53%. In water-pouring with
a prosthetic Hand, the averaged
water volume was 202.5±7.0 ml. During online, microFE-BCI performed no
significant difference (P = 0.6521 & P = 0.7931) with commercial control
methods (i.e., FlexPendant and Joystick), indicating a similar level of
controllability and agility. This study demonstrated the capability of
microFE-BCI, enabling a novel solution to the noninvasive BCIs in real-world
challenges.


Durum wheat is an important staple food in Morocco. Wheat and barley are mostly grown in drought prone areas in this country. Drought is the most limiting factor under Mediterranean climate. Leaf rolling ability has been identified as a potential selection criterion for drought tolerance in cereals. The objective of this study is to test this hypothesis. The role of leaf rolling in water stress tolerance was assessed in eleven Moroccan wheat cultivars. Trials were conducted under greenhouse conditions and three watering regimes simulating different drought levels were applied. Leaf rolling, leaf area, leaf specific weight and relative water content were recorded. The results indicated that the studied cultivars have shown significant differences in their leaf rolling (LR) under water deficit. The varieties 2777 and Irden showed the highest LR scored under these constraints. The variety Marjana showed the lowest LR score and expressed no LR ability under non limited irrigation treatment. Strong correlation have been observed between LR and relative water content (RWC) (r=0.923), and negative correlation was observed between LR and leaf area (LA, r=-0.783). Cultivars with high LR scores showed their capacity to control the negative impacts of water stress by keeping their physiological traits to adequate levels in order to maintain the main physiological activities of the plants. This result showed the important role of LR in water stress tolerance in the studied durum wheat cultivars.

 Key words: Water stress, agro physiological traits, drought tolerance, leaf rolling, Morocco.


Abstract. Since April 2004 the RAPID array has made continuous measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) at 26° N. Two key components of this system are Ekman transport zonally integrated across 26° N and western boundary current transport in the Florida Straits. Whilst measurements of the AMOC as a whole are somewhat in their infancy, this study investigates what useful information can be extracted on the variability of the Ekman and Florida Straits transports using the decadal timeseries already available. Analysis is also presented for Sverdrup transports zonally integrated across 26° N. The seasonal cycles of Florida Straits, Ekman and Sverdrup transports are quantified at 26° N using harmonic analysis of annual and semi-annual constituents. Whilst Sverdrup transport shows clear semi-annual periodicity, calculations of seasonal Florida Straits and Ekman transports show substantial interannual variability due to contamination by variability at non-seasonal frequencies; the mean seasonal cycle for these transports only emerges from decadal length observations. The Florida Straits and Ekman mean seasonal cycles project on the AMOC with a combined peak-to-peak seasonal range of 3.5 Sv. The combined seasonal range for heat transport is 0.40 PW. The Florida Straits seasonal cycle possesses a smooth annual periodicity in contrast with previous studies suggesting a more asymmetric structure. No clear evidence is found to support significant changes in the Florida Straits seasonal cycle at sub-decadal periods. Whilst evidence of wind driven Florida Straits transport variability is seen at sub-seasonal and annual periods, a model run from the 1/4° eddy-permitting ocean model NEMO is used to identify an important contribution from internal oceanic variability at sub-annual and interannual periods. The Ekman transport seasonal cycle possesses less symmetric structure, due in part to different seasonal transport regimes east and west of 50 to 60° W. Around 60% of non-seasonal Ekman transport variability occurs in phase section-wide at 26° N and is related to the NAO, whilst Sverdrup transport variability is more difficult to decompose.


The war on terrorism and the threat of chemical and biological weapons have brought a new urgency to already complex moral and bioethical questions. In the Wake of Terror presents thought-provoking essays on many of the troubling issues facing American society, written by experts from the fields of medicine, health care policy, law, political science, history, philosophy, and theology. One of the first potential casualties of catastrophic circumstances is civil liberties. In the past, medical experiments conducted for national security purposes have violated ethical standards, and this book questions whether current policy provides sufficient safeguards against further abuses. It also focuses on public health issues, offering contrasting views on the extent to which civil authorities should be allowed to restrict freedom of movement in the name of national security and debating whether aggressive public health interventions improve public confidence and cooperation or detract from them. A major area of concern is preparedness for future terrorist attacks. Chapters are devoted to ethical issues involved in the development, distribution, and rationing of vaccines and antidotes; resource allocation and medical triage; the moral duties of emergency health workers and other first responders; and the obligations of private entities such as managed care organizations and pharmaceutical companies. Contributors also address the implications of terrorism for our health insurance system and the role of genetic advances in bioterrorism. Underlying all of these issues, the authors argue, is the need to maintain a spirit of social solidarity, which can in turn only be achieved if preparations are publicly acknowledged and generally regarded as both prudent and fair.


National educational policy analysis and evaluation is a complex endeavour that would seem to demand empirical data gathering efforts that are of appropriate scale and high quality. However, mounting such data-gathering efforts can be resource and time-intensive. As an alternative strategy, this presentation describes the secondary analysis of an existing large-scale dataset that potentially adds value to educational policy evaluation. In particular, as a member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Australia participates in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that every few years assesses the educational attainment of 15-year old students in the core learning areas of reading, maths, science and problem solving. PISA datasets are housed and managed by the Australian Centre for Educational Research (ACER) and it is this dataset that is the subject of our secondary analysis here.

 For the current policy question, Australia's new Commonwealth government has begun consideration of applying a so-called "socioeconomic status (SES) model" to public school funding. We suggest that the secondary analysis of extant large-scale datasets can provide important input to the discussion of school funding policies by shedding light on previously obscured or possibly unexamined relationships. For example, it is already well established in the educational research literature that the socioeconomic status of individual students is strongly associated with educational attainment as measured by standardized assessment systems, whether local, national or international. In addition, various international studies have shown that the aggregated socioeconomic profile of a school is also positively associated with students' academic attainment.

However, less is known about the nature of these relationships when both individual student and school socioeconomic status are disaggregated. To uncover these finer-grained associations, we subjected Australia's 2003 PISA dataset to secondary analysis to better understand the reading, mathematics and science achievement of secondary school students from different SES backgrounds, across a variety of school SES strata. This finer-grained secondary analysis shows that increases in the aggregated SES of a school are consistently and strongly associated with increases in students' academic performance, and that this relationship holds for all students regardless of their individual SES. In the Australian case, the aggregated socio-economic profile of the school matters greatly in terms of academic performance. We conclude the presentation with a discussion of the implications of these findings for Australia's federal school funding policies with particular attention given to the influence of school composition on student attainment.