Selenium is an essential trace element in conventional tissue culture media to guarantee adequate biosynthesis of selenoprotein in cellular antioxidant system to protect the cells from oxidative damage and apoptosis. This study investigated the effect of selenium, in the form of sodium selenite (SS), on developmental ability and quality of in vitro produced porcine parthenotes. For this, parthenogenetic presumptive diploid zygotes were produced by electroactivation and cultured in the absence or presence of SS at different concentrations (0, 2.5, 25, 250 ng/ml) in a serum‐free defined culture medium supplemented with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or bovine serum albumin (BSA). Results showed that, development rate of 2–4 cell stage parthenotes to blastocyst and their cell number was increased while TUNEL index was decreased, in a dose‐dependent manner, when SS was supplemented to NCSU23 + PVA. Interestingly, the blastocyst rate and their quality approached to those cultured in NCSU23 + BSA (P < 0.05), thereby suggesting PVA + 25 ng/ml SS to be a partial replacement of BSA. In the presence of PVA, supplementation of SS at a concentration of 25 ng/ml did not improve the cleavage rate of in vitro matured oocytes but there was significant improvement in the blastocyst rate (45.4 ± 8.8% vs. 12.7 ± 4.8%), total nuclei number (42.1 ± 3.5 vs. 31.3 ± 2.9) and inner cell mass (ICM) rate (29.4 ± 1.5% vs. 21.3 ± 1.2%) and decrease in TUNEL index (5.6 ± 0.5 vs. 12.9 ± 1.3) compared to nonsupplemented controls. The SS supplementation also decreased the BAX:BCL‐xL transcript ratio, increased the expression of ERK1/2 and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and reduced the level of Caspase 3 proteins (P < 0.05). These data thus suggest that SS improves the development rate and quality of porcine parthenotes by preventing oxidative damage and apoptosis. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 74: 1386–1394, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Solar energy using Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology will become the most abundant source of renewable energy. The technology and the economics of CSP are explained. An overview is given for the deployed CSP capacity, the CSP capacity which is currently being built, and the planned capacity. We make the following assumptions: (1) The learning curve for CSP technology will finally lead to a price for the solar collector field which is half of the most competitive CSP technology that is available today; (2) It becomes technically and economically feasible to produce some sort of solar fuel out of the concentrated solar heat. The investment that is needed for a CSP capacity which is able to meet the global demand of electricity as it was in the year 2003 amounts to 18% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of one year of the whole world. At a 30% growth rate per year until the 1% GDP level is reached, followed by a constant growth, the 2003 consumption level would be met by solar electricity in the year 2047. This power production rate would be reached already in 2027, when CSP-investments would be made at the 1% GDP level immediately.


This detailed study of the internal workings of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan examines the evolution of the organization since 1977 and its strange ideological menu of Black Nationalism, political-economic development, anti-Semitism, and conservative Republican ideals. Vibert White maintains that Farrakhan's Nation has become a cult that utilizes black nationalistic and religious dogma and its ability to create political and racial controversy to exploit poor and working-class black Americans for the leaders' economic and political gain. At the heart of Inside the Nation is White's chronicle of his own sojourn during the 1980s and 1990s as a registered Muslim - from his days as a foot soldier in the Fruit of Islam, the Nation's military organization, through his rise to the status of minister and advisor to the leadership. Included are White's dealings with such leaders as Louis Farrakhan, Akbar Muhammad, Khallid Muhammad, and Benjamin Chavis Muhammad and his involvement in such activities as the Million Man March. As one who traveled for the organization throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States, White was able to observe the leadership and the operation of the group at close hand, and he reveals for the first time the detailed structure of NOI's business and religious operation. As a professional historian, White was able to separate the passion of the group's rhetoric from its real objectives, which centered on building a personal empire for Louis Farrakhan.


Abstract:We know that parenthood has different consequences for men's and women's careers. Still, the research remains inconclusive on the question of whether this is mainly a consequence of a fatherhood premium, a motherhood penalty, or both. A common assumption is that women fall behind in terms of pay when they become mothers.Based on longitudinal data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU), and individual fixed-effects models, we examine the support for this assumption by mapping the size of parenthood effects on wages during the years 1968–2010. During this period, Swedish women's labor supply increased dramatically, dual-earner family policies were institutionalized, and society's norms on the gendered division of labor changed. We describe the development of parenthood effects on wages during this transformative period.Our results indicate that both genders benefit from a gross parenthood premium, both at the beginning of the period and in recent years, but the size of this premium is larger for men. Individual fixed-effects models indicate that the wage premium is mainly the result of parents' increased labor market investments. Controlling for these, women suffer from a small motherhood penalty early in the period under study whereas parenthood is unrelated to women's wages in later years and to men's wages throughout the period. Neither for men nor for women do we find a statistically significant period change in the parenthood effects. Instead, patterns are remarkably stable over time given the radical changes in family policies and norms that took place during the period examined.


Globalization is a major market trend today, one characterized by both increased international competition as well as extensive opportunities for firms to expand their operations beyond current boundaries. Effectively dealing with this important change, however, makes the management of global new product development (NPD) a major concern. To ensure success in this complex and competitive endeavor, companies must rely on global NPD teams that make use of the talents and knowledge available in different parts of the global organization. Thus, cohesive and well-functioning global NPD teams become a critical capability by which firms can effectively leverage this much more diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and cultural sensitivities for the global NPD effort. The present research addresses the global NPD team and its impact on performance from both an antecedent and a contingency perspective. Using the resource-based view (RBV) as a theoretical framework, the study clarifies how the internal, or behavioral, environment of the firm—specifically, resource commitment and senior management involvement—and the global NPD team are interrelated and contribute to global NPD program performance. In addition, the proposed performance relationships are viewed as being contingent on certain explicit, or strategic, factors. In particular, the degree of global dispersion of the firm's NPD effort is seen as influencing the management approach and thus altering the relationships among company background resources, team, and performance. For the empirical analysis, data are collected through a survey of 467 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business-to-business). A structural model testing for the hypothesized effects was substantially supported. The results show that creating and effectively managing global NPD teams offers opportunities for leveraging a diverse but unique combination of talents and knowledge-based resources, thereby enhancing the firm's ability to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in international markets. To function effectively, the global NPD team must be nested in a corporate environment in which there is a commitment of sufficient resources and where senior management plays an active role in leading, championing, and coordinating the global NPD effort. This need for commitment and global team integration becomes even more important for success as the NPD effort becomes more globally dispersed.


American public law is affected by two important dynamics impacting the relationship between citizens and their government: how the executive branch defines national security, and how politicians compete to secure control of the vast public organizations through which governments implement the law. This article analyzes the intersection of these dynamics by investigating the now-forgotten history of the U.S. Federal Security Agency (FSA) and drawing perspectives from separation of powers, organization theory, and the study of American political development. In 1939 the Roosevelt White House overcame strong political opposition to centralize vast legal responsibilities within the FSA. Soon after its creation, the agency had acquired responsibility for social security, education, drug regulation, protection of the food supply, civil defense preparedness, supplying employees to war-related industries, facilitating the relocation of Japanese-Americans, anti-prostitution enforcement, and biological weapons research. By 1953, the FSA engendered one of the most important American bureaucracies of the 20th century: the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Yet little is known about precisely how or why the White House fought to create the FSA, why the agency pervasively mixed domestic regulatory and national defense functions both before and after World War II, or what its creation wrought for the legal mandates entrusted to the agency. The analysis reveals how, on the eve of World War II, the White House sought to use the restructuring to achieve greater control over the agency's multiple domains of legal jurisdiction by building oversight capacity in an organizational environment more congenial to the bureaus' functions. It then used that control to publicly promote a broader conception of the "security" issue that held the prospect of more thoroughly protecting domestic programs important to the Administration. And by rendering ambiguous the distinction between domestic and international security functions, the Administration enlarged support for some of its signature programs at a time when the New Deal legislative coalition was eroding. In effect, the agency's amalgam of legal functions epitomized the Administration's ambitious conception of "security," which became sufficiently elastic to encompass legal responsibilities now routinely segregated into domains involving social services, economic security, health regulation, and geostrategic national defense. The creation of the FSA also appears to have fomented more subtle (intended and unintended) impacts on matters such as the organization of congressional committees overseeing the agency's legal functions, and the prospects for bureaucratic autonomy among the agency and its bureaus. These dynamics illustrate limitations in prevailing theories of law and organization emphasizing deliberately engineered bureaucratic failure or purely symbolic position-taking. They also showcase the connection between the design of public agencies, separation of powers, and the ambiguities inherent in the definition of "security" as a category of government responsibility. History reveals how presidential administrations and bureaucratic actors once used that ambiguity to bolster political coalitions supporting social welfare and regulatory mandates. The recent spike of interest in homeland security is furnishing similar opportunities to reshape the domestic regulatory state.


This reports looks at why and how the international community should enhance further the management and enforcement of compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention. It provides an overview of the status of compliance with the norm against chemical weapons, and sets out the compliance mechanisms that are available under the Convention, outside the Convention, and that can be used by individual States. Finally, the authors suggest six concrete ways in which the different tools for management and enforcement of compliance can be improved.


Using household-level data from the American Housing Survey, this paper assesses the cost of adapting housing to temperature increases. The authors account for both energy use adjustments and capital adjustments through investments in weatherization and heating and cooling equipment. The authors' best estimate of the present discounted value of the cost for adapting to the A2 'business-as-usual' climate scenario by the end of the century is US$5,600 per housing unit, including both energy and investment costs. A more intense use of air conditioners will be compensated for by a reduction in heating need, leading to a shift from gas to electricity consumption.


Different concentrations of abscisic acid (ABA), naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and methyl jasmonate (MeJa) were applied to maize (Zea mays) plants exposed to cold stress. ABA enhanced plant resistance against the damaging effects of freezing. ABA-treated plants produced some specific proteins when exposed to cold. Prominent changes were observed in the size and number of stomata with the application of ABA during cold stress. MeJa inhibited root growth, but increased root dry weight during cold acclimation. The chlorophyll content was lower at 100 µg ml-1 NAA and 50 µg ml-1 MeJa and higher in the residual applications when compared with that in the control plants. Carotenoid levels increased in all NAA and some ABA treatments, decreased however in MeJa treatment. Exogenous MeJa treatments increased endogenous trans-zeatin (t-Z) and indole-3-acetic acide (IAA) in contrast decreased ABA levels. Exogenous NAA also increased endogenous IAA, ABA and zeatin riboside (ZR) levels, while exogenous ABA decreased endogenous IAA and ZR levels.


As aging of the U.S. population places increased demands on public programs such as Social Security, an important question is how long older Americans are willing and able to work before they retire from the labor force. While studies based on household surveys have provided information on the role of savings, health status, pension and health insurance coverage, there is relatively little information on how workplace and employer characteristics affect the employment of older workers. In this study we use linked employer-employee data to explore the relationship between the characteristics of jobs held at age 55 and early retirement. We focus on a sample of 63-year-olds drawn from the 2005-2008 American Community Survey. We match this sample to information on their earnings, employment, employers and coworkers drawn from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data for the years in which they age from 55 to 63. We use employment status as reported in the ACS to split the sample into those who have retired by age 63 and those who continue to work. We then examine differences between early retirees and continuing workers in the characteristics of their employment at age 55, and at how these characteristics change as they approach age 63. We find that early retirees are more likely to be employed by larger employers at age 55 than are continuers. They work for employers with somewhat higher pay than do continuers, and are less likely to have young coworkers.


Odontogenic myxoma is rare benign neoplasm of jaw bones which is locally aggressive and non-metastasizing. А 23-year-old male sought medical attention with complaint of progressively increasing of asymptomatic swelling to the right side of maxilla causing serious facial asymmetry. Radiological examination, CT with 3D reconstruction was performed and it was shown well-defined unusual large radiolucent mass associated with impacted teeth within the right maxillary sinus extending into the nasal cavity with expansion of both buccal and palatal cortical plate of right maxilla. The treatment of choice was a surgical tumoral radical resection under general anaesthesia with surgical extraoral approach and preservation of the nearby structures. Odontogenic fibromyxoma was the definitive histopathological diagnosis. The postoperative period was uneventful, and the patient fully recovered. Long-term surveillance is required due to the high rate of local recurrence.


Previous research assumes that executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating explain individual differences in cognitive abilities. Of these three executive functions, updating was previously found to relate most strongly to fluid intelligence. However, this relationship could be a methodological artifact: Measures of inhibition and shifting usually isolate the contribution of this executive function to performance by contrasting conditions with high and low demands on these processes, whereas updating is measured by overall accuracy in working memory tasks involving updating. This updating measure conflates updating-specific individual differences (e.g., removal of outdated information) with variance in working memory maintenance. Reanalyzing data (N = 111) from von Bastian et al. (2016), we separated updating-specific variance from working memory maintenance variance. Updating contributed only 15% to individual differences in performance in the updating tasks, and it correlated neither with fluid intelligence nor with independent working memory measures reflecting storage and processing or relational integration. In contrast, the working memory maintenance component of the updating task correlated with both abilities. These findings challenge the view that updating contributes to variance in higher cognitive abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).


We have generated mouse embryonic stem cells with targeted disruption of spermidine/spermineN 1-acetyltransferase (SSAT) gene. The targeted cells did not contain any inducible SSAT activity, and the SSAT protein was not present. The SSAT-deficient cells proliferated normally and appeared to maintain otherwise similar polyamine pools as did the wild-type cells, with the possible exception of constantly elevated (about 30%) cellular spermidine. As expected, the mutated cells were significantly more resistant toward the growth-inhibitory action of polyamine analogues, such asN 1,N 11-diethylnorspermine. However, this resistance was not directly attributable to cellular depletion of the higher polyamines spermidine and spermine, as the analogue depleted the polyamine pools almost equally effectively in both wild-type and SSAT-deficient cells. Tracer experiments with [C14]-labeled spermidine revealed that SSAT activity is essential for the back-conversion of spermidine to putrescine as radioactive N 1-acetylspermidine and putrescine were readily detectable inN 1,N 11-diethylnorspermine-exposed wild-type cells but not in SSAT-deficient cells. Similar experiments with [C14]spermine indicated that the latter polyamine was converted to spermidine in both cell lines and, unexpectedly, more effectively in the targeted cells than in the parental cells. This back-conversion was only partly inhibited by MDL72527, an inhibitor of polyamine oxidase. These results indicated that SSAT does not play a major role in the maintenance of polyamine homeostasis, and the toxicity exerted by polyamine analogues is largely not based on SSAT-induced depletion of the natural polyamines. Moreover, embryonic stem cells appear to operate an SSAT-independent system for the back-conversion of spermine to spermidine.


Conserved DNA sequences are essential to investigate the regulation and expression of nearby genes. The conserved regions can interact with certain proteins and can potentially determine the transcription speed and amount of the corresponding mRNA in gene replication process. In this paper, motifs of coexpressed genes of microarray experiments were explored with discovery algorithms. Then a selection algorithm based on support vector machine (SVM) was applied to identify those motifs which mostly influenced gene expression. This method combined the advantages from both matrix based motif finding and functional motif selection. When applied to Kashin-Beck disease (KBD), this method identified 9 motifs, and revealed that some motifs may be related to the immune reactions. In addition, we suggested that the methods used could be applied to other microarray experiments to explore the underlying relationships between motif types and gene functions.


The expansion of the European Union in 2004 towards Central and Eastern European Countries (CEE) has offered new opportunities for firms which seek to expand their international business. The challenge in this context is to understand internationalization as a process that is highly dynamic but naturally not always successful, a process which is cyclical instead of linear and necessarily dependent on events and happenings within time (Leonidou and Katsikeas, 1996, Hurmerinta-Peltomaki, 2003). Based on this assumption, this paper evaluates the business experience in the CEE in the light of the world-wide financial and economic crisis. The Franco-German comparative analysis provides cross-cultural perspectives of current challenges and expected future developments when doing business in the CEE.


The present article reconciles the GAAP3 to each other, which apply to accounting recording of fixed assets. It separates the fixed assets, from the side of buyer, as Own Used, Investments, and Inventories and integrates these types of assets into four main portfolio categories. It examines, what are the features to incorporate an element of fixed assets in these portfolios. It analyzes the accounting treatments for each portfolio transaction and the impact of any accounting entry to equity and profit and loss account. It presents the key accounting profitability metrics for any kind of fixed asset. The subject of the article focuses on land and buildings as main part of the total fixed assets of a company. It discusses the influence of taxations and other expenditures at purchase time on the cost and tries to establish a purchase price allocation method for property acquisition. It describes the accounting entries for the revenues, expenses and valuations per portfolio. It makes a comparative analysis between Greek GAAP, IFRS4 and U.S GAAP for accounting treatments of fixed assets. Finally, it uses the framework of Greek Real Estate Market as experimental setting where the principles of Historic Cost and Fair Value Accounting can be compared. The contribution of this article is that it surveys from a critical perspective, principles, literature and the practice about all the above issues, and presents from accounting point of view a way to managing and monitoring real estate investments.


A well-known result of Arratia shows that one can make rigorous the notion of starting an independent Brownian motion at every point of an arbitrary closed subset of the real line and then building a set-valued process by requiring particles to coalesce when they collide. Arratia noted that the value of this process will be almost surely a locally finite set at all positive times, and a finite set almost surely if the initial value is compact: the key to both of these facts is the observation that, because of the topology of the real line and the continuity of Brownian sample paths, at the time when two particles collide one or the other of them must have already collided with each particle that was initially between them. We investigate whether such instantaneous coalescence still occurs for coalescing systems of particles where either the state space of the individual particles is not locally homeomorphic to an interval or the sample paths of the individual particles are discontinuous. We give a quite general criterion for a coalescing system of particles on a compact state space to coalesce to a finite set at all positive times almost surely and show that there is almost sure instantaneous coalescence to a locally finite set for systems of Brownian motions on the Sierpinski gasket and stable processes on the real line with stable index greater than one.


Stem rust (Puccinia graminis Pers.:Pers. f.sp. tritici Eriks. and Henn.) is one of the most devastating diseases of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and durum (T. turgidum L. ssp. durum). Prior to the development of molecular techniques, studies of genes for stem rust resistance genes in wheat were completed using the Chinese Spring (CS) aneuploids. However, few genes were studied in durum because the major set of durum aneuploids, Langdon D-genome disomic substitutions (LDN-DS), had limited use due to the presence of at least three genes for stem rust resistance. Thus, development of a set of stem rust susceptible durum D-genome disomic substitutions would be useful for studies of stem rust resistance in tetraploid wheat. To do this, a breeding process was initiated where the LDN-DS were backcrossed to stem rust susceptible durum line 47-1. In the BC1 generation, double monosomic plants that were susceptible to three stem rust pathotypes were selected for backcrossing. The stem rust susceptible genotype 'Rusty' became available during this breeding process and backcrossing to 47-1 was discontinued in favour of Rusty. In each cycle, double monosomic plants were selected for backcrossing. After six backcrosses to Rusty were completed for all 14 chromosomes, double monosomic plants were selfed and disomic substitutions were selected and confirmed using molecular markers, endosperm protein markers, and conventional cytogenetic techniques. Twelve Rusty-DS lines have thus far been selected, the exceptions being 5D(5B) and 6D(6B) DS, which are presently under selection.


Summary: The Florence Statement on Triclosan and Triclocarban documents a consensus of more than 200 scientists and medical professionals on the hazards of and lack of demonstrated benefit from common uses of triclosan and triclocarban. These chemicals may be used in thousands of personal care and consumer products as well as in building materials. Based on extensive peer-reviewed research, this statement concludes that triclosan and triclocarban are environmentally persistent endocrine disruptors that bioaccumulate in and are toxic to aquatic and other organisms. Evidence of other hazards to humans and ecosystems from triclosan and triclocarban is presented along with recommendations intended to prevent future harm from triclosan, triclocarban, and antimicrobial substances with similar properties and effects. Because antimicrobials can have unintended adverse health and environmental impacts, they should only be used when they provide an evidence-based health benefit. Greater transparency is needed in product formulations, and before an antimicrobial is incorporated into a product, the long-term health and ecological impacts should be evaluated. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1788


Athletes commonly consume caffeine as an ergogenic aid. The effect of caffeine
ingestion on the immune response in humans, and in particular following exercise, has
received little scientific attention. Caffeine may affect immune responses via
adenosine receptor antagonism or adrenaline-mediated mechanisms. Following the
relatively recent removal of caffeine from the WADA list of prohibited substances, its
use is expected to increase further, therefore any influence of caffeine on immune
function is of particular relevance. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the
influence of caffeine ingestion on immunoendocrine responses following prolonged
and intensive cycling in humans. Initially, caffeine (6 mg. kg4 body mass) did not affect neutrophil functional responses
when participants rested for 3.5 h following ingestion (Chapter 4). Caffeine ingestion
attenuated the post-exercise decline in neutrophil oxidative burst response when
stimulated by f-MLP (Chapter 6) but not PMA (Chapter 5). An in vitro study
suggested that this most likely occurs as a result of adenosine-receptor antagonism by
caffeine (Chapter 8). Although caffeine ingestion improved pre-loaded TT
performance by 4%, there was no attenuating effect of caffeine on post-exercise f-
MLP-stimulated neutrophil oxidative burst responses (Chapter 7) nor was there any
benefit of co-ingesting caffeine with CHO on oxidative responses, compared with
either supplement alone (Chapter 9). Caffeine supplementation did not affect total
circulating leukocyte or neutrophil count at rest or following exercise, but increased
circulating lymphocyte count both at rest and during exercise following ingestion.
Caffeine ingestion was consistently associated with an increased plasma adrenaline
concentration but not noradrenaline concentration at rest and following exercise.
Caffeine generally had no effect on plasma cortisol concentration, though it was
consistently associated with an increased plasma IL-6 concentration following
exercise of various duration and intensity. In conclusion, the attenuating/positive effects of caffeine ingestion on post-exercise
neutrophil oxidative burst responses appear to be stimulant-dependent. None of the
experimentals tudies-,h, owever, indicated that caffeine ingestion was more detrimental
than placebo on the f-MLP-stimulated neutrophil oxidative burst response to exercise.


The lack of transparency in the pricing and operational activities of state trading enterprises (STEs) has caused members of the World Trade Organization to express concern that certain countries' STEs might circumvent Uruguay Round commitments on export subsidies, domestic support, or market access. The purpose of this study is to examine the market structure of the differentiated world malting barley market in which two STEs (the Canadian Wheat Board and the Australian Barley Board) maintain jointly a very large share of the export market. In particular, this study focuses on the exclusive procuring and pricing policies used by both STEs to test if these intra-country mechanisms can generate leadership and shift rent from other exporting countries. A conceptual and empirical framework is also provided to test if STEs set their initial payments at optimal levels. The study suggests that two STEs and other exporting countries were in Cournot competition. While some distortionary impacts from the STE prepayment systems are possible, it does not appear to be a tool that either STE employs. Empirical results from the precommitment stage show that the two STEs did not set their initial payments low enough to maximize their profits.


Organized crime, understood in a literal sense as systematic illegal activity for money or power, is as old as the first systems of law and government and as international as trade. Piracy, banditry, kidnapping, extortion, forgery, fraud, and trading in stolen or illegal goods and services are all ancient occupations that have often involved the active participation of landowners, merchants, and government officials. Many people today, however, follow the lead of the US government and American commentators and understand organized crime as being virtually synonymous with super-criminal 'Mafia-type' organizations. These are usually seen as separate entities, distinct from legitimate society but possessing almost unlimited regional, national, and even international power. As background to this understanding of organized crime there exists a consensus among most commentators that suggests that the United States has had the most experience and success in dealing with the problem. In Organized Crime and American Power: A History, Michael Woodiwiss argues that organized criminal activity has never been a serious threat to established economic and political power structures in the United States but more often a fluid, variable, and open-ended phenomenon that has, in fact, complemented those structures. Conventional histories of the problem tend to focus on outlaws in peripheral feudal societies, most commonly Sicily, for their antecedents. Woodiwiss by contrast finds his antecedents in the systematic criminal activity of the powerful and respectable in those ancient and early modern societies that we usually understand to be at the centre of 'civilized' development and continues to emphasize the crimes of the powerful throughout his wide ranging overview. He surveys the organization of crime in the Southern states after the American Civil War; the organized crimes of American business interests; the causes and corrupt consequences of the US campaign to prohibit alcohol and other 'vices'; the elaboration of the Mafia conspiracy interpretation of organized crime and the consequent 'dumbing of discourse' about the problem, not just nationally but internationally. Emphasizing the importance of collaboration, as much as confrontation, between government and criminals, Woodiwiss illustrates how crime control policies based on the Mafia paradigm have not only failed to address much organized criminal behaviour, but have, in many ways, proved counterproductive and damaging to individual rights and social stability.


Objectives:Zidovudine (AZT) is mainly used to prevent mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission (PMTCT). Despite serious concerns on AZT-associated toxicity, there is little information on pharmacokinetics of intracellular AZT metabolites in infants. Methods:We conducted a prospective study in 31 HIV-uninfected infants who received AZT for PMTCT. Blood samples were obtained from 14 infants on postdelivery days (PDD) 1, 7, 14, and 28 and from 17 infants at 0 and 4 hours after dosing on PDD-1. Plasma AZT concentrations (pAZT) and intracellular concentrations of AZT-monophosphate (icAZT-MP), diphosphate (icAZT-DP), and triphosphate (icAZT-TP) were determined. Results:Plasma AZT and icAZT-MP concentrations were 2713 nmol/L and 79 fmol/106 cells in PDD-1, but decreased to 1437 nmol/L and 31 fmol/106 cells by PDD-28 (P = 0.02 and P = 0.07 for all PDDs, respectively), whereas those of icAZT-DP and icAZT-TP remained low throughout the sampling period (P = 0.29 and P = 0.61 for all PDDs, respectively) There were no differences in icAZT-TP between infants of the 2 mg/kg 4 times a day dose and 4 mg/kg twice daily dose (P = 0.25), whereas pAZT and icAZT-MP levels were higher in the latter (P < 0.01 and <0.01, respectively). The pAZT and icAZT-MP significantly increased from 0 to 4 hours after dosing (P < 0.001 and <0.001, respectively), whereas icAZT-DP, icAZT-TP levels were not changed (P = 0.41 and 0.33, respectively). Conclusions:The level of icAZT-TP did not change with age, time, or a single dose despite the wide range of pAZT concentration. A safer dosage needs to be determined because high pAZT levels do not parallel those of icAZT-TP.


The aim of this thesis is twofold: it explores Giacomo Leopardi's (1798-1837)
interpretation of, and engagement with, Greek pessimistic thought and, through him, it
investigates the complex and elusive phenomenon of Greek pessimistic thought itself.
This thesis contends that Greek pessimistic thought – epitomised by but not limited to
the famous wisdom of Silenus, the µὴ φῦναι topos – is an important element of Greek
thought, a fundamental part of some of Greece's greatest literary works, and a vital
element in the understanding of Greek culture in general. Yet this aspect of ancient
thought has not yet received the attention it deserves, and in the history of its
interpretation it has often been forgotten, denied, or purposefully obliterated.
Furthermore, the pessimistic side of Greek thought plays a crucial role in both the
modern history of the interpretation of antiquity and the intellectual history of Europe; I
argue that this history is fundamentally incomplete without the appreciation of
Leopardi's role in it. By his study of and engagement with ancient sources Leopardi
contributed to the 19th century rediscovery of Greek pessimistic wisdom, alongside,
though chronologically before, the likes of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche,
and Jacob Burckhardt.
Having outlined some fundamental steps in the history of the reception of Greek
pessimism, this thesis examines the cardinal components of Leopardi's reception of it:
his use of Greek conceptions of humanity to undermine modernity's anthropocentric
fallacy, his reinterpretation of the Homeric simile of the leaves and its pessimistic
undertones, and his views on the idea that it would be best for man not to be born.


The extent to which the aperture of natural fractures is reduced, and they are rendered closed and unproductive by the in situ stress field in the subsurface, is critical to planning the exploitation of naturally fractured reservoirs. The semi-log relation between stress and the reduction of natural fracture aperture is combined with the effective normal stress acting on fractures of varying alignment with respect to the horizontal stresses to yield the relation: delta = 1/q log(n+1/2n + n-1/2n cos2theta ) + logsigma ' H /q - p/q, where delta is the reduction of fracture aperture (fracture closure), p and q are constants in the semi-log fracture closure/stress relation, sigma ' H is the maximum effective horizontal stress magnitude, n is the ratio between the maximum and minimum effective horizontal stress magnitudes, and theta is the angle between the normal to the fracture and the sigma H direction. Key conclusions from this relation are: (i) for a given fracture, the sensitivity of fracture closure to the anisotropy of the in situ stress field can be constrained by the effective horizontal stress ratio; (ii) natural fracture closure is very sensitive to fracture alignment with respect to sigma H where the effective horizontal stress ratio is high; (iii) the sensitivity of natural fracture closure to its alignment with respect to sigma H decreases markedly as the effective horizontal stress ratio drops; (iv) except where the effective horizontal stress ratio is infinite, the rate of change of closure with changing alignment is relatively low at very low and at high misalignment angles, and much greater at intermediate angles. The above relation is applied to a number of fractures for which the closure/stress relations have been determined. With varying alignment with respect to sigma H , less stiff fractures show up to four times more closure than stiff fractures.


At the center of this pioneering work in modern European history is the German word "Heimat"the homeland, the local place. Translations barely penetrate the meaning of the word, which has provided the emotional and ideological common ground for a variety of associations and individuals devoted to the cause of local preservation. Celia Applegate examines at both the national and regional levels the cultural meaning of "Heimat" and why it may be pivotal to the troubled and very timely question of German identity. The ideas and activities clustered around "Heimat" shed new light particularly on problems of modernization. Instead of viewing the Germans as a dangerously anti-modern people, Applegate argues that they used the cultivation of "Heimat" to ground an abstract nationalism in their attachment to familiar places and to reconcile the modern industrial and urban world with the rural landscapes and customs they admired. Primarily a characteristic of the middle classes, love of "Heimat" constituted an alternative vision of German unity to the familiar aggressive, militaristic one. The "Heimat" vision of Germany emphasized cultural diversity and defined German identity by its internal members rather than its external enemies. Applegate asks that we re-examine the continuities of German history from the perspective of the local places that made up Germany, rather than from that of prominent intellectuals or national policymakers. The local patriotism of "Heimat" activists emerges as an element of German culture that persisted across the great divides of 1918, 1933, and 1945. She also suggests that this attachment to a particular place is a feature of Europeans in general and is deserving of further attention."


Competitive bidding has emerged as the dominant method for procuring new resources by US utilities. In New York, the Public Service Commission (NYPSC) ordered the state`s seven investor-owned utilities to develop bidding programs to acquire supply and DSM resource options. Utilities were allowed significant discretion in program design in order to encourage experimentation. Competitive bidding programs pose formidable policy, design, and management challenges for utilities and their regulators. Yet, there have been few detailed case studies of bidding programs, particularly of those utilities that take on the additional challenge of having supply and DSM resources compete head-to-head for a designated block of capacity. To address that need, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the New York Department of Public Service, and the Department of Energy`s Integrated Resource Planning program asked Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) to review the bidding programs of two utilities that tested the integrated ``all-sources`` approach. This study focuses primarily on Consolidated Edison Company of New York`s (Con Edison) bidding program; an earlier report discusses our review of Niagara Mohawk`s program (Goldman et al 1992). We reviewed relevant Commission decisions, utility filings and signed contracts, interviewed utility and regulatory staff, surveyed DSM bidders and more » a selected sample of DSM non-bidders, and analyzed the bid evaluation system used in ranking bids based on detailed scoring information on individual bids provided by Con Edison. « less


Relational database systems are increasingly used to manage XML documents, especially for data-centric XML. In this paper we present a new approach to efficiently manage document-centric XML data based on a generic relational mapping. Such a generic XML storage is especially useful in data integration systems to manage highly diverse XML documents. We focus on efficient insert operations, support of streamed data and fast retrieval of document fragments. Therefore we introduce a new numbering scheme called DLN (Dynamic Level Numbering) and several variants of it. A performance evaluation based on a prototypical implementation demonstrates the high efficiency of DLN.


Two radiocarbon (C) excursions are caused by an increase of incoming cosmic rays on a short time scale found in the Late Holocene (AD 774–775 and AD 993–994), which are widely explained as due to extreme solar proton events (SPE). In addition, a larger event has also been reported at 5480 BC (Miyake et al. 2017a), which is attributed to a special mode of a grand solar minimum, as well as another at 660 BC (Park et al. 2017). Clearly, other events must exist, but could have different causes. In order to detect more such possible events, we have identified periods when the C increase rate is rapid and large in the international radiocarbon calibration (IntCal) data (Reimer et al. 2013). In this paper, we follow on from previous studies and identify a possible excursion starting at 814–813 BC, which may be connected to the beginning of a grand solar minimum associated with the beginning of the Hallstatt period, which is characterized by relatively constant C ages in the period from 800–400 BC. We compare results of annual C measurements from tree rings of sequoia (California) and cedar (Japan), and compare these results to other identified excursions, as well as geomagnetic data. We note that the structure of the increase from 813 BC is similar to the increase at 5480 BC, suggesting a related origin. We also assess whether there are different kinds of events that may be observed and may be consistent with different types of solar phenomena, or other explanations.


We studied two forms of dyad practice, compared to individual practice, to determine whether and how practice with a partner impacts performance and learning of a balance task, as well as learners' subjective perceptions of the practice experience. Participants were assigned to practice alone or in pairs. Partners either alternated turns practicing and observing one another, or they practiced and observed one another concurrently. Concurrent action observation impacted online action execution such that partners tended to show coupled movements, and it was perceived as more interfering than practicing in alternation. These differences did not impact error during practice. While dyad practice was associated with higher ratings of effort than individual practice, all groups improved and showed similar immediate and delayed retention irrespective of whether practice was alone or in pairs. These data provide evidence that a partner's concurrent practice influences one's own performance, but not to the detriment (or benefit) of learning. Thus, both alternating and concurrent forms of dyad practice are viable means of enhancing the efficiency, albeit not necessarily the effectiveness, of motor learning.


SUMMARY The national policy framework for forest and forest resources management in Cameroon has often been blamed for hindering the development of the non-timber forest products (NTFP) sector. Various actors, both international and national, have gathered to propose major changes to the forestry law in order to support NTFP development. This paper addresses the following questions: (1) What are the provisions of the current forestry policy for NTFPs? (2) What are the major changes proposed for NTFPs and the reality on the ground? (3) How do forest users view the legal forestry framework? (4) Aren't there better ways to improve NTFP management in Cameroon? Informal and formal interviews held with producers, traders, forest administrative agents and civil society actors show that the government tends to address the local communities' participation concerns through decentralisation in the forestry sector but without guaranteeing an efficient implementation. This situation appears to be a structural factor affecting other sectors of activity in the country, and resulting in little hope that the long awaited reforms in the forestry sector will have a determining impact, unless critical actions are taken against corruption and nepotism. The development of a well-structured civil society and the recourse to new technologies appear to be the best way to improve NTFP governance and efficiency in Cameroon.


Background: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men, accounting for more than 30,000 deaths annually. The purpose of this study was to test whether variation in selected candidate genes in biological pathways of interest for prostate cancer progression could help distinguish patients at higher risk for fatal prostate cancer. Methods: In this hypothesis-driven study, we genotyped 937 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 156 candidate genes in a population-based cohort of 1,309 prostate cancer patients. We identified 22 top-ranking SNPs (P ≤ 0.01, FDR ≤ 0.70) associated with prostate cancer-specific mortality (PCSM). A subsequent validation study was completed in an independent population-based cohort of 2,875 prostate cancer patients. Results: Five SNPs were validated (P ≤ 0.05) as being significantly associated with PCSM, one each in the LEPR, CRY1, RNASEL, IL4, and ARVCF genes. Compared with patients with 0 to 2 of the at-risk genotypes those with 4 to 5 at-risk genotypes had a 50% (95% CI, 1.2–1.9) higher risk of PCSM and risk increased with the number of at-risk genotypes carried (Ptrend = 0.001), adjusting for clinicopathologic factors known to influence prognosis. Conclusion: Five genetic markers were validated to be associated with lethal prostate cancer. Impact: This is the first population-based study to show that germline genetic variants provide prognostic information for prostate cancer-specific survival. The clinical utility of this five-SNP panel to stratify patients at higher risk for adverse outcomes should be evaluated. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(9); 1928–36. ©2011 AACR.


Abstract A data-set from the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene subunit of 11 Australasian lycosid species (six New Zealand species and five Australian species) was generated. Three North American lycosid species, one European species and one New Zealand pisaurid (outgroup) were also sequenced. The sequence data for the 16 species were combined with the published sequences of 12 European lycosids, two Asian lycosids and one Asian pisaurid and were analyzed using parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses. The resulting phylogenetic trees reveal that Australasian species largely form clades distinct from Palearctic and Holarctic species providing further evidence against the placement of Australasian species in Northern Hemisphere genera. New Zealand wolf spiders appear to be related to a subset of Australian genera whereas the other Australian lycosid genera are related to Asian/Holarctic faunas. Gene sequences in the 12S region were useful when examining relationships between closely related genera, but were not as informative for deeper generic relationships.


Traditionally, recommender systems have been studied in domains that focus on harnessing distributed information resources, collaborative filtering, information aggregation, social schemes for decision making and user interfaces. In this paper, we present recommender systems in a different context -- primarily as systems that select (scientific) software appropriate to a user's needs. This application is motivated by the wide acceptance of problem solving environments (PSEs) which are high level environments for doing computational science. We give an overview of the domain, argue the need for recommender systems and describe our work in this area. The research issues in this discipline are also highlighted.


Experiment 1 demonstrated that handling rats prior to the start of a trial greatly facilitated bar-press avoidance learning. Although Ss which were also allowed to escape the training chamber following a bar press performed well, they were not significantly better than those Ss receiving handling only. Experiment 2, using concomitant measures of freezing and bar holding, investigated the effect of the interval between handling and the start of a trial. The resulting analysis provided evidence against bar holding and CS discriminability explanations of poor bar-press avoidance, while supporting the idea that conditioned freezing responses interfere with bar pressing.


A key challenge in metabolic engineering is to find and to improve biosynthetic pathways that lead to the cellular production of a given industrial, pharmaceutical or specialty chemical compound. In many cases, the enzymatic reactions required for bio-production have not been observed in nature and need to be designed from scratch. Computational approaches are essential to predict possible novel biotransformation and to find enzymes that can potentially catalyze the proposed reactions. In this work, we present two computational tools, BNICE.ch and BridgIT, and we demonstrate their concerted action to (i) predict hypothetical biotransformations and (ii) to link these novel reactions with well characterized enzymatic reactions and their associated genes. BNICE.ch reconstructs known reactions and generates novel reactions by applying its integrated, expert curated, generalized enzyme reaction rules on known metabolites. In order to find enzymes that potentially catalyze the biotransformation of these novel reactions, we assume that molecules with a similar reactive site and a similar atomic structure around the reactive site may be recognized and transformed by the same enzyme. Hence, BridgIT compares every predicted novel reaction to all known enzymatic reactions for which a protein sequence is available. Novel and known reactions are compared based on the reactive site of the substrates, the atoms surrounding the reactive site, and the breakage and formation of atomic bonds during the conversion of the substrate to the product. As a result, BridgIT reports a similarity score for each comparison of known reactions to novel reactions, thus giving an estimate of how possible it is that a given enzyme can catalyze a novel reaction. The results are organized in a database of known and hypothetical reactions called the "ATLAS of Biochemistry"1, where every hypothetical reaction is associated with its structurally most similar known enzymatic reactions, thus suggesting a plausible Gene-Protein-Reaction (GPR) association that can be used as a starting point for enzyme engineering. Our database currently spans more than 130'000 biochemically possible reactions between known metabolites from the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). The ATLAS database and the BridgIT online tool are available on the web (http://lcsb-databases.epfl.ch/) and they can be used to extract potential reactions and pathways and to identify enzyme targets for metabolic and enzymatic engineering purposes. 1Hadadi, N., Hafner, J., Shajkofci, A., Zisaki, A., & Hatzimanikatis, V. (2016). ATLAS of Biochemistry: A repository of all possible biochemical reactions for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering studies. ACS Synthetic Biology, 2016.


Business ethics denial refers to one of two claims about moral motivation in a business context: that there is no need for it, or that it is impossible. Neither of these radical claims is endorsed by serious theorists in the academic fields that study business ethics. Nevertheless, public commentators, as well as university students, often make claims that seem to imply that they subscribe to some form of business ethics denial. This paper fills a gap by making explicit both the various forms that business ethics denial can take, and the reasons why such views are ultimately implausible. The paper argues that this type of serious engagement with business ethics denial should be an important part of the job description for teachers of business ethics.


Calibration is an important phase in the hydrological modelling process. In this study, an automated calibration framework is developed for estimating Manning9s roughness coefficient. The calibration process is formulated as an optimization problem and solved using a genetic algorithm (GA). A heuristic search procedure using GA is developed by including runoff simulation process and evaluating the fitness function by comparing the experimental results. The model is calibrated and validated using datasets of Watershed Experimentation System. A loosely coupled architecture is followed with an interface program to enable automatic data transfer between overland flow model and GA. Single objective GA optimization with minimizing percentage bias, root mean square error and maximizing Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency is integrated with the model scheme. Trade-offs are observed between the different objectives and no single set of the parameter is able to optimize all objectives simultaneously. Hence, multi-objective GA using pooled and balanced aggregated function statistic are used along with the model. The results indicate that the solutions on the Pareto-front are equally good with respect to one objective, but may not be suitable regarding other objectives. The present technique can be applied to calibrate the hydrological model parameters.


In recent years, substantial effort has been devoted to methods for analyzing data containing mixed response types, but such techniques typically do not include rank data among the response types. Some unique challenges exist in analyzing rank data, particularly when ties are prevalent. We present techniques for jointly modeling binomial and rank data using Bayesian latent variable models. We apply these techniques to compare the cognitive abilities of nonhuman primates based on their performance on 17 cognitive tasks scored on either a rank or binomial scale. To jointly model the rank and binomial responses, we assume that responses are implicitly determined by latent cognitive abilities. We then model the latent variables using random effects models, with identifying restrictions chosen to promote parsimonious prior specification and model inferences. Results from the primate cognitive data are presented to illustrate the methodology. Our results suggest that the ordering of the cognitive abilities of species varies significantly across tasks, suggesting a partially independent evolution of cognitive abilities in primates. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


C-terminal truncations of monomeric wild-type alpha-synuclein (henceforth WT-αS) have been shown to enhance the formation of amyloid aggregates both in vivo and in vitro and have been associated with accelerated progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). The correlation with PD may not solely be a result of faster aggregation, but also of which fibril polymorphs are preferentially formed when the C-terminal residues are deleted. Considering that different polymorphs are known to result in distinct pathologies, it is important to understand how these truncations affect the organization of αS into fibrils. Here we present high-resolution microscopy and advanced vibrational spectroscopy studies that indicate that the C-terminal truncation variant of αS, lacking residues 109–140 (henceforth referred to as 1–108-αS), forms amyloid fibrils with a distinct structure and morphology. The 1–108-αS fibrils have a unique negative circular dichroism band at ∼230 nm, a feature that differs from the canonical ∼218 nm band usually observed for amyloid fibrils. We show evidence that 1–108-αS fibrils consist of strongly twisted β-sheets with an increased inter-β-sheet distance and a higher solvent exposure than WT-αS fibrils, which is also indicated by the pronounced differences in the 1D-IR (FTIR), 2D-IR, and vibrational circular dichroism spectra. As a result of their distinct β-sheet structure, 1–108-αS fibrils resist incorporation of WT-αS monomers.


Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks have emerged as a popular means of causing mass targeted service disruptions, often for extended periods of time. The relative ease and low costs of launching such attacks, supplemented by the current woeful state of any viable defense mechanism, have made them one of the top threats to the Internet community today. While distributed packet logging and/or packet marking have been explored in the past for DDoS attack traceback/mitigation, we propose to advance the state of the art by using a novel distributed divide-and-conquer approach in designing a new data dissemination architecture that efficiently tracks attack sources. The main focus of our work is to tackle the three disjoint aspects of the problem, namely attack tree construction, attack path frequency detection, and packet to path association, independently and to use succinct recurrence relations to express their individual implementations. We also evaluate the network traffic and storage overhead induced by our proposed deployment on real-life Internet topologies, supporting hundreds of victims each subject to thousands of high-bandwidth flows simultaneously, and conclude that we can truly achieve single packet traceback guarantees with minimal overhead and high efficiency.


Background and Purpose: Disasters and traffic accidents as the leading causes of disability and death throughout the world are the most significant health problems which have usually been predictable and, therefore, possible to prevent. The present study, as the first attempt, was conducted to calculate the burden of life years lost due to early death caused by traffic accidents in Mazandaran Province. Materials and Methods: The current study was cross-sectional, and the data was collected from the center of Mazandaran Legal Medicine. The number of years of life lost due to premature death was calculated by using the instructions GBD2010 age and gender composition of the province was taken in the last census in 2012 from the Statistical Center. Then the SPSS Software was used to key in all the collected information in order to perform the analysis. Results: Of the total population in 2015, 729 deaths were recorded due to car accidents with 77.9 percent of them being male. Mean age was 43.07±21.18 and 44.67±23.34 in women. The number of years of life lost due to premature death was 24972.7 years in men, 6965.3 years in women, and the total of two genders was 31938 years (10.6 years per thousand people) which were calculated, and it was the highest in the age group ranging from 20 to 24 years old. Discussion: According to the high rate of deaths from traffic accidents and damages resulted from it, and in order to reduce these losses, it is necessary to take appropriate preventive measures.


Zika is a mosquito-transmitted virus that has spread broadly in tropical regions and caused epidemics, especially in the past 8 to 9 years. In its native range in West Africa and Uganda, the Zika virus stays in the forest for the most part, and human infections are considered incidental and medically inconsequential. In 2015, however, Zika became a larger concern when a strain of the virus traced to outbreaks in French Polynesia emerged in northeastern Brazil. This strain provoked alarm because of increased incidence of microcephaly in babies born to Zika-infected mothers. Local transmission, mainly by the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti, has now been documented in most tropical countries of the Americas but has not yet been detected in the continental United States. This 7-page fact sheet describes the Zika microbe, its mosquito hosts, and the disease it causes. A history of the virus and its migration are included, along with some details about the virus in the state of Florida and preventative measures people can take to avoid infection. The best way to avoid contracting Zika (and other mosquito-borne diseases) is not to get bitten in the first place. Take precautions to avoid mosquito bites. Written by L. P. Lounibos, B. W. Alto, N. D. Burkett-Cadena, C. C. Lord, C. T. Smartt, C. R. Connelly, and J. R. Rey, and published by the Department of Entomology and Nematology, February 2016.
ENY-888/IN1120: Zika, a Mosquito-Transmitted Virus (ufl.edu)
See also 2/9/2016 press release: UF/IFAS scientists write document explaining Zika virus; urge vigilance - News.


Neuronal viability and connectivity is essential for neuronal function in heath and disease. The aim of this study was to elucidate factors and mechanisms that govern the maintenance and remodelling of RGC dendrites, as well as neuronal cell death in ageing and neurodegenerative diseases. Using PCR technique, the expression pattern of caspases 3,6-9 and inhibitors of apoptosis (lAPs), namely neuronal IAP (NIAP), cellular IAP1 and 2 (clAP1 and 2), X-chromosome linked IAP (XIAP), Survivin, Bruce and Livin was determined in young adult (6 weeks), mature (24-52 weeks), old (88 weeks) and diseased retinae of Wistar albino and Brown Norway (BN) rats. Caspase expression was not altered during maturation and ageing in both strains. In ageing Wistar, NIAP, clAP2 and XIAP and clAP1 were decreased in 88 compared to 24-52 weeks, while Survivin, Bruce and Livin were slightly increased with age. lAPs expression was generally decreased in mature (24- 52 weeks) BN retinae compared to younger (6 weeks). Furthermore, validation of the expression of these molecules at protein level was carried out using western blotting and immunofluorescence techniques. clAP1 protein levels were downregulated in RGCL of BN rats. Reduction of clAP1 did not alter caspase activity but led to impairment in the survival pathway. Older BN retinae demonstrated compromised RGC morphology, but there was no retinal cell loss. Microbead experimental glaucoma model demonstrated no alteration in caspase expression upon induction of glaucoma. NIAP, clAP2, Survivin and Livin were up-regulated, while Bruce was down-regulated in glaucomatous eyes. clAP1 and XIAP expression remain similar between control and experimental eye. In conclusion, reduction in lAPs, which may lead to impairment in survival pathways might be the underlaying cause of reduction in dendrite complexity. Compromised RGC morphology makes a preparatory platform for neurodegenerative process observed in glaucoma disease where age is a major risk factor.


Abstract This paper presents the logistic system of fuel life cycle, covering diesel oil and the mixture of rapeseed oil and butanol (2:3 ratio), using the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. This method is a technique in the field of management processes with a view to assessing the potential environmental hazards. Our intention was to compare the energy consumption needed to produce each of the test fuels and emissions of selected substances generated during ithe production process. The study involved 10,000 liters of diesel and the same amount of rapeseed oil and butanol mixture (2:3 ratio). On the basis of measurements the following results were obtained. To produce a functional unit of diesel oil (i.e. 10,000 liters) it is necessary to extract 58.8 m3 of crude oil. The entire life cycle covering the consumption of 10,000 liters of diesel consumes 475.668 GJ of energy and causes the emission to air of the following substances: 235.376 kg of COx, 944.921 kg of NOx, 83.287 kg of SOx. In the ease of a functional unit, to produce a mixture of rapeseed oil and butanol (2:3 ratio) 10,000 kg of rapeseed and 20,350 kg of straw should be used. The entire life cycle of 10,000 liters of a mixture of rapeseed oil and butyl alcohol (2:3 ratio) absorbs 370.616 GJ of energy, while emitting the following air pollutants: 105.14832 kg of COx, 920.03124 kg of NOx, 0.162 kg of SOx. Analysis of the results leads to the conclusion that it is oil refining which is the most energy-intensive and polluting process in the life cycle of diesel. The process consumes 41.4 GJ of energy, and causes a significant emission of sulfur oxides (50 kg). In the production of fuel that is a mixture of rapeseed oil and butyl alcohol (2:3 ratio), rape production is the most energy-intensive manufacturing process is (absorbs 53.856 GJ of energy). This is due to the long operation time of the farm tractor and combine harvester. The operation of these machines leads also to the emission of a significant amount of pollution in the form of COx (2.664 kg) and NOx (23.31 kg).


Failure to adapt to the demands of higher education (HE) is often cited as a cause of withdrawal from the course. Parker and others (Parker, J.D.A., L.J. Summerfeldt, M.J. Hogan, and S.A. Majeski. 2004. Emotional intelligence and academic success: Examining the transition from high school to university. Personality and Individual Differences 36: 163–72) considered the role of individual differences in Emotional Intelligence (EI) and demonstrated a link between EI, withdrawal/retention and measures of academic achievement. In this study we ask whether EI mediates withdrawal in a UK HE institution and whether an EI‐based intervention might improve retention rates. Study 1 considers the effects of EI upon retention, revealing that students with higher levels of EI are more likely to progress to Year 2 of study. Study 2 evaluates an EI‐based intervention programme, demonstrating that students who show an increase in EI are more likely to persist with their studies. These findings are discussed in the light of current theoretical work. The prospects for EI‐based intervention programmes are also considered.


The primary objective of this paper is to determine whether tenure in compari-son to non-tenure faculty employment is efficient in producing the academic success of university students. A stochastic production frontier is estimated for university graduation rates while the inefficiency specification includes meas ures of tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty employment. Using panel data for U.S. doctoral and master level public universities, the evidence indicates that the employment status does matter and that increases in the proportion of tenured faculty employment lead to efficiency gains in graduation rates. Effects of tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty are somewhat mixed with non-tenure track employment being inefficient among doctoral universi ties but efficient in the less research intensive master level institutions. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that university administrators might improve both student academic success and government appropriated funding by reversing the non-tenure track hiring trend and advancing tenure among the faculty ranks. However, improvements in the quality of data along with investigations into the effects pertaining to the growth of online instruction and e-education would be most desirable in providing additional tests.


In late nineteenth-century Mexico the Mexican populace was fascinated with the country's booming railroad network. Newspapers and periodicals were filled with art, poetry, literature, and social commentaries exploring the symbolic power of the railroad. As a symbol of economic, political, and industrial modernization, the locomotive served to demarcate a nation's status in the world. However, the dangers of locomotive travel, complicated by the fact that Mexico's railroads were foreign owned and operated, meant that the railroad could also symbolize disorder, death, and foreign domination. In The Civilizing Machine Michael Matthews explores the ideological and cultural milieu that shaped the Mexican people's understanding of technology. Intrinsically tied to the Porfiriato, the thirty-five-year dictatorship of Gen. Porfirio Diaz, the booming railroad network represented material progress in a country seeking its place in the modern world. Matthews discloses how the railroad's development represented the crowning achievement of the regime and the material incarnation of its mantra, "order and progress." The Porfirian administration evoked the railroad in legitimizing and justifying its own reign, while political opponents employed the same rhetorical themes embodied by the railroads to challenge the manner in which that regime achieved economic development and modernization. As Matthews illustrates, the multiple symbols of the locomotive reflected deepening social divisions and foreshadowed the conflicts that eventually brought about the Mexican Revolution.


Background: The feeding of an infant with breast milk only, to the exclusion of all other feeds - liquids or solids, including water - except prescribed medications; within the first half year of life is referred to as exclusive breastfeeding (EBF). Despite its numerous benefits, not many mothers practiced it because of one barrier or the other. This study estimated the prevalence of EBF established the major barriers thereof and determined the link between socio-demographic characteristics and the practice of EBF among women living in the rural suburbs of Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria. Methodology: This study was descriptive cross-sectional in design. Results: Among the 370 subjects, 49% practiced EBF. None of the respondents made PNC visit specifically for the purpose of learning or asking questions about breastfeeding. Nonetheless, 18.5% received breastfeeding education during PNC visit. A large proportion of the subjects did not practice EBF because they were not aware (21.1%) of it. Medical reasons, which included HIV positive mothers and those with breast disease constituted the least barriers (1.3%). EBF was prominently linked with maternal education, type of work, delivery place, skilled attendance at birth, husband's education, and occupation (p<0.05). Conclusion: Capacity building for healthcare personnel on breast feeding, establishment of facilities as close to the communities as possible with their active participation in the planning, implementation and monitoring of EBF practice is recommended. Emphasis should be laid on the need for breastfeeding during antenatal period and then postnatal just before discharge.


Scala is an object-oriented programming language for the Java Virtual Machine. In addition to being object-oriented, Scala is also a functional language, and combines the best approaches to OO and functional programming. In Italian, Scala means a stairway, or steps indeed, Scala lets you step up to a programming environment that incorporates some of the best recent thinking in programming language design while also letting you use all your existing Java code. Artima is very pleased to publish a new edition of the best-selling book on Scala, written by the designer of the language, Martin Odersky. Co-authored by Lex Spoon and Bill Venners, this book takes a step-by-step tutorial approach to teaching you Scala. Starting with the fundamental elements of the language, Programming in Scala introduces functional programming from the practitioner's perspective, and describes advanced language features that can make you a better, more productive developer.


Coxeter's classification of the highly symmetric geodesic domes (and, by duality, the highly symmetric fullerenes) is extended to a classification scheme for all geodesic domes and fullerenes. Each geodesic dome is characterized by its signature: a plane graph on twelve vertices with labeled angles and edges. In the case of the Coxeter geodesic domes, the plane graph is the icosahedron, all angles are labeled one, and all edges are labeled by the same pair of integers (p,q). Edges with these "Coxeter coordinates" correspond to straight line segments joining two vertices of $\Lambda$, the regular triangular tessellation of the plane, and the faces of the icosahedron are filled in with equilateral triangles from $\Lambda$ whose sides have coordinates (p,q).
We describe the construction of the signature for any geodesic dome. In turn, we describe how each geodesic dome may be reconstructed from its signature: the angle and edge labels around each face of the signature identify that face with a polygonal region of $\Lambda$ and, when the faces are filled by the corresponding regions, the geodesic dome is reconstituted. The signature of a fullerene is the signature of its dual. For each fullerene, the separation of its pentagons, the numbers of its vertices, faces, and edges, and its symmetry structure are easily computed directly from its signature. Also, it is easy to identify nanotubes by their signatures.


The extension of modern energy services to rural sub-Saharan Africa has continuously provided a challenge to energy utilities. The continued reliance on diesel generators for rural electrification is increasingly becoming unsustainable, due to a number of factors, among which includes their high fuel dependency, and the uncertainty surrounding the price and availability of fossil fuels. While the influx of renewable energy technologies has provided a means for providing off-grid electrification services, the intermittent nature of renewable resources poses a challenge, as energy generation does not always coincide with usage. Through a combination of renewable energy technologies, energy storage, and conventional diesel generation, a hybrid mini-grid system is able to achieve synergy in operation, hence providing a reliable means of extending electricity services to rural consumers. In this paper, a hybrid mini-grid system is proposed for the supply of electricity to a remote village in Uganda. Renewable energy resources are identified, an estimation of the projected village short-term electricity demand is modelled, and using HOMER software, a hybrid mini-grid system is designed, components sized, and the system optimized for efficient and reliable operation to meet the village demand at an affordable cost. A well designed and operated hybrid mini-grid system offers a viable tool for the electrification of even the remotest of areas.


We present a multi-wavelength catalog in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field (SXDF) as part of the Spitzer Large Area Survey with Hyper-Suprime-Cam (SPLASH). We include the newly acquired optical data from the Hyper-Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program, accompanied by IRAC coverage from the SPLASH survey. All available optical and near-infrared data is homogenized and resampled on a common astrometric reference frame. Source detection is done using a multi-wavelength detection image including the u-band to recover the bluest objects. We measure multi-wavelength photometry and compute photometric redshifts as well as physical properties for ∼1.17 million objects over ∼4.2 deg2, with ∼800,000 objects in the 2.4 deg2 HSC-Ultra-Deep coverage. Using the available spectroscopic redshifts from various surveys over the range of 0 < z < 6, we verify the performance of the photometric redshifts and we find a normalized median absolute deviation of 0.023 and outlier fraction of 3.2%. The SPLASH-SXDF catalog is a valuable, publicly available resource, perfectly suited for studying galaxies in the early universe and tracing their evolution through cosmic time.


Abstract. The infrared (IR) imagery provides additional information to the visible (red-green-blue, RGB) about vegetation, soil, water, mineral, or temperature, and has become essential for various disciplines, such as geology, hydrology, ecology, archeology, meteorology or geography. The integration of the IR sensors, ranging from near-IR (NIR) to thermal-IR through mid-IR, constitutes a baseline for Earth Observation satellites but not for unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV). Given the hyperspatial and hypertemporal characteristics associated with the UAV survey, it is relevant to benefit from the IR waveband in addition to the visible imagery for mapping purposes. This paper proposes to predict the NIR reflectance from RGB digital number predictors collected with a consumer-grade UAV over a structurally and compositionally complex coastal area. An array of 15 000 data, distributed into calibration, validation and test datasets across 15 representative coastal habitats, was used to build and compare the performance of the standard least squares, decision tree, boosted tree, bootstrap forest and fully connected neural network (NN) models. The NN family surpassed the four other ones, and the best NN model (R2 = 0.67) integrated two hidden layers provided, each, with five nodes of hyperbolic tangent and five nodes of Gaussian activation functions. This perceptron enabled to produce a NIR reflectance spatially-explicit model deprived of original artifacts due to the flight constraints. At the habitat scale, sedimentary and dry vegetation environments were satisfactorily predicted (R2 > 0.6), contrary to the healthy vegetation (R2 < 0.2). Those innovative findings will be useful for scientists and managers tasked with hyperspatial and hypertemporal mapping.


In order to test if the intestinal bacteria play an
important role in antibacterial ability of earthworm, we chose Escherichia
coli O157:H7, an
anthropozoonosis pathogen, as a biological stressor and studied the change of intestinal bacteria community of earthworm by
PCR-DGGE analysis. Results showed that the pathogen merely existed 1 - 3 days,
then almost disappeared after through the earthworm's gut. In this period, the
diversity and abundance index of intestinal bacteria increased first, then
decreased, and finally kept stably after 7
days. The result demonstrated that the intestinal bacteria of earthworm
had ability of adjust community structure to eliminate the pathogen E. coli O157:H7, and the amount of bacteria Bacillus increased significantly,
which might be the positive antagonism to E. coli O157:H7.


Pancreatic cancer is one of the most devastating and rapidly fatal cancers, yet little is known about the primary cause and prevention of this disease. We conducted a population-based case-control study to investigate the association between vegetables and fruits and pancreatic cancer. Between 1995 and 1999, 532 cases and 1,701 age- and sex-matched controls completed direct interviews using a semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire. No proxy interviews were conducted. We observed inverse associations between consumption of total and specific vegetables and fruits and the risk of pancreatic cancer. The odds ratio and 95% confidence interval for the highest versus the lowest quartile of total vegetable intake was 0.45 (0.32-0.62), trend P < 0.0001; and for total fruits and fruit juice was 0.72 (0.54-0.98), trend P = 0.06. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the highest versus the lowest quartile of specific vegetables and fruits were: 0.63 (0.47-0.83) for dark leafy vegetables, 0.76 (0.56-1.0) for cruciferous vegetables, 0.59 (0.43-0.81) for yellow vegetables, 0.56 (0.41-0.76) for carrots, 0.51 (0.38-0.70) for beans, 0.46 (0.33-0.63) for onions and garlic, and 0.78 (0.58-1.0) for citrus fruits and juice. Compared with less than five servings per day of total vegetables and fruits combined, the risk of pancreatic cancer was 0.49 (0.36-0.68) for more than nine servings per day. These results suggest that increasing vegetable and fruit consumption, already recommended for the prevention of several other chronic diseases, may impart some protection against developing pancreatic cancer.


In this paper ; we review the mean-variance portfolio theory literature that supports short selling as an active portfolio management tool and the empirical literature that provides evidence of active short sellers having superior information about overpriced securities. What may not be clear is exactly how that information can be detected and analyzed. We, therefore, review the theoretical and empirical literature that investigates the information content of short interest. Finally, we document several methods used by portfolio managers to target short sale candidates.


Ralstonia solanacearum is a major soilborne pathogen that attacks > 200 plant species, including major crops. To characterize MtQRRS1, a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) for resistance towards this bacterium in the model legume Medicago truncatula, genetic and functional approaches were combined. QTL analyses together with disease scoring of heterogeneous inbred families were used to define the locus. The candidate region was studied by physical mapping using a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library of the resistant line, and sequencing. In planta bacterial growth measurements, grafting experiments and gene expression analysis were performed to investigate the mechanisms by which this locus confers resistance to R. solanacearum. The MtQRRS1 locus was localized to the same position in two recombinant inbred line populations and was narrowed down to a 64 kb region. Comparison of parental line sequences revealed 15 candidate genes with sequence polymorphisms, but no evidence of differential gene expression upon infection. A role for the hypocotyl in resistance establishment was shown. These data indicate that the quantitative resistance to bacterial wilt conferred by MtQRRS1, which contains a cluster of seven R genes, is shared by different accessions and may act through intralocus interactions to promote resistance.


Up to the twentieth century, Islamic charitable endowments provided the material foundation of the Muslim world. In Lebanon, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the imposition of French colonial rule, many of these endowments reverted to private property circulating in the marketplace. In contemporary Beirut, however, charitable endowments have resurged as mosques, Islamic centers, and nonprofit organizations. A historical anthropology in dialogue with Islamic law, God's Property demonstrates how these endowments have been drawn into secular logics— no longer the property of God but of the Muslim community—and shaped by the modern state and modern understandings of charity and property. Although these transformations have produced new kinds of loyalties and ways of being in society, Nada Moumtaz's ethnography reveals the furtive persistence of endowment practices that perpetuate older ways of thinking of one's self and one's responsibilities to family and state.


This work is an exploration of the global market dynamics, their intrinsic natures, common trends and dynamic interlinkages during the stock market crises over the last twelve years. The study isolates different phases of crisis and differentiates between any crisis that remains confined to the region and those that take up a global dimension. The latent structure of the global stock market, the inter-regional and intra-regional stock market dynamics around the crises are analyzed to get a complete picture of the structure of the global stock market. The study further probing into the inherent nature of the global stock market in generating crisis finds the global market to be chaotic thus making the system intrinsically unstable or at best to follow knife-edge stability. The findings have significant bearing at theoretical level and on policy decisions.


OBJECTIVE The involvement of proangiogenic factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor as well as the therapeutic efficacy of angiogenesis inhibitors in early diabetic nephropathy has been reported. Vasohibin-1 (VASH-1) is a unique endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor that is induced in endothelial cells by proangiogenic factors. We investigated the therapeutic efficacy of VASH-1 in an early diabetic nephropathy model. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Streptozotocin- induced type 1 diabetic mice received intravenous injections of adenoviral vectors encoding VASH-1 (AdhVASH-1) or β-gal (AdLacZ) every other week and were killed after 28 days. RESULTS Treatment with AdhVASH-1 resulted in sustained increase in the protein levels of VASH-1 in the liver and sera, in the absence of any inflammatory alterations. AdhVASH-1 treatment significantly suppressed renal hypertrophy, glomerular hypertrophy, glomerular hyperfiltration, albuminuria, increase of the CD31+ glomerular endothelial area, F4/80+ monocyte/macrophage infiltration, the accumulation of type IV collagen, and mesangial matrix compared with AdLacZ-treated diabetic mice. Increase in the renal levels of transforming growth factor-β1, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and receptor for advanced glycation end products in diabetic animals was significantly suppressed by AdhVASH-1 (real-time PCR and immunoblot). VASH-1 significantly suppressed the increase of transforming growth factor-β, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and receptor for advanced glycation end products, induced by high ambient glucose in cultured mouse mesangial cells. Increased phosphorylation of VEGFR2 was suppressed in AdVASH-1–treated diabetic animals and in cultured glomerular endothelial cells. Endogenous mouse VASH-1 was localized to the mesangial and endothelial area in glomeruli of diabetic mice. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest the potential therapeutic efficacy of VASH-1 in treating early diabetic nephropathy potentially mediated via glomerular endothelial and mesangial cells.


From social networks to public transportation, graph structures are a ubiquitous feature of life. Yet little is known about how humans learn functions on graphs, where relationships are defined by the connectivity structure. We adapt a Bayesian framework for function learning to graph structures, and propose that people perform generalization by diffusing observed function values across the graph. We test the predictions of this model by asking participants to make predictions about passenger volume in a virtual subway network. The model captures both generalization and confidence judgments, and is a quantitatively superior account relative to several heuristic models. Our work suggests that people exploit graph structure to make generalizations about functions in complex discrete spaces.


Ecosystems are under increasing pressure from external disturbances. Understanding how species that drive important functional processes respond to benthic and community change will have implications for predicting ecosystem recovery. Herbivorous fishes support reefs in coral-dominated states by mediating competition between coral and macroalgae. Spatiotemporal variability in herbivore populations and behaviour have direct effects on the removal of algae, but knowledge of how different drivers impact on herbivore populations and their foraging is currently lacking. Such knowledge is important to understand whether herbivory is likely to compensate for changing resource availability, and thus, the potential for reefs to recover from disturbance. The relative importance of these drivers has implications for the suitability of specific management actions put in place to support herbivory. Variability in density, body size, foraging movements and grazing rate of 2 parrotfish species was investigated across reefs exhibiting a range of benthic and fish community compositions. Foraging movements were influenced by the benthos, with foraging distances greatest on degraded reefs. In contrast, parrotfish densities were driven by the management status of the reef; parrotfish size was primarily linked to species identity, whereas grazing rate was influenced by both management status and species. These findings suggest that the distribution of foraging effort will vary over time in response to reef condition, such that feeding becomes more dispersed as reefs degrade. Gear restrictions that protect large, high-grazing-rate species, or designation of no-take areas, are likely to maximise algal removal, regardless of reef condition.


The study evaluated the effect of Ricinus communis aqueous extract on radial growth of Alternaria solani and its most effective concentration. The experiment was laid out using a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with R. communis extract tested at 3 concentrations of 25, 50 and 100% plus control on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) amended medium in 3 replications for 2 separate experiments. Isolation and identification of the early blight pathogen was made by symptoms on tomato plants, macro and microscopic observations in pure culture. Data on radial growth were collected, statistically analysed and percent inhibition (I%) was calculated. Results revealed that, R. communis at 100% concentration recorded the lowest radial growth either at 24, 48 and 72 h post inoculation (hpi) in the first, second, and combined results. The combined results further revealed that, the lowest radial growth 1.43, 2.00, and 2.72 cm were recorded in R. communis treatment at 24, 48 and 72 hpi, respectively. I% varied from 26 to 59%, according to the experimental conditions, and it was then concluded that, R. communis extract used at different concentrations had inhibitory effect on A. solani. It is was then suggested that, R. communis at 100% concentration could be put to field trial to evaluate its effectiveness in the control of the early blight pathogen A. solani.

 Key words: Alternaria solani, Ricinus communis, radial growth, concentration.


Differential Reinforcement in the Online Radicalization of Western Muslim Women Converts by Heather Ann Cone MSIR, Troy University, 2007 BA, Colorado State University, 2000 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Administration Program Walden University November 2016 Abstract The emerging phenomenon of Western women Islamic converts learning radicalized ideology through social media constitutes a challenge to cyber policy makers hampered by a lack of gender-nuanced radicalization research. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative case study was to develop a greater understanding of how the differential reinforcement tenet of social learning theory may help to explain the conversion and radicalization of Western women towards a fundamentalist Islamic ideology through their participation in the social media. Key research questions explored how participation in online social media may create vulnerability towards radicalization and exploitation. The blogs of 3 different Western women converts were selected from the social media website Tumblr for the period of January 2014 through September 2015. Approximately 21,700 posted entries were subjected to a deductive coding process and thematic analysis. Key findings indicated that fervent activism, strong commitment to the digital community, and a tepid response to world terrorist attacks were potential vulnerabilities for targeted radicalization. Additionally, authors increased the number of their ideologyrelated posts in response to increased reader interactions. Finally, reader responses didThe emerging phenomenon of Western women Islamic converts learning radicalized ideology through social media constitutes a challenge to cyber policy makers hampered by a lack of gender-nuanced radicalization research. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative case study was to develop a greater understanding of how the differential reinforcement tenet of social learning theory may help to explain the conversion and radicalization of Western women towards a fundamentalist Islamic ideology through their participation in the social media. Key research questions explored how participation in online social media may create vulnerability towards radicalization and exploitation. The blogs of 3 different Western women converts were selected from the social media website Tumblr for the period of January 2014 through September 2015. Approximately 21,700 posted entries were subjected to a deductive coding process and thematic analysis. Key findings indicated that fervent activism, strong commitment to the digital community, and a tepid response to world terrorist attacks were potential vulnerabilities for targeted radicalization. Additionally, authors increased the number of their ideologyrelated posts in response to increased reader interactions. Finally, reader responses did not appear to alter the bloggers' static and strongly held positions on cultural gender roles. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include a starting point for the development of a formal adolescent cyber educational program, new metadata delimiters for the identification and engagement of vulnerable women, and as an example of the use of public policy theoretical frameworks for homeland security


We discuss the integration of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for maximum likelihood learning of Bayesian networks with belief propagation algorithms for approximate inference. Specifically we propose to combine the outer-loop step of convergent belief propagation algorithms with the M-step of the EM algorithm. This then yields an approximate EM algorithm that is essentially still double loop, with the important advantage of an inner loop that is guaranteed to converge. Simulations illustrate the merits of such an approach.


Objective: Colorectal cancer is a commonly encountered cancer worldwide about 1.4 million new cases diagnosed and 693,900 deaths occurred per year. Colorectal cancer could be stopped and highly curable if diagnosed early. In this proposed study, the main goal is to develop accurate, sensitive and rapid Raman spectroscopy method in colorectal cancer diagnosis of formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples. Methods: In the proposed method, samples were deparaffinized and prepared as 20 microns of dimension that was located on a coverslip. The instrument produces a continuum laser at 785 nm that were applied to both healthy and cancer tissues. Wavenumber of 50-1800 cm-1 was scanned to get information about the metabolic variation in each group. Results: Accuracy of the method was calculated by comparing the results regarding the histopathological evaluation. Healthy and cancer tissues formed two unique clusters via chemometrics algorithm. The rapid, easy and precise diagnosis was achieved for colorectal cancer diagnosis. By this method, some beneficial information regarding the variation in several metabolites was also obtained from the spectrum. Conclusion: It is reported that the optimized method represents an important opportunity for clustering and separating cancer tissues from healthy ones. This novel, rapid, precise and numerical approach may be an effective alternative for the conventional methods.


Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) is a common treatment for rotator cuff tear arthropathy. We performed a systematic review of all the RTSA literature to answer if we are treating the same patients with RTSA, across the world. A systematic review was registered with PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews, and performed with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines using 3 publicly available free databases. Therapeutic clinical outcome investigations reporting RTSA outcomes with levels of evidence I to IV were eligible for inclusion. All study, subject, and surgical technique demographics were analyzed and compared between continents. Statistical comparisons were conducted using linear regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Fisher's exact test, and Pearson's chi-square test. There were 103 studies included in the analysis (8973 patients; 62% female; mean age, 70.9 ± 6.7 years; mean length of follow-up, 34.3 ± 19.3 months) that had a low Modified Coleman Methodology Score (MCMS) (mean, 36.9 ± 8.7: poor). Most patients (60.8%) underwent RTSA for a diagnosis of rotator cuff arthropathy, whereas 1% underwent RTSA for fracture; indications varied by continent. There were no consistent reports of preopeartive or postoperative scores from studies in any region. Studies from North America reported significantly higher postoperative external rotation (34.1° ± 13.3° vs 19.3° ± 8.9°) (P < .001) and a greater change in flexion (69.0° ± 24.5° vs 56.3° ± 11.3°) (P = .004) compared with studies from Europe. North America had the greatest total number of publications followed by Europe. The total yearly number of publications increased each year (P < .001), whereas the MCMS decreased each year (P = .037). The quantity, but not the quality of RTSA studies is increasing. Indications for RTSA varied by continent, although most patients underwent RTSA for rotator cuff arthropathy. The majority of patients undergoing RTSA are female over the age of 60 years for a diagnosis of rotator cuff arthropathy with pseudoparalysis.