We calculate the radiative characteristics of emission from a system of entangled atoms which can have a relative distance larger than the emission wavelength. We develop a quantum multipath interference approach which explains both super- and subradiance though the entangled states have zero dipole moment. We derive a formula for the radiated intensity in terms of different interfering pathways. We further show how the interferences lead to directional emission from atoms prepared in symmetric W states. As a byproduct of our work we show how Dicke's classic result can be understood in terms of interfering pathways. In contrast to the previous works on ensembles of atoms, we focus on finite numbers of atoms prepared in well characterized states.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of low-temperature conditions in potentially impacting soluble Mn2+ removal in MnOx(s)-coated media systems. The study involved an extensive examination of water quality and process data for a ten-year period (2005–2014) from the Harwood's Mill Water Treatment Plant in Newport News, VA. Additionally, laboratory-scale shallow depth column studies were performed employing MnOx(s)-coated media for soluble Mn2+ removal. Data were evaluated for the impacts of low temperature conditions, water pH, soluble Mn2+ concentration, and free chlorine concentration on the ability of MnOx(s)-coated media to promote effective soluble Mn2+ removal. The results show that the uptake of soluble Mn2+ onto MnOx(s)-coated filter media is significantly impacted by water temperatures below 15 °C, with impacts being very substantial under lower temperature (T < 10 °C) conditions. Also, the adverse effects of low temperature on MnOx(s)-coated treatment processes can be at least partially mitigated by an increase in solution pH.


Over the past thirty years, health expenditure has grown at a faster rate than the economy in almost every OECD country. The main drivers of public health spending are income growth, insurance coverage, demographics, and, above all, technological change. According to the projections of the major international institutions (European Commission, OECD, International Monetary Fund), public health spending for the of EU-15 countries could significantly increase by 2050. These projections vary in an extremely wide range, between +27% and +84%, depending on the assumptions made. However, the big challenge will be the growth of public spending on long-term care which could more than double over the 2010-2050 period, owing to the sharp rise of frailty and disability at older ages, especially amongst the very old (aged 80+) which will be the fastest growing segment of the EU population in the decades to come. The European countries are facing a common challenge: the need to secure the economic and financial sustainability of their health care systems without undermining the values of universal coverage and solidarity in financing. Command and control policies aimed at expenditure restraints and largely operating through regulatory controls (controls over inputs and wages, budget caps, etc.) are widely used during periods of recession. They can hold expenditures down in the short term. However, they do little or nothing to moderate the underlying pressures which push health spending up over the long-run. Other policies to guarantee both economic and financial sustainability in the long-run should be explored: 1) the adoption of new regulation tools on supply and demand side; 2) a new balanced mix of public and private financing, strengthening the role of supplementary private health insurance, to allow investment and innovation, without imposing unsustainable burdens on public budgets and without denying care to the disadvantaged. The former policies focus on economic sustainability, improving the way health systems address the rise in chronic disease and seek to incentive and reward patients, providers and buyers for healthy behaviour, quality and efficiency of care. The latter policies could ensure long-term financial stability of the health care systems but may determine negative effects in terms of equity and, therefore, they must be carefully designed.


The old medieval church of San Biagio in Cittiglio (Varese, Northern Italy) is one of the oldest religious buildings of Valcuvia. Since 2006, the interior of the church has been under investigation to acquire historical data and to reconstruct the archaeological site. These excavations yielded a series of discoveries, such as a significant number of tombs and pictorial elements. During our first field season, we exposed several architectural phases of the church, from the 9th to the 15th century. Inside the church, a funerary atrium was discovered and it was fascinating to find several tombs placed on different chronological layers. In particular, two of these tombs are remarkable. A tomb containing the skeletal remains of a young male showed three perimortem cuts on the skull. The other one kept the bones of a woman with a spearhead at the level of the ribs. We also observed another aspect, the conspicuous presence of childhood graves. In order to better investigate the paleodemography, we needed more osteoarchaeological data. Therefore, we focused our attention on the funerary area (7.5 m North–South × 18 m East–West) immediately outside the church. The archaeological excavation, which started in March 2016, brought to light several burials. During this phase, we discovered five overlapping archaeological layers, which testified an important funerary context. In the superficial layer, we recovered fragmented human bones, coins and numerous metallic artefacts. In the underling layer, we found tombs with coins, which allowed us to date it back to the Renaissance period. Square stones of different dimensions delimited the tombs of adults, while dead infants and foetuses were buried inside shingles. In the same layer, we also recovered archaeological findings such as an iron key, an iron knife, bronze buckles and bronze rings. The anthropological data for this cemeterial phase also documented the high infant mortality together with findings of pathological indicators such as arthrosis, dental diseases and traumatic injuries.


This investigation is a synergistic combination of laboratory experimentation and numerical simulation to quantify the practical impact of geometric imperfections in the flow channels of a reverse osmosis (RO) system. To this end, carefully executed experiments are performed to quantify the fluid flow in a system containing feed spacers which are embedded in the RO membrane. In a complementary activity, numerical simulations were performed both for an ideal geometric situation (without embedments) and the actual geometric configuration including the embedments. It was found that the presence of unaccounted embedments affected the pressure drop predictions for the system by 14-19%. When account was taken of the embedments, the simulation results were found to be virtually coincident with the experimental results. This outcome suggests that deviations between experimental and simulation results encountered in the literature might well have been due to geometrical deviations of the type investigated here. The numerical simulation of the feedwater fluid flow was based on the often-used but unverified assumption that the velocity field experiences the geometric periodicity of the feed spacer. This assumption was lent support by results from a non-periodic simulation model and by the excellent agreement between the numerically based predictions and the experimental data.


Deep-mine voids are an insidious hazard and early identification is imperative to minimizing subsidence to roads, bridges, buildings and other infrastructures. Continuous vertical electrical sounding (CVES) can be a rapid and effective tool for the detection of deep-mine voids; however, there are inherent issues with CVES including cultural noise, surface mining, and anomalous lithology. CVES imaging of a recently exposed limestone cave in State College, Pennsylvania documents the usefulness of CVES for the detection of subsurface anomalies. Deep-mining for clay in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, an unusual and unexpected deep-mined rock type, proved to be a potentially hazardous threat to a proposed subdivision. The 7-meter thick sandstone overlying a 140-year old mine void in the Akron, Ohio area is slowly collapsing and subsidence may adversely impact roads and residences. CVES profiles indicated that subsidence may affect only 25 residences and that only 6 residences were exposed to immediate subsidence. A field in western Pennsylvania was cleared for the installation of a manufacturing facility; however, CVES showed that the building footprint overlapped a highwall and deep-mined workings. Borings showed that the highwall and deep-mine workings were present and the building was redesigned to accommodate the potential hazards from subsidence.


Warming from increased carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations is the long-term driver of climate change but short-lived aerosols such as black carbon (BC) and continental dust also are important components of climate forcing. BC and dust in snow are especially important in the high latitudes because of their strong impact on albedo. With their short lifetimes in the atmosphere, aerosol concentrations and deposition rates are dominated by regional – rather than global – sources and intra- and inter-annual variability is high. Because most dust and BC aerosols in high latitudes originate in lower latitudes, changes in long range transport processes and pathways may dominate over changes in source strength in determining concentrations and deposition rates in the Polar Regions. However, detailed understanding of past and present concentrations, deposition rates, sources, and transport pathways of BC and dust is lacking.
Here we present and discuss detailed measurements of BC, dust, and related source tracers in the WAIS Divide and NEEM deep ice cores. Our records at both sites extend from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Early Holocene and also span the last two millennia. Similar measurements in a Taylor Glacier horizontal core and section of GISP2, as well as in a broad array of Greenland and Antarctic cores spanning recent centuries to decades, help elucidate spatial variability within each region during the last glacial to interglacial transition and recent past, respectively.


Previous studies on auditory space perception in patients with neglect have investigated localization of free-field-sound stimuli or lateralization of dichotic stimuli that are perceived intracranially. Since those studies in part revealed contradictory results, reporting either systematic errors to the left or systematic errors to the right, we reassessed the ability of auditory lateralization in patients with right hemispheric lesions with and without neglect. Unexpectedly, about half of the patients with neglect showed erratic judgments on sound position, that is, they were completely unable to lateralize sounds. The remaining neglect patients only showed a small deviation of the auditory median plane to the left side, indicating that they perceived the sounds as slightly shifted to the right side. The comparison between both groups revealed higher severity of neglect in the group of neglect patients who were unable to perform the task, suggesting that the inability of sound lateralization was associated with the strength of clinical neglect. However, we also observed 1 out of 9 patients with left brain damage who was not able to lateralize spatial sounds. This patient did not show any symptoms of spatial neglect. Thus, it may be that a spatial auditory deficit, such as that observed here in right-braindamaged patients, only co-occurs with spatial neglect if the right superior temporal cortex is lesioned.


The rne gene of Escherichia coli encodes RNase E, an essential endoribonuclease that is involved in both mRNA decay and rRNA processing. Here we present evidence that the gene is transcribed from three promoters: p1, p2 and p3. The p2 and p3 promoters map 34 and 145 nt upstream from the previously characterized rne promoter, p1, generating unusually long 5′ UTRs of 395 and 506 nt respectively. Based on promoter–lacZ transcriptional fusions, p1 is a more efficient promoter than either p2 or p3. Low copy number or single copy number vectors carrying rne transcribed from either p1, p2 or p3 alone complement the rneΔ1018::bla deletion mutation at 30°C, 37°C and 44°C. However, normal autoregulation requires the presence of all three promoters. A comparison among intracellular levels of RNase E, the half‐lives of the rpsO, rpsT and rne mRNAs, and growth rates, indicates that the cell contains a considerable excess of RNase E protein. In addition, when the rne transcript is stabilized at low RNase E levels, it is not efficiently translated.


This paper uses extensive firm-level data on European and US companies from 2014–2018 to explore the short-term impacts of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on European companies' financial performance. Our empirical analysis suggests that the costs of the GDPR during the first year of its implementation were substantial, at least for some European companies. The profit margins of the data-intensive firms increased, on average, by approximately 1.7 to 3.4 percentage points less than the profit margins of their US counterparts. The European data-intensive SMEs were the most disadvantaged group regarding their post-GDPR profit developments, while the large European data-intensive companies' short-term post-GDPR profit margins dropped relatively less. We do not find any statistically significant difference in the profit margin developments of the very large European and US companies. This finding is consistent with the view that the very large, multinational US companies that often have European customers and deal with the personal data of EU citizens also faced substantial costs when they needed to comply with the GDPR.


Science learning time has been on the decline because of increased time spent on language arts, reading and math. Lack of supplies, equipment and support from administrators are also contributing factors. Connections between math and science seem natural. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect that increased science class time, enriched with mathematically based skills, had on the students' understanding of content, as well as interest, motivation and confidence in math and science. Evaluations of scores, surveys, and interviews were performed to assess results.


Background: The groundbreaking activities that were enabled and facilitated by an NPRP research grant (Islamic Medical and Scientific Ethics, NPRP No. 08-783-6-017) to build a comprehensive collection of scholarly resources on Islamic bioethics have transformed the original proposal and slowly succeeded in creating a research culture that brought local, regional, and international attention to the project and its resources as an important hub for Islamic bioethics research. These activities include: development of a multilingual collection, which is catalogued, indexed, and maintained by the project team; development of an information retrieval system that enables fast and accurate searching capabilities of the stored bibliographic information; supporting collaborative initiatives with local, regional, and international stakeholders; envisioning further research opportunities that expand the scope of the project beyond bibliographic research into topical research projects and comprehensive reference works, which inspired another three-year research proposal to compile the world's first Encyclopedia of Islamic Bioethics and which has been accepted and awarded at the QNRF's Fifth Cycle in May 2012 (NPRP No. 5-1390-6-043) . These efforts have recently culminated in the successful organization of an international conference on Islamic bioethics, which brought together some of the most prominent experts of Islamic bioethics both in the West and in the Muslim world, which was held in June 2012 in Doha. Objectives: The presentation aims to show the different dimensions of the Islamic bioethics research project with a special focus on the important aspects that ensure smooth and effective transition from one level of the research process to another. More particularly, the presentation seeks to highlight the importance of maintaining a long-term vision, which inspires short-term and periodical objectives. Methods: the presentation will address these dimensions of the project: - Planning and revision - Bibliographic component - Research component - Workflow and team-building component - Dissemination and outreach component Results and Conclusions: The presentation will share the most important results that the project achieved in the first phase as well as preparations for the following phase with a special focus on the challenges that the project team encountered as well as the important lessons gained in the process.


Due to their widespread popularity, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live streaming systems have become a great challenge for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as they consume huge amount of Internet bandwidth. By observing that different users may watch a channel with different window sizes, we propose a cooperative scheme called Partial Participation Scheme (PPS) in which different peers request a video stream at different rates based on their window sizes, and a subset of peers viewing the video stream using a small window work as helpers to forward extra data to help other peers using a large window. By reducing streaming rate received by small-window peers, the total amount of consumed bandwidth decreases without sacrificing users' satisfaction. PPS includes peer cooperative bandwidth allocation algorithms and neighbor maintenance mechanisms to achieve short resizing delay when a peer changes its window between different sizes. We evaluate the performance of PPS via a comprehensive set of metrics generated from extensive simulations. Our simulation results show that PPS greatly reduces the bandwidth consumption, achieves short resizing delay, and maintains high and stable streaming quality.


The Burkholderia cepacia complex is a group of Gram-negative bacteria known as respiratory pathogens in cystic fibrosis patients, but also increasingly reported as a cause of healthcare associated infections. We describe an outbreak of B. cepacia bloodstream infections in a referral hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Over a 1.5-month period, blood cultures from eight adult patients grew B. cepacia. Bloodstream infection occurred after a median of 2.5 days of hospitalisation. Three patients died: 7, 10 and 17 days after blood cultures were sampled. As part of the outbreak investigation, patient files were reviewed and environmental sampling was performed. All patients had peripheral venous catheters that were flushed with Ringer lactate drawn from a 1 L bag, used as multiple-dose vial at the ward. Cultures of unopened Ringer lactate and disinfectants remained sterile but an in-use bag of Ringer lactate solution and the dispensing pin grew B. cepacia. The isolates from patients and flushing solution were identified as B. cepacia by recA gene sequence analysis, and random amplified polymorphic DNA typing confirmed clonal relatedness. The onset of the outbreak had coincided with the introduction of a dispensing pin with a screw fit that did not allow proper disinfection. Re-enforcement of aseptic procedures with sterile syringe and needle has ended the outbreak. Growth of B. cepacia should alert the possibility of healthcare associated infection also in tropical resource-limited settings. The use of multiple-dose vials should be avoided and newly introduced procedures should be assessed for infection control risks.


Focusing on the current " Strauss fever " in contemporary China, this thesis addresses two issues: Why Leo Strauss is popular in China, and how Chinese Straussians interpret and apply Leo Strauss's thought in the Chinese context. I argue that, Chinese Straussians are creatively accepting Leo Strauss's thoughts: Strauss's revival of the ancient Western political philosophy reminds Chinese Straussians to turn their eyes toward ancient Chinese thought. By reemphasizing the value of traditional Chinese wisdom, Chinese Straussians find that they have gained a perspective from which to reevaluate the justification of modernity and all relative Enlightenment and postmodern " isms. " According to them, returning to the Chinese philosophical tradition will liberate China from the dominance of modern and contemporary Western thought and reestablish the autonomy of Chinese civilization.


A novel text data dimension reduction technique, called the tree-structured multi-linear principal component analysis (TMPCA), is proposed in this work. Being different from traditional text dimension reduction methods that deal with the word-level representation, the TMPCA technique reduces the dimension of input sequences and sentences to simplify the following text classification tasks. It is shown mathematically and experimentally that the TMPCA tool demands much lower complexity (and, hence, less computing power) than the ordinary principal component analysis (PCA). Furthermore, it is demonstrated by experimental results that the support vector machine (SVM) method applied to the TMPCA-processed data achieves commensurable or better performance than the state-of-the-art recurrent neural network (RNN) approach.


Advanced societies produce open and international economies where competitiveness is a necessary requirement, although this in itself is not enough to guarantee sustained success. Social, political, and cultural complexities, along with increasingly greater social and collective needs, are another feature of the environment in question. Given this environment, companies and organizations in general have to maintain a high level of strategic tension and a significant capacity to adapt and be flexible when faced with different contingencies. Organizations must be driven by people who are committed to its goals, who actively participate in the management of labor processes, who have creative skills, and who are capable of getting along well with others and working as part of a team. Likewise, leaders must lean toward transformational or shared leadership, in which both the management and workers assume responsibility for growth. Cooperation between workers and managers is based on the experience that insofar as the company's goals are achieved, so will those of each individual person. To appreciate the change, it is important to understand organizational behavior, as there can be no sustainable organizational change without a change in people's behavior.


ABSTRACT We report here the dissemination of a conjugative IncI1 plasmid carrying blaTEM-52 on a Tn3 transposon conferring resistance to extended-spectrum cephalosporins in Salmonella enterica serovar Agona, Derby, Infantis, Paratyphi B dT+, and Typhimurium isolates from poultry and humans in Belgium and France from 2001 to 2005. The most prevalent serovar spreading this resistance was serovar Infantis.


Cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus found all around the world, usually causes asymptomatic infections in immunocompetent hosts, however it may lead to serious complications in immunodeficient patients and in the fetus. CMV is divided into four genotypes according to the polymorphisms in UL55 gene that encodes for envelope glycoprotein B. Nucleotide polymorphisms of CMV gB gene can affect the cell tropism of the virus and host immune response and believed to have important changes in the pathogenesis of CMV. The aim of this study was to determine the gB genotypes of CMV isolates from different patient groups selected from different regions of Turkey. A total of 136 clinical specimens from patients (66 female, 70 male; age range: 0-65 years, mean age: 24.03 ± 17.17) who were diagnosed to have CMV infection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or antigenemia tests, between 2001-2014, in the medical school hospitals of Akdeniz, Ege, Istanbul Cerrahpasa and Erciyes Universities (located at Mediterranean, Aegean, northwest and central Anatolia regions, respectively), were included in the study. The patient group consisted of 80 renal transplant (RT) recipients, 35 stem cell transplant (SCT) recipients, 13 newborns, seven heart transplant (HT) recipients and one pregnant woman. CMV gB genotypes were determined by PCR-RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) method, and DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis were performed for the randomly selected 15 isolates with different genotypes. Among 136 (135 plasma, 1 amnion fluid) samples, the most frequent genotype was gB1 (n= 44, 32.4%), followed by gB2 (n= 39, 28.6%), gB3 (n= 36, 26.5%) and gB4 (n= 8, 5.9%); however nine (6.6%) samples could not be genotyped. When analysis were interpreted according to the patient groups, it was determined that the genotypes in RT recipients were gB1 32.3%, gB2 28.7%, gB3 26.5% and gB4 5.9%; in SCT recipients gB1 34.3%, gB2 28.6%, gB3 22.9% and gB4 5.7%; in HT recipients gB3 57.1%, gB1 14.3% and gB2 14.3%; in newborns gB1 38.4%, gB3 30.8%, gB2 15.4% and gB4 7.7%, and gB2 genotype in the pregnant woman. As our study was a descriptive study to determine the genotypes of CMV gB, the relationship between the genotypes and the variants such as viral load, symptomatic disease and prognosis were not analyzed. As a result, the isolation of different gB genotypes in various case groups from four distinctive provinces, underlines the diversity of CMV gB genotypes in Turkey.


Intermediate band solar cells using quantum dots (QDs) have been proposed as an approach to increasing solar cell efficiency [1]. This paper presents results of attempts to grow QDs in the GaAs middle cell of lattice matched triple junction solar cells by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). QD size and density as a function of number of layers is studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The use of strain compensation for multiple QD layers is presented. Incorporation of QDs into the middle cell of a triple junction device is shown to result in an increased short-circuit current density with minimal loss in the open circuit voltage. The result is an increase in efficiency of a QD device compared to a baseline device without QDs.


This paper shows empirically that China's trade balance is sensitive to fluctuations in the real effective exchange rate of the renminbi. However, the current size of the trade surplus is such that exchange rate policy alone will probably not be able to address the imbalance. The potential reduction in the trade surplus resulting from an increase in the renminbi exchange rate is limited mainly because Chinese imports do not react as expected to a renminbi appreciation - they tend to fall rather than increase. By estimating bilateral import equations for China and its major trade partners, we find that the reaction for imports is generally confirmed for China's trade with Southeast Asian countries. That result might be attributable to Asia's vertical integration, as a large share of Chinese imports from Southeast Asia are re-exported. We also find that total exports from a number of Asian countries react negatively to a renminbi appreciation, which points to a dependence of Asian countries' exports on those of China.


Strategies of players in a population are updated according to the choice rules of agents, where each agent is a player or a coalition of players. It is known that classic results on the stochastic stability of conventions are due to an asymmetry property of the strategy updating process. We show that asymmetry can be defined at the level of the choice rule and that asymmetric rules can be mixed and matched whilst retaining asymmetry of the aggregate process. Specifically, we show robustness of asymmetry to heterogeneity within an agent (Alice follows different rules at different times); heterogeneity between agents (Alice and Bob follow different rules); and heterogeneity in the timing of strategy updating. These results greatly expand and convexify the domain of choice rules for which results on the stochastic stability of conventions are known.


Apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) at the sites of atherosclerotic plaques may result in plaque rupture and thrombosis. Kavurma et al. used two immortalized, but phenotypically different, SMC cell lines (WKY12-22 and WKY3M-22) to study apoptosis. WKY12-22 cells are derived from rat pup arteries and will grow in the absence of exogenous growth factors; WKY3M-22 cells are derived from adult rat arteries and are dependent on plasma-derived serum for growth. WKY12-22 cells express higher levels of the ubiquitous transcription factor Sp1 and undergo spontaneous apoptosis at a greater frequency than seen in the WKY3M-22 cells. FasL is also expressed at higher levels in the WKY12-22 cells, suggesting a possible mechanism for the increased apoptosis. Overexpression of Sp1 in either cell type increases the expression of FasL. On the basis of reporter genes assays and electrophoretic mobility shift assays, Sp1 is a transcriptional activator of FasL and binds to the Sp1 consensus site in the FasL promoter. It is noteworthy that the inhibitor of DNA topisomerase I camptothecin (CAM), a known proapoptotic chemical, enhances the phosphorylation of Sp1 and increases the production of FasL and apoptosis in these cells. Thus, Sp1, a ubiquitous transcription factor, may represent a point of control for the apoptotic pathway. M. M. Kavurma, F. S. Santiago, E. Bonfoco, L. M. Khachigian, Sp1 phosphorylation regulates apoptosis via extracellular FasL-Fas engagement. J. Biol. Chem. 276, 4964-4971 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Mastocytosis is defined by abnormal accumulations of mast cells in various tissue sites. The clinical features of this multifaceted disorder originate from mast cell infiltration leading to local and systemic effects induced by numerous pharmacological mediators. As mastocytosis is an unusual disorder and presents a multiplicity of symptoms, it is an often overlooked consideration in a differential diagnosis that includes not only chronic diarrhoea, urticaria, syncope and peptic ulceration but also various haematological neoplasms. Diagnosis of mastocytosis can be confirmed only by the pathologist who should use a combined immunohistochemical and molecular approach. Recognition and subtyping of its rare, life-threatening high-grade disease variants including aggressive systemic mastocytosis and mast cell leukaemia is based on the thorough investigation of tissue samples (usually bone marrow) but also smear preparations of blood and bone marrow.

Key Concepts

Mastocytosis is an unusual haematopoietic disorder derived from transformed bone marrow progenitor cells.
Clinically and histologically, mastocytosis presents an extremely broad spectrum of subvariants ranging from a benign, sometimes even regressive, cutaneous disease to the progressively fatal mast cell leukaemia.
Mastocytosis is a histological diagnosis established by the pathologist and cannot be confirmed by clinical findings alone.
Most patients with systemic mastocytosis carry the activating point mutation KIT-D816V.
The presence of KIT-D816V enables targeting therapy using some of the recently developed tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
Although stated in the recent WHO classification system on haematopoietic neoplasms, mastocytosis should not be grouped among myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Mastocytosis rather should be considered as a distinct group of disorders among haematological tumours/neoplasms.
Mastocytosis must be separated from a variety of reactive (mast cell activation syndrome) and neoplastic (basophilic and myelomastocytic leukaemias) disease states.
In more than 80% of patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis (aggressive and leukaemic SM and SM-AHNMD) mutations other than KIT-D816V are detected.

Keywords:

mast cell;
mast cell leukaemia;
mastocytosis;
SM-AHNMD;
systemic mastocytosis;
tryptase;
KIT-D816V


Cosmic evolution is the tale of progressive transition from simplicity to complexity. The newborn universe starts with the simplest atoms formed after the Big Bang and proceeds toward 'astronomical complex organic molecules' (astroCOMs). Understanding the chemical evolution of the universe is one of the main aims of Astrochemistry, with the starting point being the knowledge whether a molecule is present in the astronomical environment under consideration and, if so, its abundance. However, the interpretation of astronomical detections and the identification of molecules are not all straightforward. In particular, molecular species characterized by large amplitude motions represent a major challenge for molecular spectroscopy and, in particular, for computational spectroscopy. More in general, for flexible systems, the conformational equilibrium needs to be taken into account and accurately investigated. It is shown that crucial challenges in the computational spectroscopy of astroCOMs can be successfully overcome by combining state‐of‐the‐art quantum‐mechanical approaches with ad hoc treatments of the nuclear motion, thus demonstrating that the rotational and vibrational features can be predicted with the proper accuracy. The second key step in Astrochemistry is understanding how astroCOMs are formed and how they chemically evolve toward more complex species. The challenges in the computational chemistry of astroCOMs are related to the derivation of feasible formation routes in the typically harsh conditions (extremely low temperature and density) of the interstellar medium, as well as the understanding of the chemical evolution of small species toward macromolecules. Within the transition state theory, for instance, it is possible to obtain new astrochemical information by identifying the intermediate species and transition states connecting them in a plausible formation route. Depending on the sophistication of the model, different quantities may be needed. Nevertheless, accuracy can be critical, thus requiring state‐of‐the‐art computational approaches to derive geometries, energies, spectroscopic properties, and thermochemical data for each relevant structure along the reaction path.


Abstract. The paper proposes a methodology for the use of the oblique sections of images from large-format photogrammetric cameras, by exploiting the effect of the central perspective geometry in the lateral parts of the nadir images ("semi-oblique" images). The point of origin of the investigation was the execution of a photogrammetric flight over Norcia (Italy), which was seriously damaged after the earthquake of 30/10/2016. Contrary to the original plan of oblique acquisitions, the flight was executed on 15/11/2017 using an UltraCam Eagle camera with focal length 80 mm, and combining two flight plans, rotated by 90o ("crisscross" flight). The images (GSD 5 cm) were used to extract a 2.5D DSM cloud, sampled to a XY-grid size of 2 GSD, a 3D point clouds with a mean spatial resolution of 1 GSD and a 3D mesh model at a resolution of 10 cm of the historic centre of Norcia for a quantitative assessment of the damages. From the acquired nadir images the "semi-oblique" images (forward, backward, left and right views) could be extracted and processed in a modified version of GEOBLY software for measurements and restitution purposes. The potential of such semi-oblique image acquisitions from nadir-view cameras is hereafter shown and commented.


"Creative Physical Education" offers a flexible extended learning experience for children and teens that focuses on physical, cognitive, and interpersonal knowledge and skill development. A combination teacher's guide and student workbook, "Creative Physical Education" has everything you need, including a CD-ROM of printable and adaptable class materials. "Creative Physical Education" presents a project framework that you can adapt to fit the needs of your class. Great for physical education teachers looking for a fresh approach, "Creative Physical Education" also makes an excellent structured project for classroom teachers working with physical education. "Creative Physical Education" begins with a teacher's guide that details the underlying pedagogical models behind the project. Rather than focusing on one approach, "Creative Physical Education" integrates a number of pedagogical models and describes how these can be combined to form a creative PE project. This all-in-one resource includes a student workbook with all the worksheets needed for each part of the project. The project worksheets are included on the accompanying CD-ROM and can be modified as needed and printed for use. In addition, homework items offer ways to reinforce concepts learned in class. "Creative Physical Education" progresses students through team building, game creation, organizing a season, and practicing skill development. In the first part of the project, you'll help students discover the essentials of working in teams, the benefits of a team approach, and characteristics of successful teams. The developing teams will then create their own games. "Creative Physical Education" provides you with all the necessary tools and ideas for this task. Through this section, the student teams discuss the ingredients of a game, plan their own team game, and teach it to other teams. The students are also involved in evaluating and reflecting on the games of others. After this, you'll help students use their games to create one game for the whole class, which they play over the course of a larger-scale sporting season. Through regular participation, students improve their knowledge and skills and learn the strategies of their game. This section of the project also helps students experience a range of roles, always as a member of a team. In the final section you'll help students improve their tactics and skills through practice. By critically assessing the teamwork, skill, strategy, and fitness requirements of their particular game, students learn how to improve their individual and team performance. Activities in this final part also allow students to celebrate their success and reflect on their project. This student-directed creative PE project offers students a new way to enjoy and learn from sport while also offering the possibility of integrating other curriculum areas with physical education. With step-by-step guidance and a full set of class materials, you'll have everything you need to implement a fun, creative learning experience for your class. Find new ways to move, create, and collaborate with "Creative Physical Education."


The purpose of this study was to determine if an experimental five-item measure of barriers to implementing and sustaining school-wide prevention practices, the Assessment of Barriers to Implementation and Sustainability in Schools (ABISS), would relate to objective measures of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) implementation fidelity. The ABISS was administered to individuals in 704 U.S. schools implementing SWPBIS across 11 states, and scores were compared with school demographic variables and SWPBIS fidelity of implementation. Results showed acceptable model fit for the ABISS, partial measurement invariance, and statistically significant relations, after controlling for school demographic variables, with SWPBIS fidelity of implementation, except for schools implementing SWPBIS for 5 or more years. These patterns indicate substantial but decreasing relations of perceived barriers to implementation fidelity as schools continue to implement SWPBIS. Implications are discussed in terms of how assessment of perceived barriers can support implementation and sustainability of school-wide prevention practices.


ABSTRACT Coal is the major source of India's electricity today, accounting for 59 per cent of its electricity generation capacity and 75 per cent of the electrical energy generated. Given that 63 per cent of the power generation capacity added in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012–2017) was coal-based, coal is set to remain the most staple source of electricity for India in the foreseeable future. Of the coal produced in India, more than 90 per cent is dispatched from surface or opencast mines, with potentially harmful effects on the environment, due to loss of forests and habitats, disruption of biodiversity and of local communities, and associated damage to agriculture, water resources and local air quality. Acknowledging these adverse environmental impacts, the Government of India has mandated the restoration of mining areas post mine closure to create a 'self-sustaining ecosystem', while optimising the use of mined-out land for the benefit of local communities. Within this context, the article reviews India's surface coal mine closure policies, regulatory regimes and operating practices with reference to best practices for reclamation and restoration in selected major coal-producing countries. The article identifies the shortcomings in India's policies and suggests strategies and measures to remedy them.


We introduce doc2dial, a new dataset of goal-oriented dialogues that are grounded in the associated documents. Inspired by how the authors compose documents for guiding end users, we first construct dialogue flows based on the content elements that corresponds to higher-level relations across text sections as well as lower-level relations between discourse units within a section. Then we present these dialogue flows to crowd contributors to create conversational utterances. The dataset includes over 4500 annotated conversations with an average of 14 turns that are grounded in over 450 documents from four domains. Compared to the prior document-grounded dialogue datasets, this dataset covers a variety of dialogue scenes in information-seeking conversations. For evaluating the versatility of the dataset, we introduce multiple dialogue modeling tasks and present baseline approaches.


Kinetoplastid flagellates comprise basal mostly free-living bodonids and derived obligatory parasitic trypanosomatids, which belong to the best-studied protists. Due to their omnipresence in aquatic environments and soil, the bodonids are of ecological significance. Here, we present the first global survey of marine kinetoplastids and compare it with the strikingly different patterns of abundance and diversity in their sister clade, the diplonemids. Based on analysis of 18S rDNA V9 ribotypes obtained from 124 sites sampled during the Tara Oceans expedition, our results show generally low to moderate abundance and diversity of planktonic kinetoplastids. Although we have identified all major kinetoplastid lineages, 98% of kinetoplastid reads are represented by neobodonids, namely specimens of the Neobodo and Rhynchomonas genera, which make up 59% and 18% of all reads, respectively. Most kinetoplastids have small cell size (0.8-5 µm) and tend to be more abundant in the mesopelagic as compared to the euphotic zone. Some of the most abundant operational taxonomic units have distinct geographical distributions, and three novel putatively parasitic neobodonids were identified, along with their potential hosts.


SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive - 2. Il quadro normativo - 3. Le soluzioni giurisprudenziali - 4. Riflessioni conclusive. The 'debaptism', between religious freedom and implicit rules. Hints of comparative law ABSTRACT: The problem of cancellation from baptismal registers seems to have come to a final solution, thus being no more interesting. Nonetheless, it can still be useful to analyse it from a comparative point of view. The study of the various solutions proposed by the different legal systems allows finding out 'implicit' juridical principles, which condition the interpretation and the implementation of positive rules. It can be especially remarked a convergence of arguments and results between legal systems formally inspired to distinct models of State-religions' relationship - such as the French and the Italian legal systems. This convergence highlights the existence, at a latent level, of common cultural conceptions of the religious experience, fashioned by the Christian religious paradigm; these conceptions tend to shape the concrete contents of both the right to religious freedom, and the right to personal identity, protected by personal data laws.


Abstract. The midnight temperature maximum (MTM) has been observed in the lower thermosphere by two Fabry–Perot interferometers (FPIs) at Sao Joao do Cariri (7.4° S, 36.5° W) and Cajazeiras (6.9° S, 38.6° W) during 2011, when the solar activity was moderate and the solar flux was between 90 and 155 SFU (1 SFU  =  10−22 W m−2 Hz−1). The MTM is studied in detail using measurements of neutral temperature, wind and airglow relative intensity of OI630.0 nm (referred to as OI6300), and ionospheric parameters, such as virtual height (h′F), the peak height of the F2 region (hmF2), and critical frequency of the F region (foF2), which were measured by a Digisonde instrument (DPS) at Eusebio (3.9° S, 38.4° W; geomagnetic coordinates 7.31° S, 32.40° E for 2011). The MTM peak was observed mostly along the year, except in May, June, and August. The amplitudes of the MTM varied from 64 ± 46 K in April up to 144 ± 48 K in October. The monthly temperature average showed a phase shift in the MTM peak around 0.25 h in September to 2.5 h in December before midnight. On the other hand, in February, March, and April the MTM peak occurred around midnight. International Reference Ionosphere 2012 (IRI-2012) model was compared to the neutral temperature observations and the IRI-2012 model failed in reproducing the MTM peaks. The zonal component of neutral wind flowed eastward the whole night; regardless of the month and the magnitude of the zonal wind, it was typically within the range of 50 to 150 m s−1 during the early evening. The meridional component of the neutral wind changed its direction over the months: from November to February, the meridional wind in the early evening flowed equatorward with a magnitude between 25 and 100 m s−1; in contrast, during the winter months, the meridional wind flowed to the pole within the range of 0 to −50 m s−1. Our results indicate that the reversal (changes in equator to poleward flow) or abatement of the meridional winds is an important factor in the MTM generation. From February to April and from September to December, the h′F and the hmF2 showed an increase around 18:00–20:00 LT within a range between 300 and 550 km and reached a minimal height of about 200–300 km close to midnight; then the layer rose again by about 40 km or, sometimes, remained at constant height. Furthermore, during the winter months, the h′F and hmF2 showed a different behavior; the signature of the pre-reversal enhancement did not appear as in other months and the heights did not exceed 260 and 350 km. Our observation indicated that the midnight collapse of the F region was a consequence of the MTM in the meridional wind that was reflected in the height of the F region. Lastly, the behavior of the OI6300 showed, from February to April and from September to December, an increase in intensity around midnight or 1 h before, which was associated with the MTM, whereas, from May to August, the relative intensity was more intense in the early evening and decayed during the night.


This article focuses on the simultaneous co-existence of mythological and descriptive thinking in common sense discourse. Specifically, it concentrates on the synthesis of types of thought in those understandings that are characterized by the well-known expression having (one's) two-feet-on-the-ground. In order to provide concreteness for the meaning of the expression, I investigated Estonian cyberspace as one of the most prevalent arenas of common sense discourse, and it appeared that two-feet-on-the-ground is used to refer to rationality, sanity and practicality as opposed to, for example, dreamers, bohemians and people who talk about karma or believe in UFOs. People who use having (one's) two-feet-on-the-ground as a key element in their self-description assume that the way they understand the world is more rational and closer to reality than that of bohemians and spiritualists. Behind the above-mentioned two notions, which in themselves are not easy to define, there is a gleam of a more general tendency of Western thought. This is the conclusion reached by Rein Vihalemm, who has argued that what is accepted as truthful knowledge on the level of common sense is usually understood as being synonymous with scientific knowledge; in turn, the notion of the scientific is usually connected with inductive-empirical science. This article argues that the understandings that are posited as having two-feet-on-the-ground are mixed with categories that cannot be considered as belonging to inductive-empirical logic. The question of values, metaphysics and teleology is always (at least implicitly) present in those representations. That idea seems to be natural in academic discourse but is not as self-evident on the common-sense level. Those who describe themselves as standing with their two-feet-on-the-ground usually think of metaphysics and teleology as being subjective, useless and distant. In describing the specificity of the logic of two-feet-on-the-ground representations, it is fruitful to use the meta-language of cultural semiotics. This allows for the explication of two fundamental and fundamentally different ways of constructing knowledge: mythological and descriptive logics of signification. The general parameters of mythological thinking are that objects belong in the same class and they cannot be organized in intersections or categories. The other aspect that is characteristic of mythological thinking is that the world is structured according to a binary logic – it is divided into Good and Evil, right and wrong, order and chaos. Non-mythological thinking is based on creating abstractions and organizing objects according to the principles of logic. The main structural operation of mythological thinking is the creation of analogies. Descriptive thinking focuses on the relations of chronology, particular-general and cause-effect. Two-feet-on-the-ground understandings have a tendency to create a holistic approach that connects mythological and descriptive thinking. If a statement is recognized as having (one's) two-feet-on-theground, i.e. if it contains schemes, calculations, formulae or other items that indicate scientificity (=inductive- empirical) etc., then it is likely that at the common-sense level it is perceived as something good=valuable=rational. Some radical two-feet-on-the-ground representations can even use the apparatus of scientific discourse to explain the purpose of life or the way God connects with his addressees during mystical experiences. I do not mean to imply that the presence of mythological thinking in those understandings is bad or dangerous. I agree with Lotman's idea that it is, instead, unavoidable because in contemporary culture pure forms of mythological or descriptive thinking do not exist: they are always entangled to some extent. However, I do think that not acknowledging a high concentration of mythological thinking in understandings that posit themselves as two-feet-on-the-ground can be a bit tricky because resorting to a purely practical interpretation of the phrase (and the understanding) can result in its manipulative use by demagogues who act under the aegis of science.


In the past decade, there has been an increase in allergic reactions to peanut proteins, sometimes resulting in fatal anaphylaxis. The development of improved methods for diagnosis and treatment of peanut allergies requires a better understanding of the structure of the allergens. Ara h 1, a major peanut allergen belonging to the vicilin family of seed storage proteins, is recognized by serum IgE from >90% of peanut-allergic patients. In this communication, Ara h 1 was shown to form a highly stable homotrimer. Hydrophobic interactions were determined to be the main molecular force holding monomers together. A molecular model of the Ara h 1 trimer was constructed to view the stabilizing hydrophobic residues in the three dimensional structure. Hydrophobic amino acids that contribute to trimer formation are at the distal ends of the three dimensional structure where monomer-monomer contacts occur. Coincidentally, the majority of the IgE-binding epitopes are also located in this region, suggesting that they may be protected from digestion by the monomer-monomer contacts. On incubation of Ara h 1 with digestive enzymes, various protease-resistant fragments containing IgE-binding sites were identified. The highly stable nature of the Ara h 1 trimer, the presence of digestion resistant fragments, and the strategic location of the IgE-binding epitopes indicate that the quaternary structure of a protein may play a significant role in overall allergenicity.


Even in this day of ever-widening competition, when it comes to "portable" cash, the financial services player of choice for modern robbers is the traditional depository institution. In recent months, this preference has grown significantly, as the chart shows at right. In 2001, according to preliminary FBI reports, there were 8,322 bank robberies--a 17% increase over the previous year. If this wasn't enough to make those "stupid bank robber" stories that newspapers publish now and then cease to be very funny, any remaining laughs stopped on Sept. 26, when three robbers armed with handguns shot to death five people--four employees and one customer--and wounded another customer in a Norfolk, Neb., bank robbery in what has been characterized as the deadliest case in more than a decade. Not helping matters was the widespread perception that the war on terrorism was going to take the FBI, traditionally the lead on many bank robbery cases, off the beat. Recent talks between FBI and banking industry representatives have clarified this, according to John Byrne, senior counsel at ABA. While the bureau is stretched thinner, it still intends to be in the mix on violent robberies. Byrne says where violence is not involved, the bureau has requested that banks work more closely with state and local authorities. Even so, the bureau will not be completely out of some nonviolent bank robberies. Of course, even better is to stop the bad guys before they start. Which is where our cover report comes in. What we present here is intended to inform readers of the ideas that are out there. Not every potential solution is favored by everyone. For example, while the FBI favors use of barriers that "harden the target," some bankers resist the use of "mantraps," bullet barriers, or even armed guards. Yet, all are open to ideas that could help ease this growing problem. We would welcome readers' views and ideas on the subject. (See masthead on page 4 for address information.) Given the nature of the material, we will honor any requests for confidentiality. How to stop robbers--and what to do when prevention fails Prevention: the best strategy The best way to deal with a bank robbery or burglary is to try to prevent its ever happening, or to make it as unattractive as possible. Here are some steps to take in that regard: 1. Make regular tests of any and all alarm devices maintained in the financial institutions to ensure that they are in the best possible operating condition. Do not underestimate the value of an alarm system. A burglar dislikes nothing more than noise. Do not neglect the security of your night depository. Thieves will be wary if your warnings are known to be backed up by working systems. 2. Be aware. A financial institution is very seldom prey for a criminal until and unless it has been thoroughly "cased." Tell all of your employees to carefully observe persons loitering in the building. You should be discreetly wary of suspicious-looking individuals who seek change or ask for information. How to stop robbers--and what to do when prevention fails This is a common ruse. 3. Note identification. Check on maintenance workers, and be certain that they are what they represent themselves to be. 4. Keep the amount of cash in the tellers' drawers at the very minimum. Robbers seldom have time to steal more than the money accessible in the cash drawers. In addition, it is a good habit to have at least one bundle of bait money in every teller's drawer sequenced by serial numbers. Record those numbers by series year and denominations. 5. Employees should remove all currency and securities from counters and desks whenever they leave their posts. Thieves have a favorite trick. They'll phone tellers by name and ask them to conduct a search for a package they claim they left at the bank. …


Executive Summary Services are simultaneously the most important sector of the UK economy and the sector facing the biggest challenge as a result of Brexit. The prospective departure from the European Single Market reduces the UK to the status of '3rd country' in respect of services. Accessing the internal market will depend on both subjective and objective conditions that differ from sector to sector, requiring detailed and highly specific arrangements for such industries as aviation and financial services. In practice, the EU can be expected to use these circumstances to discourage the UK from significantly diverging from European regulatory norms, as a matter of policy. In view of the weakness of, and uncertainty surrounding, international moves to oversee, let alone to further liberalise, trade in services, Brexit will thus leave the UK's services sector – and especially financial services – uniquely isolated and exposed. The government will hence need to consider carefully the costs of decisions to diverge from EU regulatory standards, and should be giving great priority to establishing clear objectives for close cooperation between the UK and the EU policy makers and regulators.


The strategies of financial intermediaries in the United States presumed a stability of interest rates that began to break down in the late 1960s. Not only did rising interest rates during the past two decades tend to depress the value of the assets of all intermediaries, they also fostered competition among intermediaries as all sought new opportunities for profit. In order to cope, many financial institutions assumed new bets by "reaching" for riskier assets offering higher yields or by operating with less capital per dollar of assets. To varying degrees, many insurance companies have adopted these strategies. ; Of all the remedies inspired by the recent investigations of the insurance industries, none appears to be more important than raising more capital. Insurers need to reduce their leverage if their contracts are to be as secure as they were supposed to be prior to the late 1960s. This article concludes that many insurers must increase their capital to cope safely with the consequences of an enduring slump in the value of commercial real estate, a substantial decline in corporate profits, or a significant rise in credit market yields.


Abstract. Indoor Spatial Data Infrastructure (indoor-SDI) is an important SDI for geosptial analysis and location-based services. Building Information Model (BIM) has high degree of details in geometric and semantic information for building. This study proposed direct conversion schemes to extract indoor building information from BIM to OGC IndoorGML. The major steps of the research include (1) topological conversion from building model into indoor network model; and (2) generation of IndoorGML. The topological conversion is a major process of generating and mapping nodes and edges from IFC to indoorGML. Node represents every space (e.g. IfcSpace) and objects (e.g. IfcDoor) in the building while edge shows the relationships between nodes. According to the definition of IndoorGML, the topological model in the dual space is also represented as a set of nodes and edges. These definitions of IndoorGML are the same as in the indoor network. Therefore, we can extract the necessary data in the indoor network and easily convert them into IndoorGML based on IndoorGML Schema. The experiment utilized a real BIM model to examine the proposed method. The experimental results indicated that the 3D indoor model (i.e. IndoorGML model) can be automatically imported from IFC model by the proposed procedure. In addition, the geometric and attribute of building elements are completely and correctly converted from BIM to indoor-SDI.


The present study had attempted to evaluate the medicine use pattern in selected respiratory diseases treated in the Department of Pediatrics of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital. An observational cross sectional study was conducted in the department of Pediatrics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) between January 2012 to June 2013. Retrospective prescribing data of sixty cases of bronchiolitis and childhood pneumonia and thirty cases of bronchial asthma was collected from the Record Room and reviewed for inclusion. Then the included treatment records were reviewed and appraised thoroughly. Information regarding patient profile, clinical diagnosis and detail information about medicine was documented in an audit form. Average number of medicine was 3.84, 4.31 and 4.47 in bronchial asthma, bronciholitis and pneumonia respectively and 4.28 for respiratory diseases. Generic prescribing was 12.46% for department of Pediatrics. Antimicrobials were used in 90.00, 96.66 and 100.00 percent cases of bronchial asthma, bronchiloitis and pneumonia respectively. In case of pneumonia, highest prescribed antimicrobial was Ceftriaxone. Intravenous and oral steroids were used in 63.33, 26.66 and 0.00 percent cases of bronchial asthma, bronchiloitis and pneumonia respectively. Wide variation was observed with medicine selection in different respiratory diseases treated in the department of Pediatrics of BSMMU. Appropriateness of prescribing cannot be ascertained by medicine use study only. It was revealed that lots of diversity was present in the treatment or selection of medicine. Detail study using newer and comprehensive method and indicators may provide better understanding about prescribing, which might be beneficial to formulate interventions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjpp.v30i2.22676 Bangladesh J Physiol Pharmacol 2014; 30(2):9-13


Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV) infection is of conservation concern to endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), causing severe, acute, often fatal haemorrhagic disease in young elephants. This thesis investigates the epidemiological status of clinical and subclinical EEHV infection in Thailand, through a retrospective, a cross-sectional, and a longitudinal study in captive elephants. Novel diagnostic tools were developed and recommendations discussed, with a particular focus on practical recommendations to manage EEHV infection in Thailand, where logistical and management constraints can hamper disease diagnosis and timely treatment.

The retrospective study revealed at least 18 EEHV clinical cases in Thailand (2006–2014), with only two cases surviving following intensive treatment. Viral samples from each case were not identical based on multiple gene analysis; suggesting the disease is likely to be sporadic. The findings also suggest that EEHV1A and EEHV1B are likely endogenous pathogens in Asian elephants.

A novel SYBR green I-based real-time PCR assay was developed to identify subclinical infection, diagnose early infection, and monitor disease progression. This technique provided sufficient data, with appropriate detection limits to differentiate at least three types of EEHV (EEHV1A, 1B, and 4). Applying this technology to the cross-sectional study, conducted between 2013–2015, revealed a 5.5% prevalence of asymptomatic EEHV1 infection during this study period in captive Asian elephants in Thailand. Cross-sectional analysis did not find an association between EEHV infection and sex, location, or contact history with other EEHV-positive elephants; however, EEHV was more likely to be detected in juveniles than other age classes (OR = 4.46; 95%CI: 1.60–12.45; p = 0.05).

The study also monitored EEHV shedding patterns longitudinally in an EEHV-positive herd. Frequency of EEHV detection varied within and between individuals, but was significantly higher in elephants which had survived previous clinical EEHV infection (OR = 4.85; 95%CI: 0.88–26.74; p = 0.05). Concurrent monitoring of faecal corticosterone metabolites demonstrated that EEHV activated and reactivated spontaneously and shed sporadically, despite lack of obvious stress.

This thesis describes the first intensive EEHV study in an Asian elephant range country. The thesis assesses the novel real-time PCR protocol and current diagnostic tools, and recommends practical management and disease preparedness strategies to minimise the impacts of EEHV on wild and captive populations, both locally and internationally.


From the Publisher:
A brilliant laptop presentation is more than just dazzling slides. If you want your laptop computer presentations to have the Wow factor, simply follow the suggestions and use the ideas outlined in this thoroughly revised and updated edition of Point, Click, and Wow! This hands-on guide shows you how to create memorable presentations that will get your message across with style. Unlike others books on the topic, this practical guide teaches you how to really sell your knowledge, product, or service in a customer-focused, one-to-one marketing manner. Authors Claudyne Wilder and Jennifer Rotondo offer the guidance you need to look, act, and sound like a pro. Throughout the book the authors explain how to create persuasive visuals, use technology effectively, and sell your idea or product to an audience. This revised edition also includes a CD-ROM that will give you the tools you need to customize your slides.


Since the beginning of human , man trying to accomplishment and progress in effort has been spared  and always trying to find the best, easiest, fastest, most cost-effective and ... ways for this. Human knowledge is regarded by governments and nations .This century have most advances in science and technology , and obviously, despite this progress, face to face communication can't answering to community needs training and knowledge transfer ,thus ,new ways of communication are required. Rapid advances in technology and media and the rapid spread of information and communication technologies, change the nature of how and why the place and time of learning and the emergence of a new type of learning is called e-learning. E-learning has evolved combination of traditional methods of teaching and learning using information technology that, the early twenty-first century as the preferred method of learning in an era of knowledge is introduced. The important step in development of E-Learning is learning capabilities and behavior of individuals and their attitudes. To increase the effectiveness of the training should increase awareness on this issue.to train people must to be use of engineering methods .so ,at first we must to specify the individual learning needs in various age and various groups of people and then  prioritizing and planning. It is the responsibility of educating engineers.


When charging most types of industrial lead-acid batteries, hydrogen gas is emitted. A large number of batteries, especially in relatively small areas/enclosures, and in the absence of an adequate ventilation system, may create an explosion hazard. This paper describes full scale tests in confined space, which demonstrate conditions that can occur in a battery room in the event of a ventilation system breakdown. Over the course of the tests, full scale hydrogen emission experiments were performed to study emission time and flammable cloud formation according to the assumed emission velocity. On this basis, the characteristics of dispersion of hydrogen in the battery room were obtained. The CFD model Fire Dynamic Simulator (NIST) was used for confirmation that the lack of ventilation in a battery room can be the cause of an explosive atmosphere developing, and leading to a potential huge explosive hazard. It was demonstrated that different ventilation systems provide battery rooms with varying efficiencies of hydrogen removal. The most effective type appeared to be natural ventilation, which proved more effective than mechanical means.


Since the introduction of a transfer policy for Tasmanian state school teachers in 1994,
many teachers have been required to relocate between schools throughout the state.
Teachers' placements have been reviewed after five (or sometimes three) years in order
to provide equity of staffing in all schools, including those in isolated locations and
low socio-economic areas. In addition, teachers have continued to be relocated due to
promotion.
The focus of this study was to determine the impact of relocation, whether it be due to
the Transfer Policy or promotion, on teachers, their work and their quality of teaching.
To provide a theoretical framework for the part of the research concerned with teacher
quality, models of the development of teacher expertise and the high quality teacher
were developed from the literature, principally from the work on teacher expertise
conducted by Berliner and colleagues.
In comparison to the extensive literature on teacher expertise and teacher quality,
minimal research has been conducted in the area of teacher relocation, and most of this
has focused on the reasons for teacher relocation and its implications for staffing.
However, a handful of international studies have investigated the outcomes of teacher
transfer, but mostly these have been small, qualitative studies based solely on
interview data. Only one study (Bullough & Baughman, 1995a) was found which
combined the two areas of teacher expertise and teacher relocation—it involved a case
study of one teacher. Therefore, in-depth research into the interactions between
teacher relocation and teacher quality was warranted and has been provided by this
study.
There were two phases to this study—a mainly qualitative phase (phase I) and a mainly
quantitative phase (phase II). Phase I involved case studies of seven relocated
teachers. The case studies included teacher observations, teacher interviews, teacher
self-ratings and student surveys conducted both prior to and subsequent to relocation.
The data collected during phase I provided a framework for the study and were used to
inform the development of the questionnaire which was used in phase II of the study.
Tasmanian state school teachers who relocated either due to promotion or the Transfer Policy in 1995/96 or 1996/97 were surveyed in phase II. A response rate of 65
percent (n=360) was achieved and represented approximately one-third of the target
population. Thus, the study involved in-depth coverage of the research focus in phase
I and broad coverage in phase II. Consequently, the findings of the research were
reliable, valid and generalisable.
The results of the study indicated relocation impacts on teachers, their work and their
quality of teaching in various ways dependent upon individual teachers and their
circumstances. Many changes in context occur upon relocation, including changes in
school environment and culture (eg, location, student demographic), changes in
teachers' professional lives (eg, grade level, subject area) and changes in teachers'
personal lives (eg, travelling distance to work, residence). Teachers react to these
changes in different ways.
The impact of relocation on teachers' personal lives resulted in changes in self-confidence,
self-esteem, family situation, stress levels and health, either for better or
for worse. Professionally, relocated teachers required time to settle in and establish
themselves at their new school. In addition, relocated teachers were often on a steep
learning curve and, for many, their teaching was modernised and revitalised as a result
of relocation. Regarding the impact of relocation on teachers' quality of teaching, the
majority of relocated teachers experienced an initial drop in their level of teaching
quality upon relocation, but this was regained over time such that their original level of
teaching quality was attained or extended after relocation. Relocated teachers who
regained their quality of teaching quickly, or indeed, extended their quality of teaching
or did not experience an initial drop, were more likely to have been provided with
appropriate support.
Appropriate support is necessary to minimise the negative impacts and to maximise the
positive impacts of relocation on teachers, their work and their quality of teaching.
Appropriate support is best provided by the system, schools and school staff in order
to assist relocated teachers to adapt to their new school context. With appropriate
support, relocation can reinvigorate and broaden teachers' teaching as they grow and
learn from the relocation experience. However, the opposite is also true.


It is generally accepted that the three-dimensional nature of the digital terrain model enhances our visualization of surfaces. Modern techniques enable a detailed landscape to be constructed as a facsimile of reality that provides an opportunity to move through or fly over the landscape. Given these benefits, it is little surprise that simulations using digital terrain models are employed as essential visual aids for briefing and training military personnel prior to land, air, and sea operations. Though these capabilities are significant, they are not necessarily, in the basic sense, new. This paper traces the development and examines the role of terrain models made by the Allies during World War II, a period prior to the development of computer-based modeling. Though made from basic materials, these sophisticated terrain models were hand crafted by enlisted sculptors, architects, stage designers, and artists, who carefully modeled a sculpture of the landscape to be an invaluable aid during key military operations of World War II.


Full-scale field tests on the chlorination of poliovirus in sewage were conducted using the effluent at a small trickling filter plant. A vaccine strain of poliovirus was taken as a model and used to seed the flow to the chlorination basin. Measurements of chlorine residual and of oxidation-reduction potential were compared with reductions in virus concentration. Coliform group bacteria counts were made during each test run. High chlorine residuals were found to significantly reduce virus concentration. With a 10-min contact time, a 99% reduction required a final residual of 21 mg per 1. However, on the basis of the work of other investigators and this field study it appears desirable to use measurements of oxidation-reduction potential instead of chlorine residual for control of sewage chlorination. The number of surviving coliform bacteria was not a reliable indication of effectiveness of virus disinfection.


The worldwide debate about lay presidency took a new turn recently when the Appellate Tribunal (the highest legal/constitutional interpretive authority in the Anglican Church of Australia) published its 4-3 Opinion that the Australian Church was legislatively competent to authorise lay or diaconal eucharistic presidency. It is the purpose of this paper to examine and evaluate the new argument set forth in that Opinion by Bishop Bruce Wilson (Bishop of Bathurst): that the delegation of eucharistic presidency to a deacon or lay person may be justified as an exercise of presbyteral oversight.l To date, the two main arguments for lay/diaconal presidency had either sought a theologically responsible way to provide isolated faith communities with sacramental ministry, or claimed an allegedly compelling theological parity between word and sacrament. Bishop Wilson's argument builds on the latter, and is to that extent vulnerable to criticisms of the parity argument.2 Three special features of the Constitution binding the Anglican Church of Australia have profoundly influenced the Tribunal's Report. The Constitution declares the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, together with its Ordinal and the Thirty-nine Articles, to be `the authorised standard of worship and doctrine' for Australian Anglicanism-hence Tribunal members were obliged to examine the Ordinal rigorously, and argue from the historic formularies. Second, no General Synod canon `affecting the ritual, ceremonial or discipline of this Church' has effect in a diocese unless and until that diocese adopts the canon through its own legislative processes.3 Third, and related to the second, the powers of a diocese to initiate its own legislation `affecting . . . ritual, ceremonial or discipline' remain constitutionally uncertain, so a diocese could initiate such legislation and put its constitutionality to the test.4 Before I turn to `the delegation argument', it is necessary to indicate briefly the meaning I shall ascribe to the term 'catholicity'. 'Catholicity' is one of the four credal marks of the Church, and receives useful explication in Eucharistic Presidency 2.24ff, 3.26ff, 4.15. It refers to universality, conformity and continuity with the larger Church, kath' holon.5 Scripture, creeds, dominical sacraments, and the threefold order of ordained ministries have been taken by many Anglicans as norms for catholicity, as per the 1888 (Chicago-) Lambeth Quadrilateral. Jeopardising any of those norms puts catholicity at risk. If an action may compromise (e.g.) the effective operation of the threefold ordained ministry, the claim that it erodes catholicity may be justifiable. The delegation argument In its generic form, the delegation argument depends on two key statements: 1. that the core element of presbyteral ministry is the ministry of oversight of word and sacrament; and 2. that the ministry of eucharistic presidency may be delegated to either a deacon or a suitable lay person without violating the boundaries of the presbyterate, as a responsible exercise of presbyteral oversight.6 The argument set forth by Bishop Wilson represents a special development of the delegation argument. I shall refer sometimes to the generic argument, and sometimes specifically to Bishop Wilson's exposition. I intend to show 1. that such delegation has the potential effect of undermining ordination and catholicity; and 2. that the claim: `Delegation of [eucharistic] presidency per se does not undermine the distinctiveness of the order of priest/presbyter' (p. 87) requires careful qualification and cannot stand absolutely. With regard to Bishop Wilson's version, I also intend to show 1. that such delegation may violate the boundaries of the 1662 diaconal order;7 and 2. that his argument is associated with (but does not depend on) an ecclesiology of dangerous potential. …


Making effective use of the vast amounts of data gathered by large-scale sensor networks (sensornets) will require scalable, self-organizing, and energy-efficient data dissemination algorithms. For sensornets, where the content of the data is more important than the identity of the node that gathers them, researchers have found it useful to move away from the Internet's point-to-point communication abstraction and instead adopt abstractions that are more data-centric. This approach entails naming the data and using communication abstractions that refer to those names rather than to node network addresses. Previous work on data-centric routing has shown it to be an energy-efficient data dissemination method for sensornets. Herein, we argue that a companion method, data-centric storage (DCS), is also a useful approach. Under DCS, sensed data are stored at a node determined by the name associated with the sensed data. In this paper, we first define DCS and predict analytically where it outperforms other data dissemination approaches. We then describe GHT, a Geographic Hash Table system for DCS on sensornets. GHT hashes keys into geographic coordinates, and stores a key-value pair at the sensor node geographically nearest the hash of its key. The system replicates stored data locally to ensure persistence when nodes fail. It uses an efficient consistency protocol to ensure that key-value pairs are stored at the appropriate nodes after topological changes. And it distributes load throughout the network using a geographic hierarchy. We evaluate the performance of GHT as a DCS system in simulation against two other dissemination approaches. Our results demonstrate that GHT is the preferable approach for the application workloads we analytically predict, offers high data availability, and scales to large sensornet deployments, even when nodes fail or are mobile.


Background No study to date has systematically examined use, expenditure, and outcomes associated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) use in Taiwan. The aim of this study was to examine ECMO use, expenditure, and outcomes during an 11-year period in Taiwan. Methods Claims data were collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database for patients who received ≥1 ECMO treatment between January 2000 and December 2010. Measurements included demographics, indications for ECMO use, length of hospital stay, outcome, and expenditure. Results A total of 3969 patients received ECMO during the study period (median age: 54.6 years). The number of patients receiving ECMO increased from 52 in 2000 to 1045 in 2010. The major indication for ECMO was cardiovascular disease (68.7%), followed by respiratory disease (17.9%). Median length of hospital stay was 13 days in 2000 and 17 days in 2010. Median expenditure (New Taiwan dollars) was $604 317 in 2000 and $673 888 in 2010. Some variables significantly differed by age, sex, hospital setting, calendar year, and indication for ECMO, and were associated with in-hospital and after-discharge mortality. Conclusions ECMO use has increased dramatically in Taiwan over the last decade. The high mortality rate of ECMO users suggested that ECMO may be being used in Taiwan for situations in which it provides no added benefit. This situation may be a reflection of the current reimbursement criteria for National Health Insurance in Taiwan. Refinement of the indications for use of ECMO is suggested.


Since the fifteenth century scholars have been drawn to "The Seer" chapter of The Tale of Genji (c. 1000 C.E.), analyzing how the chapter's unique structure of time depicts Genji's grief after the death of Lady Murasaki, pacifies her spirit, and recapitulates their relationship. This study introduces the concept of "mourning poetics," or the way Murasaki Shikibu layers mourning ritual outlined in the Yōrō code (718 C.E.) with structures of time and poetic lament to further shape Genji's expressions of grief, clarify relationships, and negotiate the divide inherent in death. The key to the year-long structure of "The Seer" is to view it not only as Genji's abnormally long mourning of Lady Murasaki, but also as a wife's prescribed year of mourning for a husband. Murasaki Shikibu creates a "Lady Murasaki of Memory" who mourns and pacifies Genji prior to his death, ensuring his eventual Buddhist enlightenment. The result pacifies the spirit of the reader, who may be left unquieted by the upcoming divide in the tale and abrupt disappearance of Genji. Authors of the "Crane Grove" chapter of The Tale of Flowering Fortunes (1034 C.E.) and the Initiate's Chapter of The Tale of the Heike (1371 C.E.) translated the mourning poetics based upon "The Seer" to eulogize and pacify the historical heroes and heroines in their own tales. All three chapters revolve around the main character in a year of mourning for a loved one, which summarizes the life of the mourner and concludes with promises of Buddhist salvation for both mourner and mourned. The mourning poetics in "The Seer" are present in modern Genji manga such as Asaki yume mishi and Ōzukami Genji monogatari maro, n?. These full-length treatments of the Genji retain, in altered form, the chronology and mourning ritual crucial to the spirit pacification function of "The Seer." Since the Heian period, Murasaki Shikibu's mourning poetics has been translated and replaced over time. Weaving together references to time, lament, and mourning ritual eulogizes and pacifies characters, as well as negotiates existential and literary divides. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group East Asian Languages & Civilizations First Advisor Linda H. Chance


From traditional face-to-face courses, asynchronous distance learning, synchronous live learning, to even blended learning approaches, the learning approach can be more learner-centralized, enabling students to learn anytime and anywhere. In this study, we applied educational data mining to explore the learning behaviors in data generated by students in a blended learning course. The experimental data were collected from two classes of Python programming related courses for first-year students in a university in northern Taiwan. During the semester, high-risk learners could be predicted accurately by data generated from the blended educational environment. The f1-score of the random forest model was 0.83, which was higher than the f1-score of logistic regression and decision tree. The model built in this study could be extrapolated to other courses to predict students' learning performance, where the F1-score was 0.77. Furthermore, we used machine learning and symmetry-based learning algorithms to explore learning behaviors. By using the hierarchical clustering heat map, this study could define the students' learning patterns including the positive interactive group, stable learning group, positive teaching material group, and negative learning group. These groups also corresponded with the student conscious questionnaire. With the results of this research, teachers can use the mid-term forecasting system to find high-risk groups during the semester and remedy their learning behaviors in the future.


Abstract. Human CO2 emissions may drive the Earth into a next greenhouse state. They can be mitigated by accelerating weathering of natural rock under the uptake of CO2. We disprove the paradigm that olivine weathering in nature would be a slow process, and show that it is not needed to mill olivine to very fine, 10 μm-size grains in order to arrive at a complete dissolution within 1–2 year. In high-energy shallow marine environments olivine grains and reaction products on the grain surfaces, that otherwise would greatly retard the reaction, are abraded so that the chemical reaction is much accelerated. When kept in motion even large olivine grains rubbing and bumping against each other quickly produce fine clay- and silt-sized olivine particles that show a fast chemical reaction. Spreading of olivine in the world's 2% most energetic shelf seas can compensate a year's global CO2 emissions and counteract ocean acidification against a price well below that of carbon credits.


We present growfunctions for R that offers Bayesian nonparametric estimation models for analysis of dependent, noisy time series data indexed by a collection of domains. This data structure arises from combining periodically published government survey statistics, such as are reported in the Current Population Study (CPS). The CPS publishes monthly, by-state estimates of employment levels, where each state expresses a noisy time series. Published state-level estimates from the CPS are composed from household survey responses in a model-free manner and express high levels of volatility due to insufficient sample sizes. Existing software solutions borrow information over a modeled time-based dependence to extract a de-noised time series for each domain. These solutions, however, ignore the dependence among the domains that may be additionally leveraged to improve estimation efficiency. The growfunctions package offers two fully nonparametric mixture models that simultaneously estimate both a time and domain-indexed dependence structure for a collection of time series: (1) A Gaussian process (GP) construction, which is parameterized through the covariance matrix, estimates a latent function for each domain. The covariance parameters of the latent functions are indexed by domain under a Dirichlet process prior that permits estimation of the dependence among functions across the domains: (2) An intrinsic Gaussian Markov random field prior construction provides an alternative to the GP that expresses different computation and estimation properties. In addition to performing denoised estimation of latent functions from published domain estimates, growfunctions allows estimation of collections of functions for observation units (e.g., households), rather than aggregated domains, by accounting for an informative sampling design under which the probabilities for inclusion of observation units are related to the response variable. growfunctions includes plot functions that allow visual assessments of the fit performance and dependence structure of the estimated functions. Computational efficiency is achieved by performing the sampling for estimation functions using compiled C++.


Learning exists in the context of data, yet notions of confidence typically focus on model predictions, not label quality. Confident learning (CL) is an alternative approach which focuses instead on label quality by characterizing and identifying label errors in datasets, based on the principles of pruning noisy data, counting with probabilistic thresholds to estimate noise, and ranking examples to train with confidence. Whereas numerous studies have developed these principles independently, here, we combine them, building on the assumption of a class-conditional noise process to directly estimate the joint distribution between noisy (given) labels and uncorrupted (unknown) labels. This results in a generalized CL which is provably consistent and experimentally performant. We present sufficient conditions where CL exactly finds label errors, and show CL performance exceeding seven recent competitive approaches for learning with noisy labels on the CIFAR dataset. Uniquely, the CL framework is not coupled to a specific data modality or model (e.g., we use CL to find several label errors in the presumed error-free MNIST dataset and improve sentiment classification on text data in Amazon Reviews). We also employ CL on ImageNet to quantify ontological class overlap (e.g., estimating 645 missile images are mislabeled as their parent class projectile), and moderately increase model accuracy (e.g., for ResNet) by cleaning data prior to training. These results are replicable using the open-source cleanlab release.


Many people are concerned that information about their private life is more readily available and more easily captured on the Internet as compared to offline technologies. Specific concerns include unwanted email, credit card fraud, identity theft, and harassment. This paper analyzes key issues surrounding the protection of online privacy. It makes three important contributions: First, it provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the estimated benefits and costs of regulating online privacy. Second, it provides the most comprehensive evaluation of legislation and legislative proposals in the U.S. aimed at protecting online privacy. Finally, it offers some policy prescriptions for the regulation of online privacy and suggests areas for future research. After analyzing the current debate on online privacy and assessing the potential costs and benefits of proposed regulations, our specific recommendations concerning the government's involvement in protecting online privacy include the following: * The government should fund research that evaluates the effectiveness of existing privacy legislation before considering new regulations. * The government should not generally regulate matters of privacy differently based on whether an issue arises online or offline. * The government should not require a Web site to provide notification of its privacy policy because the vast majority of commercial U.S.-based Web sites already do so. * The government should distinguish between how it regulates the use and dissemination of highly sensitive information, such as certain health records or Social Security numbers, versus more general information, such as consumer name and purchasing habits. * The government should not require companies to provide consumers broad access to the personal information that is collected online for marketing purposes because the benefits do not appear to be significant and the costs could be quite high. * The government should make it easier for the public to obtain information on online privacy and the tools available for consumers to protect their own privacy. The message of this paper is not that online privacy should be unregulated, but rather that policy makers should think through their options carefully, weighing the likely costs and benefits of each proposal.


Eastern and Southern Africa is seeing a wave of land law reform. While the motives may be more political than developmental, the extent of real change ultimately possibly limited, and realization of new law in practice another prospect altogether, certain striking positive changes are appearing. This paper focuses upon one of the more important to the majority of rural citizens in the region—the status of their common lands.What is occurring is this: after a century of suppression and demise, customary tenure regimes are beginning to fi nd a place in state laws as a perfectly legal way to acquire, hold, and transfer land. In the process, the traditional capacity to hold land in common is acquiring new status and even being supported are constructs of statutory commonhold, a form of tenure which could well compete in the future with individual-centered regimes.The impact of these developments upon rural common property resources is potentially enormous. At least in law, citizens in a growing number of states are fi nding their unregistered common rights over pasture, forests, woodlands, and wildlife range accorded a security not seen before. This signals a dramatic reversal of fortune for remote rural poor who have seen these commons steadily slip into the hands of the state or be subject to the subdividing pressures of individualization, at least partly in default of viable legal means to retain these properties as local commons. Exploring this legal transformation is the subject of this article.


The objective of this study was to evaluate circulating hepatocyte growth factor (cHGF) as a pharmacodynamic biomarker of Met inhibition for onartuzumab (MetMAb, OA5D5v2) in a phase I trial in patients with advanced cancers and a phase II trial in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The phase I study was a dose escalation trial with onartuzumab administered i.v. once every three weeks. The phase II study was a randomized two-arm trial in which onartuzumab or placebo was administered in combination with erlotinib in 137 patients with second and third line (2/3L) NSCLC. cHGF levels were evaluated by ELISA at multiple time points over the treatment period. Onartuzumab administration resulted in an acute and sustained rise in cHGF in both the phase I and phase II studies. Elevation in cHGF was independent of dose or drug exposure and was restricted to onartuzumab treatment. Neither higher baseline nor elevated change in cHGF levels upon treatment could simply be attributed to tumor burden or number of liver metastasis. We have shown that elevated cHGF can consistently and reproducibly be measured as a pharmacodynamic biomarker of onartuzumab activity. The elevation in cHGF is independent of tumor type, dose administered, or dose duration. Although these studies were not powered to directly address the contribution of cHGF as a predictive, on-treatment, circulating biomarker, these data suggest that measurement of cHGF in future expanded studies is warranted. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(6); 1122–30. ©2013 AACR.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK Shi Zhaokun was a 15-year old worker who died in October 2013 while he was an iPhone 5C production line worker in Pegatron (Shanghai) Ltd Co. In December, China Labor Watch (CLW) had requested donations from the public to raise money for Shi Zhaokun's family, helping them to pay for an independent autopsy that could help reveal the truth behind the deaths of several workers, including Shi Zhaokun. As a result, CLW received contributions of 950 RMB ($ 157.20) from China and $510 from other parts of the world. CLW itself also contributed another 2,000 RMB ($331). Despite the support of people who respect workers' lives and care about working conditions in Pegatron, the money raised was not enough for Shi's family to pay for the autopsy. Additionally, because of the great expenses of hiring an attorney and difficulties in finding one who was willing to provide pro bono assistance, Shi's family also gave up on bringing a lawsuit against Pegatron. Ultimately, Shi's family accepted compensation of 150,000 RMB ($24,820) from Pegatron, including 130,000 RMB ($21,512) from the factory and 20,000 RMB ($3,310) from Pegatron's CEO. The total amount of money raised by CLW is also being given to the family.


Protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) is considered as one of the main signaling catalysts during the transduction of cell signal. The role of PTK is to transfer the ATP-γ-phosphate to the tyrosine moiety in the targeted protein. This, in turn, resulted in many cellular processes, including; phosphorylation, controlling cell growth, regulation of the cell differentiation, apoptosis and many other cellular processes. Accordingly, any faulty expression of PTK however, resulted in faulty cell multiplication. Nowadays, various PTKs are utilized as targets for the treatment of cancer. The mechanism by which the tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) act as antitumor can be simplified as the TKIs prevent the ATP from reaching its binding site by competitory mechanism. This in turn will inhibit the phosphorylation of tyrosine kinase leading to suppress the tumor cell proliferation. TKIs have gained a great attention by researchers leading to discover many successful therapies, nevertheless, there are always challenges to be tackled. In this work, the authors summarize the mechanism of TKIs, highlighted the successes and drawbacks of TKIs for anticancer therapies.