With the rapid advances in technology, several online learning tools come onto the stage. Being an online learning delivery tool to support a full range of teaching and learning activities conducted by educational institutions Moodle facilitates online content creation and collaboration by entailing various social and communication tools that support teacher-student, student-student, and teacher-teacher interactions. This paper presents the "Moodling"(Moodle, 2005) experience within a secondary school in a developing country, namely Turkey. Based on a focus discussion group with the foreign language teachers, the author depicts the critical points that need to be taken into consideration so that an effective collaborative online platform for both teachers and students to learn together can exist.


Standard analog building blocks developed for use in custom and semicustom LSI and VLSI designs are described. The analog blocks are built using a digital CMOS process modified to include high-value resistors and voltage independent capacitors. Designs for operational amplifiers, programmable voltage sources, comparators, bandgap voltage references, unit resistors, capacitors, and n-p-n devices are discussed. Performance characteristics including unity-gain bandwidth, output drive, output impedance, and common mode range are reviewed. MOS noise data, subthreshold operation, and device matching are analyzed. Layout guidelines are proposed as well as applications and limitations of the analog building blocks.


Feature Issue on Optical Performance Monitoring (OPM). Simultaneous monitoring of power, wavelength, and channel number for a tunable laser is demonstrated by use of a combination of an optical isolator, an etalon, a polarizer, and photodiodes. The mode hopping and incomplete-tuning problems that might arise in tuning the laser can be detected with the proposed approach. The spectral response of the monitoring module can be adjusted to match the wavelength-tuning range. The spectral adjustment can be performed by rotating the input polarization or the output polarizer. It can also be tuned by rotating the second stage if a two-stage isolator is used. We demonstrate experimentally the feasibility of this approach by use of discrete fiber-pigtailed components.


The consistency of planet formation models suffers from the disconnection between the regime of small and large bodies. This is primarily caused by so-called growth barriers: the direct growth of larger bodies is halted at centimetre-sized objects and particular conditions are required for the formation of larger, gravitationally bound planetesimals. We aim to connect models of dust evolution and planetesimal formation to identify regions of protoplanetary discs that are favourable for the formation of kilometre-sized bodies and the first planetary embryos. We combine semi-analytical models of viscous protoplanetary disc evolution, dust growth and drift including backreaction of the dust particles on the gas, and planetesimal formation via the streaming instability into one numerical code. We investigate how planetesimal formation is affected by the mass of the protoplanetary disc, its initial dust content, and the stickiness of dust aggregates. We find that the dust growth and drift leads to a global redistribution of solids. The pile-up of pebbles in the inner disc provides local conditions where the streaming instability is effective. Planetesimals form in an annulus with its inner edge lying between 0.3 AU and 1 AU and its width ranging from 0.3 AU to 3 AU. The resulting surface density of planetesimals follows a radial profile that is much steeper than the initial disc profile. These results support formation of terrestrial planets in the solar system from a narrow annulus of planetesimals, which reproduces their peculiar mass ratios.


BACKGROUND
After a concussion, athletes may be at increased risk of musculoskeletal injuries. Altered perception of action boundaries (ABP), or the limits of one's action capabilities, is one possible mechanism for this increase in injury risk after concussion.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate differences in symptoms, neurocognitive, vestibular/oculomotor, and action boundary function between subjects with no concussion history (NoHx) and concussion history (ConcHX).

DESIGN
Cross-sectional study.

SETTING
Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh.

PARTICIPANTS
ConcHx (n = 22; age: 21.8 ± 3.0 years, height: 174.0 ± 8.3 cm, and mass: 77.8 ± 14.8 kg) and NoHx athletes (n = 24; age: 21.6 ± 2.0 years, height: 176.0 ± 10.0 cm, and mass: 72.0 ± 15.3 kg).

INTERVENTION
Immediate Postconcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) and Post-Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS), Vestibular-Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) tool, and the Perception-Action Coupling Task (PACT). The PACT measures the accuracy of ABP.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Neurocognitive domain scores, PCSS, VOMS subdomain symptom gain, ABP accuracy, and actualization.

RESULTS
ConcHx reported 2.7 ± 1.5 previous concussions occurring on average 263.8 ± 228.9 days prior. ConcHx was higher on several VOMS items including vertical/horizontal saccades (P = 0.001; P = 0.05), vertical/horizontal vestibular-ocular reflex (P < 0.001; P = 0.04), and visual motion sensitivity (P < 0.001). Average PACT movement time (P = 0.01) and reaction time (P = 0.01) were longer in ConcHx.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide preliminary support for impaired vestibular/oculomotor function and ABP in ConcHx compared with NoHx. The current results may enhance our understanding of the mechanisms for increased musculoskeletal injury risk after concussion.


Since the late 70's, several public key cryptographic algorithms have been proposed. Diffie and Hellman first came with this concept in 1976. Since that time, several other public key cryptosystems were invented, such as the well known RSA, ElGamal or Rabin cryptosystems. Roughly, the scope of these algorithms is to allow the secure exchange of a secret key that will later on be used to encrypt a larger amount of data. All these algorithms share one particularity, namely that their security rely on some mathematical problem which is supposed to be hard (computationally speaking) to solve. For example, it is well known that the ability to factorize easily the product of two large primes without any indication about the primes, would lead to break the RSA cryptosystem. Since those early days, most of the assymetric encryption algorithms that have been proposed relied on the same hard mathematical problems. Yet, it is well accepted that we should not put al l the cryptographic eggs in one basket. This is the reason why Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Halevi proposed in 1997 (exactly 10 years after RSA) a new public-key cryptosystem which security was based on lattice reduction problems. This cryptographic schemes is known as the GGH cryptosystem. Unfortunately, only two years later, Nguyen proposed an attack against GGH which proved that in practice, GGH would not provide the security it originally claimed to have. The attack involved a so called lattice reduction algorithm, known as LLL. The aim of this work is to provide the necessary background to understand the GGH cryptosystem and the attack that goes with it. The basis reduction algorithm LLL has many other applications in cryptography. As an example, we will review a very recent attack against the GNU Privacy Guard software, which is a widely used free implementation of Zimmermann's famous software. The necessary background about lattices, LLL, . . . will be recalled in sections 2 and 3. Section 4 will review the GGH cryptosystem and Nguyen's attack against it. Finally, Section 5 will show how lattice reduction techniques can break the ElGamal digital signature scheme implementation in GPGv1.2.3.


Background: Occupational stress is common in nurses. Stress can impact the health of the nurses leading to somatic complaints. Aims and Objectives: (1) To determine the extent and causes of occupational stress among nurses at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Hospital. (2) To compare the stress levels among nurses depending on their years of experience. (3) To study any correlation between stress levels and the extent of somatic complaints. Materials and Methods: Ninety-seven staff nurses without any preexisting psychiatric illness were evaluated for occupational stress using the Expanded Nursing Stress Scale. The extent of somatization was measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire – 15, in a cross-sectional study. Cronbach's alpha, analysis of variance, and Spearman's correlation co-efficient test were applied to the data. Results: An internal consistency of 0.945 was noted using Cronbach's alpha. 51.5% nurses experienced mild, 34% experienced moderate, and 2.10% experienced severe stress. Conflicts with supervisors, patients, and their families and workload were the main causes of occupational stress while discrimination was the least affected domain. Nurses with 6–10 years of experience had maximum stress. The stress levels correlated with the extent of somatic complaints. Conclusions: Occupational stress is prevalent in nurses. It may be higher in nurses with lesser experience and it can be associated with somatic complaints.


There is a substantial class of collective decision problems whose successful solution requires interdependence among decision makers at the agenda-setting stage and independence at the stage of choice. We define this class of problems and describe and apply a search-and-decision mechanism theoretically modeled in the context of honeybees and identified in earlier empirical work in biology. The honeybees' mechanism has useful implications for mechanism design in human institutions, including courts, legislatures, executive appointments, research and development in firms, and basic research in the sciences. Our paper offers a fresh perspective on the idea of "biomimicry" in institutional design and raises the possibility of comparative institutional analysis across species.


HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY AND FUNCTIONAL ANATOMY Vladimir E. Trajkovski Even though the medicine is one of the oldest sciences, there has been centuries long attention on the human anatomy and physiology studying and there have been many sources of information. After all there is not an adequate satisfaction of the special educators and rehabilitators needs for studying these problems. According to the fact that the Institute of Special Education and Rehabilitation is relatively young Institute, we can note that the special educators and rehabilitators staff was dealing with the problems of deficient materials, which are large extensive and go beyond their interests, or they are indigent and they do not educate enough the things for the human physiology and anatomy. Ph.D. Vladimir E. Trajkovski achieving a longtime close cooperation with the special educators and rehabilitators and noticing the previously mentioned problem, approached to its solving, and at the same time giving his own contribution to the enriching of the collection of scientific publications, with one book prepared according to the modern world standards. The book Human Physiology and Functional Anatomy presents a successful continuing of the same named script published in 2007 year, leaded from the main goal, better acquaintance of the students with the goals and contents of the same subject, Physiology and functional anatomy and to get the necessary knowledge about the organization, structure and functioning of the human body as whole, which will be used as base for further expert and scientific addition. But the material exhaustiveness, scientific base of the information and rich illustration, make this book useful not just for under-graduate students, but also for postgraduate students, special educators and rehabilitators who work in educational, rehabilitation or social institutions, for psychologists, medical students and other expert profiles which are in direct or indirect correlation with the human physiology and anatomy. Human Physiology and Functional Anatomy consists of 468 pages in B5 format, divided in 17 chapters. Each chapter presents abundant interpretation of some human body system, which is wealthy illustrated with pictures and figures, and it ends with a part consisting of questions related to the interpreted topic, intended for easier overcoming of the material and pointing the more meaningful information, whose answers are at the end of the book. Beside the chapters with interpretation of the systems, the book is also enriched with an anatomical-physiological dictionary, which is of inestimable meaning for the readers, enabling them an explanation of the expert terminology. The scientific value and admittance of the elaborated contents, the author Trajkovski enlarges with inserting the part in which are explained all abbreviations used in the book, as well as the index of the words. …


The issue about the causal relationship between economic growth and credit market development is very important, particularly in a big emerging economy such as Indonesia, which has implemented various financial reforms following East Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Efficient credit allocation in the banking sector will distribute the credit to the productive sector and, thus, promote economic growth. Meanwhile, development in the business sector will also increase demand for credit, encouraging credit market development. Given this rationale, this study aims at finding the significance of the linkage between economic growth and credit market development in Indonesia by investigating their long-run causality relationship over the period of 1985-2011. The empirical result presented in this paper suggests that there is a bidirectional relationship between economic growth and credit market development in Indonesia. In addition, it also indicates that lending rate positively affects the development of the credit market in Indonesia.


This paper provides a comparison of a number of alternative models of international practice in relation to the appointment and organization of guardians ad litem and other children's representatives in child care and family proceedings. The paper notes that, in their attempts to address the need for children to have representation in matters affecting their welfare, English-speaking countries have tended to conflate the two salient Articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that is, Article 3, which deals with the child's best interests, and Article 12, which deals with their right to express their wishes and feelings. Where systems other than stand alone legal representation have been put in place, the child's representative is charged with both assessing their best interests and, often as a secondary duty, communicating their views. The paper concludes that for some groups of children in public or private law proceedings, an advocate (rather than a best interest oriented guardian, and where necessary in addition to a legal representative) may enable better representation of the child in the courts and greater participation by children in legal proceedings, an increased role for children as citizens and a fuller implementation of their rights.


Srull and Wyer (1979) demonstrated that exposing participants to more hostility-related stimuli caused them subsequently to interpret ambiguous behaviors as more hostile. In their Experiment 1, participants descrambled sets of words to form sentences. In one condition, 80% of the descrambled sentences described hostile behaviors, and in another condition, 20% described hostile behaviors. Following the descrambling task, all participants read a vignette about a man named Donald who behaved in an ambiguously hostile manner and then rated him on a set of personality traits. Next, participants rated the hostility of various ambiguously hostile behaviors (all ratings on scales from 0 to 10). Participants who descrambled mostly hostile sentences rated Donald and the ambiguous behaviors as approximately 3 scale points more hostile than did those who descrambled mostly neutral sentences. This Registered Replication Report describes the results of 26 independent replications (N = 7,373 in the total sample; k = 22 labs and N = 5,610 in the primary analyses) of Srull and Wyer's Experiment 1, each of which followed a preregistered and vetted protocol. A random-effects meta-analysis showed that the protagonist was seen as 0.08 scale points more hostile when participants were primed with 80% hostile sentences than when they were primed with 20% hostile sentences (95% confidence interval, CI = [0.004, 0.16]). The ambiguously hostile behaviors were seen as 0.08 points less hostile when participants were primed with 80% hostile sentences than when they were primed with 20% hostile sentences (95% CI = [−0.18, 0.01]). Although the confidence interval for one outcome excluded zero and the observed effect was in the predicted direction, these results suggest that the currently used methods do not produce an assimilative priming effect that is practically and routinely detectable.


The Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers committee is made up of eleven library professionals from all over the United States who represent our nation's teens. They work in public schools, private schools, arts academies, youth shelters, public libraries, and juvenile detention centers. Members of the Quick Picks Committee read hundreds of books and lurk in teen hangouts such as bookstores, comic book and craft stores, their local teen room, Walmart, Urban Outfitters, and Hot Topic to find some fun, interesting, and downright crazy books. We survey books published in the last eighteen months that will get even the most reluctant teen to pick up a book and READ! The committee relies heavily on teen feedback to determine what books other reluctant readers will find interesting. When a book gets the approval of teens from our focus groups across the country, chances are they will work with your teens too. Through my work with Quick Picks, I must admit I've become a reluctant reader; I won't read anything unless it captures my attention immediately. There are too many good books out there to waste any time on something I don't love. The same rule should apply to our reluctant readers. Quick Picks is a list that appeals to a wide variety of teens, from the kid who never finished a whole book in his life, to the Advanced Placement student who doesn't have time to read for fun, but will stay up all night reading Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games and go on to devour the trilogy. Sometimes we do our job too well, and our students go on from not reading at all to becoming avid readers once they find their reading niche. What is a Quick Pick? The charge for Quick Picks is "To prepare an annual annotated list of recommended books appropriate for reluctant young adult readers. The list is for young adults (ages 12-18) who, for whatever reasons, do not like to read. The purpose of this list is to identify titles for recreational reading, not for curricular or remedial use." (1) It is important to note that Quick Picks are not instructional books for teens taking remedial reading classes; that is another kind of literacy problem that requires special books and instruction. In the past, YALSA had a selection group called the High Interest/Low Literacy Level Materials Evaluation Committee, but the committee's charge was changed to what is now known as Quick Picks when they found that remedial books "did not accomplish the purpose of improving reading because kids wouldn't select them. Teens hated being labeled as remedial and singled out with special books." (2) As a result of these findings, the Quick Picks committee changed its focus to a more teen centered rather than a materials centered approach. What is a Reluctant Reader? According to Gregory Lure, 2011 Quick Picks chair, [A reluctant reader] is a girl who does not like to read. It may be a boy more interested in nonfiction than in fiction. It is a girl who turns to the end of the book to see the number of pages. It is an AP student who is 'overbooked' with studying, an afterschool job, sports, and activities. It is a boy who wants to read what everyone else is reading. It is a girl who has never found the 'right' book. A reluctant teen reader can be from any demographic. (3) Our target audience, the reluctant reader, can read, but chooses not to because the books they are exposed to are not interesting to them. This is particularly understandable in these tough budget times when there are very few new books to choose from in schools and libraries. Probably the only books these teens get exposure to are instructional materials that teachers make them read. The Importance of Self Selection Self selection is important to reluctant readers. The quickest way to kill interest in reading is to force teens to read something. For example, Walter Dean Myers has been a Quick Picks author multiple times for books such as: Shooter, Street Love, What They Found: Love on 145th Street, Dope Sick, and most recently, Lockdown; proving he can win over a teen audience again and again. …


Background: It is well established that raised levels of fibrinogen increase the risk of coronary heart disease. For stroke, however, data are much more limited and restricted to overall stroke. This study investigated the association between fibrinogen and fatal, non-fatal, haemorrhagic and ischaemic stroke in three European cohorts participating in EUROSTROKE. Methods: EUROSTROKE is a collaborative project among ongoing European cohort studies on incidence and risk factors of stroke. EUROSTROKE is designed as a nested case-control study. For each stroke case, two controls were sampled. Strokes were classified according to MONICA criteria or reviewed by a panel of four neurologists. Recently, data on stroke and fibrinogen became available from cohorts in Cardiff (79 cases/194 controls), Kuopio (74/124), and Rotterdam (62/203). Results were adjusted for age, sex, smoking, and systolic blood pressure. Results: The risk of stroke gradually increased with increasing fibrinogen levels: the odds ratios per quartile increase were 1.08 (95% CI 0.63 to 1.84), 1.91 (1.12 to 3.26) and 2.78 (1.64 to 4.72), respectively. This association was similar for ischaemic (n=138) and haemorrhagic stroke (n=25). Associations between fibrinogen and stroke were similar across strata of smoking, diabetes mellitus, previous myocardial infarction, and HDL cholesterol. The odds ratio, however, tended to increase with increasing systolic blood pressure: from 1.21 among those with a systolic pressure <120 mm Hg to 1.99 among subjects with a systolic pressure of 160 mm Hg or above. Conclusion: This analysis of the EUROSTROKE project indicates that fibrinogen is a powerful predictor of stroke. Results did not disclose a differential in this relation of fibrinogen and fatal or non-fatal stroke, or with type of stroke (ischaemic or haemorrhagic).


With human society becoming increasingly computerised, the use of biometrics to automatically establish the identity of an individual is of great interest in a wide variety of applications. Facial appearance is an appealing biometric, on account of its relatively non-intrusive nature. As such, automated face recognition systems have been the subject of much research in recent years. This dissertation describes the development of a fully automatic face recognition system, and provides an analysis of its performance under various different operating conditions, in comparison with results published in prior literature. In addition to giving a detailed description of the mathematical underpinnings of the techniques used by the system, we discuss the practical considerations involved in implementing the described techniques. The system presented here uses the eigenface approach to representing facial features. A number of different recognition techniques have been implemented and evaluated. These include a number of variants of the original eigenface technique proposed by Turk and Pentland, as well as a related technique based on the probabilistic approach of Moghaddam et al. Due to the wide range of datasets used to evaluate face recognition systems in the literature, it is difficult to reliably compare the performance of different systems. The system described here has been tested with datasets encompassing a wide range of different conditions, allowing us to draw conclusions about how the characteristics of the test data affect the results that are obtained. The performance of this system is comparable to other eigenface-based systems documented in the literature, achieving success rates in the region of 85% for large datasets under controlled conditions. However, performance was observed to degrade significantly when testing with more free-form images; in particular, the effects of ageing on facial appearance were noted to cause problems for the system. This suggests that the matter of ageing is still a fruitful direction for further research.


National-level spatial planning in democratic countries has been all but ignored by researchers in urban and regional planning since the reconstruction years following World War II. Being synonymous for many with repressive regimes and coercive government practices, national-level planning also fell into some disrepute. A set of specially commissioned papers from leading researchers has produced this challenging and comprehensive study of current national-level planning in ten countries of the developed world. Challenging common assumptions, this comparative international study finds that there seems to be a modest trend whereby, on the threshold of the 21st century, national-level planning has grown in importance in democratic, advanced-economy countries.


Recent observations demonstrated that emerging flux regions, which constitute the early stage of solar active regions, consist of emergence of numerous small-scale magnetic elements. They in turn interact, merge, and form mature sunspots. However, observations of fine magnetic structures on photosphere with subarcsecond resolution are very rare due to limitations of observing facilities. In this work, taking advantage of the high resolution of the 1.6 m Goode Solar Telescope, we jointly analyze vector magnetic fields, continuum images, and Hα observations of NOAA AR 12665 on 2017 July 13, with the goal of understanding the signatures of small-scale flux emergence, as well as their atmospheric responses as they emerge through multiple heights in the photosphere and chromosphere. Under such a high resolution of 0.″1–0.″2, our results confirm two kinds of small-scale flux emergence: magnetic flux sheet emergence associated with the newly forming granules, and the traditional magnetic flux loop emergence. With direct imaging in the broadband TiO, we observe that both types of flux emergence are associated with darkening of granular boundaries, while only flux sheets elongate granules along the direction of emerging magnetic fields and expand laterally. With a life span of 10 ∼ 15 minutes, the total emerged vertical flux is on the order of 1018 Mx for both types of emergence. The magnitudes of the vertical and horizontal fields are comparable in the flux sheets, while the former is stronger in flux loops. Hα observations reveal transient brightenings in the wings in the events of magnetic loop emergence, which are most probably the signatures of Ellerman bombs.


The Suaineadh experiment had the purpose to deploy a 2m x 2m web in milli gravity conditions by using the centrifugal forces acting on corner sections of a web that is spinning around a central hub. Continuous exploration of our solar system and beyond requires ever larger structures in space. But the biggest problem nowadays is the transport of these structures into space due to launch vehicle payload volume constrains. By making the space structures deployable with minimum storage properties, this constrain may be bypassed. Deployable concepts range from inflatables, foldables, electrostatic to spinning web deployment. The advantage of the web deployment is the very low storage volume and the simple deployment mechanism. These webs can act as lightweight platforms for the construction of large structures in space without the huge expense of launching heavy structures from Earth. The Suaineadh experiment was launched onboard the sounding rocket REXUS12 in March 2012. After achieving the required altidue, the Suaineadh experiment was ejected from the rocket in order to be fully free flying. A specially designed spinning wheel in the ejected section was then used to spin up the experiment until the required rate is achieved for web deployment to commence. Unfortunately during re-entry, the probe was lost and also a recovery mission in August 2012 was only able to find minor components of the experiment. After 18 month, in September 2013, the experiment was found in the wilderness of Northern Sweden. In the following months all data from the experiment could be recovered. The images and accelerometer data that has been analysed showed the deployment of the web and a very interesting three dimensional behaviour that differs greatly from on ground two dimensional prototype tests. This paper will give an overview on the recovered data and it will present the analysed results of the Suaineadh spinning web experiment.


We use a no-arbitrage shadow rate term structure model to estimate investors' views about the timing of monetary policy 'lift-off' in the United Kingdom over time. Our estimates show that when the UK policy rate was first cut to 0.5%, in March 2009, investors believed that it would remain at the lower bound only for a short period, with an estimated probability of 70% that the policy rate would rise above 0.75% within twelve months. The estimated median horizon for policy rate lift-off rose sharply in 2012 but fell back to thirteen months by the end of our sample period, in May 2014.


Since the last ten to twenty years, the cost of sequencing the human genome decreased
continuously. Therefore the interest in RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) rose as it can be used
to discover the molecular mechanisms behind gene expression profiles of cells in different
healthy or disease states (Wang et al., 2009). The intention of this dissertation is two-fold,
first identify the best performing bioinformatical methods for RNA-Seq analysis at hand
and based on this knowledge generate a standardised work
ow, which then could be used
within the MetastaSys consortium. Second, answering the question: Is it possible to detect
somatic mutations in cancer based on RNA-Seq data reliably? This was of particular interest
as the RNA-Seq data was already created for differential gene expression analysis. Getting
further information on mutation status without the need to recreate the data for Exome-Seq
would, on the one hand, save the expensive costs for Exome-Seq and would, on the other
hand, save precious biological material of cancer metastases patients, which are precious to
the physicians.
For the RNA-Seq work
ow identification data based on the microarray and Illumina RNA-Seq
platforms were created. Therefore two data sets were created: human patient data from
rectal cancer metastases in the liver and human cell lines from Burkitt's Lymphoma, which
was stimulated with the B-Cell activating factor BAFF. The advantages of RNA-Seq over
Microarray became clear during the comparative analysis in the first publication (see 3.1).
The primary focus was the performance evaluation of bioinformatical methods based on the
given data sets. The work
ow performance was evaluated during the alignment, transcript
quantification, differential gene expression analysis, and functional profiling steps. Results
showed, that despite the work
ow with TopHat2 and Cuffinks, all work
ows achieved nearly
equally good results with a slight preference for STAR and RSEM, as STAR achieved the
overall highest mapping rate and RSEM incorporated multi-mapped reads for quantification
and was also capable of quantifying transcript isoforms next to genes. Afterwards, the best
performing work
ow pipeline was applied to mice in another study (see 3.3). The mice
developed metastases in the liver from colorectal cancer. The bioinformatical approach
streamlined via the work
ow helped a lot in interpreting the biology behind the expression
of metastasis enhancing genes. It was possible to show links of metastasis-related genes
and their stimulation via the liver environment. These genes were associated with tissue remodelling, cell proliferation, adhesion, wnt activity, transcription/regulation, and inhibition
of apoptosis.
The question if a reliable identification of somatic mutation is possible in RNA-Seq is tackled
by implementing Wileup, a program is written in Perl. Wileup's performance was evaluated
against the state-of-the-art somatic variant caller Mutect2 from the GATK tool suite for
matched RNA-Seq and Exome-Seq samples of 14 patients with either brain (seven patients)
or liver (seven patients) metastases (see 3.2). Results showed that Wileup was capable of
finding all somatic mutations in RNA-Seq identified by Mutect2 in Exome-Seq. In contrast,
Mutect2 and Wileup identified unique germline mutation only found in either of the methods.
These could be explained due to a lack of expression on the RNA-Seq data or due to too
high duplication level in the Exome-Seq data. Furthermore, the somatic mutations could be
independently validated by pathological annotation data. For the uniquely found germline
mutations of either method, it was possible to verify all of them, as they were re-identified in
the Exome-sequenced blood samples of the corresponding patients.
In conclusion, the presented studies in this thesis contribute towards establishing pipeline
standards in transcriptomics, with the focus on differential expression analysis (DEA), and
exploring the capabilities of mutation calling in RNA-Seq.


This special section of The Career Development Quarterly presents articles that extend social cognitive theory to the practice of career counseling. Readers of the Quarterly are likely to be familiar with the construct of self-efficacy, which has been the most visible aspect of social cognitive theory in the career literature. Developed by Albert Bandura (1986), social cognitive theory is a versatile model of psychosocial functioning that highlights the human capacity for self-regulation. In addition to career development, the general theory has been extended to many domains of behavior such as educational achievement, affective reactions, organizational management, and health maintenance. An earlier version of Bandura's theory, termed social learning theory, inspired John Krumboltz's influential theory of career decision making (Mitchell & Krumboltz, 1990). Efforts to apply the newer social cognitive theory to career behavior began with Hackett and Betz's (1981) classic article on the role of self-efficacy in women's career development. Hackett and Betz's hypotheses stimulated a wealth of research on career self-efficacy beliefs. In an effort to integrate findings into a coherent framework and to elaborate additional, career-relevant aspects of Bandura's position, Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) recently presented a social cognitive theory of educational-occupational interest, choice, and performance. To date, the career literature on self-efficacy and other aspects of social cognitive theory has been dominated by research reports and theory-building efforts. There have been few efforts to flesh out the implications for career counseling resulting from inquiry into self-efficacy and related constructs (e.g., Betz, 1992; Hackett & Betz, 1981; Lent & Hackett, 1987). The articles in this special section address this need by considering a range of purposes (developmental and remedial) and of client populations for which career interventions based on social cognitive theory may be appropriate. Lent and Brown (1996) begin the special section with a brief overview of social cognitive career theory, providing a conceptual base for the remaining articles. Hackett and Byars (1996) then describe the theory's implications specifically for African American women, and Chartrand and Rose (1996) illustrate how the theory can be used in the context of developmental and preventive interventions for persons at risk, such as women in a prison rehabilitation program. Like Hackett and Byars, Chartrand and Rose highlight the interplay among cognitive (e.g., self-efficacy) and contextual (e.g., opportunity structure) factors. Next, Brown and Lent ( 1996) present several counseling strategies, derived from social cognitive career theory, aimed at assisting clients who are experiencing career choice dilemmas. Finally, although most of the articles in the special section focus on the career client or other recipients of career services, O'Brien and Heppner ( 1996) consider the other side of the fence, in particular, the self-efficacy of counselors (and counselor trainees) regarding their own ability to administer career interventions. …


Spectrum sensing is an essential pre-processing step for cognitive radio technology. This paper presents a novel method to detect the significant spectral components in measured nonflat spectra, and to estimate the magnitude of the spectral components. Furthermore, the probability that the spectral component was incorrectly classified is available. The algorithm is able to detect the presence or absence of signals in any kind of spectrum since no prior knowledge about the measured signal is needed. Hence, this method becomes a strong basis for a high-quality operation mode of cognitive radios. Simulation results prove the advantages of the presented technique.


Research on child skill formation and related policies typically rely on parent- reported measures of child non-cognitive skills. In this paper, we show that parental assessments of child non-cognitive skills are directly affected by the skills of the parents. We develop a dynamic model of child and parental skill formation that accounts for this contamination and show how standard estimates of the production of skills are affected. We then use our model to illustrate how contamination in parental measures of child non-cognitive skills affects estimates of child development policies that also directly affect parental skills.


The present study assesses the demographics, socioeconomics, behaviors, environment, and satisfaction of food bank clients as a way to inform food bank administrators about where their services could be more efficiently focused. Unfortunately, very little has been published in the research literature about levels of recipient satisfaction at food banks in any settings, but especially in rural settings. This descriptive study used existing demographic and socioeconomic data from intake forms at a rural food bank, in addition to the responses of a convenience sample of 44 foodbank recipients to the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8). The data were used to assess the socioeconomic characteristics of recipients at a rural food bank and their satisfaction level with services provided. Findings indicate high levels of satisfaction among these food bank recipients. Also, small older-adult-dominated households reported higher overall income than larger households with working parents and children. Findings suggest that food banks focus their efforts, especially outreach, on the needs of young families who do not receive regular government benefits such as Social Security.


Mango (Mangifera Indica.L) is the national fruit of India. Peels and seeds are the by-products obtained during processing of mango. The Mango seed possess disposal problem if not handled properly therefore conversion of mango seed kernel to starch is the solution of this problem. Starch is used in food and pharmaceutical industry. These industries depend on crops that are the primary source of food for the human thus raising the food prices. Unlike the conventional method of producing starch, this method totally uses raw waste. The report showed the maximum yield of starch was 59.06 percent, the amylose content 16.3 percent and ash content between 0.12 to 0.15 percent. The purity of the starch obtained was 97.18 percent when compared to market starch which was 92.59 percent. Thus, it can be concluded that the starch obtained from mango seed kernel can be used in food industry.


It is thought that altered receptor turnover can account for increased expression of the cell surface receptor for epidermal growth factor (EGF) observed in some human cancers. Wu et al. have identified a signaling pathway that contributes to this phenotype. Activated EGF receptor stimulates activation of Cdc42, a small guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) that controls cell growth, as well as cytoskeletal dynamics. Activated Cdc42 was shown to regulate the interaction of the EGF receptor with c-Cbl, an E3 ubiquitin ligase that catalyzes the ubiquitination and degradation of the receptor. Activated Cdc42 formed a complex with c-Cbl through an adaptor protein called Cool-1 (also known as β-Pix). Treatment of cells that overexpressed an activated form of Cdc42 with EGF promoted formation of the tricomplex and caused a decrease in EGF receptor ubiquitination. However, additional expression of a mutant form of Cool-1 that still binds to activated Cdc42, but not to c-Cbl, restored receptor ubiquitination. The authors propose that activated Cdc42 sequesters c-Cbl, thereby decreasing EGF receptor degradation. Cell transformation could result from sustained EGF receptor signaling. Cdc42 hydrolysis of GTP would release c-Cbl to interact with the receptor. W. J. Wu, S. Tu, R. A. Cerione, Activated Cdc42 sequesters c-Cbl and prevents EGF receptor degradation. Cell 114, 715-725 (2003). [Online Journal]


Abstract—In this paper, we consider a source, which communicates to destination, with cooperation of a relay node. An eavesdropper is tapping the second hop, when all the links undergo Rayleigh fading. Relay nodes are the market players, who compete to trade their power to source in order to maximize their incentives. We evaluate the secrecy outage probability of a dual-hop decode-and-forward (DF) threshold- based cooperative relay network. Without assuming that all the relays can always perfectly decode, here we consider that only those relays who satisfy predetermined threshold, can correctly decode the message. We evaluate the utility of relays for both linear/non-linear and static/dynamic Cournot duopoly asymmetric model. We have shown that increase in channel gain from relay to eavesdropper, decreases the profit of relays and can have a dramatic effect on the Nash outcome.


BACKGROUND
Roma ethnicity is greatly affected by tuberculosis (TB), AIDS, injecting drugs use (IDU) and imprisonment.

METHODS
We assessed the incidence of several health problems by means of a retrospective cohort study performed in Camp de la Bota, Barcelona (Spain). The 380 individuals included in the 1985 TB outbreak investigation were followed-up until 31 December 2008. One hundred ninety-two subjects (50.5%) were men and 188 (49.5%) women. Information sources included questionnaires taken at the time of this outbreak, a population census and other registries from Barcelona and Catalonia. Cox proportional hazards mixed models were employed in the multivariate survival analysis.

RESULTS
By the end of the follow-up, the survival rate was 79.4%; 50 persons (13.1%) had deceased and 28 (7.3%) had emigrated. The incidence of AIDS was 104 cases per 100 000 person-years of follow-up (pyf), IDU was 240 cases pyf, imprisonment was 642 cases pyf and that of TB was 91 cases pyf. Male survival was lower [hazard ratio (HR) 4.22], when the effect of family was taken into account, than when it was not taken into account (HR 3.67).

CONCLUSIONS
High incidences of AIDS, TB, IDU, imprisonment and poor survival rates have been observed among Roma. Family was found to be an important factor influencing the survival rates: when not considered, the risk of death among men was underestimated.


Bloom identified three separate domains for learning: the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. In this thesis, I propose that for paramedic education, the affective domain is not a domain to master equal to the psychomotor and cognitive domains, but must be mastered prior to the other domains in order to fully optimize learning. I propose that students must have a basic ability to apply the skills of the affective domain, and unlike the other domains, mastery of the almost the entire domain must be achieved before a student can complete the two other domains to be successful in a Paramedic class. While there is not much research in the Paramedic field about what makes a successful student, or career paramedic, there is more research on these topics in other disciplines. This thesis will look at research studies in other medical disciplines, reviewing the characteristics and traits of successful and unsuccessful students and correlate them to the Affective Domain as defined in the Paramedic curriculum to show the necessity of the Affective Domain skills prior to the Cognitive and Psychomotor components. It will compare the current National curriculum guidelines for the Affective Domain and associate them with specific examples necessary to successfully complete a Paramedic class. In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs Is reviewed in relation to


Teacher evaluation is a significant means for ensuring accountability and promoting teacher professional development. However, the road to good implementation of teacher evaluation system rarely goes without challenges and constraints. The fourteen interviewees who participated in this study faced several constraints in implementing teacher evaluation in the Sultanate of Oman. Some of these obstacles were: Lack of incentives; inadequate evaluators' training; heavy burden of administrative duties with less empowerment; lack of teachers and evaluators' commitment towards teacher evaluation system. These organizational and technical factors inhibit the performance of teachers and evaluators alike. The study recommends that teachers and evaluators must be given the needed assistance so that the evaluation process is implemented effectively for the teacher development and performance improvement.


Efficient use ofN in plant production is an essential goal in crop management. An experiment was performed at INTA Balcarce, Argentina during 3-yr to evaluate the effect of row spacing and N level on nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in no-till (NT) irrigated maize (Zea mays L.). Treatments consisted of a factorial combination of row width (70, 52 and 35 cm) and N rates (0 to 180 kg N ha -1 ). Nitrogen rate and narrow rows increased total dry matter (DM), grain yield, and N accumulation. Relative responses to narrow rows decreased as N availability increased. The NUE decreased with N rate and increased with narrow row spacing. Narrow rows increased NUE by 12 and 15% expressed as DM or grain yield per unit of available N, respectively. Physiological efficiency decreased with N rate and was not affected by row spacing. Recovery efficiency (RE) decreased with increasing N rate, and increased for the narrow row spacings. The effect of narrow rows on RE decreased as N availability increased. Narrow rows increased NUE largely as a result of increased RE. These increments in RE could contribute to increase the profitability of maize production and to diminish the risk of environmental pollution.


Ecological restoration is widely employed from tens to millions of hectares in space, and from tens of days to thousands of years in time, which forces consideration of it thoroughly. We argue that three questions are the most important among the contents relevant of ecological restoration, including why, what and how to restore degraded systems. Why to restore determines whether or not the degraded ecological systems should be restored. What to restore is the goal of ecological restoration. The explicit goal of ecological restoration is necessary to guide ecological restoration workers in pursuit of excellence and prevent restoration from being swamped by purely technological activities. And how to restore means the methods and steps we should apply. To ensure the final success of ecological restoration, restored sites should be monitored and managed for long time to determine whether the selected methods are appropriate, and can be remedy better. Only to deal with these effectively, ecological restoration would be the hope for the future.