The research project Info4Dourou 2.0 's main goal is to improve agriculture in semi-arid regions by developing a support system that optimizes agricultural production and water consumption based on continuous soil humidity measurements using a sensor network. In this context, the main purpose of the study was to give more scientific support to the agronomic model on which the sensor network is based. In particular the research aims at understanding the soil water and plant dynamics in order to give recommendations on the system design. The main feature of the system is to indicate when irrigation must be triggered and in which soil moisture conditions. The thesis developed a numerical model based on the software HYDRUS 2D to acquire a precise knowledge on the soil water dynamics and was calibrated and coupled with field experiments on two vegetable crops of eggplant and cabbage in Burkina Faso using drip kit irrigation systems. A great focus was given on the plant response to different irrigation schedules and to water stress, considering aerial biomass development, root distribution and final yields. Water stress was linked to continuous measurements of the soil matrix potential at different depth and locations. The field experiments showed that a daily irrigation frequency resulted to better canopy development during the first part of the growth but that great water savings are possible by optimizing the schedule. Water stress was difficult to track precisely by following daily sap flow behaviour which suggested that plant stress occurs before transpiration reduction, especially when biomass is building up. The adaptability of the root distribution was demonstrated and was clearly correlated with the wetted zone which depended on the irrigation schedule. From the numerical model, it was shown that using one sensor at a depth of about 10 cm was most appropriate in order to pilot irrigation during the whole crop growth. The analysis showed that most of the water savings could be achieved at relatively high threshold values and that low thresholds mainly resulted to transpiration reduction which was not advisable. A threshold of -20 kPa was proposed for the beginning of the growth stage which then decreases to a value of -50 kPa at full canopy development. These thresholds are believed to be adequate for most vegetable crops since they allow keeping the soil matrix potential in the root zone at values that are tolerated by most plants. An analysis of the influence of the soil texture also showed that similar values seem to perform well for most soils, if assuming an adaptation of the root distribution to the wetted zone. The study focused mainly on water stress but more research could be done on the impact of the irrigation system on nutrients availability for example.


The forensic use of hypnosis is increasing. A hypermnesic procedure was used in an experiment that calls this practice into question. Subjects tried for a week to recall 60 previously presented pictures. They were then either hypnotized or not and encouraged to recall even more pictures. Most of the newly recalled material was incorrect, especially for highly hypnotizable subjects in the hypnosis condition. Such errors in recall can have profound implications for forensic investigations.


50‐MHz echoes from equatorial spread‐F were observed on several nights by both the Jicamarca Radio Observatory (JRO) in Peru and the Cornell University Portable Radar Interferometer (CUPRI) in Alcântara, Brazil. Although little detailed correlation is expected between sites separated by such large distances, the night of October 17, 1994 shows some remarkable similarities between Peru and Brazil. On this night spread‐F commenced at both Jicamarca and Alcântara as thin bottomside layers situated near 320 km altitude at nearly the same local times. Later, major plumes erupted that reached to over 1000 km altitude at both sites. Since plumes normally drift west to east, these are obviously not the same structures but the similarities indicate that conditions for spawning them must have been coincidentally very similar on this night. The next two nights which produced plumes over Brazil, but only bottomside layers over Peru, emphasize that local conditions on the same night can be very different at the two locations. The importance of having a sufficiently wide beam for exploring spread‐F over a large altitude range at the Alcântara site is also explored.


Spreading processes are often modelled as a stochastic dynamics occurring on top of a given network with edge weights corresponding to the transmission probabilities. Knowledge of veracious transmission probabilities is essential for prediction, optimization, and control of diffusion dynamics. Unfortunately, in most cases the transmission rates are unknown and need to be reconstructed from the spreading data. Moreover, in realistic settings it is impossible to monitor the state of each node at every time, and thus the data is highly incomplete. We introduce an efficient dynamic message-passing algorithm, which is able to reconstruct parameters of the spreading model given only partial information on the activation times of nodes in the network. The method is generalizable to a large class of dynamic models, as well to the case of temporal graphs.


Modern graphics cards for computers, and especially their graphics processing units (GPUs), are designed for fast rendering of graphics. In order to achieve this GPUs are equipped with a parallel architecture which can be exploited for general-purpose computing on GPU (GPGPU) as a complement to the central processing unit (CPU). In this paper GPGPU techniques are used to make a parallel GPU implementation of state-of-the-art recursive Bayesian estimation using particle filters (PF). The modifications made to obtain a parallel particle filter, especially for the resampling step, are discussed and the performance of the resulting GPU implementation is compared to one achieved with a traditional CPU implementation. The resulting GPU filter is faster with the same accuracy as the CPU filter for many particles, and it shows how the particle filter can be parallelized.


T cells release Wnt10b in response to intermittent parathyroid hormone to stimulate bone formation. Bone mass is decreased by continuous exposure to parathyroid hormone (PTH) but increased by intermittent exposure. Daily injections of PTH to mimic intermittent PTH (iPTH) are used to treat osteoporosis. PTH activates Wnt signaling pathways that require the co-receptors LRP5 and LRP6 (low-density lipoprotein receptor–related protein). Although loss-of-function mutations in LRP5 decrease bone mass in humans and mice, they do not abolish the ability of PTH to promote bone formation in mice. Complementing previous work that identified the role of T cells in bone cell responses to continuous PTH, Terauchi et al. assessed the role of T cells in response to iPTH. Wild-type mice exhibited a greater anabolic response to iPTH compared with mice lacking αβ T cells (TCRβ–/–), as assessed by several measures of bone accretion, including bone mineral density (BMD), trabecular bone volume (BV/TV), bone strength, and serum concentrations of osteocalcin (a marker of bone differentiation). These decreased responses were rescued in TCRβ–/– mice by adoptive transfer of wild-type T cells prior to iPTH. Anabolic responses to iPTH were mediated primarily by CD8+ cells, because adoptive transfer of CD8+ cells, but not CD4+ T cells, into TCRβ–/– mice restored responses to iPTH. Stromal cell commitment to the osteoblastic lineage, as measured by formation of alkaline phosphatase–positive colony-forming unit fibroblasts, was increased by iPTH treatment of bone marrow from wild-type mice, but not that from TCRβ–/– mice. Pre-osteoblasts from iPTH-treated wild-type mouse bone marrow exhibited greater proliferation, decreased apoptosis, and increased expression of genes indicative of osteoblastic differentiation, as well as those activated by Wnt signaling, compared with those from iPTH-treated TCRβ–/– mouse bone marrow. iPTH treatment of CD8+ T cells increased the abundance of the mRNA and protein for the Wnt ligand Wnt10b. Adoptive transfer of T cells from Wnt10b–/– mice failed to restore the response to iPTH in TCRβ–/– mice, as assessed by BV/TV measurements and osteocalcin concentrations. Thus, the anabolic effects of iPTH on osteoblasts appear to be mediated in part by the release of Wnt10b by CD8+ T cells. M. Terauchi, J.-Y. Li, B. Bedi, K.-H. Baek, H. Tawfeek, S. Galley, L. Gilbert, M. S. Nanes, M. Zayzafoon, R. Guldberg, D. L. Lamar, M. A. Singer, T. F. Lane, H. M. Kronenberg, M. N. Weitzmann, R. Pacifici, T lymphocytes amplify the anabolic activity of parathyroid hormone through Wnt10b signaling. Cell Metabol. 10, 229–240 (2009). [PubMed]


Background: Whole-body water immersion leads to a significant shift of blood from the periphery to the intrathoracic circulation, followed by an increase in central venous pressure and heart volume. In patients with severely reduced left ventricular function, this hydrostatically induced volume shift might overstrain the cardiovascular adaptive mechanisms and lead to cardiac decompensation. Aim: To assess the haemodynamic response to water immersion, gymnastics and swimming in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Methods: 10 patients with compensated CHF (62.9 (6.3) years, ejection fraction 31.5% (4.1%), peak oxygen consumption (V̇o2) 19.4 (2.8) ml/kg/min), 10 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) but preserved left ventricular function (57.2 (5.6) years, ejection fraction 63.9% (5.5%), peak V̇o2 28 (6.3) ml/kg/min), and 10 healthy controls (32.8 (7.2) years, peak V̇o2 45.6 (6) ml/kg/min) were examined. Haemodynamic response to thermoneutral (32°C) water immersion and exercise was measured using a non-invasive foreign gas rebreathing method during stepwise water immersion, water gymnastics and swimming. Results: Water immersion up to the chest increased cardiac index by 19% in controls, by 21% in patients with CAD and by 16% in patients with CHF. Although some patients with CHF showed a decrease of stroke volume during immersion, all subjects were able to increase cardiac index (by 87% in healthy subjects, by 77% in patients with CAD and by 53% in patients with CHF). V̇o2 during swimming was 9.7 (3.3) ml/kg/min in patients with CHF, 12.4 (3.5) ml/kg/min in patients with CAD and 13.9 (4) ml/kg/min in controls. Conclusions: Patients with severely reduced left ventricular function but stable clinical conditions and a minimal peak V̇o2 of at least 15 ml/kg/min during a symptom-limited exercise stress test tolerate water immersion and swimming in thermoneutral water well. Although cardiac index and V̇o2 are lower than in patients with CAD with preserved left ventricular function and controls, these patients are able to increase cardiac index adequately during water immersion and swimming.


Three cats presented to the hospital with multisystemic signs including oral ulceration and bleeding, spontaneous subcutaneous haemorrhages, fever, lethargy, anorexia and renal disease. The cats, two male and one female, were all older than six years (mean age eight years). All three cats also had a chronic history of lameness in one thoracic limb, which had progressed to non-ambulatory paresis. Marked muscle atrophy was present over the entire limb. Palpation of the axilla revealed a prominent tender cord-like structure, which on postmortem examination was found to be the swollen brachial plexus in each cat. The diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus was based on clinical assessment and laboratory data. All had ischaemic neuromyopathy confirmed on histopathological examination. Prednisolone with chlorambucil and pentoxifylline was administered orally. Unfortunately, none of the cats survived more than seven weeks from diagnosis.


On its 22nd Diplomatic Session on 2 July 2019, the Hague Conference on Private International Law concluded its Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. The adoption of this Convention completes intense efforts of the HCC and the participating State Parties since 1992. One of the controversial issues in the last steps before the adoption was what has been called, in other contexts, "trust management". This concept refers to the question how to embark on meaningful judicial cooperation in civil matters with participating states whose administration of justice is perceived as not sufficiently trust-worthy by other participating states – the "real elephant in the room". At the same time, judicial integration in civil matters is an indispensable part of regulating transnational trade relations. Undoubtedly, international commercial arbitration should have the fullest possible freedom and support. However, without any effective alternative, there is no "alternative" dispute resolution and no "freedom of choice". Rather, nations and regions, particularly those trading within frameworks of economic integration and thus on an intensified scale, should strive for an "integrated approach". Against this background, the text explores new trends of trust management of the new HCCH instrument.


Worldwide, India has the highest number of people defecating in the open. In an attempt to reduce number of open defecation, a supply side initiative is underway. In 2014-2015, Government of India, constructed 8 million toilets. However, an important aspect for this supply-side initiative to become successful is to create demand for toilets. In this paper we look at household demand for toilets, and study the factors leading to open defecation. Using Demographic and Health Survey data we create a wealth index, and use it to rank household preference for toilets vis-a-vis 20 other different consumer durables. Our results suggest, among lists of household items that any individual want to have, toilets get a lower preference – ranked 12, out of 21. Additionally, we examine preference structure for using toilets among residents from various federal states in India. We find residents of NorthEastern states are more likely to use toilets. We further investigate factors leading to toilet usage among households. Results indicate a strong case for imparting education and public awareness, especially, among the female cohort.


Abstract: Prevalence of obesity and co-morbidities is increasing alarmingly in recent years with over 1 billion adults globally being classified as overweight. Importantly, this also applies to the population in Qatar where about 70% of the total population are expected to be overweight and nearly 20% diabetic by 2015. The profound increase in obesity has a severe socio-economic burden for public health systems worldwide. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has high metabolic activity. Increasing BAT mass in itself as well as through trans-differentiation of white adipose tissue (WAT) to BAT can combat obesity, reverse insulin resistance and diabetes. Orexin A (ORA) and orexin B (ORB) neuropeptides mediate multiple physiological functions including sleep and wakefulness, appetite, metabolism, analgesia, stress response and thermogenesis. Orexins mediate physiological responses via activating two GPCRs OXR1 and OXR2. In the current study we demonstrate for the first time the expression of OXR1 and OXR2 in human BAT, and compare the effects of ORA and ORB on BAT functions i.e. thermogenesis, BAT angiogenesis and trans-differentiation of WAT to BAT using cellular and mouse models. Peripheral administration of ORA and ORB in mice resulted in a significant differential up-regulation of thermogenic (UCP1, PPARγ, PGC1α, BMP7, PRDM16 and BMP8b) genes, proteins, increase in BAT angiogenesis and up-regulating pro-angiogenic (VEGF, CD31, NGF2, FOXC2, HIF-1α, eNOS and MMPs) molecules in BAT. We also observed induction of BAT like phenotype in classical WAT, specifically, in inguinal and subcutaneous WAT following orexin treatment. In particular, our findings demonstrate that ORB has more potent effects on BAT function compared to ORA. Thermogenesis mediated by ORB predominantly involves activation of OXR2. In addition, we found that ORA mediated UCP1 (a key protein in thermogenesis) activation in thermogenesis involved p38 and ERK1/2 dependent pathways, whereas ORB induced UCP1 activation, was mainly through the p38 but not ERK1/2 pathway. Therefore, induction of brown phenotype in WAT by orexins could serve as a promising target to combat obesity and insulin resistance. We would like to highlight our data that ORB appears to have a more potent effect on trans-differentiation of WAT to 'brown-like' phenotype compared to ORA. In summary, our findings highlight the importance of orexins, in particular, ORB in the regulation of BAT physiology. Given that ORB is a potent inducer of BAT thermogenesis, angiogenesis and regulates trans-differentiation of WAT to BAT like phenotype, we propose that ORB has therapeutic potential for the treatment of obesity.


The effort that led to this report is twofold. First, it deals with the development of fundamental transport equations and their solutions; they describe the effect of low-permeability zones on the motion and spread of contaminant plumes in high-permeability porous layers. Second, it concerns the development of an analytical multi phase-transport model that describes leaching of pesticides in soils and their fate and transport in groundwater. Using Monte Carlo simulations, the effect of stochastic precipitation, random adsorption, and random (bio )chemical reaction, on the probability distributions of the herbicide Simazine, is investigated under conditions typical to the City of Fresno in California. The transport equations that are developed in Chapter 2 describe the capacitance of low permeability layers to store and release reactive constituents by diffusion and mechanical mixing. It is shown that under quasi-steady conditions and a mean flow parallel to the bedding, lateral solute transfer between thin layers is governed by the phenomenological first-order rate model, with a uniquely defined mass transfer rate coefficient, modified to account for reactive constituents. Two-dimensional analytical solutions are obtained in Chapter 3 for the first-order rate model in an infinite porous medium, using the methods of Fourier and Laplace transforms. and superposition. The solutions consider a rectangular area at the source with (l) an instantaneous release of a contaminant mass, and (2) an exponentially-decaying source concentration, applied at a fixed rate. Comparison of the theory with tracer chloride levels at the Borden aquifer indicates that the first-order rate model can describe adequately the dispersion process, on the basis of lateral or transverse diffusive mass transfer between layers. In the second effort (Chapter 4), a multiphase transport model is developed with the objective of investigating the impact of soil environment, physical and (bio )chemical processes, especially, volatilization, crop uptake, and agricultural practices on long-term vulnerability of groundwater to contamination by pesticides. The soil is separated into root and intermediate vadose zones, each with uniform properties. Transport in each soil zone is modeled on the basis of complete mixing, by spatial averaging the related point multi phase-transport partial differential equation (i.e., linear-reservoir models). Transport in the aquifer, however, is modeled by a two-dimensional advection-dispersion transport equation, considering adsorption and firstorder decay rate. Vaporization in the soil is accounted for by assuming liquid-vapor phase partitioning using Henry's law, and vapor flux (volatilization) from the soil surface is modeled by diffusion through an air boundary layer. Sorption of liquid-phase solutes by crops is described by a linear relationship that is valid for first-order (passive) crop uptake. The model is applied to five pesticides (Atrazine, Brornacil, Chlordane, Heptachlor, and Lindane), and the potential for pesticides contamination of groundwater is investigated for sandy and clayey soils. Simulation results show that groundwater contamination can be substantially reduced for clayey soil environments, where bio(chemical) degradation and volatilization are most efficient as natural loss pathways for the pesticides. Also, uptake by crops can be a significant mechanism for attenuating exposure levels in groundwater, especially in a sandy soil environment and for relatively persisting pesticides. Further, simulations indicate that changing agricultural practices can have a profound effect on vulnerability of groundwater to mobile and relatively persisting pesticides. The deterministic model is integrated with the Monte Carlo method in Chapter 5, to obtain the probability density function, mean, and standard deviation of the concentrations in groundwater, due to random adsorption and stochastic precipitation. The distribution coefficient, which is used to calculate the retardation factor for equilibrium adsorption, is assumed to be normally distributed, and the precipitation is modeled by fitting an ARIMA model to an observed time series. Consequently, the results of the analysis are also probability distribution functions for the concentration of the contaminant. which are useful representations for regulation and management purposes. The stochastic model is applied to data typical to the Fresno area in California, to assess the impact of herbicide Simazine on groundwater quality. The results show that predicted concentrations exhibit non-Gaussian probability distributions and standard deviations of the order of magnitude of the estimated means. Further, predictions made on the basis of averaged values of input parameters may substantially overestimate in transient, and later underestimate, the actual mean (ensemble) of the contaminant levels in groundwater. The results also highlight the importance of accounting for the mechanism of preferential flow.


Quantum-yield and photoelectron-energy-distribution measurements on evaporated LaF3 films have been made in the photon energy range 10–27 eV. Photoemission from the F−2p valence band indicates a bandwidth of 3.5 ± 40.3 eV and a photoelectric threshold of 11.7 ± 0.3 eV. The photoelectron spectra exhibit features that can be identified as density-of-states structures of the valence and conduction bands. An attempt is made to relate these structures to the initial and final states of ultraviolet transitions.


In this thesis the goal is to look at the European Union (EU) and see how the Union's Commission is handling the battle for gender equality. In the last decades it has become ever more obvious that women are under-represented in international organizations and decision-making. Gender equality, and more women among appointed officials, should be one of the guiding lights of EU's Commissions policy work. In this thesis, gender equality within the Commission will be closely looked at.

Seeking answers to these questions, two types of research methods are used. The main part of the thesis is based on already existing materials, e.g. surveys, books, articles and materials published by the EU. To get a critical judgement on the collected materials, I will do an empirical analysis on the Commission's infrastructure to get a deeper sense of how gender equality issues are evolving within the Commission.

The main results are, that in spite of the increased participation of women in politics, it is not enough to hope and encourage others to work further on gender equality. We have to start with ourselfs. In spite of all the good promises, gender equality within EU's Commission is yet to be perceived. There are multiple reasons for why that is so, and in this thesis the biggest emphasis will be on the patriarchal system and how the political system, international and regional, has been, and still is, shaped by men's experiences.

Key words: feminist theory, hegemonic masculinity, the European Union, societies, gender equality, international relations, the international system.


Numerous commentators have characterized the ADA's reasonable accommodation mandate - which sometimes requires employers to take affirmative steps that treat an individual with a disability differently from other workers - as a departure from the fundamental precepts of antidiscrimination law. These characterizations, however, fail to appreciate either the insights offered by disability theorists regarding the sources of inequality experienced by people with disabilities or the intrinsic conceptual kinship between the ADA's accommodation requirement and disparate impact liability and hostile environment liability under Title VII. Disability theory scholarship affirms that society's historic disregard for and devaluation of people with disabilities has resulted in workplaces where conventional structures, policies, and practices commonly act as barriers to disabled persons' equal employment opportunity. Examination of the conceptual foundations of disparate impact liability and hostile environment liability demonstrates that a central purpose of established antidiscrimination law is the removal of barriers to equal employment opportunity. This Article contends that the ADA's reasonable accommodation requirement should be properly understood as a mechanism for ending discrimination against people with disabilities by requiring the removal of those workplace obstacles whose presence reflects society's disregard for and devaluation of people with disabilities. This understanding may guide courts called on to determine whether a particular requested accommodation should be deemed a "reasonable" accommodation in light of the ADA's antidiscrimination purpose. Ultimately, it may also prompt a broader recognition that the reasonable accommodation requirement is an integral part of our society's antidiscrimination project.


Background and Objectives: Antimicrobial active packaging with metallic nanoparticles is used as antimicrobial agent in the packaging of food. This study considers the coliform retarding ability of antimicrobial packaging in ultra-filtrated (UF) cheese. Materials and Methods: Plastic films based on low-density polyethylene containing organoclay (cloisite 30B) and different percentages of Ag and CuO nanoparticles produced by extrusion method. Coliform bacteria growth in UF cheese was investigated. The release of nanoparticles from nanocomposite into a food simulant was also assessed. Results: An amount of 3.17-log cfu/g and 0.75-log cfu/g reduction for coliform bacteria obtained for nanocomposite and control films, respectively after four weeks of storage at 4 °C. Nanocomposite film with 1.3% Ag and 2.7% CuO in LDPE matrix introduced as optimum point by Design Expert 7.1.5 software. Microbial model for decreasing growth of coliform bacteria in this product was also determined. Validation of optimum point was carried out using a one-way ANOVA. It was shown that ther is a non-significant (p>0.05) difference with its repeat and a significant (p<0.05) difference with the pure film. Conclusions: Plastic nanocomposite films containing nanoparticle of organoclay and metal can decrease the severity of food processing and application of chemical preservatives in the food industries.


Cover crops as a conservation practice continue to receive attention from farmers, researchers, media, and policy makers, given their ability to effectively reduce water pollution and improve soil quality. Recent estimates of cover crop use across the midwestern Corn Belt, as well as the United States, demonstrate large acreage increases over the last number of years. The annual Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education–Conservation Technology Information Center (SARE–CTIC) survey found that nationally cover crop acreage doubled from 2011 to 2016, based on farmers self-reporting cover crop planting (CTIC 2016). However, the total cover crop acreage based on 2012 Census of Agriculture data only represents 3.2% of harvested cropland nationally and just 2.3% of the total cropland in the US Corn Belt (USDA NASS 2014a, 2014b). Cover crops can be a difficult proposition for many farmers in highly productive agricultural regions where priority is given to maximizing crop production and economic returns year to year. The practice is particularly challenging in the upper mid-western portion of the Corn Belt because the climate limits the time to seed and effectively grow another crop following the fall harvests of corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.). Farmers frequently report challenges with…


Quantitative estimation of neuronal numbers in the human substantia nigra (SN) can be achieved by a conventional single section (SS) count or by the more modern stereological disector (DS) count. However, counting results from SS counts are potentially biased and might not accurately reflect the total neuronal number in the SN or the changes in the total number of neurons occurring during aging or with neurodegenerative disease. Potential sources of bias include the lack of linearity between cell number per area of section and cell number per volume; the variation in the counting level and orientation of tissue sections; and shrinkage of tissue. Modern stereological DS counting overcomes these problems and has played a crucial role in many recent studies in neuropathology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology and neurogenetics. Over the past decades, four stereology based counting methods including physical DS, physical fractionator, optical DS and optical fractionator, have been established for quantitative measurement. Recently, stereological estimates have revealed a linear reduction rate of total nigral neuronal numbers with age of about 10% per decade. These findings suggest that the surviving nigral neurons undergo a degenerative change leading to neuronal dysfunction with aging. Furthermore, as an advanced quantitative tool, modern stereological evaluation may provide new insights into the aging of the human SN thereby enabling us to better understand the pathophysiological processes in aging brain.


Background & Aim: Breast feeding is the most important and decisive factor in Children's state of health and nutrition, especially in societies with lower socio-economic status. Beastfeeding plays an important role in child health and development. Acordingly this study was carried out with the aim of determining the ralationship between breastfeeding and child weigth gain up to the end of 24 months of age. Material & Methods: It was a correlational predictive study. The sample consisted of 307 mothers of 2-3 years old children who have been visited for monitoring their children's growth in heath canters of west of Tehran. They were recruited by stratified sampling method. Mothers & children's data was collected by questionnaire & analyzed using SPSS-PC-(v.10). Results: pearson correlation test indicated that there is no significant relationship between breastfeeding duration & children's weight in 6 and 12 months of age. However, there was a converse significant relationship between breastfeeding duration and the children's weight in 24 months of age (p=0.003). There was also a significant relationship between the children's sex and their weight in 6, 12 and 24 months of age (p=0.000). No significant association was found between children's weight in 6, 12 and 24 months of age and mothers' age, number of deliveries, mothers' level of education and job status, participation in educational courses for breast feeding, and the time of breastfeeding initiation after delivery. Conclusion: children fell within normal limits for weight when breastfeeding duration was longer and vice versa. Regarding the undesirable effects(eg. malnutrition and obesity) of shortening the breastfeeding period on child health, provision of support as well as education about breastfeeding continuation is recommended.


Abstract. A germplasm collection of 484 accessions of Vicia faba was screened for resistance to rust (Uromyces viciae-fabae) under field conditions. Accessions varied in the levels of rust infection, although no complete resistance was identified. Stability of resistance of the 39 most-resistant accessions was tested in a multi-location experiment in Austria, Egypt, Tunisia, United Kingdom and Spain over three additional field seasons. Genotype × environment interaction accounted for 43% of the sum of squares of the multi-environment evaluation, revealing instability of the phenotypic expression across environments. This might hamper the efficiency of selection suggesting the need for selection in different environments. Three possible mega-environments were discerned in the studied area, Mediterranean (Spain, Tunisia and Egypt), Oceanic (UK) and Continental (Austria). Córdoba (Spain) and Kafr El-Sheik (Egypt) showed as ideal environments for rust resistance screenings within Mediterranean environment. Several accessions (300, 303, 311, 313, 720, 1196 and 1271) were grouped as moderately to highly resistant in the three defined mega-environments. These accessions showed clear differences both in terms of reduced disease severity and high stability, which make them good candidates for international faba bean breeding programmes. Concerning each mega-environment, accessions 300 and 311 were the most resistant and stable ones across the Mediterranean one, followed by accessions 720, 1022, 1272, 1320 and BPL261. On the contrary other accessions (313, 452, 481 and 1196) were the most resistant in Oceanic and Continental environments. However, 452 and 481 were susceptible in the Mediterranean mega-environment. This contrasting performance across the environments was also supported by contradictory performance of the checks BPL261 and Baraca in Oceanic and Continental environments, suggesting differential virulence in rust populations, which deserves further attention.


This paper presents lists of the most frequently used Russian utterances in everyday interaction and gives a
statistical description of Russian spontaneous speech; including, frequency distribution of utterance length
measured in words and syllables and temporal statistics of utterances. Audio data for this research were
taken from the ORD Speach Corpus of Russian Everyday Communication. Special investigation was conducted to analyze average utterance duration and syllable rate of speech relative to utterance length in syllables. Additionally, we propose the existence of two temporal registers in Russian everyday speech.


Background: Smoking is one of the environmental factors which can alter normal lipid profile. It is one of the major risk factors in the genesis of coronary atherosclerosis and development of coronary heart disease. The present study aimed to compare the lipid profile between smoker and non smoker and to evaluate the durational significance on lipid profile in the smokers and to clarify the influence of daily cigarette smoking on the components of lipid profile in Sudanese youth males. Materials and Methods: Out of 200 apparently healthy male subjects, 100 were smokers [26.2±5.2Years] and 100 were non smokers [24.0±4.6Years]. The subjects were asked to fast overnight and early morning blood samples collected and analyzed for lipid profile [Cholesterol, Triglyceride, High density lipoprotein and Low density lipoprotein] by using Cobas integra 400 plus Roche analyser. Results: A significantly increased of serum Cholesterol, Triglyceride and Low density lipoprotein with significant decreased in serum High density lipoprotein level in smokers as compared to non smokers and same results were found in smoker group with > 15 cigarettes smoked per day while with increase duration of smoking the TC & LDL-C were increased, TG showed no difference while the HDL-C was decreased showing greater risk of these persons to atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Conclusions: This study concluded that smoking causes alteration in lipid profile. Increased duration of smoking and number of smoked cigarettes / day causes more dyslipidaemia .This smoking might be related in the alteration in serum lipid levels increases risk for coronary artery disease.


An interpolation model is a necessary ingredient of intensity-based registration methods. The properties of such a model depend entirely on its basis function, which has been traditionally characterized by features such as its order of approximation and its support. However, as has been recently shown, these features are blind to the amount of registration bias created by the interpolation process alone; an additional requirement that has been named constant-variance interpolation is needed to remove this bias. In this paper, we present a theoretical investigation of the role of the interpolation basis in a registration context. Contrarily to published analyses, ours is deterministic; it nevertheless leads to the same conclusion, which is that constant-variance interpolation is beneficial to image registration. In addition, we propose a novel family of interpolation bases that can have any desired order of approximation while maintaining the constant-variance property. Our family includes every constant-variance basis we know of. It is described by an explicit formula that contains two free functional terms: an arbitrary 1-periodic binary function that takes values from {-1, 1}, and another arbitrary function that must satisfy the partition of unity. These degrees of freedom can be harnessed to build many family members for a given order of approximation and a fixed support. We provide the example of a symmetric basis with two orders of approximation that is supported over [-3/2, 3/2] this support is one unit shorter than a basis of identical order that had been previously


We study some measurement issues that arise when analyzing the long run behavior of the jth creative region's time t log output per creative class member (yj(t)) when this region is part of an aggregate economy of j=1,...N creative regions. We focus first (second) on absolute (relative) convergence. In the absolute (relative) convergence case, the N creative regions are similar (dissimilar) in that they all have the same (different) balanced growth path (BGP) level of log output per creative class member denoted by yBGP(yjBGP) In the absolute convergence case, we analyze how to estimate the speed of convergence parameter (σ) and then discuss the relationship between the variance of yj(t) and that of yj(0) In the relative convergence case, we study the error associated with estimating σ using the methodology of the absolute convergence case. Finally, suppose yjBGP= a + bXj where Xj is an explanatory variable such as creative capital and a and b are positive constants. Here, we study how to estimate b from our knowledge of the coefficients of a related cross-region growth regression.


In the development and progression of cancer, tumor suppressor genes may be silenced by mechanisms such as methylation. Thus the discovery of new genes silenced by methylation may uncover new tumor suppressor genes, and improve our understanding of cancer biology. In this study we investigated the methylation of 19 genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Methylation was measured in 10 of these genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell lines: CDH13, CLDN6, C16orf62, FBN2, FNBP1, ID4, RBP1, RBP4, TFPI2 and TMEFF2. To determine if there was a correlation between DNA methylation and gene silencing, each cell line was cultured with or without the demethylating drug 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (aza-dC). For 6 genes (CLDN6, FBN2, RBP1, RBP4, TFPI2 and TMEFF2) there was an association between reduction of methylation and increase in mRNA expression in the demethylated cell lines. The frequency of the methylation of these 6 genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma resection specimens was also investigated. All 6 genes showed more frequent methylation in the tumor than the matched proximal resection margin of uninvolved esophagus. There was a significant difference in the frequency of methylation and in the extent of the methylation between the cancer and the margin tissues for CLDN6, FBN2, TFPI2 and TMEFF2 (P=0.0007, P=0.0048 P=0.0002 and P<0.0001, respectively). This is the first report of gene silencing by methylation of CLDN6, FBN2, RBP4, TFPI2 and TMEFF2 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.


This paper proposes a novel technique for estimating the signal power spectral density to be used in the transfer function of a microphone array post-filter. The technique is a modification of the existing Zelinski post-filter, which uses the auto- and cross-spectral densities of the array inputs to estimate the signal and noise spectral densities. The Zelinski technique, however, assumes zero cross-correlation between noise on different sensors. This assumption is inaccurate in real conditions, particularly at low frequencies and for arrays with closely spaced sensors. In this paper we replace this with an assumption of a theoretically diffuse noise field, which is more appropriate in a variety of realistic noise environments. In experiments using noise recordings from an office of computer workstations, the modified post-filter results in significant improvement in terms of objective speech quality measures and speech recognition performance.


Phycobilisomes, the light harvesting complexes of cyanobacteria are highly mobile, fluorescent complexes known to diffuse freely on the thylakoid membranes, interacting with the reaction centre complexes to mediate efficient photosynthesis. The primary aim of this project is to establish what processes require this rapid movement of the complexes using a number of genetic, biochemical and microscopic techniques. The cyanobacterial species used extensively in the work presented in this thesis are the fully sequenced, naturally transformable Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942. The latter lends itself particularly well to quantitatively elucidating the diffusion rate of fluorescent complexes, but qualitative detection of mobile fluorescent complex is also feasible with Synechocystis 6803. State transitions are observed in cyanobacteria upon the alteration of illumination conditions. A rapid redistribution of excitation energy between the reaction centres is observed. This was investigated using high osmotic strength buffers to fix phycobilisomes to reaction centres they were associating with upon their addition, thus inhibiting their mobility, as adjudged by spectroscopy and microscopy using the Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP) technique. It was found that mobile phycobilisomes are required for cells to be capable of state transitions. Non-Photochemical Quenching (NPQ) is a protective mechanism seen in iron- deprived cyanobacteria. Extensively studied in plants, its supposed function is to dissipate excess energy as heat to prevent photodamage to the reaction centres. Using Synechocystis 6803 and the techniques described above, phycobilisome mobility was determined to be critical to NPQ induction, and the interaction with IsiA in cyanobacteria was proposed as being involved in the process. A previously inactivated gene thought to be involved in state transitions, rpaC, was over-expressed in Synechocystis 6803 and knocked out in Synechococcus 7942 and gave pleiotropic effects. The conclusion that the binding of phycobilisomes to PSII is predictably stronger than to PSI was exploited by comparing the strength of the binding in the Synechococcus 7942 mutant with the wild type. Data were suggestive of the protein being involved in phycobilisome to PSII binding. Psb28* mutants of both species used in this thesis were extensively characterised, as the cells also presented a highly unusual mobile PSII phenotype. Psb28 is possibly involved in maintaining thylakoid membrane organisation.


Communicative behaviors displayed on the group "walls" within and between a prosocial and a trolling community on Facebook were compared based on the following conceptual frameworks: (1) types of information exchange behaviors, (2) message contingent interactivity, and (3) proportion of agreement and disagreement. Findings revealed that participants in a prosocial community exchanged more emotionally supportive messages and showed greater level of message reciprocity and member agreement. That is not to say that a trolling group exists in disharmony. On the contrary, participants of a trolling community were found to agree more with one another than disagree. Findings extend online community research that largely examined solo communities and investigated trolling as individual activities, and show that at the group level, a trolling community can instead be more collaborative than acrimonious. Practical suggestions and implications of findings in the context and theorization of online communities are discussed.


There is considerable spatial structure within the South Georgia krill-based ecosystem in terms of predator demand, commercial fishery pressure and krill abundance. Here we investigate the hypothesis that there is also spatial structure in the krill population composition, finding differences in length-frequency histograms between the eastern and western ends of the island. Between 1981 and 1997 the British Antarctic Survey carried out 6 major cruises where krill were taken from both ends of South Georgia. Cluster analysis revealed that the length-frequency histograms could be grouped into 4 main types with relatively simple biological characteristics: Cluster 1 contained small krill (mean size 23.9 mm) up to 2 yr old (1+ yr class); Cluster 2 (mean size 31.1 mm) contained a mixture of 1+ with some 2+ and 3+ yr classes; Cluster 3 contained medium-sized krill (mean size 41.4 mm) probably 2+ and 3+ yr classes; Cluster 4 contained large krill (mean size 50.3 mm) likely to be 3+ or older. Principal components analysis (PCA) provided good separation of these clusters using the first 2 axes (80% of the total variance). There were no obvious differences in the length composition of krill sampled from different water depths, although there were some indications that differences did occur between different water masses. Detailed inspection of the individual cruises revealed that the length-frequency histograms at the western end of the island contained more large krill than those from the eastern end of the island and also that when Weddell Sea water was found within a cruise then this contained the smallest krill. We consider that such differences may arise not only because krill may experience different conditions at each end of the island but also may originate from 2 separate sources which may have different population structures.


Mark Peterson makes an extraordinary claim in this fascinating book focused around the life and thought of Galileo: it was the mathematics of Renaissance arts, not Renaissance sciences, that became modern science. Galileo's Muse argues that painters, poets, musicians, and architects brought about a scientific revolution that eluded the philosopher-scientists of the day, steeped as they were in a medieval cosmos and its underlying philosophy. According to Peterson, the recovery of classical science owes much to the Renaissance artists who first turned to Greek sources for inspiration and instruction. Chapters devoted to their insights into mathematics, ranging from perspective in painting to tuning in music, are interspersed with chapters about Galileo's own life and work. Himself an artist turned scientist and an avid student of Hellenistic culture, Galileo pulled together the many threads of his artistic and classical education in designing unprecedented experiments to unlock the secrets of nature. In the last chapter, Peterson draws our attention to the Oratio de Mathematicae laudibus of 1627, delivered by one of Galileo's students. This document, Peterson argues, was penned in part by Galileo himself, as an expression of his understanding of the universality of mathematics in art and nature. It is "entirely Galilean in so many details that even if it is derivative, it must represent his thought," Peterson writes. An intellectual adventure, Galileo's Muse offers surprising ideas that will capture the imagination of anyone--scientist, mathematician, history buff, lover of literature, or artist--who cares about the humanistic roots of modern science.


The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that metaphysics is a necessary discipline - necessary in the sense that all areas of philosophy, all areas of science, and in fact any type of rational activity at all would be impossible without a metaphysical background or metaphysical presuppositions. Because of the extremely strong nature of this claim, it is not possible to put forward a very simple argument, although I will attempt to construct one. A crucial issue here is what metaphysics in fact is - the nature of metaphysics. The conception of metaphysics which I support could be called Aristotelian, as opposed to Kantian: metaphysics is the first philosophy and the basis of all other philosophical and scientific inquiry. I will argue that this is indeed the most plausible conception of metaphysics. The thesis consists of a brief historical introduction of certain important views concerning the nature of metaphysics, namely Aristotle's, Kant's, Camap's and Quine's, and of a longer survey of the status of metaphysics in the context of contemporary analytic metaphysics. I make some critical observations of recent accounts by people like Hilary Putnam, Michael Dummett, Frank Jackson and Eli Hirsch before launching into a thorough analysis of the relationship between metaphysics and other philosophical and scientific disciplines. The central argument of the thesis is that our a priori capabilities, which I claim to be grounded in metaphysical modality and ultimately in essences, are necessary for rational inquiry. Detailed accounts of a priori knowledge and modality will be offered in support of this claim. In fact, my accounts of the a priori and modality are perhaps the most important contributions of the thesis, as given this basis, the 'necessary' role of metaphysics in other disciplines should be quite obvious. I also pursue topics like the metaphysical status of logic and the law of non-contradiction as well as truthmaking, the substance of metaphysical debates, and the methodology of metaphysics. There is, however, a distinct theme which connects the broad range of topics that I discuss: they are all analysed from a metaphilosophical point of view. Indeed, it could be said that this is a metametaphysical survey of the status of metaphysics. The upshot is an original account of the status of metaphysics in contemporary analytic philosophy - the conclusion that metaphysics is the core of all our rational activities, from natural science to logic, semantics and truth.


Isotonic regression offers a flexible modeling approach under monotonicity assumptions, which are natural in many applications. Despite this attractive setting and extensive theoretical research, isotonic regression has enjoyed limited interest in practical modeling primarily due to its tendency to suffer significant overfitting, even in moderate dimension, as the monotonicity constraints do not offer sufficient complexity control. Here we propose to regularize isotonic regression by penalizing or constraining the range of the fitted model (i.e., the difference between the maximal and minimal predictions). We show that the optimal solution to this problem is obtained by constraining the non-penalized isotonic regression model to lie in the required range, and hence can be found easily given this nonpenalized solution. This makes our approach applicable to large datasets and to generalized loss functions such as Huber's loss or exponential family log-likelihoods. We also show how the problem can be reformulated as a Lasso problem in a very high dimensional basis of upper sets. Hence, range regularization inherits some of the statistical properties of Lasso, notably its degrees of freedom estimation. We demonstrate the favorable empirical performance of our approach compared to various relevant alternatives. MSC 2010 subject classifications: Primary 62G08; secondary 62J07.


This study by van Brunschott and international colleagues1 has shown that when possible in high-risk patients with severe acute necrotising pancreatitis, a minimal access approach for drainage combined with a necrosectomy, either via an operative (ie, laparoscopic like) or an endoscopic transgastric or transduodenal approach, decreases mortality of this horrible disease when compared with the classic open operation (laparotomy). These data are convincing and support the use of such minimal access approaches whenever feasible. This study reviews the data on another huge advance in our treatment and understanding of this horrific disease.

In this commentary, I want to use this study as an example of the marked changes in our thinking of pancreatitis over the last 40 years. Our current approach to the treatment of necrotising pancreatitis really had its origin in the 1970s with the introduction of the new concept of an operative 'necrosectomy' rather than just peripancreatic drainage which at that time was designed to remove the bad humours believed to be the cause of the systemic aspects of the disease. Through the pioneering work of Beger and colleagues2 in Ulm, Germany and that of Bradley (and Stone) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA,3 a new era emerged with our thinking of this systemic inflammatory disease originating from endogenous pancreatic parenchymal necrosis and later, its superinfection. Indeed, the introduction of the importance of removing the infected necrotic tissues (necrosectomy) combined with drainage of the peripancreatic region immediately decreased the mortality of this disease …


IntroductionAcute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a common, serious condition effecting up to 20% of all hospital admissions in the UK. AKI has an agreed definition for its recognition, however there is no consensus for the duration of an AKI episode.
Objectives and ApproachWe aimed to describe four different potential definitions of an AKI episode. AKI was identified using an SQL (Structured Query Language) based algorithm (an implementation of the NHS England eAlert algorithm) applied to serum creatinine (SCr) results from a South Wales population of ~518,000 people, held in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank. Using a person's index AKI case, we applied four different rules to define an episode of AKI. These definitions are: ALERTS - until they no longer trigger an AKI eAlert, 90 DAYS - until 90 days post first AKI test and <1.2/<1.5 until the SCr recovers to <1.2 or 1.5 times their baseline creatinine.
ResultsThere were 1,832,122 SCr tests in 340,908 people between 2011-2013, of which 93,843 were alerts (5.12%). This fell to 81,948 alerts in 21,979 patients when dialysis and transplant patients were excluded. Of these patients with AKI 7,792 (35.5%) were dead at 1 year after their first episode. There were 31,482, 33,758, 26,657, 34,904 episodes in patients by <1.2, <1.5, 90 Days and ALERTS definitions respectively.
8333 patients had first episodes occurring in 2011. The number of these having 2/3/4/5+ later episodes within 1yr were 2332/869/344/326, 2602/1095/485/609, 1534/331/71/17, 2728/1190/543/730 by <1.2, <1.5, 90 Days and ALERTS definitions respectively.
Conclusion / ImplicationsAKI episodes can be created in SAIL using SQL, and by adjusting the definition we see a variation in the number of episodes that a patient experiences. Once described, this cohort can be used to define a gold standard for AKI in future analysis.


Background Most nurse educators regard students who enter postgraduate studies as adult learners capable of self-direction and independent learner behaviour. Therefore, a mismatch between the nurse educator's expectation of adult learners and actual adult learner conduct may result in disappointment and even frustration for both educator and learner. Purpose This article is a report of a secondary analysis of data that were collected to explore the high-fidelity simulation learning experiences of a group of postgraduate nursing students. The secondary analysis was done to determine whether adult learners who bring professional knowledge and experience to a postgraduate learning environment displayed adult learner conduct as proposed by educational theorist Malcolm Knowles. Method Using a qualitative descriptive research design, data were gathered from 18 postgraduate nursing students who participated in high-fidelity simulation in a nursing school at a higher education institution in South Africa. The nominal group technique was used to collect the students' ideas about improving their simulation learning experiences. A secondary qualitative analysis of the primary nominal group data was done. Findings Data either confirmed or belied adult learner behaviour. Although the findings suggested self-directed and independent learner behaviour, they also revealed behaviour evident of dependence on the educator. Conclusion Mature students have well established ways of thinking and doing that may hinder learning. Educators have to support adult learners in developing effective learning techniques in order to maximise the benefits of their experience and knowledge by fostering independence and self-direction.


Ambient air samples were collected simultaneously at three sites in winter and summer to investigate the characteristic variations of PAHs in northern Taiwan. In winter, the highest concentration was observed at urban site (225 ± 25.0 ng m–3), followed by industrial and rural sites (173 ± 28.7 and 148 ± 12.9 ng m–3, respectively). However, in summer, the highest PAHs concentration was measured at rural site (230 ± 8.0 ng m–3), followed by urban and industrial sites (205 ± 29.2 and 200 ± 44.1 ng m–3, respectively). Based on the air mass back trajectory, the air mass passing through more PAH sources before reaching the sampling site is the reason for higher PAH level being measured at rural site in summer. The highest BaP-TEQ concentration measured at rural site in summer suggests that human exposure to PAHs in summer should receive more attention. Based on the diagnostic ratios, samples collected at industrial site in two seasons are closely related to combustions of solid fuel and petroleum. At rural and urban sites, PAHs measured in winter are influenced by mixed sources of solid fuel/petroleum combustions and petroleum evaporation, while the sources of PAHs are more related to petroleum evaporation in summer. The gas/particle partitioning coefficients (Kp) correlated well with the sub-cooled liquid vapor pressures (PoL) of PAHs with the slopes higher than –1 (the r2 ranging from 0.835 to 0.909). The slope values indicate that both adsorption and absorption might govern gas/particle partitioning of PAHs. Comparison between different models reveals that adsorption of soot carbon is the major mechanism governing gas/particle partitioning.


Accelerated by the new internet technologies, the past two decades have been characterised by a globalisation of trade and communications, along with major shifts in the balance between manufacturing and knowledge driven economies. New organisational cultures have grown out of and have reflexively driven these changes, and these new organisational cultures of work are registered and enacted by employees through a plethora of micro-practices in the workplace. While it is potentially empowering to be aware of the links between one's individual agency and the macro structure surrounding your own particular micro-experience, awareness is particularly hard to come by in the modern flexible workplace. Narrative can address this gap in felt knowledge, because in helping us have an imaginary about our experience as workers, narrative supports thinking more broadly about the contradictions inherent in the current system of globalised profit and productivity through flexible labour paradigm. Sociologist Richard Sennett and psychoanalyst Christophe Dejours's work on character and subjectivity are used here to frame the author's ethnographic research, which has included a series of extended interviews with IT executive salespeople in Sydney and brief workplace immersions, leading to a series of narratives of character; analysis of 'The IBM Global Human Capital Study 2008'; and excerpts from J.M. Coetzee's memoir Youth .


This paper focuses on the long-run relationship and causality between government expenditure in education and economic growth in Malaysian economy. Time series data is used for the period 1970 to 2010 obtained from authorized sources. In order to achieve the objective, an estimation of Vector Auto Regression (VAR) method is applied. Findings from the study show that economic growth (GDP) positively cointegrated with selected variables namely fixed capital formation (CAP), labor force participation (LAB) and government expenditure on education (EDU). With regard to the Granger causality relationship, it is found that the economic growth is a short term Granger cause for education variable and vice versa. Furthermore, this study has proves that human capital such as education  variable plays an important role in influencing economic growth in Malaysia. Keywords: Malaysian, expenditure on education, economic growth, vector error correction model.


ABSTRACTAgricultural fire is an important source of atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols. To better understand biomass burning emission originating from fire over Asian agriculture areas and its transport into the downwind atmosphere, aerosols and major trace gases were measured continuously from 22 May to 30 June at Shanghai during the summer harvesttime of 2009. Water-soluble K material contained in aerosols showed a clear day-to-day pattern with an average of 1.25 ± 1.48 µg/m3. K ion loading and ratio of K ion to PM10 drastically increased during 'K event' days, accompanying with high PM10, SO2, and NO2 levels. MODIS remote sensing fire map revealed about 80% agricultural fires occurred in the agriculture areas of Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong and Henan provinces. Four potential source areas of agricultural fires, identified as Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, had significant contributions to worsen the air quality of Shanghai during the harvest season.


ABSTRACT Water is an second essential element for life after oxygen. The clean water must have chemical, physical, and biological quality. One of the chemical parameters is Manganese (Mn).The people in Desa Amplas, Kecamatan Percut Sei Tuan, Kabupaten Deli Serdang use dug well water that contains high concentration of manganese (Mn), so that the process to decrease it is necessarily needed. Activated carbon of rice husk is one of the alternative materials that are used to decrease the concentration of manganese in the water. The purpose of this research was to determine effectiveness of activated carbon of rice husk in decreasing Mn concentration in the dug well water in Desa Amplas. The type of research was Quasy Experiment with Pre and Post test design. The sample was dug well water mixed 1 gr, 2 gr, and 3 gr of the activated carbon of rice husk  into every 100 mL water and another one was not given at all (0 gr) this one was as control. Each done 4 times. The research found that the concentration of Mn in water sample without being mixed the activated carbon (control) is 3,35579 mg/L, in 1 gr is 2,97591 mg/L, in 2 gr is 2,47997mg/L, and in 3 gr is 1,68893 mg/L while according to Permenkes RI No.416 tahun 1990, Mn is 0,5 mg/L. Based on Kruskal-wallis test at level of confidence of 95%. result shows the significant (p = 0,003) difference between various treatment of the activated carbon of rice husk to decrease Mn concentration dug well water in Amplas village. BNT test result shows that activated carbon of rice husk that is able to decrease the biggest concentration of Mn is in 3 gr. The usage of activated carbon of rice husk is effective to decrease Mn concentration but fulfilling standard quality Permenkes RI No. 416 of 1990 not yet that  exceed 0 , 5 mg/ L . Suggested to the people in Desa Amplas, Kecamatan Percut Sei Tuan, Kabupaten Deli Serdang not only using the activated carbon of rice husk in dug well water treatment but also accompanied with other chemicals such as Zeolite. Keyword : Use the Activated Carbon of Rice Husk, Mn Concentration, Dug Well Water.


North Korea's decisions to restart nuclear installations at Yongbyon that were shut down under the U.S.-South Korean Agreed Framework of 1994 and to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty create an acute foreign policy problem for the United States. Restarting the Yongbyon facilities opens up a possible North Korean intent to stage a "nuclear breakout" of its nuclear program and openly produce nuclear weapons. The main objective of the Bush Administration is to secure the dismantling of North Korea's plutonium and uranium-based nuclear programs. China, South Korea, and Russia have criticized the Bush Administration for not negotiating directly with North Korea, and they voice opposition to economic sanctions and to the use force against Pyongyang. China, Russia, and even South Korea increasingly have expressed support for North Korea's position in six-party talks facilitated by China, but the talks have made little progress.


Abstract. The history of air masses is often investigated using backward trajectories to gain knowledge about processes along the air parcel path as well as possible source regions. Here, we describe a refined approach that incorporates airborne gas, aerosol, and environmental data into back trajectories and show how this technique allows for simultaneous evaluation of air mass history and back trajectory reliability without the need to calculate trajectory errors. We use the HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and add a simple semi-automated computing routine to facilitate high-frequency coverage of back trajectories initiated along free tropospheric (FT) flight tracks and profiles every 10 s. We integrate our in situ physiochemical data by color-coding each of these trajectories with its corresponding in situ tracer values measured at the back trajectory start points along the flight path. The unique color for each trajectory aids assessment of trajectory reliability through the visual clustering of air mass pathways of similar coloration. Moreover, marked changes in trajectories associated with marked changes evident in measured physiochemical or thermodynamic properties of an air mass add credence to trajectories. This is particularly true when these air mass properties are linked to trajectory features characteristic of recognized sources or processes. This visual clustering of air mass pathways is of particular value for large-scale 3-D flight tracks common to aircraft experiments where air mass features of interest are often spatially distributed and temporally separated. The cluster-visualization tool used here reveals that most FT back trajectories with pollution signatures measured in the central equatorial Pacific reach back to sources on the South American continent over 10 000 km away and 12 days back in time, e.g., the Amazonian basin. We also demonstrate the distinctions in air mass properties between these and trajectories that penetrate deep convection in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. Additionally, for the first time we show consistency of modeled precipitation along back trajectories with scavenging signatures in the aerosol measured for these trajectories.


ABSTRACT The digital age has caused the paradigm to shift in academic libraries both in terms of their collections and the roles of their personnel. As academic libraries begin to digitize objects in their collections, how and who in the library creates access to these resources has become a hot issue. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries (UNL Libraries), taskforces were formed to study metadata schemes used at UNL Libraries. The taskforces identified the various metadata schemes in use and the role of various departments within UNL Libraries in the creation of metadata. They made recommendations about how to document decisions relating to metadata and how to coordinate metadata creation and digitization projects. As a result, the authors decided to survey American Research Libraries (ARL) and other peer libraries to determine their metadata workflow. This paper discusses the results of the survey and provides insight as to how libraries may meet the challenge of creating metadata through the reorganization of departments and staffing responsibilities.


Component separation for the Planck HFI data is primarily concerned with the estimation of thermal dust emission, which requires the separation of thermal dust from the cosmic infrared background (CIB). For that purpose, current estimation methods rely on filtering techniques to decouple thermal dust emission from CIB anisotropies, which tend to yield a smooth, low- resolution, estimation of the dust emission. In this paper we present a new parameter estimation method, premise: Parameter Recovery Exploiting Model Informed Sparse Estimates. This method exploits the sparse nature of thermal dust emission to calculate all-sky maps of thermal dust temperature, spectral index and optical depth at 353 GHz. premise is evaluated and validated on full-sky simulated data. We find the percentage difference between the premise results and the true values to be 2.8, 5.7 and 7.2 per cent at the 1{\sigma} level across the full sky for thermal dust temperature, spectral index and optical depth at 353 GHz, respectively. Comparison between premise and a GNILC-like method over selected regions of our sky simulation reveals that both methods perform comparably within high signal-to-noise regions. However outside of the Galactic plane premise is seen to outperform the GNILC-like method with increasing success as the signal-to-noise ratio worsens.


Mutations in PI3K and/or AKT have been reported in a variety of cancers. This indicates that the two pathways interact to cause cancer. We have therefore investigated their roles in gastric cancer (GC) in China. In our study, exons 9, 18 and 20 of PIK3CA gene and exons 6~14 of AKT2 gene were screened in 10 GC cell lines and 100 advanced primary GC together with matched normal tissues. Denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) and DNA sequencing were used to analyze the mutations in the two genes. Two point mutations in the PIK3CA gene were identified in 4 of 10 GC cell lines and in 4 of 100 GC primary tumors. Two polymorphisms in AKT2 were detected in 19 of 100 GC primary tumors. One point mutation in AKT2 was detected in 1 of 10 GC cell lines and 3 of 100 GC primary tumors, and no hot spot variation was detected. Our results indicate that PIK3CA and AKT2 mutations are found in GC, although not a common event, therefore they might still play an important role in mediating kinase activities towards gastric carcinogenesis.


Competitive advantage and longstanding survival of the banking sector do not depend only on market oriented service production but also on wining public confidence. The crucial condition of wining public confidence is to comply with ethical standards. In this respect, the main aim of this study is to determine the perceived ethical quality of commercial banks from the viewpoint of SMEs in Northern Cyprus. As a summary of the research 21 ethical principles used in the research have been grouped into three factors for which perceived ethical behaviors are not satisfactory. Furthermore, regression analysis reveals that three ethical factors named as "procedural justice", "assurance" and sensitivity" have an explanatory effect on their bank satisfaction while SMEs? bank satisfaction have an explanatory effect on their word of mouth.


Depth map super-resolution is a challenging computer vision problem. In this paper, we present two deep convolutional neural networks solving the problem of single depth map super-resolution. Both networks learn residual decomposition and trained with specific perceptual loss improving sharpness and perceptive quality of the upsampled depth map. Several experiments on various depth super-resolution benchmark datasets show state-of-art performance in terms of RMSE, SSIM, and PSNR metrics while allowing us to process depth super-resolution in real time with over 25–30 frames per second rate.


This book is the first collection of tutorials on nonlinear dynamics of lasers. The International Spring School on Fundamental Issues of Nonlinear Laser Dynamics was aimed at young researchers who are interested in working at the forefront of applied nonlinear mathematics and nonlinear laser dynamics. In a highly interdisciplinary spirit, there were tutorial presentations from 14 internationally recognized top experts from applied mathematics, theoretical and experimental physics, and engineering disciplines. Topics included are: bifurcation theory, the notion of chaos, multiple time scale systems, and delay equations. The dynamics of lasers with optical injection and optical feedback, and lasers with spatio-temporal dynamics are discussed from the theoretical, experimental, and device simulation points of view. Applications of lasers include secure communications, pulse generation and telecommunication through optical fibers. This mixture of introductory material will benefit an inderdisciplinary readership of researchers, lecturers and students in the fields of applied mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering.


A comparison of nine different methods of estimating mean areal rainfall is made. Five areas from three continents of the world are selected for application of the methods. The methods are utilized to estimate mean areal rainfall for daily, monthly and yearly values. It is shown that all methods generally yield comparable results, and that for most hydrologic problems simpler methods of estimating mean areal rainfall are sufficiently accurate-an observation contradicting the traditional belief.


Men outnumber women as undergraduate economics majors by three to one nationwide. Even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one or more. The Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge was begun in 2015 as an RCT with 20 treatment schools and at least 30 control schools to evaluate whether better course information, mentoring, encouragement, career counseling, and more relevant instructional content could move the needle. Although the RCT is still in the field, results from several within treatment-school randomized trials demonstrate that uncomplicated and inexpensive interventions can substantially increase the interest of women to major in economics.


The thesis reviews recent and current literature on leadership, and in particular on distributed leadership and complexity leadership theories. It describes my research into the factors affecting the success of transition towards a more distributed approach to leadership in two cases: one is a large UK private company and the other is a large UK university. The longitudinal research was conducted over the period from 2011 to 2013, using repeated interviews at senior and middle management levels, document analysis and observation to collect a rich set of data about both cases. I used a template to help analyse the data from each case. Through subsequent cross-case analysis the thesis identifies certain factors that influence the degree of success in making the transition to a distributed form of leadership, which involves not only devolved decision making but also increased levels of collaboration and organisational agility, which are key concerns of leaders of large organisations according to recent research across top 250 companies in the UK (Ipsos MORI, 2015: 5). The conclusion from my research is a framework called connected leadership, which describes the critical success factors and how they inter-relate. The first factor is having senior leadership committed to being role models, which is a pre-requisite for successful transition. There are then two factors that lay a strong foundation for the transition, namely having a shared organisational purpose and vison and values-based approach to leadership behaviour. Finally there are factors that then make distributed leadership work in practice: consistently devolved decision making, an emphasis on collaborative achievement, and agility and learning. The thesis provides practitioners with insight at both the organisational and leadership role levels, based on the connected leadership model. At the organisational level, I have derived from the research certain indicators for each factor that help diagnose and plan for the introduction of a distributed leadership approach. At the leadership role level the framework provides a helpful guide to developing leadership capability and role definition. The connected leadership model represents a coherent guide for leaders to use as a template for successful transition to a more distributed, collaborative and agile organisation, which is able to compete effectively in the 21st century networked society. Academically, this thesis provides a synthesis of distributed and complexity leadership theories, as well as drawing on authentic leadership theory, in order to understand the organisational and human dynamics that influence the transition to a more distributed leadership approach. Both cases are large organisations, which means that the factor framework provides relevant insight into how distributed leadership can be effective in large and relatively complex organisations.


We present Cross-lingual Open-Retrieval Answer Generation (CORA), the first unified many-to-many question answering (QA) model that can answer questions across many languages, even for ones without language-specific annotated data or knowledge sources. We introduce a new dense passage retrieval algorithm that is trained to retrieve documents across languages for a question. Combined with a multilingual autoregressive generation model, CORA answers directly in the target language without any translation or in-language retrieval modules as used in prior work. We propose an iterative training method that automatically extends annotated data available only in high-resource languages to low-resource ones. Our results show that CORA substantially outperforms the previous state of the art on multilingual open QA benchmarks across 26 languages, 9 of which are unseen during training. Our analyses show the significance of cross-lingual retrieval and generation in many languages, particularly under low-resource settings.


Purpose of the article: The aim of this paper is to show the possibility of increasing the profitability of selected investment strategy, which is used for trading currency pair EUR/USD. Model strategy is based on the assumption of continuing the trend yesterday, and only works with the days when the price rose. In the event that the trend of rising yesterday's, so at the beginning of the current buy is made and the current at the end of the sell is made. In the long term this investment strategy unprofitable. The research in this paper works with possibilities placement optimization buy order to the market so that long-term strategy was profitable. Due to the computationally intensive tasks are used genetic algorithms to significantly reduce the time for finding the optimal values of selected parameters. Methodology/methods: Method study the currency pair EUR/USD is done using technical analysis. To enter investment position, the method based on the momentum of price movements and its subsequent sequels. The original proposal of a long-term strategy is not profitable and increase profitability using methods strategy is modified into a form that generates a long-term gain. Scientific aim: Scientific contribution of this paper is the implementation of genetic algorithms in the process of increasing the profitability of investment strategies. This is achieved by adding an additional parameter to specify entry into investment position. Findings: The analysis and optimization were found optimal parameter values for the modification of the original strategy. These parameters include the precise timing of input in terms of hours, as well as making a buy at a discounted price using the LIMIT order. Due to the implementation of financial leverage is necessary to secure positions with automatic order to exit positions at a loss. Selection of positions with a higher probability of profit is secured by a rule that allows the current trading day only yesterday when he was big enough difference between the opening and closing price. Conclusions: Modified strategy is used in the simulation to account for the size of $ 50.000. During the period from 1. 1. 2009 to 31. 12. 2012 evaluate the account to $ 67.722, an increase of 35,45%.


Typically, organizations use new product development processes composed of activities followed by decision points, where projects are continued or abandoned. A decision maker likely possesses some common information also held by other decision makers and some unique information (that only she/he possesses). If a team relies mainly on overlapping, or common, information, decisions may suffer, but if they share and utilize information originally possessed by a subset of individual members, better decisions can be made. In this paper, the authors designed and conducted four studies to examine the effects of information distribution and utilization on new product team decision-making. In study 1, the findings show that team members tend to use information possessed by everyone (i.e., common information) but neglect critical information possessed only by one of them (i.e., unique information). This common information bias results in suboptimal new product continuation decisions. In study 2, the interplay between the common information bias and team commitment to the NPD project favored by unique information is examined. The results show that although commitment influences new product development team decisions, the common information bias is stronger. Study 3 was conducted to rule out an alternative explanation for the effect of information distribution�the perception of information importance. In study 4, the focal hypotheses were re-tested using a different sample to add confidence in the findings.


Clustering of very large document databases is essential to reduce the spacehime complexity of information retrieval. The periodic updating of clusters is required due to the dynamic nature of databases. An algorithm for incremental clustering at discrete times is introduced, Its complexity and cost analysis and an investigation of the expected behavior of the algorithm are provided. Through empirical testing, it is shown that the algorithm is achieving its purpose in terms of being cost effective, generating statistically valid clusters that are compatible with those of reclustering, and providing effective information retrieval.


This article examines the federal False Statements Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), from the standpoints of judicial interpretation, the law's history, legislative history and congressional intent, public policy, and criminal law theory. It concludes that the dominant judicial interpretations do not accord with congressional intent to create a limited and targeted law. The statute as interpreted is extraordinarily broad such that it should be – but has not been and probably won't be – declared unconstitutionally vague. Whether the law is unconstitutional or not, as interpreted it does not support wise public policy nor does it accord with dominant theories of criminal law. This article suggests solutions that might repair the defects in the law.Other articles that have considered section 1001 have not done so in the comprehensive way that this article does. As a result, this article explores issues and makes observations that have never been made before. Its comprehensive treatment of section 1001 is an original contribution to the literature in and of itself, but there are at least five specific original contributions.First, this article explores the element of section 1001 that requires a false statement. Other articles have accepted the meaning of this element. What is "false," however, is open to debate. Second, this article explores section 1001 in light of how we communicate. It notes that lying is prevalent in society and especially within the criminal justice system, and also argues that even when we're not lying, we engage in "purposive communication," which is a form of deception necessary for effective communication. I also discuss what lies are, and what types of lies there are. I do so to show that the conduct that section 1001 prohibits in a black-and-white way is actually a multicolor phenomenon. Third, I discuss section 1001's materiality element. No other article has discussed this element in detail, even though, as I show, it is the central controversial element of section 1001 and is the source of the statute's problems as well as its potential solution. Furthermore, I discuss the varying interpretations of the materiality element among jurisdictions. For example, some circuits have adopted what amounts to an objective reasonable person standard, while others have adopted a subjective standard. As I show, this variation goes to the heart of what section 1001 prohibits. Fourth, I discuss two different versions of the definition of materiality applied by section 1001. One version requires that the false statement be capable of influencing a government agency "to which it is addressed," and another version need only be capable of influencing some government agency. This is a meaningful difference that hasn't been explored in other articles or resolved in the courts or Congress. Fifth, I discuss the materiality analysis established in United States v. Gaudin, which may solve the "to which it is addressed" split. Courts have largely ignored Gaudin's analysis, as have other commentators.


Meta-analytic evidence showed that the chemical senses affect moral decisions. However, how odours impact on morality is currently unclear. Through a set of three studies, we assess whether and how odour intensity biases moral choices (Study 1a), its psychophysiological responses (Study 1b), as well as the behavioural and psychophysiological effects of odour valence on moral choices (Study 2). Study 1a suggests that the presence of an odour plays a role in shaping moral choice. Study 1b reveals that of two iso-pleasant versions of the same neutral odour, only the one presented sub-threshold (vs. supra-threshold) favours deontological moral choices, those based on the principle of not harming others even when such harm provides benefits. As expected, this odour intensity effect is tracked by skin conductance responses, whereas no difference in cardiac activity – proxy for the valence dimension – is revealed. Study 2 suggests that the same neutral odour presented sub-threshold increases deontological choices even when compared to iso-intense ambiguous odour, perceived as pleasant or unpleasant by half of the participants, respectively. Skin conductance responses, as expected, track odour pleasantness, but cardiac activity fails to do so. Results are discussed in the context of mechanisms alternative to disgust induction underlying moral choices.


The Aboriginal people of Australia have a rich connection to land, country and spirit. This comes through in their stories about the "Dreamtime", or period of creation. Dreamtime stories are popular in Australia today and are rich sources for teaching and learning. While the presentation draws upon using one example of the Dreamtime story of Tiddalik, a greedy frog, this paper focuses on two research projects conducted on arts-based pedagogy. It explores how arts-based methods, such as drawing, painting, drama, movement, music and literature, can be used to teach both curriculum subjects and general capabilities. In this paper, we focus on the teaching of mathematics and social and emotional wellbeing, as prototypes for teaching using arts-based methods. It is based on two action research projects, where the story form model and the arts were implemented to engage students in learning and to develop their mathematical understandings and social/emotional wellbeing.


The purpose of our study was to determine the incidence, causes, and reversibility of leukoencephalopathies demonstrating confluent areas of restricted diffusion on magnetic resonant imaging (DWI+LE). We hypothesized DWI+LE would have a low incidence, and be primarily caused by toxic exposures. We performed a logic sentence based search of the Yale-New Haven MRI database to select for reports indicating restricted diffusion within the cerebral white matter. We examined patients' neuroimaging studies and medical record. We identified a total of 35 cases of DWI+LE, which resulted in an overall incidence of 0.2% over the five-year period queried. The medical conditions associated with DWI+LE were as follows: toxic exposure (7), hypoxia with concurrent trauma (7), hypoxia with concurrent toxic exposure (4), hypoxia with concurrent metabolic derangements (4), seizure with concurrent metabolic derangements (2), metabolic derangements (2), antiepileptic therapy (2), hypoxia (1), trauma (1), and unknown (5). The most favorable outcomes were seen in patients with intrathecal methotrexate toxicity, while patients with hypoxia without a lucid interval fared worst. We concluded that DWI+ LE are rare, their etiology diverse, and its reversibility dependant upon the type and severity of the insult.


Macrolide antibiotics were discovered over 50 years ago and following their use as antimicrobials it became apparent that this group of antibiotics also possessed anti‐inflammatory properties. Subsequent clinical trials showed benefits of macrolides as long‐term adjuncts in the treatment of a spectrum of chronic inflammatory respiratory diseases, particularly diffuse panbronchiolitis, cystic fibrosis, post‐transplant bronchiolitis obliterans and more recently chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The evidence for efficacy of macrolides in the long‐term treatment of chronic asthma and bronchiectasis is less well established. The mechanism(s) of action of macrolides in the treatment of these diseases remains unexplained, but may be due to their antibacterial and/or anti‐inflammatory actions, which include reductions in interleukin‐8 production, neutrophil migration and/or function. Macrolides have additional potentially beneficial properties including anti‐viral actions and an ability to restore corticosteroid sensitivity. The increased prescribing of macrolides for long‐term treatment could result in the development of microbial resistance and adverse drug effects. New macrolides have been developed which do not possess any antimicrobial activity and hence lack the ability to produce microbial resistance, but which still retain immunomodulatory effects. Potentially novel macrolides may overcome a significant barrier to the use of this type of drug for the long‐term treatment of chronic inflammatory airway diseases.


The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of caries and risk factors in outpatients of the Pediatric Ambulatory of the Pedro Ernesto University Hospital aging up to 36 months. After signing informed consent forms, the parents answered a structured questionnaire in order to evaluate risk factors for dental caries, including socioeconomic status, oral hygiene and dietary habits. A single investigator carried out the dental examination which assessed the presence of caries, biofilm and gingival bleeding. The data were analyzed by means of the Epi Info program, utilizing the chi-squared test. The children's mean age was 22.9 months. The prevalence of caries, including white spot lesions, was 41.6%, and the mean def-s was 1.7 (+/- 2.5). The most affected teeth were the maxillary incisors, and the most common lesion was the white spot. No significant associations were found between the prevalence of caries and socioeconomic status, frequency of oral hygiene, nocturnal bottle- and breast-feeding or cariogenic food and beverage intake during the day. However, the association between caries and oral hygiene quality (dental biofilm) was statistically significant (p < 0.001). The results suggest that the presence of a thick biofilm was the most important factor for the occurrence of early childhood caries in the evaluated sample.


Updating the boundary between the western Pampean ranges and the eastern Precordillera, province of San Juan. An analysis is made of the fault system in the Tulum tectonic depression, situated in the southeastern part of the province of San Juan, which is in the arid western part of Argentina. The boundary of two morphostructural systems occurs in this valley: the eastern Andean Precordillera and the western Pampean ranges. In former studies it was found that this boundary runs along a fault system that crosses the Tulum depression with a NNE trends. The availability of new information from electric resistivity tests and wells drilled for ground water show that the metamorphic basement exposed in the Valdivia low, isolated mountain continues to the SSW thereof in the subsurface, as a structural high limited by faults on both flanks. Further south, the basement crops out again in the Salinas hill and continues in the shallow subsurface, as suggested by geomorphic featu- res and geophysic and well data, along the same trend, as far as the Montecito. In this way, the Tulum fault system comes nea- rer the Precordillera and, at the Montecito hill, ends against the Las Penas range, which is in the central Precordillera and is limited to the east by a fault of regional importance with Quaternary activity. The contact between the Pampean and Precordillera systems was found, then, to continue further south than shown in former studies and represents the surface and subsurface boundary of the Eastern Precordillera along all its length. This new structural information may be useful for explo- ring ground water and hydrocarbons.


The subject of this report is benthic foraminifer populations preserved in the saltpan of Camalti in the Province of Izmir. High salinity in certain habitats of Ammonia tepida Cushman may be the primary cause of the high rate of twins and triplets as well as other morphological abnormalities recorded within this species (50 % as compared to an anomaly rate of 1 % in normal marine waters). Thicker cyst membrane developing in extremely saline environments may encourage twins and other morphological deformities by denying free movement of the offspring. Ecological factors such as heavy metal contamination of ambient waters as well as contamination by other wastes are also not ruled out as leading to such developmental anomalies. Of the 27 collected samples, Number 5 (that is closest to the sea) includes the typical marine foraminifers. Nonion depressulum (Walker & Jacob), Ammonia tepida Cushman and Porosononion subgronosum (Egger) are the dominant species in other samples. A total of 63 abnormal individuals (8 triplets, 24 twins, and 31 morphological anomalies) was found within seven of the 27 samples collected. Ten samples contained freshwater ostracods: Darwinula stevensoni (Brady and Robertson), Leptocythere lacertosa Hirschmann, Cyprideis torasa (Jones), Cyprideis (C.) anatolica Bassiouni, and Loxochoncha elliptica Brady. Among these samples (some of which contained only a few species of ostracods - and those limited in number of offspring), one had an unusually high ratio of healthy foraminifers vs those with anomalies. Worthy of note in another sample was a high abundance of molluscs. Among pelecypods, were found Ostrea edulis Linne, Lucinella divaricata (Linne), Pseudocama gryphina Lamarck, Cerastoderma edule (Linne), and Scrobicularia plana da Costa; and among gastropods were identified Hydrobi (Hydrobia) acuta (Draparnaud), Rissoa labiosa (Montagu), R. parva (da Costa), R. violacea Desmarest, Pirenella conica (Blainville), Bittium desayesi (Cerulli and Irelli), B. lacteum Philippi and B. reticulatum Philippi.


The aim of this study was to determine if episodic hypoxia evokes persistent increases of genioglossus muscle (GG) activity, termed long‐term facilitation (LTF), in neonatal rats in vivo. Experiments were performed on anaesthetized, spontaneously breathing, intubated neonatal rats (postnatal days (P) 3–7), divided into three groups. The first group (n= 8) was subjected to three 5‐min periods of hypoxia (5% O2–95% N2) alternating with 5 min periods of room air. The second group (n= 8) was exposed to 15 min of continuous hypoxia. The third (n= 4) group was not exposed to hypoxia and served as a control. GG EMG activity and airflow were recorded before, during and for 60 min after episodic and continuous hypoxic exposure. During hypoxia, GG EMG burst amplitude and tidal volume (VT) significantly increased compared to baseline levels (episodic protocol: mean ±s.e.m; 324 ± 59% of control and 0.13 ± 0.007 versus 0.09 ± 0.005 ml, respectively; continuous protocol: 259 ± 30% of control and 0.16 ± 0.005 versus 0.09 ± 0.007 ml, respectively; P < 0.05). After the episodic protocol, GG EMG burst amplitude transiently returned to baseline; over the next 60 min, burst amplitude progressively increased to levels significantly greater than baseline (238 ± 40% at 60 min; P < 0.05), without any significant increase in VT and respiratory frequency (P> 0.05). After the continuous protocol, there was no lasting increase in GG EMG burst amplitude. We conclude that LTF of upper airway muscles is an adaptive respiratory behaviour present from birth.