Introduction. The stimulation of superovulation in embryonic donor cows is a complex process that depends on the hormonal regulation of metabolism and biological functions of cells, as well as the influence of genetic, physiological, biotechnological and environmental factors. Crucially, the generative function of the ovaries depends on the functioning in the body of the female hypothalamic-pituitary system. Activation of its functioning causes maturation in the body of females of cattle of more follicles and ovulation of mature eggs. However, stimulation of the poliovulatory response of the gonadotropin foal mare serum (GSHK) causes impaired ordering of the metabolic processes and hormonal status of the animal body, which, in turn, is one of the reasons for the large number of non-ovulated follicles, which adversely affects the output. The long-term biological half-life of HCGC causes its residual concentration, which causes the growth of a new wave of follicles and an increase in the concentration of estrogens in the blood of the donor [2]
Currently, it is important to conduct research on the search and development of new biologically active drugs that could reduce the number of unvoluted follicles and increase the yield of bio embryos suitable for transplant recipients [3].
To improve the results of superovulation in donor cows based on the use of metabolically correcting adaptogenic and complexing properties of environmentally safe succinic and glutamic acids, we have developed a biologically active drug of neurotropic-metabolic action "Stimulin-Vet" [4]. To substantiate the modifying effect of the components of the drug preparation of the neurotropic-metabolic action "Stimulin-Vet" and to evaluate the degree of its impact on the processes of tissue metabolism, we conducted a biochemical study of the lipid profile of donor blood.
Materials and methods of research. The researches were carried out at the NULES of Ukraine «Velikosnitsynsky NDG named after. OV Muzychenko» on animals-analogues of Ukrainian black-and-white milk breed. Eight cows with a live weight of 500–615 kg and with a milk yield of higher lactation of 4600–5300 kg, which were kept under the same conditions, were selected.
To induce superovulation to the donor cows of the control and experimental groups on the 10 th day of steppe hunting, HCG Folligon was administered at a dose of 3 thousand IU. Donor cows of the experimental group on the 10 th and 11 th days of the sexual cycle was injected subcutaneously with 20 ml of the drug "Stimulin-Vet". 48 and 72 hours after the injection of gonadotropin, donor cows were injected with an intramuscular analogue of prostaglandin F2α-Estrofan at a dose of 2 ml/goal. Donors were inseminated by the rectocervical method three times at intervals of 12 hours of frozen-thawed semen of one boogie. In each dose of semen there were at least 30 million sperm with rectilinear movement.
Before washing the embryos, a rectal donor study was performed to evaluate the efficiency of hormonal treatment, counting the number of yellow bodies and non-ovulated follicles. The embryos were washed on the 7 th day of the sexual cycle by a non-surgical method using phosphate-buffered saline Dulbecco (Sigma, Germany) with the addition of 1% fetal calf serum and antibiotics. The number and quality of embryos were evaluated by microscopic method, taking into account their stage of development.
Blood sampling for biochemical studies from donors was performed prior to treatment with hormones, after administration of gonadotropin and Stimulin-Vet preparation, and before embryo leaching.
The activity of enzymes in serum was investigated: aspartate aminotransferase (AsAT,), alanine aminotransferase (AlAT), alkaline phosphatase (LF) by enzymatic-kinetic method using the semi-automatic biochemical analyzer Stat Fax 1904 (Awareness Technology, USA). Indicators of lipid profile of donor blood serum were also determined by the following methods: total cholesterol – cholesterol oxidase method; triacylglycerol – enzymatic, lipase hydrolysis; high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) – precipitation of lipoproteins with phosphotangic acid and magnesium chloride. The low cholesterol lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) cholesterol and very low density lipoprotein (VLDLC) cholesterol were determined using the calculations.
Research results. The results of the studies showed that the activity of aminotransaminases in the donor cows of both groups on the 8 th day of the sexual cycle differed little.
Injection of Stimulin-Vet on the 10 th and 11 th day of the sexual cycle to the donor cows of the experimental group resulted in a 4.7% and 22.6% increase in the activity of AsAT and AlAT on the 12 th day compared to 8 – the day of the cycle. The  AsAT,  and AlAT parameters in the animals of the experimental group were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) and 8.3% and 14.6%, respectively, compared to the animals in the control group.
At 8 days after the second administration of the drug (on day 7 of the sexual cycle), the activity of AsAT and AlAT in the experimental animals decreased by 2.4% and 6.7% compared with the 12 th day of the sexual cycle, but was higher than in the control respectively by 3.7% and 10.6%.
It should be emphasized that the increase in the activity of the enzymes AlAT and AsAT in some cases is interpreted as diagnostic factors for the physiological state of the organism and the development of some pathologies. In cows of the control group, the activity of the three enzymes during the study days of the sexual cycle during stimulation of superovulation by gonadotropin FFA varied within the error, ie it was stable.
At the beginning of the experiment, the difference in LF activity between the test and control donors was within 3.4%. Following the administration of Stimulin-Vet to donors, enzyme activity increased by 10% (p ≤ 0.05) on day 12 of the sexual cycle, and 7.5% compared with day 8 and LF in control animals. In the control group, no differences in LF activity were observed between day 12 and day 7 of the sexual cycle. A similar pattern is typical of the experimental group. But the donor activity of the enzyme at day 7 of the sexual cycle was probably 9.1% higher than at the beginning of the experiment.
To establish the physiological norm or pathological state of the animal body by changing the activity of aminotransferases, use the de ritis factor, which, according to some authors, in the state of physiological norm should be equal to 2 with fluctuations in the direction of growth of this indicator [5]. The results of the studies showed that the increase in the activity of both aminotransferases on the 12 th and 7 th day of the sexual cycle in the experimental donors caused a decrease in the de Ritis factor by 7.4% and 8.2% compared to the control. The data obtained should not be interpreted as a negative factor, since the difference in the mean values of the coefficients was within the margin of error. In addition, the ratio of these enzymes was not lower than 2.
The analysis of the results shows that the donor cows biologically active drug "Stimulin-Vet" causes an increase in the activity of aminotransaminases (AsAT and AlAT) and LF, thus causing a prolonged effect in changing their activity.
Analysis of lipidogram indices in the donor cows of the control and experimental groups showed that the injection of the experimental donor cows of the gonadotropic drug FFA "Folligon®" and the biologically active drug "Stimulin-Vet" resulted in reduction of total cholesterol on day 12 and 7.6% and 16%, and in control by 8.9% and 7.2% compared to baseline.
It is worth noting that the reduction of cholesterol in the studied groups of donor cows did not occur uniformly with respect to transport lipoprotein fractions of blood, which may be due to the use in the study group of the drug "Stimulin-Vet".
As a percentage of the control group on the 12 th day of the sexual cycle, the dynamics of reduction of total cholesterol is due mainly to the LDLC fraction (16.8%) and to a small extent HDLC (5.3%), in contrast to the experimental group, where the concentration of probable concentrations was mostly observed HDLC (25.8%) relative to baseline) and control (p ≤ 0.05).
At day 7 of the sexual cycle, the control group noted a slight increase in cholesterol concentration, which was accompanied by a change in the metabolism of lipoprotein fractions and led to an increase in LDLC (by 6.13%) and a decrease in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (by 4%) in the eyesight. A somewhat different situation in the redistribution of lipoprotein fractions was observed in similar days of the cycle in experimental donors, which led to a further decrease in total cholesterol (by 5%) in the blood plasma due to low density lipoprotein cholesterol (by 14.3%). 1.3 times HDLC.
The results of studies show that the forced change of hormonal status in the organism of donors in the stimulation of multiple ovulation influenced the cholesterol metabolism and the spectrum of lipoproteins. It is known that the intensity of cholesterol biosynthesis and its transport is subject to multifaceted regulation, both on the part of intracellular metabolites and hormones, including sexual [6].
In turn, the use of the biologically active drug "Stimulin-Vet" in the induction of gonadotropin FFA of superovulation in donor cows, to some extent adjusted the biochemical processes of cholesterol metabolism and the distribution of lipoprotein fractions during polyphysicolysis, 9%) and an increase in the number of embryos transplantable (by 27.6%) and reduced the number of unvoluted follicles by 2.7 times [7].
Conclusions. In the blood of donor cows during the growth of follicles induced by the introduction of exogenous gonadotropin FFA shows a decrease in the concentration of cholesterol, HDLC, LDLC  and an increase in VLDLC content. The neurotropic-metabolic drug Stimulin-Vet,


BACKGROUND
Evidence-based consensus guidelines recommend only observation for men with low-risk prostate cancer and life expectancy less than 10 years. This report describes the incidence, drivers, cost, and morbidity of overtreatment of low-risk prostate cancer within the United States.

METHODS
The SEER-Medicare Program was used to identify 11,744 men aged 66 years or older diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer in 2004 through 2007. Overtreatment of prostate cancer was defined as definitive treatment of a patient with a life expectancy of less than 10 years. Expected survival was estimated using NCCN methodology. Costs were the amount paid by Medicare in years after minus year before diagnosis. Toxicities were relevant Medicare diagnoses/interventions. P values are 2-sided.

RESULTS
Of 3001 men with low-risk prostate cancer and a life expectancy of less than 10 years, 2011 men (67%) were overtreated. On multivariable logistic regression, overtreated men were more likely to be married (odds ratio [OR], 1.29; 95% CI, 1.05-1.59; P=.02), reside in affluent regions (P<.001), and harbor more advanced disease at diagnosis (P<.001). Two-year toxicity was greater in overtreated patients (P<.001). Relative to active surveillance/watchful waiting/observation, the median additional cost per definitive treatment was $18,827 over 5 years; the cumulative annual cost attributable to overtreatment in the United States was $58.7 million. The ability to avoid treating the 80% of men with low-grade disease who will never die of prostate cancer would save $1.32 billion per year nationally.

CONCLUSIONS
Overtreatment of low-risk prostate cancer is partially driven by sociodemographic factors and occurs frequently, with marked impact on patient quality of life and health-related costs.


Most image coding systems rely on signal processing concepts such as transforms, VQ, and motion compensation. In order to achieve significantly lower bit rates, it will be necessary to devise encoding schemes that involve mid-level and high-level computer vision. Model-based systems have been described, but these are usually restricted to some special class of images such as head-and-shoulders sequences. We propose to use mid-level vision concepts to achieve a decomposition that can be applied to a wider domain of image material. In particular, we describe a coding scheme based on a set of overlapping layers. The layers, which are ordered in depth and move over one another, are composited in a manner similar to traditional `cel' animation. The decomposition (the vision problem) is challenging, but we have attained promising results on simple sequences. Once the decomposition has been achieved, the synthesis is straightforward.


The use of bibliometric indicators on individual and national levels has gathered considerable interest in recent years, but the application of bibliometric models for allocating resources at the institutional level has so far gathered less attention. This article studies the implementation of bibliometric measures for allocating resources at Swedish universities. Several models and indicators based on publications, citations, and research grants are identified. The design of performance-based resource allocation across major universities is then analysed using a framework from the field of evaluation studies. The practical implementation, the incentives as well as the 'ethics' of models and indicators, are scrutinized in order to provide a theoretically informed assessment of evaluation systems. It is evident that the requirements, goals, possible consequences, and the costs of evaluation are scarcely discussed before these systems are implemented. We find that allocation models are implemented in response to a general trend of assessment across all types of activities and organizations, but the actual design of evaluation systems is dependent on size, orientation, and the overall organization of the institution in question.


The ultimate goal of most anti-tumor therapies is to kill tumor cells. While most of the attention in cancer therapy has been towards enhancing the death of tumor cells, the effect of dying tumors on the immune system has been less studied. Recent studies have suggested that cell death induced by different agents may have distinct consequences for the immune system. One of the immunogenic signals may be the expression of heat shock proteins on dying tumor cells under certain settings. For example, bortezomib (a proteasome inhibitor) induces the expression of heat shock protein 90 (hsp90) on the surface of dying human myeloma tumor cells. Recognition of such tumor cells by antigen presenting dendritic cells leads to the generation of anti-tumor T cells. Harnessing the properties of some anti-tumor agents to induce immunogenic death of tumor cells may facilitate the recruitment of adaptive immunity and promote the durability of anti-tumor effects.


Introduction There is increasing evidence regarding people's reactions to life stressors in which people also may show positive experiences following a traumatic event. The aim of the present study was to explain the facilitators of post-traumatic growth based on the experiences of patients with a spinal cord injury. Methods This was a qualitative study conducted on 16 Iranian patients with a spinal cord injury using semistructured, in-depth interviews, and content analysis in 2015. These participants, despite their spinal cord injury, were successful in their lives and were considered successful members of society. A purposive sampling method was used until reaching data saturation, and then the collected data were analyzed using a content analysis method. Results The study revealed several factors as facilitators of post-traumatic growth in the patients. The extracted facilitators were put into seven categories of main concepts, including existence of support resources, contact with spinal cord injury associations, spiritual beliefs, positive attitude toward injury, access to proper facilities, enhancement of knowledge and awareness, and active presence in society. Conclusion Different factors may facilitate post-traumatic growth in patients with a spinal cord injury. Understanding these facilitators may help us in designing educational, support, and consulting programs for patients and their families as well as to the correct the support programs.


An innovative approach for total maximum daily load (TMDL) allocation and implementation is the watershed-based pollutant trading. Given the inherent scientific uncertainty for the tradeoffs between point and nonpoint sources, setting of trading ratios can be a contentious issue and was already listed as an obstacle by several pollutant trading programs. One of the fundamental reasons that a trading ratio is often set higher (e.g. greater than 2) is to allow for uncertainty in the level of control needed to attain water quality standards, and to provide a buffer in case traded reductions are less effective than expected. However, most of the available studies did not provide an approach to explicitly address the determination of trading ratio. Uncertainty analysis has rarely been linked to determination of trading ratio.This paper presents a practical methodology in estimating "equivalent trading ratio (ETR)" and links uncertainty analysis with trading ratio determination from TMDL allocation process. Determination of ETR can provide a preliminary evaluation of "tradeoffs" between various combination of point and nonpoint source control strategies on ambient water quality improvement. A greater portion of NPS load reduction in overall TMDL load reduction generally correlates with greater uncertainty and thus requires greater trading ratio. The rigorous quantification of trading ratio will enhance the scientific basis and thus public perception for more informed decision in overall watershed-based pollutant trading program.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of morphine and flunixin meglumine on isoflurane (ISO) minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) in goats.

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective, randomized experimental study.

ANIMALS
Five adult, wether goats from 1 to 3 years in age, and weighing 24-65 kg.

METHODS
Anesthesia was induced using ISO, which was delivered via a mask. Goats were intubated and ventilated to maintain an end-tidal carbon dioxide concentration between 25 and 30 mm Hg (3.3-4 kPa). End-tidal ISO concentration was measured using an infrared analyzer. The baseline ISO MAC that prevented purposeful movement in response to clamping a claw was determined. Following baseline MAC determination, each goat received one of the following four treatments intravenously (IV): morphine (2 mg kg(-1)), flunixin (1.5 mg kg(-1)), flunixin (1.5 mg kg(-1)) plus morphine (2 mg kg(-1)) or saline, and the MAC was re-determined. Goats were studied at weekly intervals, and each goat received each treatment in a randomized fashion.

RESULTS
The baseline ISO MAC for the control treatment was 1.43%. Morphine reduced the MAC by 29.7%. Flunixin did not significantly decrease the MAC nor did it potentiate the effect of morphine on MAC. The quality of recovery was good in all cases.

CONCLUSIONS
Morphine (2 mg kg(-1), IV) significantly reduced the ISO MAC in goats and did not adversely affect the quality of recovery.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The use of morphine, at the dose studied, in association with ISO anesthesia, will allow a clinically significant reduction in the concentration of ISO required to maintain general anesthesia in goats.


Offline data synchronization is a technique used to design an application that works without an internet connection. In the proposed work, offline synchronization methods for android have been enhanced along with the security and prioritization in the data file. The synchronization process has to be first validated and hence a speech recognition mechanism has also been applied in the proposed solution. Speech authentication systems along with unique feature selection and classification techniques are applied for providing the security. In addition to security, the proposed framework presents a set of cache memory which is updated when the user is online in order to optimize the synchronization process. The priority algorithm works according to user preferences. The files which are not in use for a long time are removed from the cache of offline user and the files which are getting used by the user often, get migrated to the cache memory automatically. The proposed job does not just emphasize user access, but also provides a safe way to manage the data. The proposed job also manages memory well so that the user does not find any hysteresis.


With some farmers gaining interest in using cover crops, there are questions about possible pests that may develop when introducing new plants on the farm. Consider these insect-related issues when planting crops in the fall. Hessian fly (Photo 1) is a potentially destructive pest in winter wheat; however, cultural control can minimize the potential damage and economic loss. Disciplines Agricultural Science | Agriculture This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cropnews/2478 2/21/2019 Hessian Fly Management in Iowa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2017/08/hessian-fly-management-iowa 1/5 Integrated Crop Management Hessian Fly Management in Iowa August 25, 2017 With some farmers gaining interest in using cover crops, there are questions about possible pests that may develop when introducing new plants on the farm. Consider these insect-related issues when planting crops in the fall. Hessian fly (Photo 1) is a potentially destructive pest in winter wheat; however, cultural control can minimize the potential damage and economic loss. Photo 1. Hessian fly is a fragile midge. Photo by Pest and Diseases Image Library, www.ipmimages.org. Life cycle The Hessian fly has two generations per year in Iowa. Adults emerge as volunteer spring wheat and early-seeded winter wheat start to grow. Females lay about 300 eggs in four days. Although wheat is the preferred host plant, they will also deposit eggs in barley and 2/21/2019 Hessian Fly Management in Iowa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2017/08/hessian-fly-management-iowa 2/5 rye. The eggs are reddish and very small, usually laid end-to-end in small groups on the upper leaf surface. Larvae (maggots) prefer to feed within the grooves of the wheat leaf sheath and stem until they pupate before harvest. Hessian flies spend the summer as pupae in wheat stubble, and the second generation emerges in the fall to feed on emerging winter wheat. They overwinter as resting pupae, often referred to as "flaxseeds" (Photo 2). Photo 2. Hessian fly pupae look like flaxseeds. Photo by Kansas State University Extension. Injury Larvae cause injury to wheat by feeding on leaves, tillers and stems. Hessian flies are considered an economic pest in the fall because they can cause significant damage that can stunt or kill plants. As seed heads begin to fill, heavily infested plants can lodge. High humidity is needed for a significant infestation to develop. Management Evaluating Hessian fly activity and severity is the first step to understanding future management. Discouraging females from laying eggs in wheat is an important cultural control strategy. Start scouting for larvae and flaxseeds in mid-September and October. Check areas of the field with poor stands or stunted plants and examine the base of the plant (first and second nodes) by pulling the leaf sheath away from the stem. Foliar 2/21/2019 Hessian Fly Management in Iowa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2017/08/hessian-fly-management-iowa 3/5 insecticides will not make contact with larvae inside the plant, but follow these guidelines to protect yield: 1. Destroy volunteer wheat, especially during wet years, to minimize favorable host plants. Mated females will have difficulty finding suitable hosts for their eggs and further reduce the overwintering population if all the volunteer wheat is removed. 2. Plant a resistant wheat variety to discourage females from depositing eggs. Typically, resistant wheat varieties provide sufficient protection against the Hessian fly and growers do not have to adjust planting dates. 3. Plant after the fly-free date to reduce the risk of Hessian fly infestations (Fig. 1). Adults are short-lived, and so planting after recommended historical dates can improve the overwintering stand conditions. Planting after the fly-free date will not always prevent Hessian fly infestations, but it will lower the risk. Mild fall and winter temperatures have reduced the effectiveness of the fly-free date in the U.S. because some adults can still be active until frost begins. It should be noted that planting too late may prevent good plant establishment. Very late-planted wheat will be attractive to egg-laying females the following spring. 4. If a cover crop is established this fall primarily for minimizing soil erosion, select a planting date best suited for good root establishment rather than based on the fly-free date. Also consider planting a non-host cover crop, like oats, to discourage females from laying eggs. 5. Practice crop rotation because the adults are weak fliers and they have a limited host range. 2/21/2019 Hessian Fly Management in Iowa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2017/08/hessian-fly-management-iowa 4/5 Figure 1. Estimated Hessian-fly free dates in Iowa. Hessian fly is a relatively rare pest in Iowa because small grains are not abundantly grown. Although a historical fly-free date has been established, it is based on studies from almost 90 years ago. It provides a planting guideline for those farmers planting small grains on a regular basis and have experienced Hessian fly damage. This strategy is more effective when implemented on a large scale. Also take into consideration the cooler spring and summer temperatures with the development of most insects; the fly-free date might actually be 7-10 days behind the estimations on the map. To learn more information about Hessian fly, read this publication from Kansas State University Links to this article are strongly encouraged, and this article may be republished without further permission if published as written and if credit is given to the author, Integrated Crop Management News, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. If this article is to be used in any other manner, permission from the author is required. This article was originally published on August 25, 2017. The information contained within may not be the most current and accurate depending on when it is accessed. Category: Crop Production Insects and Mites Crop: Cover Crop Tags: fly maggot Hessian wheat 2/21/2019 Hessian Fly Management in Iowa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2017/08/hessian-fly-management-iowa 5/5 Author: Erin Hodgson Associate Professor Dr. Erin Hodgson started working in the Department of Entomology at Iowa State University in 2009. She is an associate professor with extension and research responsibilities in corn and soybeans. She has a general background in integrated pest management (IPM) for field crops. Dr. Hodgson's curre...


Principal components (PC) are fundamentally feasible for the estimation of large factor models because consistency can be achieved for any path of the panel dimensions. The PC method is however inefficient under cross-sectional dependence with unknown structure. The approximate factor model of Chamberlain and Rothschild [1983] imposes a bound on the amount of dependence in the error term. This article proposes a constrained principal components (Cn-PC) estimator that incorporates this restriction as external information in the PC analysis of the data. This estimator is computationally tractable. It doesn't require estimating large covariance matrices, and is obtained as PC of a regularized form of the data covariance matrix. The paper develops a convergence rate for the factor estimates and establishes asymptotic normality. In a Monte Carlo study, we find that the Cn-PC estimators have good small sample properties in terms of estimation and forecasting performances when compared to the regular PC and to the generalized PC method (Choi [2012]).


Excerpt] Trustees of public and private research universities have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of their institutions. However, actions that appear to be in the private interests of their institutions may not be in the social interest and these institutions are also expected to serve society as a whole. In deciding what optimal policies are for their institutions, trustees must weigh their institutions' private interests against the interests of society as whole. In the next section, I discuss seven examples of areas in which trustees will need to make these judgments. Privatization is occurring at both public and private research universities, in the sense that the institutions are becoming more dependent on revenue streams generated from third parties. Examples are increased external funding of research, attempts to commercialize research findings through start-up companies and licensing of patents, increased external support through individual, corporate and foundation giving, and increased revenue from big-time athletics. The third parties providing the funding may push for activities or decisions that are not consistent with the underlying academic values of the institution and the trustees. Section III discusses three examples of how such problems may arise and stresses the importance of the trustees retaining fundamental authority. A final section provides some concluding remarks.


The contemporary world is characterized by enormous development of globalization on the basis of fast spread of information enabled by modern information technologies. The development of the last decades is very difficult to predict. Under these conditions, the society's paradigm is changing as for the corporate economy management. The significance of non-financial indicators grows, they, in connection with the financial ones, can identify conditions much better and influence corporate performance indicators. An important role is played by the interdisciplinary holistic approach to corporate management, responding to rapid changes in production related to the individualization of the products according to customer requirements and shortening its life cycle. Under these conditions, the most important factor for market success becomes a customer, whose satisfaction and loyalty to the company must be measured to be able to create conditions for stable growth corporate performance. The great attention is also given to the theoretical basis on which corporate performance management is created. The most important part of customer-oriented management is data acquisition from the measurement of customer experience. The questionnaire survey was the basis for gaining of the primary data source for the customer's satisfaction and loyalty measurements on the net promoter score (NPS) principle.


Impairment of non-cholinergic innervation of the lower oesophageal sphincter has been suggested in idiopathic achalasia. As opioid nerves are present in the lower oesophageal sphincter and opioid peptides affect lower oesophageal sphincter motility, the effect of an opioid agonist, morphine (100 micrograms/kg iv), and an opioid blocker, naloxone (80 micrograms/kg iv), on lower oesophageal sphincter motor function was assessed in 10 healthy subjects and in 10 patients with untreated idiopathic achalasia on separate days and in randomised order. In addition, in six of the patients, naloxone 0.8 mg iv was injected 60 minutes after morphine and recordings continued for a further five minutes. Lower oesophageal sphincter pressure was monitored by a sleeve device. In the healthy subjects morphine decreased (p < 0.01) resting lower oesophageal sphincter pressure by 4 (1) mm Hg (23 (8)%). In the achalasia patients the effect was more marked, lower oesophageal sphincter pressure being reduced (p < 0.01) by 11 (2) mm Hg (46 (8)%). Naloxone reversed lower oesophageal sphincter pressure to basal. Both absolute and percentage decreases after morphine were significantly greater (p < 0.05) in the achalasia patients than in the healthy subjects. Swallow induced lower oesophageal sphincter relaxation was significantly decreased (p < 0.05) by morphine in the healthy subjects but not in the achalasia patients. Naloxone had no effect on resting lower oesophageal sphincter pressure or swallow induced relaxation in either healthy subjects or achalasia patients. In conclusion achalasia patients are hypersensitive to the effect of morphine on resting lower oesophageal sphincter pressure. This finding is unlikely to be the result of a denervation process involving opioid nerves.


A 27 year old male with no significant past medical history presented to an outside hospital for chief complaints of nausea/vomiting, epigastric pain, and acute jaundice. Initial laboratory workup revealed a hemoglobin of 5.5 g/dl, normal WBC and platelet count, elevated direct bilirubin (10 mg/dl), elevated lactate dehydrogenase (969 IU/L), low haptoglobin (<8 mg/dl), a peripheral smear showing rare polychromasia and spherocytes, and positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT: BS +, IgG +, C3d -) with presence of warm autoantibodies. All infectious disease testing was negative. Initial CT abdomen showed a normal sized spleen. The patient was diagnosed with idiopathic warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia and was treated with pulsed steroids, one dose of Rituximab, and transfused with up to 13 units of packed red blood cells. The patient did not respond to medical treatment, and after one week, the patient was transferred to our institution for escalation of care.
 At our institution, the patient presented with similar symptoms. Due to lack of response to packed red blood cell transfusions, As the patient continued a downtrend in the hemoglobin despite continued transfusion support, Transfusion Medicine advised to only transfuse phenotypically matched, least incompatible, packed red blood cells for significantly symptomatic anemia or hemodynamic instability. High dose steroid were continued and IVIG, Cytoxan and Vincristine were added to his warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia (WAIHA) therapy. Despite these efforts, the patient's hemoglobin continued to decrease despite an additional 9 RBC units transfused at our institution, reaching a hemoglobin nadir of of 2.1 g/dL. In addition, the patient developed thrombocytopenia, NSTEMI, and left lower quadrant pain accompanied by bloody bowel movements. A repeat CT scan of the abdomen was performed, which revealed an enlarged spleen with a span of 16.5 cm in its maximum dimension. Due to concerns for splenic infarction and/or rupture, and since the patient was not a candidate for surgery, partial splenic artery embolization was performed. Thirty percent residual viable spleen remained. Within hours post embolization, a dramatic increase in hemoglobin was observed without any additional transfusion support. Shortly after splenic embolization the patient developed severe left upper quadrant abdominal pain with a peri-splenic fluid measuring slightly greater than simple fluid attenuation on CT which was managed medically. After close observation the patient was discharged home 2 weeks after admission. At home the patient was doing well with the exception of persistent left upper quadrant pain. He had no clinical or laboratory signs of recurrent hemolysis. Three months post discharge, due to persistent left upper quadrant pain and presence of a splenic cyst, the patient underwent a laparoscopic splenectomy that was performed without complications. During this hospitalization, in preparation for surgery, compatibility testing showed no autoantibodies. However new clinically significant alloantibodies were identified.
 Hypersplenism and/or reticulocytopenia are infrequent complications of a warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia, constituting a life threatening complication that may not respond to standard therapy and may not qualify for surgical intervention. The above patient did not improve with any medical therapies and displayed a decreasing trend in hemoglobin that was accompanied by increasing lactate levels and NSTEMI. Splenic embolization achieved a dramatic response that was maintained through follow up. Due to recurrent pain from the embolization, the patient eventually received a splenectomy once he was stable. Four months after initial presentation, post infusion of 4 doses of Rituxan and steroid therapy, the autoantibodies were not detectable. However, the patient developed 3 alloantibodies post multiple transfusions.
 Figure. Figure.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Published by European Publishing. © 2020 Ziogou R. and Zografou K. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International License. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) Dear Editor, In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, even though a disease should be the number one reason to be admitted to a hospital, it turns out to be childbirth, in which midwives play an important role1,2. Within the COVID-19 pandemic, a pregnant woman who had planned to give birth at the hospital may have second thoughts and may get stressed about giving birth in such a hospital environment. Prenatal anxiety and depression are associated with preterm births, low birthweight babies, and small head circumference3. Due to COVID-19, perinatal care has to be tailored to provide women with the best and most safe care. Midwives should offer alternatives to sustain and protect maternal and neonatal health. First, telecare is an excellent option during the perinatal period, which results in a reduction of face-to-face visits4 and minimizes the cost of care5. Second, blood pressure, weight and fetal heart rates can be remotely monitored5,6. Information and education can also be provided through telecare. Pregnant women are familiar with the use of smartphones and technology, and they have a positive attitude towards remote home-monitoring7. A planned homebirth with a registered midwife could be an excellent and safe alternative for low-risk pregnant women. It is very important for both pregnant woman and midwife to have a birth plan, instead of a last-minute decision, as the transfer to the nearest hospital has to be prearranged, in the rare case that something goes wrong. Fewer interventions, including episiotomy, epidural anaesthesia or delivery with a vacuum take place during a homebirth compared to planned hospital births8. The comfort of home, the right to choose and the continuity of care are some of the main reasons why mothers choose to give birth at home. Moreover, the benefit from their partner's presence and support are also very important9. During the postpartum period, a midwife may perform virtual or in-person home visits to check on mothers' and infants' health. Furthermore, home birth may cost less than a hospital birth10. Hospital and pharmaceutical expenses both for mother and infant are less when a woman delivers at home with a midwife. Humanity has suffered many pandemics throughout its history, and this will probably not change in the future. As the Word Health Organization has declared 2020 the year of midwives, it is an excellent opportunity to establish a midwifery-led model of maternity care, which will minimize the cost and provide all women with high-quality perinatal care.


A collaborative effort by scholars from the United States, China and Japan, this volume focuses on the period 1972-1989, during which all three countries, brought together by a shared geopolitical strategy, established mutual relations with one another despite differences in their histories, values and perceptions of their own national interests. Although each initially conceived of its political and security relations with the others in bilateral terms, the three in fact came to form an economic and political triangle during the 1970s and 1980s. But this triangle is a strange one whose dynamics are constantly changing. Its corners (the three countries) and its sides (the three bilateral relationships) are unequal, while its overall nature (the capacity of the three to work together) has varied considerably as the economic and strategic positions of the three have changed and post-Cold War tensions and uncertainties have emerged. In considering this special era, when the three major powers in the East Asia region engaged in positive interaction, the essays in this volume highlight the importance of this triangular reality in achieving a workable framework for future regional and global cooperation.


Modulators of the DNA unwinding enzyme, topoisomerase I (Topo I), inhibit DNA repair and augment the lethal effects of X-rays and other agents that create breaks in DNA. To investigate the role of Topo I in DNA repair, we examined Topo I activity before and after X-irradiation using confluence-arrested hamster and human cells. Topo I activities were higher in unirradiated neoplastic compared to normal hamster or human cells. Following ionizing radiation, however, enzyme activities were dramatically down-regulated to a greater extent in tumor than in normal cells. The extent of Topo I down-regulation correlated to some extent with survival enhancement in irradiated cells. Enzyme activities were down-regulated within 5 min in hamster and human cells. Recovery of Topo I activities in X-irradiated hamster cells required 12 h, whereas irradiated human cells recovered in only 70 min. Decreased Topo I activity was also noted after UV irradiation. In contrast, Topo I protein and mRNA levels remained unchanged following radiation. Administration of 5 mM 3-aminobenzamide or 0.5 mM PD 128763, inhibitors of poly(ADP-ribose) transferase, prevented Topo I down-regulation in X-irradiated or UV-irradiated human or hamster cells. Thus, decreases in Topo I activity following DNA damage are likely caused by ADP-ribosylation of the enzyme. Down-regulation of Topo I may prevent its binding to single-stranded DNA nicks created by X-irradiation, allowing the DNA repair complex (which is concomitantly activated by ADP-ribosylation) access to these lesions.


Piles have proven to be an effective means of stabilizing active landslides as well as in marginally stable slopes. Many practical empirical design and analysis methods of slope stability and piled-slope stability have been proposed. However, the solutions of analysis and design methods proposed vary due to different analysis methods used and the design methods are poorly understood because the pile-stabilized mechanism is complex. This thesis presents the results of two-dimensional finite element analyses with strength reduction method using the ABAQUS package to validate slope stability analyses of four cases, which are (1) homogeneous slope without foundation, (2) homogeneous slope with foundation, (3) non-homogeneous slope with foundation and (4) non-homogeneous slope with a thin weak layer. The results of unreinforced analyses are validated for each case based on limit equilibrium or finite element analyses in terms of factor of safety. With the results validated, a pile is incorporated in the model and analyzed using coupled analysis, which considers the slope stability and pile response simultaneously. Numerical analyses results based on pile position in the slope, pile head condition, and pile length are used to determine the optimal pile position, suitable pile head condition and appropriate pile length to increase the stability of pile-stabilized slopes. A three-dimensional finite element model of the slope stability is also conducted and the factor of safety found to be higher compared to the results of two-dimensional finite element analysis. The spacing effect of pile is examined in a three-dimensional piled slope model and the factor of safety is found to approach the case without pile when the ratio of spacing to pile diameter is equal or greater than 8.0. An optimal pile spacing of S/D of 4.0 is found. Based on study of the influencing factors in piled slope stability, an optimal design is proposed.


In this document the Master thesis called "Development of an integrated
interface between SAGE and Ultragrid" is presented.
During this document, new users' and companies' necessities, that come from
the knowledge sharing to the productivity improvements, in the scope of the
advanced tools for videoconferencing are set out.
From these new necessities and after the analysis of the state of the art in
videoconference and high definition, a new technological challenge to solve
these necessities appears.
During the master a novel design is set out, a design for a new kind of High
Definition (uncompressed HD-SDI) videoconferencing system fully adaptable
and scalable. By joining different technologies of distributed visualization and
technologies of advanced streaming of high definition audiovisual contents
over IP networks, a new prototype has been deployed, able to solve the new
technological requirements.
The new deployed system is able to visualize several HD-SDI streams
simultaneously in a unique application. Also the new transmission/visualization
module, allows to divide the HD-SDI stream in different self-content substreams,
in order to give to the receptor user the possibility to choose,
according his capabilities, the number of sub-streams that will be able to
receive and process. This procedure will allow the user to always work with the
best quality he is able to.
The result of the thesis has been a high definition multi-videoconference low
latency system, able to work point to multi-point where each user receive
different resolutions, without transcoding.
Finally, the obtained results have been analyzed, opening new research lines,
and possible system improvements has been raised.


Abrasive grit, applied at high pressure and directed at plant base, can control weeds and increase yield. We evaluated fertilizer [pelletized turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo ) litter] and non-fertilizer [walnut ( Juglans regia ) shell] grits for maize and soybean in-row (IR) weed management. Grits were applied at V1 and V5 of maize, and V1 and V3 of soybean. Between-row weed cultivation was done alone (BR), or in combination with grit (I/B), after grit application. Small weeds (<4 cm) were controlled after grit treatment, but, larger broadleaf weeds, grass weeds (treated when growing points were below ground), and later emerging weeds resulted in IR weed biomass similar between season-long weedy (SLW) and IR treatments by August. In maize, fertilizer and nonfertilizer I/B treatments averaged 44 and 14% greater yields, respectively, than SLW (p<0.01) but each was similar to BR which averaged 23% greater yield (p=0.63). Maize grain had 16% higher N content in the fertilizer I/B treatment than SLW or nonfertilizer I/B (p<0.003). In soybean, I/B increased yield by 17% (p=0.009) over SLW yield, but was similar to the BR increase of 22% (p=0.13). Maize had a greater positive response to fertilizer than nonfertilizer grit, whereas soybean was less influenced by I/B treatment .


We describe the design, fabrication, and testing of a monolithic interferometer consisting entirely of optically contacted fused-silica optical elements that are assembled, adjusted, and permanently bonded in place. The interferometer is part of a spatial heterodyne spectrometer (SHS) [SHIMMER (Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals)] that will be used for near-ultraviolet high-spectral-resolution limb imaging of OH solar resonance fluorescence from low Earth orbit aboard the satellite STPSat-1 scheduled for launch in 2006. The stability of the monolith coupled with the relaxed tolerances on optical quality and alignment inherent to SHS make this new instrument extremely robust and especially attractive for applications in harsh environments.


How do firms' sales interact across markets? Are foreign and domestic sales complements or substitutes? Using a large French firm-level database that combines balance-sheet and product-destination-specific export information over the period 1995-2001, we study the interconnections between exports and domestic sales. We identify exogenous shocks that affect the firms' demand on foreign markets to instrument yearly variations in exports. We use alternatively as instruments product-destination specific imports or tariffs changes, and large foreign shocks such as financial crises or civil wars. Our results show that exogenous variations in foreign sales are positively associated with domestic sales, even after controlling for changes in domestic demand. A 10% exogenous increase in exports generates a 1.5 to 3% increase in domestic sales in the short-term. This result is robust to various estimation techniques, instruments, controls, and sub-samples. It is also supported by the natural experiment of the Asian crisis in the late 1990's. We discuss various channels that may explain this complementarity.


Norwegian fisheries have undergone tremendous changes, due to tech - nological developments and the introduction of resource management. In addi - tion, societal changes and in particular the introduction of formal requirements and the formalization of training and education, have also greatly affected the fishing fleet. Jentoft and Wadel (1984) described the Coastal Employment System. This system was characterized by mutual dependency among actors, flexibility of the system and mobility of labour, and primary socialization. The question we ask is therefore: have the above mentioned changes affected the employment and recruitment patterns in the fishing fleet? If so, what do they look like today? And is the concept of the Coastal Employment System still relevant?


Practical reasoning is the study of how to figure out what to do. It is of particular importance to ethics. Indeed, new developments in practical reasoning promise to break through long-standing ethical and moral dilemmas. Practical reasoning also has consequences for philosophy of mind, value theory, and the social sciences. This anthology provides an overview of this important area of philosophy.Over the past two decades the field of practical reasoning has changed rapidly, with a small number of entrenched positions giving way to a healthy profusion of competing views. This book covers a broad spectrum of positions on practical reasoning--from the nihilist view that there are no legitimate forms of practical inference, and hence no such thing as practical reasoning, to inferential expressivism, which holds that our desires express commitments to arbitrarily different kinds of practical inferences (as when the desire to stay dry makes explicit the commitment to inferring the need to carry an umbrella if rain is forecast). Underlying all the contributions is the question of how one should go about determining what the legitimate forms of practical reasoning are.


Development of the Drosophila sensory organ depends on the polarization and subsequent asymmetric division of sensory organ precursor cells (SOPs), which give rise to all of the cell types that make up the mature structure. Although SOPs can become polarized and divide asymmetrically in the absence of external signals, their ability to achieve the correct orientation depends on extracellular signals transduced through the Frizzled (Fz) receptor. Fz is known to signal through heterotrimeric guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-binding proteins containing Go-type α subunits in some Drosophila systems, leading Katanaev and Tomlinson to investigate its role in sensory organ development. Clonal cells containing mutant Go or overexpressing wild-type or activated Go showed phenotypic defects in both orientation and asymmetric division, as well as mislocalization of Numb, a phosphoprotein whose polarized distribution in SOPs is key to cell fate determination. Go itself was asymmetrically distributed in mitotic SOPs and both coprecipitated with Pins (Partner of Inscuteable, a protein that binds to Gα and is part of a complex necessary for asymmetric distribution of Numb) and interacted genetically with it. The phenotypic effects of overexpressing wild-type Go depended on the expression of Fz and were enhanced by Fz overexpression. Go thus appears to be involved both in the establishment of asymmetry and in determining its correct orientation, leading the authors to propose that it may act to integrate these two processes. V. L. Katanaev, A. Tomlinson, Dual roles for the trimeric G protein Go in asymmetric cell division in Drosophila. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103, 6524-6529 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Studies of emerging stock market anomalies are based on underspecified models. Extreme bound analysis (EBA), a technique to remedy specification bias, indicates that no anomaly is robust, given panel data covering sixteen countries from March 1988 through January 1995. Only under a relaxed decision rule does the author find that five of the fifteen factors studied are sturdy: price/book long–run lagged returns, population demographics, country risk, and relative market size. What is more sobering, time series EBA produces no sturdy aggregate determinants.


Vertical ozone profiles measured in the period 1996–2002 in the framework of the MOZAIC project (Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapor by Airbus in Service Aircraft) for flights connecting Central Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean basin (Heraklion, Rhodes, Antalya) were analysed in order to evaluate the high rural ozone levels recorded in the Mediterranean area during summertime. The 77 flights during summer (JJAS) showed substantially (10–12 ppb, 20–40%) enhanced ozone mixing ratios in the lower troposphere over the Eastern Mediterranean frequently exceeding the 60 ppb, 8-h EU air quality standard, whereas ozone between 700 hPa and 400 hPa was only slightly (3–5 ppb, 5–10%) higher than over Central Europe. Analysis of composite weather maps for the high and low ozone cases, as well as back-trajectories and vertical profiles of carbon monoxide, suggest that the main factor leading to high tropospheric ozone values in the area is anticyclonic influence, in combination with a persistent northerly flow in the lower troposphere during summertime over the Aegean. On the other hand the lowest ozone levels are associated with low-pressure systems, especially the extension of the Middle East low over the Eastern Mediterranean area.


This paper reviews climate change impacts and the existing disaster risk management system in Japan and offers the results of a structured questionnaire survey of the community leaders and disaster risk management personnel of Saijo city of Japan that assesses their perceptions about dealing with the extreme disasters by the existing disaster risk management systems. This study was inspired by the record number of typhoon landfall that has surprised the local government and communities in 2004. While unearthing the hidden vulnerabilities in cities like Saijo, this event has loosened the confidence of local communities on the disaster risk management systems. From the study, we conclude that the existing disaster risk management systems need further fillip and that the proactive community involvement in disaster risk management is still in nascent stages. Associating with the scientific community, involving the local communities (including the elderly), enhancing the redundancy in disaster risk management systems, inculcating strategic thinking and micro-level planning, conducting vulnerability assessments by considering the special circumstances including resource constraints of small cities and better policy coordination across the administrative hierarchy are some important considerations for dealing with the uncertainty brought by the extreme events.


Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) Technology: Manufacture and Applications covers SOI transistors and circuits, manufacture, and reliability. The book also looks at applications such as memory, power devices, and photonics. The book is divided into two parts; part one covers SOI materials and manufacture, while part two covers SOI devices and applications. The book begins with chapters that introduce techniques for manufacturing SOI wafer technology, the electrical properties of advanced SOI materials, and modeling short-channel SOI semiconductor transistors. Both partially depleted and fully depleted SOI technologies are considered. Chapters 6 and 7 concern junctionless and fin-on-oxide field effect transistors. The challenges of variability and electrostatic discharge in CMOS devices are also addressed. Part two covers recent and established technologies. These include SOI transistors for radio frequency applications, SOI CMOS circuits for ultralow-power applications, and improving device performance by using 3D integration of SOI integrated circuits. Finally, chapters 13 and 14 consider SOI technology for photonic integrated circuits and for micro-electromechanical systems and nano-electromechanical sensors. The extensive coverage provided by Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) Technology makes the book a central resource for those working in the semiconductor industry, for circuit design engineers, and for academics. It is also important for electrical engineers in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors.Covers SOI transistors and circuits, as well as manufacturing processes and reliabilityLooks at applications such as memory, power devices, and photonics


The following studies evaluated our hypothesis that transmission by the fecal-respiratory route may be a viable portal of entry for Salmonella and could explain some clinical impressions of relatively low-dose infectivity under field conditions in relation to the requisite high oral challenge dose that is typically required for infection of poultry through the oral route in laboratory studies. Initial field reports indicating tracheal sampling to be a sensitive tool for monitoring Salmonella infection in commercial flocks, suggested that tracheal contamination could be a good indicator of Salmonella infection under commercial conditions. Further, a usual assumption regarding airborne Salmonella reaching the upper respiratory tract, would ultimately involve oral ingestion, due to the presence of the mucociliary clearance was evaluated. Suspension in 1% mucin failed to increase the infectivity at any dose of Salmonella when compared to OR administration without mucin and intratracheal (IT) challenge, which was also recovered from lung tissue. IT administration was more effective or at least as effective at colonizing the ceca of 7d chickens, suggesting that the respiratory tract may be an overlooked potential portal of entry for Salmonellae. Finally, the hypothesis was evaluated through IT administration of Salmonella, in comparison with oral administration. A significantly higher or equivalent cecal recovery of Salmonella, with a clear dose response curve, with the IT groups as compared to groups challenged OR, added further support to the hypothesis. Both the cecal CFU recovery data and organ invasion incidence data from these experiments provided evidence for the subsequent fate of Salmonella exposed to the respiratory system, potentially involving a systemic route. Overall, our data suggests that the respiratory route might be a viable portal of entry for Salmonella in poultry. Clarification of the potential importance of the respiratory tract for Salmonella transmission under field conditions may be of critical importance as efforts to develop intervention strategies to reduce transmission of these pathogens in poultry continue.


A methodology for the determination of the solid-fluid contact angle, to be employed within molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, is developed and systematically applied. The calculation of the contact angle of a fluid drop on a given surface, averaged over an equilibrated MD trajectory, is divided in three main steps: (i) the determination of the fluid molecules that constitute the interface, (ii) the treatment of the interfacial molecules as a point cloud data set to define a geometric surface, using surface meshing techniques to compute the surface normals from the mesh, (iii) the collection and averaging of the interface normals collected from the post-processing of the MD trajectory. The average vector thus found is used to calculate the Cassie contact angle (i.e., the arccosine of the averaged normal z-component). As an example we explore the effect of the size of a drop of water on the observed solid-fluid contact angle. A single coarse- grained bead representing two water molecules and parameterized using the SAFT-γ Mie equation of state (EoS) is employed, meanwhile the solid surfaces are mimicked using integrated potentials. The contact angle is seen to be a strong function of the system size for small nano-droplets. The thermodynamic limit, corresponding to the infinite size (macroscopic) drop is only truly recovered when using an excess of half a million water coarse-grained beads and/or a drop radius of over 26 nm.


During the nineteenth century, the Gulf of Mexico fostered the movement of people, ideas, and news throughout the surrounding regions. Although each colony and state surrounding the basin had distinct cultures and traditions, they shared the legacy of slavery and emancipation. This study examines the transformation of labor that occurred for sugar planters in British Guiana and southern Louisiana during the age of emancipation. In this comparative project, I argue that in the 1830s planters from the British West Indies set the trajectory for solutions to the labor problem by curtailing the freedom of former slaves with Asian contract labor. Those in the sugar parishes of southern Louisiana followed this same framework in the 1860s yet it led to different outcomes. The nature of the circum-Caribbean provided opportunities for planters throughout the Gulf to observe the Asian indentured system and use a form of it in their distinct societies. INDEX WORDS: Emancipation, Atlantic world, Caribbean, British Guiana, Louisiana, Labor, Sugar industry, Asian contract labor, Freedom, Slavery REMAKING OF RACE AND LABOR IN BRITISH GUIANA AND LOUISIANA 1830 1880


The application of organic amendments to agricultural soil provides organic matter and valuable nutrients, improves soil structure, increases its water holding capacity and stimulates soil microbial communities. However, when using organic amendments of animal and/or anthropogenic origin, the risk of contamination with organic and/or inorganic compounds, as well as the risk of dissemination of potential human pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes, must be taken into account. Here, we characterized seven amendments used in organic farming, in order to evaluate the agro-environmental consequences of their utilization. Amendments (vermicompost, bokashi, municipal solid waste, compost in pellet form, composted cow manure from intensive farms, composted cow manure from organic farms, composted sheep manure from organic farms) were sampled for the determination of (i) the presence of chemical (metals, aromatics, halogenated hydrocarbons, pesticides, phthalates and total petroleum hydrocarbons) and biological (Escherichia coli, Salmonella, relative abundance of the integrase intl1 gene) contaminants; and (ii) their quality, in terms of physicochemical (moisture, organic matter, nutrients, C/N ratio) and microbial (potentially mineralizable nitrogen, microbial biomass carbon, bacterial and fungal abundance by real-time PCR, community-level physiological profiles through Biolog EcoPlates™) properties. Regarding metal concentrations, the only amendments that met the Spanish legal requirements for "Class A" fertilizers were composted intensive and organic cow manure. Zinc was the most limiting metal for the use of these amendments. None of the amendments showed high concentrations of organic contaminants. Bokashi was the only amendment in which Salmonella was detected. Besides, bokashi showed a high abundance of the integrase intl1 gene associated with class 1 integrons. Composted organic sheep manure showed the highest content of organic matter, total nitrogen and extractable humic acids. Composted intensive cow manure showed highest values of microbial activity (potentially mineralizable N) and biomass (microbial biomass C, total bacteria). Owing to its low content of potentially health-threatening contaminants and its highest quality, as reflected by the Amendment Quality Index, composted intensive cow manure was concluded to be the most suitable amendment for agricultural use.


Chromium (Cr), especially Cr(VI) is of particular environmental concern owing to its high solubility, bioavailability and toxicity. The reduction of Cr(VI) to innocuous Cr(III) is an important step in the remediation of Cr(VI)-contaminated environments. The understanding of how microorganisms resist metals can provide insight into strategies for their detoxification or removal from the environment. The present investigation was undertaken to study the Cr(VI) resistance mechanisms by Acinetobacter haemolyticus, a strain isolated from Cr(VI)-containing textile wastewater. In preliminary studies, the strain was shown to be able to tolerate Cr(VI) concentrations of 30 and 90 mg L-1 in Luria-Bertani (LB) agar and broth respectively. The Cr(VI) reduction capacity of A. haemolyticus was found to be greater when grown in higher percentage of LB broth than minimal salts broth. The Cr(VI) reduction also increased with lower initial concentration of Cr(VI) added after 5 hours. The x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) analysis displayed the ability of the strain to reduce Cr(VI) to Cr(III) which was octahedrally coordinated to oxygen. The Cr(III) was most likely to form complexes with carboxyl (COO-) groups from the biomass based on Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) analysis. The FTIR analysis also showed interactions of chromium with amino and hydroxyl groups. Field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) showed that cells grown in the presence of Cr(VI) had a wrinkled appearance with a significant increase in size. No precipitates were found on the cell surface. However, precipitates were observed in the cytoplasmic region of the cells via transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis, suggesting the transport of Cr(VI) into the cytoplasm and intracellular Cr(VI) reduction. Intracellular reduction of Cr(VI) was supported by a reductase test using soluble crude cell - free extracts. The specific reductase activity obtained was 0.52 I¼g Cr(VI) reduced per mg of protein an hour at pH 7.2 and 37 EsC. In plasmid screenings, the strain was found to harbor a plasmid of about 12 kb. The findings showed that Cr(VI) resistance mechanisms of A. haemolyticus include the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III), and intra- and extracellular sequestration of chromium.


Abstract Lake Malawi, with its flora and fauna, exists as a pervasive presence in the collective creative imaginary of Malawian artists. This is evident through the presence of the lake as a feature in poetry, painting, and the novel among various genres. In this paper, the central position that is being advanced is that the lake does not only feature as an image, but also exists as a paradoxical symbolic element, where the water stands as a life-giving force, and simultaneously a sign for hope from the poverty that has for a long time plagued the nation, but also exists as a destructive force, one which bears the power to destroy the very same lives it sustains. The lake stands as a central motif around which various narratives – depressing and hopeful – are constructed. This paper purports to examine the various ways in which this image is employed by various artists across different genres, as a way of further illustrating the versatility of the Malawian creative mind. The decision to discuss different genres is deliberate, as it helps in illustrating the common features of lacustrine imagery, but also distinguishes the unique features particular to specific genres or the artists practicing therein.


A study by the international nosocomial infection control consortium found that the rates of hospital-acquired infections in India were higher than the statistics provided by the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).[1] Overcrowded hospitals with poor infrastructure, lack of basic hygiene, low healthcare professionals to patient ratio, inappropriate usage of invasive devices and antibiotics, and lack of regulation enforcement contributes to nosocomial infections-associated deaths in India. Recently, 290 children lost their lives in a tertiary referral hospital in Gorakhpur located in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.[2] The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India launched an anti-microbial resistance awareness campaign known as 'Red Line', which encouraged people to put a stop to usage of medicines marked with a redline (antibiotics) and lacking a valid prescription from a physician.[3] In spite of awareness campaigns, the prevalence of nosocomial infections remains high in India. A recent study found 143 strains of Acinetobacter in a tertiary hospital in India, of which, 126 (88.1%) were extremely drug resistant.[4] Read more . . .


Introduction: With the rapid development of the civil aviation industry and the growth in the number of airline employees, some unsafe and dishonest events occur frequently. These behaviors affect the flight safety seriously. Method: First of all, the connotation of safety integrity was defined based on literature analysis. According to the connotation, relevant typical cases were collected. Through the use of Field Theory for case analysis, the main factors that affect safety integrity were identified. By using DEMATEL-G1 and DEMATEL-ISM methods, the relationships between these factors were analyzed quantitatively, and the internal effect paths of the influencing factors were established. Results: There are sixteen major factors that affect the safety integrity of airline employees. Six of them are crucial. The effect path system of all factors can be divided into four layers: the first layer is the appearance layer, including eight factors, which are the direct causes affecting airline employee's safety integrity; the second layer is the middle layer; the third and the fourth layers are the root layers, including four factors, which are the deep causes affecting airline employee's safety integrity. It is also worth noticing that "incentive and penalty system of safety integrity", "supervision of government and company"," stability and efficiency of the organization"," emphasis and example of leaders on safety integrity" are not only crucial factors, but also the root layers of the structural model. They are the most important factors.


In times of financial crisis, solvency concerns are reflected in market prices for financial instruments. Credit default swap (CDS) spreads provide a direct measure of the market's (risk-neutral) expectation regarding a firm's probability of bankruptcy. The options market is another place where investors' projections of future credit conditions can be seen, in high prices for deep out-of-the-money puts, for example. Although CDS spreads are available for horizons of 1 to 10 years and more, option maturities are much shorter, offering a window onto short-term expectations. Moreover, unlike CDS, the availability of market prices for multiple options with the same expiration but different strike prices allows an entire risk-neutral density (RND) for the future stock price to be extracted. In this article, the authors extend the strategy of fitting the RND as a mixture of two lognormals by adding a discrete probability of bankruptcy. Applying the approach to analyze the RNDs from equity options on Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, and AIG in the run-up to their 2008 credit events (two of which ended in forced mergers and the other two in insolvency), the authors find that the mixture of lognormals plus bankruptcy RND fits the options market data better than alternative models. They also show that the implied short-run bankruptcy probabilities from equity options aligned perfectly with the one-year CDS spreads and also that the RND default probabilities for J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, which took over the failing Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, respectively, were much lower than for the four firms that experienced credit events.


In conventional discrete dynamical systems, the new configuration depends solely on the configuration at the preceding time step. This contribution considers an extension to the standard framework of dynamical systems by taking into consideration past history in a simple way: the mapping defining the transition rule of the system remains unaltered, but it is applied to a certain summary of past states. This kind of embedded memory implementation, of straightforward computer codification, allows for an easy systematic study of the effect of memory in discrete dynamical systems, and may inspire some useful ideas in using discrete systems with memory (DSM) as a tool for modeling non-markovian phenomena. Besides their potential applications, DSM have an aesthetic and mathematical interest on their own, as will be briefly over viewed. The contribution focuses on the study of systems discrete par excellence, i.e., with space, time and state variable being discrete. These discrete universes are known as cellular automata (CA) in their more structured forms, and Boolean networks (BN) in a more general way. Thus, the mappings which define the rules of CA (or BN) are not formally altered when implementing embedded memory, but they are applied to cells (or nodes) that exhibit trait states computed as a function of their own previous states. So to say, cells (or nodes) - canalize - memory to the mapping. Automata on networks and on proximity graphs, together with structurally dynamic cellular automata, will be also studied with memory. If time permits, systems that remain discrete in space and time, but not in the state variable (e.g., maps and spatial games), will be also scrutinized with memory. A list of references on DSM may be found in http://uncomp.uwe.ac.uk/alonso-sanz.


The global recreational fishing sector is the dominant fishing sector in freshwaters of the highly developed world and often more economically powerful than commercial fisheries, yet it is also ignored in international policy and suffers widespread data deficiencies from a lack of research. Despite the magnitude of potential benefits and consequences, little is known about recreational fishing activity, particularly in developing countries. I propose using an integrated rapid assessment protocol that adopts a social-ecological systems (SES) approach to address data deficiencies in catch and release (C&R) recreational fisheries of the developing world. In this work, I use the mahseer C&R recreational fishery of the Cauvery River, India as a case study. This dissertation identifies which linkages in the SES are most likely to influence sustainable management of the mahseer recreational fishery. To identify the nature and scope of the knowledge gaps in recreational fisheries of the developing world, I conducted a survey of fisheries professionals to rank knowledge and management needs. The results of the survey confirmed that recreational fisheries are subject to severe data deficiencies that require local level assessment to resolve. I then worked with local stakeholders to prioritize a research agenda that identified the need to research physiological responses of mahseer to C&R and angler behaviours and perspectives as valuable to this fishery. Therefore, I examined the physiological responses of mahseer to C&R, measured mahseer post-release movements, and compared the responses of mahseer caught multiple times through simulated capture processes. Finally, I conducted angler surveys to identify angler behaviours, perspectives, and information sources, then used expert interviews to place this information in local context. Overall, results show that mahseer are robust to C&R, but larger mahseer are likely to experience negative consequences post-release, and effects of combined stressors may be cumulatively interacting. There are opportunities to improve relationships among management organizations, angling groups and local communities to improve information flow and benefit-sharing throughout the mahseer fishery. The integrated rapid assessment protocol provides essential baseline data on biological and social responses to recreational fishing activity, and acts as a road map to guide future research and management efforts.


The thermal and compositional conditions of magma chambers constrain the type and complexity of their metasomatic aureoles. Fragments of these aureoles, disrupted during explosive eruptions of Vesuvius, provide quenched snapshots of interactions between potassic magmas and carbonate country rocks. Near the highly crystallized peripheral portions of the chambers, represented by magmatic xenoliths (fergusites, syenites and pyroxenites), skarn aureoles form. Open conduit reservoirs and the lower portions of plinian and subplinian eruption magma chambers develop aureoles controlled by diffusive metasomatism by high-T-modified silicate melts, generating magmatic skarn. In contrast, infiltrative metasomatism by magmatic fluids exsolved from crystallizing margins is responsible for endoskarn (magmatic protolith) and exoskarn (carbonate protolith) formation in the upper portions of plinian and subplinian eruption magma chambers.


Mutations in the presenilin-1 (PSEN1) gene are associated with familial Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Interestingly, neuropathological analysis of a Belgian FTD family carrying a PSEN1 c.548G>T mutation confirmed neurodegeneration in the absence of amyloid plaques. To investigate the impact of the c.548G>T mutation on presenilin-1 (PS1) function in vivo, we introduced this mutation into the genomic Psen1 locus. The resulting c.548G>T knock-in (KI) mice are viable but express markedly lower levels of Psen1 mRNA and protein in the brain. This reduction is due to production of aberrantly spliced transcripts lacking either exon 6 or exons 6 and 7 and their subsequent degradation via non-sense-mediated decay (NMD); inhibition of NMD by cycloheximide treatment stabilized these transcripts and restored the level of Psen1 mRNA in KI/KI brains. Interestingly, the reduction of Psen1 mRNA expression and the degradation of aberrant Psen1 splice products occur exclusively in the brain but not in other tissues. Consistent with decreased Psen1 expression, γ-secretase activity was strongly reduced in the cerebral cortex of KI mice, as measured by de novo γ-secretase-mediated cleavage of APP and Notch. Moreover, PS1 expressed from Psen1 cDNA carrying the c.548G>T mutation displayed normal γ-secretase activity in cultured cells, indicating that the corresponding p.183G>V amino acid substitution does not affect γ-secretase activity. Finally, Psen1 c.548G>TKI/KI;Psen2−/− mice exhibited mild spatial memory deficits in the Morris water maze task. Together, our findings demonstrate that the c.548G>T mutation results in a brain-specific loss of presenilin function due to decreased Psen1 mRNA expression.


This thesis discusses the acting techniques employed by actors for tragedy of the Greek stage during the twentieth century. It argues that there were two main acting schools – 'school' here meaning an established unified style of acting shared by a group of actors and directors. The first, starting with the 1936 production of Electra by Sophocles directed by Dimitris Rontiris's at the National Theatre of Greece and running through roughly to the late 1970s, developed from a vocal/rhetorical/text-based approach. The second, established by Karolos Koun's Art Theatre in 1942 and which can be said to have ended with his death in 1987, was based on a bodily/physical one. The thesis examines the ways in which these two schools combined and influenced acting, creating new tendencies in the last three decades of the twentieth century.

The focus here is on tragedy because this genre is presented on the Greek stage regularly, and, therefore, it is an eloquent example of the evolution of acting in Greece. Sophocles's Electra has been chosen as a case study not only because the play was frequently staged throughout the twentieth century, but primarily because it was acted and directed by important actors and directors who occupied quite different positions within the Greek theatre field. Thus it is a play that provides the most potent example of the development of the acting schools in question.

This thesis is an empirical study using Greek actors and directors as its primary source. In giving them a strong voice, it follows their creative process and their perception of their roles and productions. At the same time, it provides a historical context for understanding the conditions of Greek theatre life and their impact on Greek actors and their work.


This paper computes the sensing capacity of a sensor network, with sensors of limited range, sensing a two-dimensional Markov random field, by modeling the sensing operation as an encoder. Sensor observations are dependent across sensors, and the sensor network output across different states of the environment is neither identically nor independently distributed. Using a random coding argument, based on the theory of types, we prove a lower bound on the sensing capacity of the network, which characterizes the ability of the sensor network to distinguish among environments with Markov structure, to within a desired accuracy


Conventional agriculture systems of production often lead to environmental degradation, economic problems and even social conflict. The efficacy of agriculture systems conducive to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of farming operations has been demonstrated, yet the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices is not widespread. This study evaluates the barriers of sustainable agriculture by wheat farmers in Takestan using a descriptive–correlation survey methodology. This quantitative study was based on a Researcher made questionnaire designed to elicit the barriers to adoption of sustainable agriculture practices perceived by a sample of 149 wheat farmers in the Takestan (N=268), through a stratified random sampling technique. Instrument validity was confirmed by a panel of experts. The reliability estimated by Cronbach's coefficient (α=0.905). The data has been analyzed using the SPSS (16). The results revealed that the high cost of sustainable agriculture was the most important barriers in its implementation (M=4.74). The findings of multiple regressions explained that farmer's attitudes and practices of sustainable agriculture explained 89 percent of the variance of the barriers of sustainable agriculture. Farmer's attitudes had the most influence on the determination of the barriers of sustainable agriculture (β=0.775).


CARLOS MENEM is President of Argentina. In this era of industrialization, Argentina is making an effort to insert its economy into the international system, an endeavor which can only be compared to the previous effort made by our country over a century ago. Argentina initially incorporated itself into the world economy through agricultural and livestock exports to Europe and particularly Great Britain. Our country embarked on a process of economic development that by its first centennial rendered Argentina among the world's most prosperous nations. Globalization of the economy, a phenomenon prompted by the technological and communications revolution, offers a formidable possibility of growth. Today, efforts to integrate Argentina into the changing global economy are accompanied by a firm determination to integrate the Argentine economy with those of its neighboring countries, especially Brazil and Chile through Mercosur. From here on, the course is set toward integration with the United States and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), both of which are engines of growth and investment. Simultaneously, we are focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, the largest emerging market of our time and the generator of a formidable expansion in the demand for food products. This world scenario reflects an extensive transfer of resources from countries demanding foodstuffs to those producing them. Argentina is already the eighth largest producer in the world and, more significantly, the fifth largest exporter of food products. The outcome of this effort towards internationalization can be seen in concrete terms. There has been a significant increase in productivity of the Argentine economy since the process began. Private consultants and our official sources agree in estimating that productivity has increased at a rate of 5.5 percent per year since 1990. Given that the total rise in productivity in the Asia-Pacific area is only 2.5 to 3 percent per year, this achievement is truly extraordinary. Influenced by new structural conditions in the world economy, most developing countries have begun to pursue their national interests through competition for foreign investment. For this reason, the key to the success or failure of a country such as Argentina in the 1990s is its capacity to attract investment from the world's largest corporations. In Mercosur, including Chile as an associate member, the top 100 world corporations are already present, in concrete productive undertakings. What differentiates our current effort toward economic expansion from that of the late nineteenth century is that today all of the Argentine provinces can actively share in the process of globalization and take advantage of the possibilities offered by the reconversion of the national economy. In recent years overall Argentine exports have grown less than the exports of the so-called regional economies. The provinces that remained outside of the first effort of economic integration are now able to attract direct foreign investment, allowing them to internationalize their economies independently of Buenos Aires. The profound transformation achieved in Argentina constitutes an authentic national project. It should be added that this economic achievement, which we consider truly revolutionary, would not have been possible had Argentina not introduced equally substantial changes in its foreign policy, within the process of steadily ongoing institutional consolidation. Several decades of internal conflict that lasted into the early 1980s put the country in a position of profound political instability, which unhinged the economy and resulted in an ill-advised foreign policy that increasingly isolated us year after year. For some time, Argentina lost consciousness of its Western orientation and devised for itself a leading role in a Third World to which it had been historically alien. Democratic Transformation We are now in a position to affirm that the new and definitive Argentina was born in 1983. …


This study examined road-safety management in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC countries). The main topics reviewed were recent crash statistics, key governmental agencies in charge of road safety, road-safety programs, influential organizations outside of the government, key research institutes, and major barriers to improvement. The main findings are as follows: (1) Each BRIC country has governmental organizations with responsibilities for road safety. However, none of these countries has a single lead governmental unit responsible for national road safety. (2) The Russian Federation has a strategic road-safety plan, including a specific target for reduction of road fatalities. The strategic safety plan of China is limited to certain types of roads, and it aims to reduce fatality rates per vehicle. In Brazil and India, there is not yet any road-safety plan or road-safety targets. (3) There are several non-governmental organizations involved in road-safety work in Brazil, the Russian Federation, and India, but not in China. (4) Road-safety research is conducted in each of the four countries. (5) All four countries have recently introduced several new road-safety interventions. However, the introduced interventions are not based on a systems approach that would involve comprehensive measures supporting each other, or they are not applied uniformly throughout the country.


BACKGROUND: Eosinophils in induced sputum and exhaled nitric oxide (NO) are currently used as non-invasive markers in the assessment of airway inflammation in asthma. As both sputum eosinophils (%) and exhaled NO are raised in asthmatic subjects not receiving inhaled steroids and decreased following corticosteroid therapy, a relationship between them is plausible. METHODS: Exhaled NO was measured by chemiluminescence analyser, sputum induction by 3.5% saline inhalation, and bronchial responsiveness was measured as PC20FEV1 methacholine in 35 stable asthmatic patients using beta 2 agonist alone and the correlation between these non-invasive markers of airway inflammation was studied. RESULTS: There were significant correlations between exhaled NO and PC20 (r = -0.64), exhaled NO and sputum eosinophils (%) (r = 0.48), and also between sputum eosinophils (%) and PC20 (r = -0.40). CONCLUSION: The correlation between exhaled NO and PC20 suggests that exhaled NO or the mechanisms leading to its increase may contribute to airway hyperresponsiveness in asthma. Furthermore, the relationship between sputum eosinophils (%), exhaled NO, and PC20 highlight the potential use of eosinophils (%) in induced sputum and exhaled NO to monitor the severity of asthma.


: Most of the signs of ageing can be related to volume loss. Dermal fillers are substances which can be injected beneath the skin, that helps restore the lost volume. They are gel like in consistency. 1 Patients seeking orthodontic therapy often also present with adjuvant soft tissue deformities. The soft tissue deformity caused by an underlying skeletal or dental deformity will be self-corrected by orthognathic and/or orthodontic treatment. The inherent soft tissue deformities like decreased lip length, increased or decreased lip thickness, inadequate vermillion show, can be addressed by injecting dermal fillers, Botulinum Toxin A and cosmetic surgical soft tissue procedures.


The present investigation hypothesized that the reliability of reduced-thickness monolithic lithium disilicate crowns is high relative to that of veneered zirconia (Y-TZP) and comparable with that of metal ceramic (MCR) systems. CAD/CAM first mandibular molar full-crown preparations were produced with uniform thicknesses of either 1.0-mm or 2.0-mm occlusal and axial reduction, then replicated in composite for standard crown dies. Monolithic 1.0-mm (MON) and 2.0-mm CAD/CAM lithium disilicate crowns, the latter with a buccal thin veneer (BTV) of 0.5 mm, were fabricated and then sliding-contact-fatigued (step-stress method) until failure or suspension (n = 18/group). Crack evolution was followed, and fractography of post mortem specimens was performed and compared with that of clinical specimens. Use level probability Weibull calculation (use load = 1,200 N) showed interval overlaps between MON and BTV. There was no significant difference between the Weibull characteristic failure loads of MON and BTV (1,535 N [90% CI 1,354–1,740] and 1,609 N [90% CI 1,512–1,712], respectively), which were significantly higher than that of Y-TZP (370 N [90% CI 322–427]) and comparable with that of MCR (1,304 N [90% CI 1,203–1,414]), validating the study hypothesis.


The thin-client approach for gaming is becoming more popular. For instance, Nvidia Shield, Valve Steam and Shinra technologies have offerings based on the concept. In remote cloud gaming, the game is being executed and processed in the cloud while the user receives a video and audio stream of the game, in a very similar way as with remote desktop clients. At the same time, clouds are moving towards the end-users as "edge clouds" with different standardization bodies, such Open Mobile Edge Cloud and Open Fog Consortium, giving momentum for the efforts. Were remote gaming approaches to utilize edge clouds, the games could be played without installing any infrastructure at the homes of end-users while keeping network delays to the latency-sensitive games low. While waiting for such edge-cloud deployments to substantiate, even regional clouds could be utilized for the purpose. In such environments, remote cloud gaming can already now be utilized by game companies as an alternative to traditional download-and-install games in order to support, e.g., anti-piracy protection. While the incentives for the game companies are relatively clear, the end-user experience has been investigated mainly from the viewpoint of latency. In this paper, we fill a research gap related to energy efficiency by showing that mobile phone users can save between 12 and 32 % power by utilizing remote gaming instead of playing with a native app. Our prototype is based on GamingAnywhere open-source software for which we have also integrated a gamepad for easier controls. We show power measurements both with a 2D and 3D games, and also additional measurements with a smart TV-stick.


We describe a new species of megophryid frog in the genus Leptolalax from the Kon Tum Plateau in northeastern Cambodia. Leptolalax melicus sp. nov. is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of an off-white to pale pink ventral surface with diffuse dark brown blotches and distinct white speckling, finger I < II, an absence of webbing and dermal fringes on fingers, slight basal webbing and no dermal fringes on toes, body size (19.5–22.7 mm for seven adult males), an absence of ventrolateral glandular lines, dorsum mostly smooth with no skin ridges, and a unique advertisement call consisting of a single long introductory note containing 8–50 pulses, followed by 3–11 predominantly single-pulsed notes, and with an average dominant frequency of 3560–3610 Hz. Leptolalax melicus can be further distinguished from the morphologically similar L. applebyi in having more distinct dorsal patterning, and significantly larger pectoral and femoral glands. Leptolalax melicus and L. applebyi also differ by 6.1% sequence divergence at the 16S mtDNA gene. All specimens of L. melicus were found near rocky streams in evergreen forest between 650–850 m elevation. We suggest the new species should be considered Data Deficient following IUCN's Red List categories.


Data warehouses have been traditionally optimized for read-only query performance, allowing only offline updates at night, essentially trading off data freshness for performance. The need for 24x7 operations in global markets and the rise of online and other quickly-reacting businesses make concurrent online updates increasingly desirable. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art approaches fall short of supporting fast analysis queries over fresh data. The conventional approach of performing updates in place can dramatically slow down query performance, while prior proposals using differential updates either require large in-memory buffers or may incur significant update migration cost.
 This paper presents a novel approach for supporting online updates in data warehouses that overcomes the limitations of prior approaches, by making judicious use of available SSDs to cache incoming updates. We model the problem of query processing with differential updates as a type of outer join between the data residing on disks and the updates residing on SSDs. We present MaSM algorithms for performing such joins and periodic migrations, with small memory footprints, low query overhead, low SSD writes, efficient in-place migration of updates, and correct ACID support. Our experiments show that MaSM incurs only up to 7% overhead both on synthetic range scans (varying range size from 100GB to 4KB) and in a TPC-H query replay study, while also increasing the update throughput by orders of magnitude.


This paper critically reviews the existing research on the cost-effective prevention and treatment of diarrheal diseases, and identifies research priorities in this area aimed at finding ways to reduce the diarrheal disease burden. In contrast to the empirical knowledge base that exists for traditional child health programs to reduce diarrheal morbidity and mortality, evidence on the relative effectiveness and costeffectiveness of various environmental health interventions is limited and subject to significant methodological concerns. There is a limited understanding of the determinants of longterm water and sanitation technology adoption and behavior change at the individual level. Even less is known about how collective action problems in water and sanitation infrastructure maintenance can be overcome. An agenda for future research includes evaluating alternative transmission interruption mechanisms, improving understanding of the determinants of individual-level technology adoption in the water and sanitation sector, and assessing the quality of infrastructure maintenance under different management schemes.


Gated communities are a new "hot button" in many North American cities. From Boston to Los Angeles and from Miami to Toronto citizens are taking sides in the debate over whether any neighborhood should be walled and gated, preventing intrusion or inspection by outsiders. This debate has intensified since the hard cover edition of this book was published in 1997. Since then the number of gated communities has risen dramatically. In fact, new homes in over 40 percent of planned developments are gated n the West, the South, and southeastern parts of the United States. Opposition to this phenomenon is growing too. In the small and relatively homogenous town of Worcester, Massachusetts, a band of college students from Brown University and the University of Chicago picketed the Wexford Village in November of 1998 waving placards that read "Gates Divide." These students are symbolic of a much larger wave of citizens asking questions about the need for and the social values of gates that divide one portion of a community from another.