One of the beliefs about growing up in America is that anyone can accomplish anything they set out to do, regardless of the obstacles that stand in their way. But research is showing that for children growing up in poverty, the reality is not quite as rosy as the dream. In the United States today, children are more likely to fall below the poverty line than any other age group, including the elderly. Approximately one in five children under the age of 18 and one in four under the age of six live in families whose annual income falls below the federal poverty threshold ($15,141 for a two-parent family with two children and $9,137 for a single parent with one child, $11,186 with two children, and $14,335 with three children). Between 1970 and 1992, poverty rates for children increased almost 50 percent. Welfare expenditures more than tripled. The ramifications of such widespread poverty are quickly becoming apparent. Poverty has been shown to be associated with lower IQ scores, poorer school performance, and increased odds of dropping out of school. It also increases the chances of experiencing poverty as an adult, in turn leading to another generation of impoverished children. Associate Professor Elizabeth Peters of the Department of Consumer Economics and Housing has studied the effects of poverty on educational attainment. Her research has found that being poor - combined with additional factors such as family background and characteristics, the educational attainment of parents, and sources of family income - can have a significant effect on how far children go in school and their overall aptitudes in math and reading. "The effects of income and other factors on child and adolescent outcomes have important implications for programs affecting poor children, "says Peters, who also is a principle investigator with the Family and Child Well-Being Research Network, a national group of scholars whose work is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. For her research, Peters used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The survey began its data collection in 1979 with a sample of adolescents, ages 14 to 21. "I chose to look at kids who were 14 and 15 in 1979 because I wanted to make sure I had a group who were still living with their parents," she says. "That way we could measure parental income and other family background characteristics." In 1980 all the adolescents in the survey were given the Armed Forces Qualification Test, a measure of cognitive achievement used by the armed forces to determine enlistment eligibility. The subjects in Peters's sample were 15 and 16 at the time. "We looked at them again in 1989 when they were 24 and 25 to see how far they had progressed with their education," Peters says. "I'm also looking at their experiences in the labor market and their earnings, based on data collected in 1990." One goal of Peters's research was to measure family income over time. Most previous studies had only looked at income at one point in time. "Income is extremely variable, and people go in and out of poverty quite frequently, especially those families right on the edge," she says. "We wanted to see if income proved to be a more important factor when measured over time. We were able to measure it over three years." She found that educational attainment and test scores rose in direct correlation to increases in income. Peters also points out that she was measuring family income during adolescence rather than during childhood. She found that although income is still important in adolescence, it is less so than during early childhood. Various family characteristics proved to be important to children's educational attainment. Education of the parents was one, as demonstrated by the higher test scores and higher levels of education exhibited by subjects whose parents had progressed further in school. …


Background and Design. - Epilepsy is the most frequent neurologocical disorder after migraine during pregnancy. In this report, we aimed to determine the situation of epilepsy and pregnancy patients and share our clinical experiences in our country that prepregnancy consultation is insufficient. 44 epilepsy and pregnancy patients, whose gestational surveys were made at Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine Department of Obstetric and Gynecology, were involved. The cases were evaluated by demographic characteristics like age, parity, gravida as well as how many years they had epilepsy, the last time of their seizure and the epileptic drugs they used before pregnancy. Results. - The mean delivery week was 39±0.7 weeks, and birth weight was 3291±474g. The mean epilepsy period was 11.7±9 years and epilepsy type was grand mal in 79.6%, petit mal in 4.5%, partial epilepsy in 15.9%. It was found that 24 of the 44 (54.5%) epilepsy and pregnancy patient had seizure during their follow-up. The seizures were more often seen during first 12 weeks and the patients that stopped taking antiepileptic drug treatment. 9 of the 11 patients (81.8%) that discontinued receiving drugs had an epileptic seizure. It was seen that only 22 epileptic pregnant patient had prepregnancy consultation. Conclusion. - The major goal in the follow-up of pregnancy and epilepsy patients should be taking seizures under control with minimum drugs. It can be possible to obtain good outcome almost like general population with appropriate approach and follow-up strategies. *Anahtar Kelimeler: Gebelik, Epilepsi * Key Words: Pregnancy, Epilepsy


Decision Support System (DSS) is a computer technology that is used to support decision making and problem solving processes. It was first implemented in forestry in early 1980s mainly for temperate forests but few for Malaysian forests. A DSS model for forest plantation in Malaysia is therefore needed because the forest plantation programmes is rapidly taking place. The objectives of this study are to propose a specific DSS model for supporting decision making process in selecting appropriate suitable species based on site conditions and economic parameters, and to develop a prototype based on the initial designed DSS model.
In this study, four tree species were used as data samples to develop the model and these are Azadirachta excelsa, Acacia mangium, Hevea brasiliensis and Tectona grandis. An economic module was also incorporated in the model giving users the ability to make predictions on potential cost and benefit margins of the four timber species to be planted. The prototype was developed using Windows platform with Oracle JDeveloper. Java programming language was used to develop this prototype. he development of the prototype follows the initial designed of the DSS model. A survey was also conducted using questionnaire as well as interviews to evaluate the usability of this model. Eight usability factors used in the survey include efficiency, understandability, operability, attractiveness, error prevention, learnability, accuracy and effectiveness.
Results from the survey indicated that the user satisfaction index for all usability factors of the DSS model was 0.43. This implies that the respondents were quite satisfied with the model. Furthermore, this study also shows that the factors of understandability, attractiveness and operability of the model have the highest user satisfaction index compared to other usability factors. Results from the interview session reflect some weaknesses of this model and suggestions were given to improve the model.
In conclusion, the objectives of this study which are to develop a DSS model and a prototype for Malaysian forest plantation management were achieved. The DSS model is usable to support the decision making process for commercial tree planting in Malaysia. The economic parameters gave new insight on costing and the environmental parameters also complement the DSS model. This study revealed that respondents were quite satisfied with the proposed DSS model. However, additional environmental parameters particularly slope elevation and drainage need to be included. Other tree species and the use of weighing method should also be included to improve the DSS model.


The safe operation of marine turbine generators is a crucial concern in industries and academics. It is always important to monitor the health status of marine turbine generators. The lubricant oil usually carries abundant information on the turbine operation conditions. Various oil parameters of the turbines have been used in the existing monitoring systems. However, many of them conflict with each other by contrary detection results. Hence, it should eliminate the redundant oil parameters for efficient condition monitoring. Although many research studies addressed the redundant feature reduction issue using principal component analysis (PCA), PCA is designed for features with a linear relationship, which is not the case in marine turbine generator monitoring. This paper proposes a new nonlinear analysis method, the improved control-limit based PCA, to extract distinct failure indicators from the oil parameters of marine turbine generators. The contribution of this method is that the Hotelling statistic and Q statistic are combined to calculate a fixed control limit for PCA. The ability of the improved PCA to dealing with nonlinearity has been significantly enhanced by the proposed method. Experimental validation demonstrates that the extracted failure indicator using the proposed method is more effective than existing monitoring indexes with respect to fault detection accuracy.


In a young child, not all wheezing is asthma.
Children under the age of 5 need a different approach to the diagnosis and management of asthma to that in adults and older children.
Transient (limited to a few months or years) wheezing in infancy is more likely to be a function of small airways, and wheezing in the first year of life does not persist as asthma in two-thirds of those afflicted.
The differential diagnosis of wheezing in a young child includes: gastro-oesophageal reflux, cystic fibrosis, aspiration, immune deficiency, TB, bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
A clue to the origin of wheeziness in children in South Africa may be failure to thrive or poor weight gain.
Other history and examination clues are found in the markers of specific diseases, such as stigmata of AIDS, tuberculosis, congenital cardiac disease, cystic fibrosis and gastro-oesophageal reflux.
It is as important to treat inflammation in the persistent chronic young asthmatic as it is in the older child and adult; however, some special situations exist.
Viruses play an integral role in early childhood asthma and there is marked interplay between allergy / atopy and viral infections.
There is mounting evidence from 3 studies that treating asthma in young children with leukotriene receptor antagonists at the time of a viral-induced asthma exacerbation is useful.
The decision on how to treat a child depends on his / her current level of control, current impairment and individual risk factors.


This chapter focuses on video game-playing as a locus for media engagement and everyday social interaction. Game-playing is analysed from a multimodal perspective: as a temporally unfolding, interactionally accomplished event shaped by the game as a material and semiotic structure which the players attend to in their verbal and nonverbal actions. The chapter investigates how adolescents playing a console-operated video game in the home environment draw upon the game's discourse locally, in the situated, emergent activities through which they co-construct social play. Detailed analysis of data reveals how players produce their utterances in an indexical way, incorporating specific locally available discursive resources in their talk and adjusting to the constantly changing contexts presented by the game.


We have obtained several autonomously replicating plasmids in procyclic Trypanosoma brucei. Two of these have been analyzed in detail. Both exist as monomeric single‐copy episomes, which nevertheless demonstrate significant stability. These episomes transform procyclics at frequencies that are at least 60‐fold higher than those achieved earlier with non‐replicating molecules. A modified version of one of these episomes is able to replicate autonomously in bloodstream form T. brucei but it is unstable in this developmental stage of the organism. These episomes will prove useful as shuttle vectors, in functional complementation studies, in the construction of promoter‐traps for the isolation of transcriptional promoters in T. brucei, and importantly, as models for the analysis of DNA replication in this ancient eukaryotic lineage.


Fanny (Mendelssohn) Hensel (1805–1847) produced at least 250 lieder during her short life. Of these, 34 settings were to poems by Goethe. As a group, the settings of Goethe poetry show great creativity through variety in form, melodic invention, harmonic interest and manipulation of the text. These settings span her entire compositional life, and her response to Goethe's poetry is varied. Rather than showing a consistent progression of style development, she reacted to the need of the poem before her, not to a preconceived notion of form or style. Her creative approach to lieder reflects her position at the beginning of the Romantic era as a composer who built upon, and moved beyond, the legacy of the Second Berlin School and her teacher Friedrich Zelter. This dissertation discusses in detail eleven examples of Goethe settings by Hensel, nine already published and two from manuscript sources at the Mendelssohn Archive in Berlin. The songs include a variety of forms, among them the late strophic "Dammrung senkte sich von oben" (1843), the modified strophic setting "Sehnsucht," and the rondo "Neue Liebe, Neues Leben". Also discussed are the two versions of "Wenn ich mir in stiller Seele" which are through-composed settings of the poem written for Hensel by Goethe in 1827; the second version has just been published in research by Hans-Gunther Klein (2011). The other six through-composed settings ("Sehnsucht nach Italien," "An Suleika," "Ist es moglich, Stern der Sterne," "Mignon," "Wonne der Wehmut," and "Hausgarten") are discussed in terms of their poetic setting, especially their use of repetition of text ("An Suleika"), diminished seventh chords ("Wonne der Wehmut" and "Dammrung senkte sich von oben") modulations ("Sehnsucht"), and rhythmic variety ("Hausgarten" and "Neue Liebe, Neues Leben"). Two lieder, "Wonne der Wehmut" and "Ist es moglich, Stern der Sterne" have not been published and will be presented in a transcription from the manuscript. Fanny Hensel's ability to use choice of form, melodic invention, harmonic coloration and freedom with the text, in service to the poetry produced interesting, expressive lieder. Although unrecognized during her lifetime and only seriously considered from the 1980's onward her works show the development of the through-composed form and a robust melodic inventiveness that earn her a position of consideration next to Schubert in the history of the early romantic lied.


Purpose
Evidence on implementing effective adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions in the European context is underdeveloped. The purpose of this paper is to identify evidence-based mental health promotion and prevention interventions for adolescents that have been developed and/or implemented across the school, community and digital settings in Europe. This review also sought to identify the relevant implementation processes in relation to what works, for whom and under what circumstances.

Design/methodology/approach
A narrative synthesis of the evidence was conducted which included two stages: a systematic search of studies assessing adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions; and a selection of interventions with the most robust evidence base, using pre-defined criteria, that have been either developed and/or implemented in Europe.

Findings
A total of 16 interventions met the inclusion criteria. The majority of interventions were school-based programmes. The review findings support the delivery of interventions aimed at enhancing young people's social and emotional learning (SEL) and preventing behavioural problems. Results indicate that the effective delivery of SEL interventions on a school-wide basis could provide an important platform on which other universal interventions such as anxiety and bullying prevention, and targeted depression prevention could be developed in a multi-tiered fashion. There were a limited number of studies providing robust evidence on the effectiveness of suicide prevention, digital and community-based interventions.

Originality/value
This review identifies a number of robust evidence-based promotion and prevention interventions for promoting adolescent mental health. While the interventions have been implemented in Europe, the majority has not been evaluated rigorously and few included detailed information on the quality of programme implementation. Evidence of the effective cross-cultural transferability of these interventions needs to be strengthened, including more systematic research on their implementation across diverse country contexts.


ABSTRACT The bipartite record linkage task consists of merging two disparate datafiles containing information on two overlapping sets of entities. This is nontrivial in the absence of unique identifiers and it is important for a wide variety of applications given that it needs to be solved whenever we have to combine information from different sources. Most statistical techniques currently used for record linkage are derived from a seminal article by Fellegi and Sunter in 1969. These techniques usually assume independence in the matching statuses of record pairs to derive estimation procedures and optimal point estimators. We argue that this independence assumption is unreasonable and instead target a bipartite matching between the two datafiles as our parameter of interest. Bayesian implementations allow us to quantify uncertainty on the matching decisions and derive a variety of point estimators using different loss functions. We propose partial Bayes estimates that allow uncertain parts of the bipartite matching to be left unresolved. We evaluate our approach to record linkage using a variety of challenging scenarios and show that it outperforms the traditional methodology. We illustrate the advantages of our methods merging two datafiles on casualties from the civil war of El Salvador. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Abstract A comprehensive treatment of Ordovician crinoids from southwestern Europe is presented, including taxa based on articulated crowns and stems. This summary incorporates new material, new localities, and a revision of some southwestern Europe occurrences. The first record of an Ordovician crinoid from Portugal, Delgadocrinus oportovinum n. gen. and sp., is reported, and this is the oldest known crinoid from the Iberian Peninsula (Arenigian/Oretanian boundary, early Darriwilian). Geographic and temporal ranges of several crinoids are revised from peri-Gondwanan areas in southwestern Europe and northern Africa or modified with new Iberian material. The Spanish range of Heviacrinus melendezi Gil Cid et al., 1996 is extended down into the lower upper Oretanian, and Merocrinus millanae Ausich et al., 2002 is restricted to the upper lower Dobrotivian. The stratigraphic position of Ortsaecrinus cocae Gil Cid et al., 1999b is restricted to the early middle Berounian, and the range of Visocrinus castelli Ausich et al., 2002 is restricted to the late middle Berounian (see Fig. 2). New topotype material of Morenacrinus silvani Ausich et al., 2002 is reported that furthers understanding of the occurrence this taxon, which was previously only positively known from the holotype.


Abstract
 Chronic sinusitis is a common health problem that causes loss of productivity throughout the world, which is treated by variety of means.
Aim: To evaluate the effect of N- acetylcysteine on nasal mucociliary clearance by Andersen, saccharine method.
Materials and method: Study was conducted in thirty normal adult subjects and sixty patients in age group of 19- 55 years of chronic sinusitis diagnosed on the basis of major & minor criteria of sinusitis and substantiated by radiology. The nasal mucociliary clearance was evaluated before and after the treatment with N- acetylcysteine and levofloxacin with Andersen's method, in which a saccharin particle of 1.5mm diameter was used.
Result: Nasal mucociliary clearance time in 30 healthy controls was 8.37 ± 1.54, 30 chronic sinusitis patients before treatment 18.4 ± 2.73 minutes and 11.24 ± 2.51 minutes after treatment with levofloxacin & N- acetylcysteine respectively. In group C, it was 19.52 ± 2.26 minutes before treatment and 13.37 ± 2.58 minutes after treatment with levofloxacin. The difference in mean value of two samples after treatment was statistically significant.
Conclusion: N – acetylcysteine mucolytic agent in combination of antibiotic is helpful for the treatment of chronic sinusitis, which not only helps in removal of stagnated mucus by improving nasal mucociliary clearance but also help the antibiotic to be more effective.


The puzzle assembly problem has many application areas such as restoration and reconstruction of archeological findings, repairing of broken objects, solving jigsaw type puzzles, molecular docking problem, etc. The puzzle pieces usually include not only geometrical shape information but also visual information such as texture, color, and continuity of lines. This paper presents a new approach to the puzzle assembly problem that is based on using textural features and geometrical constraints. The texture of a band outside the border of pieces is predicted by inpainting and texture synthesis methods. Feature values are derived from these original and predicted images of pieces. An affinity measure of corresponding pieces is defined and alignment of the puzzle pieces is carried out using an FFT based image registration technique. The optimization of total affinity gives the best assembly of puzzle. Experimental results are presented on real and artificial data sets


Background: Age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is a form of hearing loss in over 60-years-olds and has a negative impact on quality of life. Presbycusis is multifactorial and is predominately characterised with a loss of speech perception in noise. In the cochlea, auditory filters decompose broadband sound into a series of narrowband output signals, which contains two kinds of temporal information: slow changes in overall amplitude envelope (ENV) and faster variations in temporal fine structure (TFS). TFS is important for recognition of target speech in noise. The main aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of TFS rehabilitation training in participants over the age of 60 years with mild to moderate hearing loss. Methods: A randomised clinical trial conducted on 30 participants with mild (loss of 20-39dB HL) to moderate (40-69dB HL) hearing loss, aged between 60 and 75 years old. Participants with conductive hearing loss, abnormal middle ear pathology and central nervous system disease were excluded. Participants were selected randomly to an intervention and control group with a 1:1 ratio. Rehabilitation for the intervention Group are 30-minute sessions three times a week for a total five weeks of vowel consonant vowel words that are used to eliminate ENV and keep only TFS. Word in noise test, binaural TFS test, and Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale scores are performed at the beginning and end of study to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation training. Conclusion: Life expectancy in the elderly has improved, leading to an increased prevalence of age-related diseases including presbycusis. A literature review highlighted that TFS damage is permanent; however, in this study we will attempt to prove that TFS training may lead to speech in noise perception improvement. Trial registration: Registry of Clinical Trials, IRCT2019625044006N1 (7 th August 2019).


"Globalization" can be understood as a grand experiment to test the laissez-faire doctrine of neoclassical economics, which claims that a capitalist economy will become more efficient and stable as markets spread deeper and wider around the world. The "once a century" global economic crisis of 2007-9 stands as a testament to the failure of this grand experiment. Following the lead of Wicksell and Keynes, this article argues that a capitalist economy is subject to an inevitable trade-off between efficiency and stability because of its essentially "speculative" nature. First, while a financial market requires the participation of a large number of professional speculators to support its risk-diversifying function, competition among professionals can be likened to a Keynesian beauty-contest that constantly exposes financial markets to the risks of bubble and bust. Second and more fundamentally, the use of "money" itself-the ultimate source of efficiency in a capitalist economy-is also the ultimate source of its instability. To hold money is to take part in the purest form of the Keynesian beauty contest, since we accept money only because we expect everybody else to accept it as money in turn. A speculative money bubble can plunge the real economy into depression, while a speculative money bust eventually leads to hyperinflation. Indeed, the Wicksellian theory of cumulative process shows that any disturbance in monetary equilibrium triggers a disequilibrium process that cumulatively drives all nominal prices further away from equilibrium. The Keynesian principle of effective demand demonstrates that it is the stickiness of nominal wages that saves the capitalist economy from its inherent instability, albeit at the expense of full employment. This article also contends that in the context of the current global crisis, monetary instability has manifested itself in the form of the collapse of liquidity in the financial markets as well as in the form of the loss of confidence on dollar as the key currency of global capitalism.


In this paper we present a stability analysis approach for polynomially-dependent one-parameter systems. The approach, which appears to be conceptually appealing and computationally efficient and is referred to as an eigenvalue perturbation approach, seeks to characterize the analytical and asymptotic properties of eigenvalues of matrix-valued functions or operators. The essential problem dwells on the asymptotic behavior of the critical eigenvalues on the imaginary axis, that is, on how the imaginary eigenvalues may vary with respect to the varying parameter. This behavior determines whether the imaginary eigenvalues cross from one half plane into another, and hence plays a critical role in determining the stability of such systems. Our results reveal that the eigenvalue asymptotic behavior can be characterized by solving a simple generalized eigenvalue problem, leading to numerically efficient stability conditions.


The organs and tissues of the human body comprise of an astonishing variety of cells as different in morphology and function as muscle cells and neurons. Amazingly, despite their different protein contents, they largely contain the identical genomic information. In order to understand the processes that enable this differentiation, we need to determine the underlying regulatory mechanisms. A very recent discovery in this context was the posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression by microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are small RNA molecules that mediate translational repression and degradation of mRNA transcripts through partial complementarity to their 3' untranslated region (UTR) . Among the first miRNAs to be identified, let-7 stands out for its high conservation in sequence and developmental functions in development throughout the animal kingdom. During my PhD, I studied the role of let-7 in Caenorhabditis elegans in the context of two distinct processes of tissue development, namely differentiation of the epidermis (called hypodermis), and morphogenesis of the vulva. The functions of the let-7 miRNA in formation of the adult cuticle have been extensively studied and are well understood. let-7 controls differentiation of specific, mitotically active epidermal cells by inducing cell cycle exit, fusion, and switch to an adult specific transcriptional program upon repression of targets such as lin-41, daf-12, hbl-1 and let-60/ras. I set out to identify novel interactors of let-7 in a genome-wide RNAi screen for suppression of the lethal let-7 bursting phenotype. Candidates were then verified using fluorescence-based reporter systems for onset of hypodermis differentiation and intensity of repression of a known target. Thereby, I was able to validate a whole set of novel members of the let-7 network, comprising genes downstream in the pathway as well as potential regulators of let-7 activity. Notably, both groups of repressors contain factors required for cell cycle progression and mitosis, which indicates an active crosstalk between let-7 and the cell-cycle machinery. In a second project, I explored the molecular basis for the prominent let-7 vulval bursting phenotype. Despite the absence of overproliferation or any other obvious phenotype in vulval morphogenesis, I was able to show that let-7 activity is required in the vulva, and that its major function in this context is repression of a single target, namely lin-41. Disruption of let-7 binding to lin-41 through modification of the let-7 complementary sites by CRISPR/Cas9 mediated genome editing suffices to trigger the bursting phenotype, proving that repression of a single target is the key function of the miRNA in this context. In summary, my work shows that while both differentiation of hypodermis as well as vulval integrity are mediated through repression of lin-41, the downstream effect of this regulation seem to differ, suggesting that let-7 can be wired to control distinct processes depending on the cellular context. With respect to the latest findings both in C. elegans as well as in mammals, it will be interesting to determine if this depends on differential molecular functions of LIN-41 in the two tissues.


Background: Cadmium (Cd) is an embryotoxic and teratogenic metal in a variety of animal species, but data from humans are limited. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of maternal Cd exposure in pregnancy on size at birth. Methods: This prospective cohort study was nested in a population-based nutritional supplementation trial in pregnancy conducted in rural Bangladesh. We selected women recruited from February 2002 through January 2003 who had a singleton birth with measurements of size at birth and had donated a urine sample in early pregnancy for Cd analyses (n = 1,616). Urinary Cd was measured with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and adjusted for specific gravity. Results: Multiple linear regression analyses adjusted for sex and other potential confounders showed that maternal urinary Cd (median, 0.63 μg/L) was significantly negatively associated with birth weight [unstandardized regression coefficient B = –31.0; 95% confidence interval (CI): –59, –2.8] and head circumference (B = –0.15; 95% CI: –0.27, –0.026). However, associations appeared to be limited to girls, with little evidence of effects in boys. A 1-μg/L increase in Cd in maternal urine was associated with a 0.26-cm (95% CI: –0.43, –0.088 cm) and 0.24-cm (95% CI: –0.44, –0.030 cm) decrease in girls' head and chest circumferences, respectively, and a 45-g (95% CI: –82.5, 7.3 g) decrease in birth weight. Quantile regression analyses indicated that associations with maternal Cd were similar for girls of smaller (25th percentile) and larger (50th and 75th percentiles) sizes at birth. Conclusion: We found evidence of a sex difference in the association between maternal Cd exposure and birth size, which was apparent only in girls. Results add support for the need to reduce Cd pollution to improve public health.


Cognitive radio is one of the modern techniques for wireless communication systems to utilize the unused spread spectrum effectively. This novel paradigm makes wireless communication possible with less interference. In our work we have investigated one of the functions of cogni- tive radio called spectrum sensing. We have specifically used the method of Cyclostationary fea- ture detection. Spectrum sensing is also a very effective method to detect spectrum holes and to utilize them. We have implemented spectrum sensing technique in these experiments. A signal is randomly generated which could be Binary shift phase keying (BPSK) or Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), then this modulated signal is passed through Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), The output signal of AWGN is then passed to cyclostationary detector, various func- tions are pre-implemented inside cyclostationary detector and this includes Fast Fourier trans- form (FFT), Auto correlation, Sliding window to identify that signal. Finally we have demon- strated the results of signal to noise ratio to show the performance evaluation of our experiments. The results have shown a decreasing trend in the probability of incorrect detection by increasing signal to noise ratio.


Trafficking of protein and lipid cargo through the secretory pathway in eukaryotic
cells is mediated by membrane-bound vesicles. Secretory vesicles are targeted to sites of
exocytosis on the plasma membrane in part by a conserved multi-subunit protein complex
termed the exocyst. In addition to tethering vesicles to the plasma membrane, the exocyst
complex and components therein may also add a layer of regulation by directly
controlling assembly of the SNARE complex, which is required for membrane fusion, as
well as other regulatory factors such as Sec1p. In the past, we have shown that Sec6p
interacts with Sec9p in vivo and that that interaction retards binary SNARE complex
formation in a SNARE assembly assay. Though many interactions have been mapped
using in vitro methods, confirming them in vivo and placing them into the context of a
complete model that accounts for all observed interactions (and lack of interactions) has
proven difficult.

In order to address these problems, I have studied the interactions between Sec6p
and other factors involved in exocytosis at the plasma membrane via in vivo methods. My
hypothesis was that Sec6p interaction with Sec9p and subsequent inhibition of SNARE
complex assembly in vitro was an intermediate state and Sec6p was part of a set of
cofactors that accelerated SNARE complex assembly in vivo . To test this hypothesis I
showed that the interaction between the plasma membrane t-SNARE Sec9p and the yeast
exocyst subunit Sec6p can be observed in vivo and designed point mutations to disrupt
that interaction. Interestingly, I also showed that Sec6p:Sec9p interaction involves the
free pool of Sec6p rather than the exocyst bound fraction of Sec6p.

Point mutations in the N-terminal domain of Sec6p result in temperature sensitive
growth and secretion defects, without loss of Sec6p-Sec9p interaction. However, at the
non-permissive temperature, the exocyst subunits Sec5p, Sec10p and Sec15p are
mislocalized and are absent from the exocyst complex. The resulting subcomplex,
containing Sec3p, Sec8p, Exo70p and Exo84p, remains stably assembled and localized at
sites of polarized secretion. This subcomplex is likely due to disruption of interaction
between Sec6p and Sec5p, and may be similar to that observed at restrictive temperatures
in the sec6-54 temperature sensitive mutant.

Additionally, one of the sec6 temperature sensitive mutants displays a loss of
binding to the yeast regulatory protein Sec1p. In vitro binding studies indicate a direct
interaction between Sec1p and the free pool of the wild-type Sec6p protein, suggesting
close interplay between Sec6p and Sec1p in the regulation of SNARE complexes. A
coherent model which incorporates all these interactions has continued to be elusive.
However, the results I have found do suggest several hypotheses which should prove
testable in the future.


One puzzlement of statutory interpretation is that so many statutory canons run contrary to likely legislative preferences, sound policy, or even the judicial self-interest in avoiding being legislatively overridden. The first conflict seems inconsistent with honest agent theories of interpretation, including theories (like mine) that counsel judges to resolve statutory uncertainty in ways that maximize the satisfaction of enactable political preferences. The second conflict seems inconsistent with traditional legal models of interpretation that assume judges should exercise their own policy judgment in resolving statutory uncertainty. The third conflict seems inconsistent with more cynical modern rational choice models that assume judges try to push their own ideological views as far as they can without being overruled. These puzzlements are deepened by the commonplace observation that judges do not consistently apply these canons but often ignore them or apply counter-canons. This article argues that the solution to these puzzlements is to understand many canons as preference-eliciting statutory default rules, which maximize the satisfaction of enactable political preferences by eliciting a legislative reaction that eliminates uncertainty about what those preferences are. Such preference-eliciting default rules will, however, enhance political satisfaction only when one interpretive default rule is sufficiently more likely to elicit a legislative response to outweigh a weak estimate that another interpretation might better match enactable preferences. The seemingly inconsistent application of these canons can then be explained because this theory indicates these canons should not be uniformly applied but rather should be (and generally are) applied only in cases where these limited conditions are satisfied. Where the preferences of neither the enacting nor current legislatures can be reliably estimated or elicited, courts should and do use default rules that track the preferences of political subunits or, where that is unavailing, that limit the variance of judicial judgment. Various alternative default rules - like interpreting all statutory ambiguities to disfavor interest groups, protect reliance interests, or reduce the effect or change caused by the statute - should be rejected because they are not limited to cases where they satisfy the conditions for maximizing political satisfaction but rather advance one view on substantive controversies that the political process is supposed to resolve.


ABSTRACT In Portugal, brewer's spent grain (BSG) is produced in huge quantities as a by-product with moisture of 70–80%. Under environmental conditions, because of its high moisture and fermentable sugar content, BSG becomes an environmental problem after a short time (7–10 days). Thus, it must be transported to animal farms to be consumed within that period of time. In this paper, the application of a new technology of membrane filter press to achieve higher drying levels of BSG cake was studied. BSG, after being mixed with water, was filtered, water-washed, membrane-squeezed, and vacuum-dried reaching lower moisture levels (20–30%). The process cycle is approximately 115–180 min. Filtration was carried out at different feed pressure (3–5 bar) and different slurry concentrations (10–30 kg/m3, dry weight) with and without diatomite filter aid precoat. Specific cake resistance, α, was found to increase with feed pressure increase and to decrease with slurry concentration increase with average values 1.86 × 1012 and 2.25 × 1013 m/kg for cakes produced with and without filter aid precoat, respectively. Cake dewatering via membrane squeezing was applied using hot water (65°C) and cake moisture was dropped from ∼80% before squeezing to 51% after squeezing. Five minutes were found to be enough for that stage to be accomplished. With vacuum application over the hot cakes for 30 min, cake moisture decreased to ∼20% for cakes with an average thickness, 0.7 cm. The produced cake loses more moisture by storing in open air (on the shelf), reaching an equilibrium value of 10.1% in less than 2 days. No bacterial activities were observed on the cake by storing for a 6-month period on the shelf. The drying levels achieved allow the cake to be stored in open air without bacterial activities facilitating its use as animal feed, at any time, and as a start material for other related BSG uses.


The application of alcohol fuels on spark ignition (SI) engine has recently become an attraction as an alternative to gasoline fuel. This is due to the concerns on environmental pollution, depletion of fossil fuels, and stringent regulation. Alcohol fuel is indeed an attractive alternative fuel as it had been found to improve octane number, enhance oxygen content, and reduce carbon monoxide emissions. One of the well-known alcohol fuels is methanol fuel that can be blended with gasoline to produce better engine operation in spark ignition engine. Blended methanol-gasoline fuels can be improved further by adding higher carbon number alcohol, such as isobutanol, as they have higher energy content and they are able to displace more gasoline fuels than methanol-gasoline fuels. However, studies concerning the addition of iso-butanol in lower ratio methanol-gasoline fuels, specifically on fuel properties and engine operation, have not been investigated thoroughly. Therefore, this research looked into the feasibility of the iso-butanol additive (5, 10, 15%) into a lower ratio of 5% methanol-gasoline blended fuel (M5) on unmodified spark ignition engine. The performances of iso-butanol additive in methanol-gasoline blends were compared with base gasoline fuel. Experimental investigation on the characterization of the isobutanol additive on lower ratio methanol-gasoline blended fuel was first performed. The characterization of fuel involved was density, lower heating value, kinematic viscosity, latent heat of vaporization, Reid of vapour pressure and oxygen content. Other than that, engine testing was performed by using four-cylinder spark ignition engine to test all the blended fuel involved. The engine performance, such as brake power, brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), and exhaust gas temperature (EGT), had been determined. For exhaust emissions, the parameters, such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and unburned hydrocarbon (HC), were also measured. From the test results, improvement was recorded at kinematic viscosity, density, latent heat of vaporization, and oxygen content for iso-butanol additive of 5%, 10%, and 15% with 5% of the methanol-gasoline fuel blends. On the other hand, a reduction was recorded for both heating value and Reid vapour pressure for all blended fuel with iso-butanol additive in comparison to that of base fuel. Moreover, as for engine performance, M5B15 displayed improvement in engine brake power, BTE, and EGT compared to other blended fuels. Nevertheless, higher fuel consumption was recorded for all methanolgasoline blended fuels with iso-butanol additive compared to base gasoline fuel. In terms of engine emissions, M5B15 exhibited the lowest CO and HC emissions compared to base gasoline fuel. However, the increasing trend projected by NOx and CO2 emissions had been recorded in all iso-butanol additive in methanol-gasoline fuels with M5B15 exerting the highest emissions. Thus, it can be concluded that isobutanol additives are indeed a viable option to be blended with the existing lower ratio methanol-gasoline as an alternative fuel for the operation of spark ignition engine.


The focus of this article is on relations between classroom interaction, curricular knowledge and student engagement in diverse classrooms. It is based on a study with ethnographic perspective in which two primary school classes in Sweden were followed for three years. The analysis draws on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The results indicate that language use in the classrooms is on a basic everyday level and that high teacher control results in low-demanding tasks and low engagement among students. Interaction in the classrooms mainly consists of short talk-turns with fragmented language, frequent repairs and interruptions, while writing and reading consists of single words and short sentences. Although the classroom atmosphere is friendly and inclusive, second language students are denied necessary opportunities to develop curricular knowledge and Swedish at the advanced level, which they will need higher up in the school system. The restricted curriculum that these students are offered in school thus restricts their opportunities to school success. Thus, I argue for a more reflective and critical approach regarding language use in classrooms.


This paper addresses the contemporary criticism to the European Court of Human Rights in the UK by underscoring how the English law on human rights has been positively influenced by the laws of other European countries, in the same fashion as English law has traditionally influenced such foreign laws. The means for this analysis is a case-study on the introduction of the French law on slavery and the subsequent implementation of such principles in England. Slavery had been abolished in France since the early 1300s. Moorish slaves brought to France were being freed from at least 1571, as was recorded by Jean Bodin in 1576. In England, slavery had practically disappeared at the sunset of the Middle Ages. It resurfaced in the French and American colonies in the New World in the 1600s. In the period 1730-1790 French courts, citing Bodin, freed over 200 slaves brought to France from the colonies. In Somerset v Stewart, 1772, English courts finally held that slavery was not recognised by English law, which led to the termination of slavery in England once and for all; and it was the influence of French courts' decisions on the bestowal of freedom to foreign slaves that led to the reasoning of the English Court.


We introduce a greedy transition-based parser that learns to represent parser states using recurrent neural networks. Our primary innovation that enables us to do this efficiently is a new control structure for sequential neural networks—the stack long short-term memory unit (LSTM). Like the conventional stack data structures used in transition-based parsers, elements can be pushed to or popped from the top of the stack in constant time, but, in addition, an LSTM maintains a continuous space embedding of the stack contents. Our model captures three facets of the parser's state: (i) unbounded look-ahead into the buffer of incoming words, (ii) the complete history of transition actions taken by the parser, and (iii) the complete contents of the stack of partially built tree fragments, including their internal structures. In addition, we compare two different word representations: (i) standard word vectors based on look-up tables and (ii) character-based models of words. Although standard word embedding models work well in all languages, the character-based models improve the handling of out-of-vocabulary words, particularly in morphologically rich languages. Finally, we discuss the use of dynamic oracles in training the parser. During training, dynamic oracles alternate between sampling parser states from the training data and from the model as it is being learned, making the model more robust to the kinds of errors that will be made at test time. Training our model with dynamic oracles yields a linear-time greedy parser with very competitive performance.


The Aconcagua River Basin, located in north-central Chile, is an important agricul- tural region of the country. However, several copper mining industries are also lo- cated in this basin. A total of 103 topsoil samples were collected at varying distances from mining industries. There were no statistically significant differences between the sampling areas with regard to organic matter content and copper concentration. However, the sampling areas were significantly different with regard to soil pH. Soils of the Putaendo sampling area exhibited the lowest pH values (mean of 6.3), while the highest pH values (mean of 7.1) were measured in the Catemu - Chagres sampling area. In the sampling areas where mining activities were absent, the to- tal copper concentrations ranged from 70-155 mg kg -1 . These concentrations are a result of the geological setting and/or of applications of copper-containing fungi- cides. High copper concentrations (above 700 mg kg -1 , with a maximum of 4000 mg kg -1 ) were generally observed near mining activities or in areas where mining activities were located nearby and upstream. In these sampling areas, the copper concentrations differed by an order of magnitude in nearby locations. These high and heterogeneously-distributed copper concentrations most likely resulted from either modern or former mining activities.


Title of dissertation: MANY-BODY EFFECTS IN GRAPHENE Wang-Kong Tse, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Dissertation directed by: Professor Sankar Das Sarma Department of Physics Graphene is a novel material that features a quasi-relativistic linear energy dispersion with the quantum mechanical motion of electrons obeying the massless Dirac equation. In this dissertation, we study the many-body effects in graphene due to Coulomb interaction and electron-phonon interaction. Interaction effects can appear in both transport and electronic properties. For many-body effects in transport, we formulate the theory for Coulomb drag in double-layer graphene. We calculate the drag resistivity and study its dependence on temperature, density and interlayer spacing, finding zero drag if one of the graphene layers is intrinsic (i.e., undoped) and a non-zero drag exhibiting a similar behavior to regular bilayer drag if both graphene layers are extrinsic (i.e., doped). For many-body effects in electronic properties, we formulate the theory for quasiparticle and phonon renormalization due to Coulomb and electron-phonon interaction. We first study renormalization of electron properties due to Coulomb interaction by calculating the renormalized quasiparticle parameters from the electron self-energy, showing that intrinsic graphene behaves as a marginal Fermi liquid and extrinsic graphene behaves as a regular Fermi liquid. We then study renormalization of electron properties due to electron-phonon interaction. We calculate the electron self-energy and the renormalized quasiparticle velocity, finding that the renormalized band structure exhibits a kink at the phonon energy in agreement with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiment. We finally study renormalization of phonon energy due to electron-phonon interaction. We calculate the phonon self-energy and the renormalized phonon energy dispersion, showing that multiple Kohn anomalies arise which are completely different from the Kohn anomaly in usual metals. MANY-BODY EFFECTS IN GRAPHENE


This two-part article provides a pictorial history of selected New Jersey hospitals from a postcard collection at UMDNJ-University Libraries Special Collections Department. The two articles are organized by four types of New Jersey hospital postcards.


The 2003 review of the common agricultural policy (CAP) has introduced several new policy tools, among which is cross compliance. The introduction of this new policy entails production costs, along with other types of costs arising at the farm level: administrative, information and organisational costs, called transaction costs. The purpose of this paper is to determine the nature of transaction costs and to assess them. A survey conducted in 2006 among a sample of 39 farmers followed by a descriptive statistical analysis (multiple correspondence analysis, MCA) permits to associate farmer profiles with different levels of incurred transaction costs. These profiles reveal the impact which the farmers' responsibilities (professional networks) and the role of voluntary commitments previously undertaken may have on the nature and importance of transaction costs. This paper opens up new perspectives on the adoption criteria that should be taken into account in the evolution of agri-environmental regulations.


The lactating mammary gland contains a stem cells population with multilineage potentialities. Recently it was also shown that breast milk contains a heterogeneous population of stem cells that have the potential to differentiate in vitro , under the control of specific differentiation conditions, into mammary epithelial as well as into adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic cell lineages. While the different types of cells present in the milk is known, what is less understood is the proportion of different milk cell types, their significance for the mother and the infant and factors influencing them. In this manuscript we summarize some of the latest knowledge from in vivo and in vitro investigations on breast milk stem cells, we discuss their potential functions and applications and we present some of our preliminary data obtained in fresh human breast milk cells. Proceedings of the 2 nd International Course on Perinatal Pathology (part of the 11 th International Workshop on Neonatology · October 26 th -31 st , 2015) · Cagliari (Italy) · October 31 st , 2015 · Stem cells: present and future Guest Editors: Gavino Faa, Vassilios Fanos, Antonio Giordano


Much of the chemistry that affects life on planet Earth occurs in the condensed phase. The TeraHertz
(THz) or far-infrared (far-IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum (from 0.1 THz to 10 THz,
3 cm-1 to 300 cm-1, or 3000 μm to 30 μm) has been shown to provide unique possibilities in the
study of condensed-phase processes. The goal of this work is to expand the possibilities available in
the THz region and undertake new investigations of fundamental interest to chemistry. Since we are
fundamentally interested in condensed-phase processes, this thesis focuses on two areas where THz
spectroscopy can provide new understanding: astrochemistry and solvation science.
To advance these fields, we had to develop new instrumentation that would enable the experiments
necessary to answer new questions in either astrochemistry or solvation science. We first
developed a new experimental setup capable of studying astrochemical ice analogs in both the TeraHertz
(THz), or far-Infrared (far-IR), region (0.3 - 7.5 THz; 10 - 250 cm-1) and the mid-IR (400 -
4000 cm-1). The importance of astrochemical ices lies in their key role in the formation of complex
organic molecules, such as amino acids and sugars in space. Thus, the instruments are capable of
performing variety of spectroscopic studies that can provide especially relevant laboratory data to
support astronomical observations from telescopes such as the Herschel Space Telescope, the Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
(ALMA). The experimental apparatus uses a THz time-domain spectrometer, with a 1750/875 nm
plasma source and a GaP detector crystal, to cover the bandwidth mentioned above with ~10 GHz
(~0.3 cm-1) resolution. Using the above instrumentation, experimental spectra of astrochemical ice analogs of water and
carbon dioxide in pure, mixed, and layered ices were collected at different temperatures under high
vacuum conditions with the goal of investigating the structure of the ice. We tentatively observe a
new feature in both amorphous solid water and crystalline water at 33 cm-1 (1 THz). In addition,
our studies of mixed and layered ices show how it is possible to identify the location of carbon dioxide
as it segregates within the ice by observing its effect on the THz spectrum of water ice. The THz
spectra of mixed and layered ices are further analyzed by fitting their spectra features to those of
pure amorphous solid water and crystalline water ice to quantify the effects of temperature changes
on structure. From the results of this work, it appears that THz spectroscopy is potentially well
suited to study thermal transformations within the ice. To advance the study of liquids with THz spectroscopy, we developed a new ultrafast nonlinear
THz spectroscopic technique: heterodyne-detected, ultrafast THz Kerr effect (TKE) spectroscopy.
We implemented a heterodyne-detection scheme into a TKE spectrometer that uses a stilbazoiumbased
THz emitter, 4-N,N-dimethylamino-4-N-methyl-stilbazolium 2,4,6-trimethylbenzenesulfonate
(DSTMS), and high numerical aperture optics which generates THz electric field in excess of
300 kV/cm, in the sample. This allows us to report the first measurement of quantum beats at terahertz
(THz) frequencies that result from vibrational coherences initiated by the nonlinear, dipolar
interaction of a broadband, high-energy, (sub)picosecond THz pulse with the sample. Our instrument
improves on both the frequency coverage, and sensitivity previously reported; it also ensures
a backgroundless measurement of the THz Kerr effect in pure liquids. For liquid diiodomethane, we
observe a quantum beat at 3.66 THz (122 cm-1), in exact agreement with the fundamental transition
frequency of the υ4 vibration of the molecule. This result provides new insight into dipolar
vs. Raman selection rules at terahertz frequencies. To conclude we discuss future directions for the nonlinear THz spectroscopy in the Blake lab.
We report the first results from an experiment using a plasma-based THz source for nonlinear
spectroscopy that has the potential to enable nonlinear THz spectra with a sub-100 fs temporal
resolution, and how the optics involved in the plasma mechanism can enable THz pulse shaping.
Finally, we discuss how a single-shot THz detection scheme could improve the acquisition of THz
data and how such a scheme could be implemented in the Blake lab. The instruments developed
herein will hopefully remain a part of the groups core competencies and serve as building blocks
for the next generation of THz instrumentation that pushes the frontiers of both chemistry and the
scientific enterprise as a whole.


Customer segmentation is one of the most traditional and valued tasks in customer relationship management (CRM). In this paper, we explore the problem in the context of the car insurance industry, where the mobility behavior of customers plays a key role: different mobility needs, driving habits and skills imply also different requirements (level of coverage provided by the insurance) and risks (of accidents). In the present work, we describe a methodology to extract several indicators describing the driving profile of customers, and provide a clustering-oriented instantiation of the segmentation problem, based on such indicators. Then, we consider the availability of a continuous flow of fresh mobility data sent by the circulating vehicles, aiming at keeping our segments constantly up-to-date. We tackle a major scalability issue that emerges in this con- text when the number of customers is large, namely the communication bottleneck, by proposing and implementing a sophisticated distributed monitoring solution, which reduces the communications between vehicles and company servers to the essential. Finally, we validate the framework on a large database of real mobility data, coming from GPS devices of private cars.


This research investigates how customer experience (CX) professionals experience learning through their use of digital technologies in organisations, and considers the implications for organisational learning. A phenomenographic methodology was used to compare the variation in employees' experiences of learning, and the research employed a conceptual framework of post-structuralism and complexity to investigate how digital technologies affect organisational learning and knowledge management. Complexity Leadership Theory was used as a way to interpret the complexity dynamics that occur through digitally mediated interactions in organisations, and provided a way to conceptualise these interactions as taking place in 'adaptive spaces'. The research found that a lack of etiquette regarding the use of digital tools can adversely affect processes of meaning-creation during the technology-mediated work of CX professionals. The findings indicate that a more intentional use of technology – a 'digital etiquette' – can be viewed as a dynamic capability, and has the potential to improve the way in which CX professionals contribute to organisational learning. The findings also demonstrate that improving digital etiquette in adaptive spaces is an appropriate response to problems of knowledge management under conditions of complexity. The research will be of interest to those seeking a clearer understanding of the potential of the CX function to contribute to organisational learning, and also to those aiming to design programmes of learning that prepare students effectively for complex environments.


This thesis investigates the word order in the main and embedded clauses of four Swedish monolingual children, covering the age range 1;3–4;0. Using a generative framework, a quantitative and qualitative analysis focusing on the syntax of verb placement and complementizers is presented. Chapters 1 to 4 offer a background to the thesis. In chapter 1 the aims and the material are presented. Chapter 2 provides a generative analysis of verb placement and complementizers, constituting the descriptive framework of the empirical studies. Chapter 3 discusses some theoretical issues in language acquisition research and their implementation into the study. Particular attention is paid to the relation between input and output. Finally, chapter 4 depicts some methodological considerations. Chapters 5 to 8 present the empirical results. It is shown that Swedish children are exposed to a robust input of verb movement to the second position in the clause, C°, whereas the input frequency for the absence of verb movement from V° is very low. In embedded clauses the input is ambiguous between verb movement and absence of movement. Also Swedish children are exposed to both overt and covert complementizers. Early on, three children productively and consistently move the finite verb to the second position (C°) in main clauses. The fourth child acquires verb movement in main clauses gradually. The finite verb initially seems to surface in its base-generated position (V°), then in a medial position (I°) and finally in the second position (C°). All four children had mastered verb movement to the second position in main clauses when they started producing embeddings with overt and covert complementizers. Finally, all children occasionally over generalize verb movement in embedded clauses by incorrectly placing the verb before a sentence adverbial instead of after it. Chapter 9 discusses the theoretical ramifications by evaluating the empirical results in the light of the theoretical issues discussed in chapter 3. Especially I argue against a particular structure-building hypothesis to functional differentiation which states that overt complementizers trigger the acquisition of the CP-layer. Furthermore, I propose that inaccurate verb movement in embedded clauses in Swedish children is the result of an ambiguous input. This suggests a greater role for input than traditionally assumed in generative acquisition studies. (Less)


Several bacterial species in the caeco-colic region of rabbit gut have been identified as pectinases producers that degrade pectin substances. Pectinases are used in food, pulp/paper and textile industries. This study aimed to isolate, identify pectinolytic bacteria in rabbit gut, select and optimize best producers followed by partial purification and characterization of extracellular crude pectinases produced.
 Initially, pectinolytic bacterial species from caecum and colon of high fiber fed rabbits were isolated and characterized. Bacillus subtilis, B. pumilus, B. ginsengihumi, B. megaterium, B. licheniformis and Paenibacillus spp. were identified. Profile of extracellular pectinases showed that pectin-methyl esterase (PME) was rarely produced, followed by polygalacturonase (PG) while pectin lyase (PL) was most commonly and substantially produced by strains isolated. B. subtilis 1E7 was the best producer of PG and PL. Pectinase production by B. subtilis 1E7 was optimized using response surface methodology for influence of cultural temperature and agitation as independent variables in a central composite design for allocation of treatment combinations which generated 13 experimental runs. The PG and PL responses were analysed using Design Expert 8.0 and Stat-Ease statistical software to validate the responses by graphical and numerical approaches. Second order polynomial was fitted and adequate for PG (p<0.01) and PL (p<0.01) productions while R2 values were 0.9215 and 0.9746 respectively. Predicted PG and PL productions were 0.56U/ml and 111.49U/ml respectively under cultural conditions of 38°C; 190rpm which agreed with practical experiment. Pectinase produced by B. subtilis 1E7 in yeast pectin broth at predicted conditions was purified using ammonium sulphate (40 – 90% saturation) with subsequent dialysis, gel filtration and anion exchange chromatography, desalting was by gel filtration on sephadex C-25. The partially purified pectinase was characterised for pectinolytic performance and stability under certain physico-chemical conditions. Catalytic performance of the pectinase was influenced by temperature, pH and substrate concentrations of the reaction mixtures with maximum PG activity at 60°C, pH 9 and 10mg/ml respectively while PL activity optimised at 60°C, pH 10 and 16mg/ml respectively. The pectinase showed stability at broad range of temperature (40°C-70°C) and pH (7-12). Vmax and Km values were 0.53U/ml, 1.29mg/ml respectively for PG and 64.52U/ml, 4.13mg/ml respectively for PL. PG and PL activities were significantly enhanced in the presence of Ca2+. However, while PG showed no effect in the presence of Mg2+, Co2+, Glycine and Mercapto-ethanol, slight inhibition was observed in Hg2+, Fe3+ and EDTA. Similarly, PL showed no effect in Mg2+, Co2+, glycine and Mercapto-ethanol but the inhibitory effects of Hg2+ and Fe3+ were significant while the extreme inhibitory effect of the chelating EDTA on the lyase suggested that pectate lyase was present. Liquid chromatography-Mass spectroscopy analysis confirmed presence of polygalacturonase and pectate lyases produced by a B. subtilis in our partially purified pectinase.
 In summary, a novel B. subtilis 1E7 strain that produced alkaline and thermo-stable pectinase with alkaliphilic and thermophilic activity showing resistance towards some known potent inhibitors such as Hg2+, glycine and mercapto-ethanol were identified from rabbit gut. These characteristics indicated structural strength of the pectinase and its suitability for industrial use.


A large exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Collages with particular concentration on the final series created from 2001 developing the theme of 'Sacred Interiors'.

The series Sacred Interiors, explores the relationship between the physical and metaphysical world with particular reference to Islamic Art and geometric structure.

*Keith Critchlow writes "The Islamic art of geometric form, then can be considered the crystallization stage, both of the intelligence inherent in manifest form and as a moment of suspended animation of the effusion of content through form. The physical and metaphysical is also explored in the relationship between 'real', 'imagined' and 'invented". Baroque spatial construction (trompe l'oeil, anamorphic distortion, and illusion) is also relevant: "The picture is neither a real object or an imaginary object" (Barthes**)

Ryan observes "Lancaster deals with … the collapse of physically occupied space and surface which in turn also reflects the potentiality of layering as being both literal and also a condensation of perceptual memory"***

The visual statement is constructed in an abstract, decorative painted language using geometry as structure; colour and form are included to create spatial ambiguity. The series introduces a new vocabulary based on rigorous exploration and experimentation of more unfamiliar artists' materials. The stencil and spray painting technique (for which there is little precedent) is used with precision and finesse. The approach and application to these paintings is original.
A committee of internationally recognised artists and academics are on the selection panel for the APT gallery in London.

* 'Islamic patterns, An analytical and cosmological approach' Keith Critchlow, 1976
**Roland Barthes, 'Is painting a language? Responsibility of Forms', New York 1999
***Exhibition Catalogue, Krefelder Kunstverien, Germany 2000.


By any standard measure, the United States is currently the most powerful country in the history of the world. Its defense budget of US$440 billion in 2007 (US$560 billion if one includes the budgets for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) is greater than the combined military expenditure of the rest of the world. In 2003 the International Institute for Strategic Studies calculated that the US defense budget was greater than the combined budgets of the next 13 countries and more than double the combination of the remaining 158 countries. Potential challengers cannot even begin to rival this power. The European Union can compete with the United States in terms of population and GNP, but it does not have the will or the institutional ability to act in concert on foreign or security initiatives. Russia, which until relatively recently was considered the closest challenger, retains vast armies but lags dramatically in military spending and technological development. The United States even outspends China, the nation most often mentioned as a challenger, by about seven to one. China is a formidable economic powerhouse, but only spends 3.9 percent of its GDP on defense, whereas it would have to spend about 25 percent to begin to rival the United States. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Yet in spite of this extraordinary and quite unprecedented preeminence, the United States has been unable to impose its will on the impoverished state of Afghanistan, on the sectarian chaos that is Iraq, or even on an organization, Al Qaeda, which is led by a few men believed to be hiding in caves in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What does it say about traditional conceptions of the balance of power when the most powerful country on the planet cannot effectively apply its power to achieve its objectives? The inability of the United States to achieve its security objectives is not due to the fact that other countries have balanced or "bandwagoned" against it, as traditional conceptions of a balance of power mechanism would have claimed. On the contrary, most of our would-be rivals share the United States' desire to destroy Al Qaeda, have supported its efforts to rebuild Afghanistan, and have acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, to its operations in Iraq. Indeed the United States has failed to achieve its security objectives because it has failed to appreciate the nature of the adversaries it faces and because of its inability to transform its military might into an effective arsenal against these adversaries. Military Strength Misapplied On September 11, 2001, a small substate group inflicted greater casualties on US civilians than any enemy government had ever inflicted on the United States before. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 servicemen and 68 civilians, and vastly more US citizens were killed by fellow countrymen in the course of the Civil War, but an attack from an enemy state of this scale was simply unprecedented. In the words of President George W. Bush, "September 11 changed our world." Vice President Dick Cheney was more specific, commenting on NBC News that "9/11 changed everything. It changed the way we think about threats to the United States. It changed our recognition of our vulnerabilities. It changed in terms of the kind of national security strategy we need to pursue, in terms of guaranteeing the safety and security of the American people." The US government nevertheless responded in an entirely traditional way: it declared war. However, rather than declaring war on an enemy state, it declared war first on the tactic of terrorism and later, and even less sensibly, on the emotion of terror. As a practical matter, however, it waged a conventional war--first against Afghanistan, whose government had harbored the terrorists who committed the attacks on New York and Washington, and later against Iraq, whose government had no connection to these same attacks. Its overwhelming military force brought down both governments in short order and with little cost in terms of US lives. …


This paper presents the first detailed study of a large assemblage of late Pleistocene artefacts from the central desert. Analysis of the lithics shows show that Puritjarra rock shelter was used more intensively over time, with significant shifts in the character of occupation at 18,000, 7,500 and 800 B.P., reflecting significant re-organization of activities across the landscape. The same generalized flake and core technology appears to have been used for over 30 millennia with only limited change in artefact typology over this period.


A fundamental feature of learning in animals is the "ability to forget" that allows an organism to perceive, model, and make decisions from disparate streams of information and adapt to changing environments. Against this backdrop, we present a novel unsupervised learning mechanism adaptive synaptic plasticity (ASP) for improved recognition with spiking neural networks (SNNs) for real time online learning in a dynamic environment. We incorporate an adaptive weight decay mechanism with the traditional spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) learning to model adaptivity in SNNs. The leak rate of the synaptic weights is modulated based on the temporal correlation between the spiking patterns of the pre- and post-synaptic neurons. This mechanism helps in gradual forgetting of insignificant data while retaining significant, yet old, information. ASP, thus, maintains a balance between forgetting and immediate learning to construct a stable-plastic self-adaptive SNN for continuously changing inputs. We demonstrate that the proposed learning methodology addresses catastrophic forgetting, while yielding significantly improved accuracy over the conventional STDP learning method for digit recognition applications. In addition, we observe that the proposed learning model automatically encodes selective attention toward relevant features in the input data, while eliminating the influence of background noise (or denoising) further improving the robustness of the ASP learning.


Changes in the DNA content and organisation of senescing rice cell cultures (Taipei 309) were studied, using PCR and Southern blot analyses. A mitochondrial gene ( coxII ), a plastid gene ( psaA ) and a nuclear DNA maker ( RG64 ) were analysed. The amplification of mitochondrial (mt), plastid and nuclear DNA produced the expected fragments, indicating that there were still some intact organelles and nuclei in the senescing rice cells. However, in plastid and nuclear DNA, changes in the number and size of the PCR products were observed. Southern blot analysis revealed that mt and nuclear DNA contents declined, but plastid DNA content remained relatively the same throughout the senescence.


The dynamics of potentially harmful phytoplankton in relation to environmental parameters was investigated in the semi-enclosed Bay of Bandar Khayran (Sea of Oman) from April 2006 through April 2011. In total, 24 potentially harmful algal species were identified, including 11 species of dinoflagellates and eight species of diatoms. The dinoflagellates Prorocentrum minimum (Pavillard) Schiller, 1933, Scrippsiella trochoidea Balech ex Loeblich III, 1965, and Noctiluca scintillans (Macartney) Kofoid and Swezy, 1921 were most abundant during the Southwest Monsoon (SWM, July-September) and Northeast Monsoon (NEM, January-March) seasons, while other species occurred in low abundance and with no clear seasonal patterns. A dense bloom of Cochlodinium polykrikoides Margalef, 1961 that affected the distribution and abundance of other harmful algal species (HAB) was observed for the first time in the Sea of Oman during 2008-2009. Prorocentrum minimum increased in abundance during and after the decay of the Cochlodinium bloom while S. trochoidea was suppressed during this bloom, increasing thereafter once again. Noctiluca scintillans disappeared in the late SWM and NEM of 2008 and SWM of 2009, when blooms typically occur annually. Prorocentrum minimum and S. trochoidea persisted throughout the annual cycle of all years, enhancing their capability to bloom in the region under favorable conditions of high light intensities and relatively warm waters of low turbulence.


'You must be Odysseus, man of twists and turns...' The tales of Odysseus' struggle with a man-eating Cyclops and Circe, the beautiful enchantress who turns men into swine. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Next to nothing is known about Homer's life. His works available in Penguin Classics are The Homeric Hymns, The Iliad and The Odyssey.


Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen of major concern for public health in industrialised countries. Since L. monocytogenes carriage by pigs at the herd level could be a primary source for carcass contamination, control measures should be designed to reduce the L. monocytogenes load at the pre-harvest stage. For this purpose, an exploratory analytical survey was carried out in 2000-2001 in 93 French farrow-to-finish pig farms concerning L. monocytogenes contamination in pigs before they left for the slaughterhouse. On each farm, the L. monocytogenes status of a batch of contemporary fattening pigs housed in the same room was assessed on faecal material samples taken by means of gauze swabs wiped on the perianal region of the pigs. Fourteen percent of the batches studied had at least one contaminated sample and were therefore classified as L. monocytogenes contaminated batches. Two logistic regression models were used to assess the association between managerial and hygiene practices and the risk of L. monocytogenes contamination of the batch at the end of the finishing period on the whole data set (n = 93) and in the wet feeding farms only (n = 57). Wet feeding during the fattening period was identified as a risk factor for L. monocytogenes contamination. Risk factors related to the introduction of L. monocytogenes in pig facilities were identified for both the general and wet feeding farm data sets. Poor care paid to hygiene on the farms was found to increase the risk of being infected (boots cleaning, change room presence). When the duration of the empty period prior to the introduction of growing pigs was less than one day in the fattening section, the risk of L. monocytogenes contamination was significantly increased. For wet feeding farms, a distribution pipeline cleaning procedure including disinfection was found to be associated with a higher risk of contamination than no cleaning or a procedure consisting of rinsing with water only.


Observations of tropospheric N2O mixing ratio show significant variability on interannual timescales (0.2 ppb, 1 standard deviation). We found that interannual variability in N2O is weakly correlated with that in CFC‐12 and SF6 for the northern extratropics and more strongly correlated for the southern extratropics, suggesting that interannual variability in all these species is influenced by large‐scale atmospheric circulation changes and, for SF6 in particular, interhemispheric transport. N2O interannual variability was not, however, correlated with polar lower stratospheric temperature, which is used as a proxy for stratosphere‐to‐troposphere transport in the extratropics. This suggests that stratosphere‐to‐troposphere transport is not a dominant factor in year‐to‐year variations in N2O growth rate. Instead, we found strong correlations of N2O interannual variability with the Multivariate ENSO Index. The climate variables, precipitation, soil moisture, and temperature were also found to be significantly correlated with N2O interannual variability, suggesting that climate‐driven changes in soil N2O flux may be important for variations in N2O growth rate.


Transverse momentum spectra of charged pions, kaons, and protons are measured in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The particles, identified via their energy loss in the silicon tracker, are measured in the transverse momentum range of p(T) approximate to 0.1-1.7 GeV/c and rapidities vertical bar y vertical bar < 1. The pT spectra and integrated yields are compared to previous results at smaller ffiffiffi root s and to predictions of Monte Carlo event generators. The average pT increases with particle mass and charged particle multiplicity of the event. Comparisons with previous CMS results at root s = 0.9, 2.76, and 7 TeV show that the average pT and the ratios of hadron yields feature very similar dependences on the particle multiplicity in the event, independently of the center-of-mass energy of the pp collision.


The cascaded soliton spectral tunneling (SST) effect is proposed and numerically investigated in multiple optical fiber segments, which work together to transfer the soliton pulse over a wide wavelength span. A triple-cladding fiber and a solid core step-index photonic crystal fiber are carefully studied and demonstrated to have three zero-dispersion wavelengths (ZDWs), which can evoke the SST effect individually and therefore are good candidates for the cascaded SST effect. Such a cascaded SST scenario can be applied to optical wavelength conversions, and the transferred wavelength could be flexible tuned by tailoring the position of ZDWs. Numerical simulations in both fiber segments are shown, and a soliton transfer over 570 nm is demonstrated with two fiber segments. Meanwhile, soliton pulse compression and supercontinuum generation are also observed to accompany each SST effect.


We investigated the effect of legato and staccato articulation styles on the perception of modulated tempos. Ninety music majors served as participants. Listeners heard music examples that had been selected from two pieces, each of which included staccato and legato passages. Excerpts were presented to listeners in three conditions of tempo modulation: gradual increases, gradual decreases, or no change. Modulations were produced in small increments so that listeners would not notice any abrupt change in tempo. Results indicated that articulation style and direction of modulation affected listener perception of tempo, and these two factors interacted significantly. All staccato stimuli were judged as increasing in tempo more than legato stimuli; however, differences between the two articulation styles were perceived as larger in tempo-increase examples compared to the no-change and tempo-decrease examples. Implications for performance practice and teaching are discussed.


An advert in the "Calcutta Gazette" is looking for an apprentice draughtsman to accompany a scholar on an expedition to record avian life in Bengal. How can Anila Tandy, left to fend for herself in a city of rogues, dare to apply for a position that is clearly not meant for her? But the talented "Bird Girl of Calcutta" has never shrunk from a challenge. And perhaps this voyage up the Ganges might be just the thing to equip Anila in her search for her father, missing for years and presumed dead.


This case study aims at comprehensively assessing a decision by XYZ Ltd (name withheld due to confidentiality), New Delhi, on whether to build or to lease a recreation centre for its rank-and-file employees. Based on a cost–benefit analysis, we concluded that the centre should be built since the company would recover its investment within 11 years. Apart from the financial considerations, the recreation centre could be considered a long-term investment in employee morale, as it would lead to a better quality of life for the staff and their families, and is likely to enhance their sense of belonging and improve productivity. To date, what little space there is available for hosting family functions is reserved for the use of the officers, and only officers and their families are invited to most company functions. Thus, the other employees feel neglected by the management. Hiring a community centre external to the organisation for a function would involve spending a lot of money as the company is located in a prime real estate area where the cost of land and rentals is huge, and sometimes even availability is an issue. Most of the staff cannot afford such places and are generally under a lot of stress whenever they have a family function. This, in turn, tends to affect their productivity.


A 55 years old man self-presented to our Emergency Department (ED) reporting an attempted suicide by cutting the left forearm veins and ingesting approximately 200 mL of an herbicide (Myrtos®, containing 36% of glyphosate as isopropylamine salt). Laboratory tests showed metabolic acidosis. Hydration with normal saline and alkalinization with sodium bicarbonate was started according to suggestion of the poison control center, since an antidote was unavailable. Cardiorespiratory condition gradually worsened, so that non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) was applied and infusion of fluids was established. Nevertheless, the patient deteriorated and he needed to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where he underwent orotracheal intubation and invasive mechanical ventilation. Noradrenaline and adrenaline were infused and fluid resuscitation with crystalloids was incremented. An esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) showed diffuse mucosal erosions of upper digestive tract. No signs of visceral perforation were found during ICU stay. In the following days, the clinical conditions improved and a new EGD showed marked improvement of erosive lesions. After 12 days of ICU stay, the patient was extubated and then transferred to the Psychiatric Unit, in good clinical conditions. Gliphosate ingestion is associated with rapid development of multiple organ failure (MOF). Since an effective antidote is unavailable, major attention should be placed to aggressive life-support care and careful monitoring of complications. (www.actabiomedica.it)


The terrestrial environment is continuously exposed to electromagnetic radiations which set up a "background" electromagnetic noise. For what concerns electromagnetic waves in the Non Ionizing Radiation band (NIR), i.e. for frequencies lower than 300 GHz, the background can have a natural or an artificial origin. In the first case electromagnetic radiations have generally an atmospheric or a cosmic origin while in the second case human technologies, implanted for power transmission and communications, are the non 'natural' cause. In this paper, a brief description of the natural and man-made electromagnetic noise in the NIR band has been reported. Natural noise shows a very large variety of sources that involve different physical phenomena and cover a wide range of frequency showing various propagation characteristics with an extremely broad range of power levels. Due to the technological expansion man-made electromagnetic noise is nowadays superimposed on the natural noise almost everywhere on Earth. In residential and business areas, man-made noise has increased dramatically in the last tens of years exceeding the natural one and in certain cases overwhelming the natural noise. This circumstance has brought some to consider possible negative influences on human life and living systems in general. In all cases however both contributions form the background in which the terrestrial environment is immersed and investigations and detailed measurements are still required to understand their relative power levels in the different frequency bands and their influence on life in general. Some aspects of the electromagnetic field interaction with biological systems are also presented.


Purpose

This paper aims to address the research question of whether family social capital affects the degree of engagement in the entrepreneurial process in the case of hospitality and tourism (H&T) new ventures, and how this relates to environment-related motivations. In particular, drawing on a process-based approach of individuals' engagement in entrepreneurship, this paper provides new insights into the relationship between the perception of support by the family through the provision of bonding and bridging social capital and the decision to engage in the entrepreneurial process. The main contribution consists in the role of "following an environmental mission" that emerges as a motivation mediating the relationship between family resource provision and entrepreneurial engagement in the H&T industry.

Design/methodology/approach

For this exploratory study, we rely on cross-sectional observations from 2,923 individuals gathered through the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey, which collects information on career choices and preferences of university students around the globe. Given our focus on the early engagement process in entrepreneurship and the role of embeddedness in family structures, the use of a sample of young potential entrepreneurs such as students is particularly appropriate.

Findings

This study suggests that the family acts as a fundamental institution fostering entrepreneurship, both through the provision of bonding and bridging social capital, and the nurturing of attitudes toward the environment. The results indicate that, in the H&T industry, entrepreneurship can be a valuable means to pursue such attitude and is perceived as a way to proactively contribute to undertake responsible environmental activities.

Research limitations/implications

The study provides some implications for researchers, educators and policymakers interested in fostering entrepreneurial initiatives in the field, considering the role of a social-oriented mission as a vehicle to encourage profit-oriented entrepreneurial initiatives, and the importance of the family as a resource provider that fosters entrepreneurial engagement. The paper also discusses the strengths and limitations of this unique and broad cross-national sample.

Originality/value

Becoming entrepreneurs is depicted as climbing an entrepreneurial "ladder", whereby each individual's engagement along this process depends on a number of antecedents. Family bridging and bonding social capital, as well as following an environmental mission, emerge as important factors in the H&T industry, thus extending previous literature on the distinctiveness of this industry.


A series of batch laboratory studies were conducted in order to investigate the suitability of palm kernel shell (PKS)-based activated carbon for the removal of cadmium (cadmium ions) and zinc (zinc ions) from their aqueous solutions. Single and binary adsorption isotherms and kinetics were investigated. All batch experiments were carried out at a constant temperature of 30+1°C using an incubator shaker that operated at 150 rpm. A concentration ratio of cadmium and zinc used in the adsorption of binary system is 1:1.

Batch equilibrium studies showed that adsorption of cadmium and zinc were highly pH dependent. Uptake of cadmium and zinc increased with pH with maximum removal observed at pH 7.0, and decreased thereafter with further increase in the initial pH. In a single component system, the adsorption capacity of cadmium was higher than zinc, whilst in a binary component system, the adsorption capacity of zinc was higher than cadmium.
The single component equilibrium data was analyzed using the Langmuir, Freundlich and Redlich–Peterson isotherms. Overall, the Redlich-Peterson isotherm showed the best fit for all adsorption under investigation in terms of correlation coefficient as well as error analysis. For all the systems studied, the analysis of isotherm shape factor showed that the adsorption was favorable.

Equilibrium isotherms for the binary adsorption of cadmium (II) and zinc (II) ions onto PKS-base activated carbon have been analyzed by using the ideal adsorbed solution (IAS) theory, extended Langmuir (EL), modified extended Langmuir (MEL), modified extended Freundlich (MEF) and modified extended Redlich-Peterson (MERP) models. The binary isotherm data could be described reasonably well by the modified extended Langmuir model.

The kinetics of single and binary systems describing the sorption of cadmium and zinc have been investigated. The rate models evaluated include the pseudo first order, the pseudo-second order and the intraparticle diffusion models. Kinetic data showed that the adsorption rates were a function of initial adsorbate concentration. For both single and binary systems, the pseudo-second order model correlate excellently the experimental data, suggesting that chemisorption processes could be the rate- limiting step.


We present new algorithms to improve the performance of ENUF method (F. Hedman, A. Laaksonen, Chem. Phys. Lett. 425, 2006, 142) which is essentially Ewald summation using Non‐Uniform FFT (NFFT) technique. A NearDistance algorithm is developed to extensively reduce the neighbor list size in real‐space computation. In reciprocal‐space computation, a new algorithm is developed for NFFT for the evaluations of electrostatic interaction energies and forces. Both real‐space and reciprocal‐space computations are further accelerated by using graphical processing units (GPU) with CUDA technology. Especially, the use of CUNFFT (NFFT based on CUDA) very much reduces the reciprocal‐space computation. In order to reach the best performance of this method, we propose a procedure for the selection of optimal parameters with controlled accuracies. With the choice of suitable parameters, we show that our method is a good alternative to the standard Ewald method with the same computational precision but a dramatically higher computational efficiency. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


SUMMARY How effortful an action feels critically shapes everyday decisions. Despite the importance of perceptions of effortfulness for making choices, the behavioral and neural representations of the subjective cost of physical effort are not well understood. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity while participants engaged in risky choices for prospective physical effort independent of reward. Behaviorally we found that participants exhibited increasing sensitivity to changes in subjective effort as objective effort levels increased. Moreover, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) encoded the subjective cost of prospective effort options and integrated these representations to facilitate decisions regarding effort expenditure. These results provide insight into human decision-making by showing how neural representations of feelings of effortfulness engender choices about exertion.


Influenza virus entry is mediated by the receptor binding domain (RBD) of its spike, the hemagglutinin (HA). Adaptation of avian viruses to humans is associated with HA specificity for α2,6- rather than α2,3-linked sialic acid (SA) receptors. Here, we define mutations in influenza A subtype H5N1 (avian) HA that alter its specificity for SA either by decreasing α2,3- or increasing α2,6-SA recognition. RBD mutants were used to develop vaccines and monoclonal antibodies that neutralized new variants. Structure-based modification of HA specificity can guide the development of preemptive vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies that can be evaluated before the emergence of human-adapted H5N1 strains.


(a) NIST maintains lists of all bodies holding current NIST program certificates, together with the assessment areas for which they are issued. (b) NIST also maintains lists of those qualified conformity assessment bodies that are currently accredited by bodies recognized by NIST, along with the activities of the assessment bodies within the scope of the NIST recognition program. (c) The lists are made available to the public through various media, e.g., printed directories, electronic bulletin boards, or other means to ensure accessibility by all potential users. (d) With respect to the lists specified in paragraph (a) and (b) of this section, NIST may delist any body if it determines the action to be in the public interest.


THE INFLUENCE OF ANGER ON IMPLICIT BIASES Katherine Reiter, B.A. Marquette University, 2013 Interpretation of ambiguous information is influenced by anxious (Richards, Reynolds, & French, 1992) and depressive (Wisco, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010) symptoms. Emotion regulation strategies, and in particular, cognitive reappraisal has shown to be effective at reducing feelings of distress (Denson, Grisham, & Moulds, 2011). The current study seeks to understand the extent that emotion regulation can influence interpretation bias, thoughts and behaviors. In the current study, participants underwent both Angry and Neutral mood inductions. For each mood condition, participants were instructed to cognitively reappraise and attend to their emotions. Participants rated the degree of negative affect they experienced, and completed 6 sentence completion items to assess interpretation bias. Results indicated that participants exhibited an increased negative interpretation bias in the Angry condition relative to baseline. Following reappraisal, participants rated less negative affect in the Angry condition. Though, reappraisal did not change interpretation bias. However, self-report data indicated that individuals who tend to struggle to engage in emotion regulation techniques and those who endorsed higher levels of state anger, both showed greater negative affect following cognitive reappraisal and an increased negativity bias. Participants who reported that they engaged in cognitive reappraisal during the mood induction, exhibited an increased positivity bias. Results from this study indicate that cognitive reappraisal is an effective strategy to reduce feelings of negativity in an angry mood state, however, participants are still at risk for displaying a negative interpretation bias to ambiguous information.