Summary and Discussion
The results of all tests described above are summarized in table 5. It will be noted that among 125 sera, collected at random from persons living in Ibadan and Ilorin, in the region considered endemic, thirty-eight, or 30.4 per cent, protected duplicate animals. In Ife, in the same area, but where an epidemic of yellow fever had recently occurred, the percentage of protection was even higher, as seventeen among twenty-five specimens tested, or 68 per cent, protected two animals. The results of similar tests carried out with sera from persons resident in Northern Nigeria stand out in sharp contrast, for among ninety specimens tested only one was found to be positive.
Twenty-four per cent of the sera of children between the ages of 4 and 5 years, taken at random in Ibadan, and a similar percentage of sera taken from children between the ages of 4 and 7 years at llorin protected duplicate animals against yellow fever virus. It appears, therefore, that at least one of every four young children in these cities has had an attack of yellow fever. Although, as will be explained below, the actual number of children who have had yellow fever is probably greater than these figures suggest, the results afford strong evidence of the existence of endemicity in Southwestern Nigeria.
It should be noted here that an effort is being made to correlate the evidence for endemicity, afforded through these tests, with the identification of actual cases of yellow fever among the native population. Children in government and mission schools have been kept under fairly close observation, febrile conditions among children and adults have been carefully investigated, and large numbers of natives have been questioned as to past illnesses. As mentioned above, an extensive epidemic was observed in Ife and strains of virus were isolated from two patients. The presence of infection was also demonstrated by the mosquito catch in that town. In Ibadan and Oshogbo in 1925 and 1926 several cases were observed among Europeans and one case was seen in a native. On the other hand, it is not yet possible to identify clinically the mild cases which are presumably occurring constantly and in considerable numbers among the natives. This study is complicated by the fact that the African, being suspicious and preferring native medicine to that of the white physician, has a tendency to hide his sick. Furthermore, almost 100 per cent of children harbor malaria parasites and over 50 per cent of those in Ibadan are infected with schistosomiasis. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to eliminate malaria in febrile cases, and albuminuria loses its significance when the patient is the victim of schistosomiasis.
Histories of earlier attacks of jaundice with suggestive symptomatology were obtained from a number of persons, but the percentage of these whose sera afforded protection was not materially higher than that found in persons of the same age groups taken at random. As recently reported, (4), a disease associated with jaundice and superficially resembling yellow fever is widespread in West Africa and adds greatly to the difficulty of diagnosis in individual cases and evaluation of histories of past illnesses.
During the extensive epidemics studied on the Gold Coast, a few babes-in-arms with scleral icterus were observed, but no child under 5 years of age presented a clinical picture justifying the diagnosis of yellow fever. It is accordingly believed that the manifestations of this disease in native children, especially in endemic areas, are rarely sufficiently marked to permit of clinical diagnosis even under the most favorable conditions.
As previously mentioned, duplicate monkeys were used in testing each specimen, and in the interpretation of the results sera were considered as positive only when both animals survived and negative when either or both died. In analyzing the findings, however, it will be noted that the percentage of cases in which only one animal died while the other survived is very much higher with specimens from Ibadan and Ilorin than with those secured from cities and towns in the north: 27 in 125 as compared with 6 in 90.
The fact that rhesus monkeys are not equally susceptible and that a certain number are entirely refractory even to the highly virulent strain of virus used in these tests affords an explanation for the survival of some animals even when the sera contained no protective bodies, and where the duplicate animals died. However, as all sera in both series mentioned were tested against approximately the same amount of virus, and under similar conditions, we fell certain that the large number of sera from the south coming within this category cannot be explained on the basis of relative resistance of the Macacus rhesus alone.
It is impossible to estimate with absolute accuracy the percentage of monkeys which is totally refractory or only moderately susceptible to a particular sample of yellow fever virus. But if, for purposes of comparison, the tests with the sera from Bauchi, Zaria, and Kano are taken as controls for the experiments carried out with specimens from other localities, and we accept one as protecting and the remainder as definitely negative, it appears that of the total of 178 monkeys with which the remaining eighty-nine sera were tested, only six, or slightly over 3 per cent, survived, and of these, five had definite febrile attacks from which they recovered.
It is probable that some variation in susceptibility occurs with different lots of animals and at different times; but, making allowance for such variations, we fell confident that not more than 6 per cent of normal rhesus monkeys survive the injection of 0.1 cc. of virulent blood taken at the onset of fever from an animal infected with the Asibi strain, and this is in accord with the results obtained in a large number of uncomplicated experiments in which animals were injected with this dose of virus.
Among a total of 125 sera from persons in Ibadan and Ilorin, 38 specimens protected both animals. The remaining 87 sera were tested with 174 monkeys, and of these, 27, or 15 per cent, survived. If 10, or roughly 6 per cent, are admitted to have been refractory, there still remains a balance of 17 animals representing an equal number of sera to be considered and, though it could not be demonstrated experimentally, it is believed that some of these sera contained protective elements which, for reasons not clearly understood, afforded a partial or complete protection in one animal and failed completely in the other. Definite evidence that this does occur is shown by the fact that the serum of J., an African who had a moderately severe attack of yellow fever in 1928 and from whom a strain of virus was secured, has repeatedly protected monkeys in 1 and 2 cc. amounts against large doses of virus. On one occasion, however, when this serum was tested in 2 cc. amounts in duplicate monkeys against a uniform dose of virus, one of the test animals was fully protected, while the other died of yellow fever. It seems likely, therefore, that the percentage of persons in the Ibadan-Ilorin area who have had an attack of yellow fever is higher than is indicated in the figures.
It should also be remembered that the amount of virus contained in the routine test dose of 0.1 cc. is very much greater than we originally supposed. Titrations have recently been carried out with the blood of numerous monkeys infected with three different strains of yellow fever virus and using a 10 to 25 per cent solution of normal rhesus serum as a diluent. In these experiments it was found that amounts of between 0.0000001 and 0.000000001 cc. of blood have frequently proved fatal. The amount of blood used in these protection tests, therefore, may safely be considered as representing approximately 1,000,000 lethal doses.
The amount of immune serum used in a protection test with yellow fever virus appears to be an important factor, as the potency of the serum can be measured quantitatively. In several experiments serum from persons who had recovered from yellow fever was tested in decreasing amounts against a uniform dose of virus. The results were always clear-cut and indicated that while large doses showed full protection small amounts gave negative results. Further experiments are being made to determine the optimum dosage of serum and virus in protection tests, and it is believed that when the test has been refined we may be able to detect the presence of protective bodies in the sera of a greater number of persons who have had yellow fever than is possible with present methods.
The results of tests carried out in Kano and Sierra Leone indicate that a certain number of cases of yellow fever have occurred in these cities during recent years. As the former is an important commercial town and the terminus of the railroad passing through the endemic area, and as Freetown is in close communication with places where large epidemics have occurred within the last few years, conditions have obviously been favorable for the frequent introduction of infection, and some secondary cases have apparently developed. The contrast, however, between the recent and past history of the disease in Freetown affords a striking demonstration of the value of piped water-supply and other sanitary measures in the control of yellow fever, and is a tribute to the energy and efficiency of the British West African Medical Service.


Objectives: The objective of this study was to
examine the extent to which patterns of
involvement within Interpersonal Cognitive
Problem Solving (Spivack & Shure, 1976) groups
could predict improvement in the social problem
solving abilities of participants.
Design & Method: This was a pre-/post-test
intervention study, incorporating experimental and
no-training control conditions. Thirty-one children,
all aged seven to eight years of age and
attending the same primary school, were initially
assessed for their Interpersonal Cognitive
Problem Solving (ICPS) abilities. They were then
randomly assigned either to the experimental
group or the no-training control group. Ps in the
experimental group participated in eight sessions
(over four weeks) of small-group ICPS training
which were video recorded. Following the training
period, all children were again tested for their
ICPS abilities.
Analyses: Analyses showed, as predicted, a
significantly greater improvement in ICPS ability
for children in the treatment group relative to
those in the control group. Additionally, ICPS
outcomes did vary significantly according to the
amount of time Ps were 'uninvolved' and the
number of 'negative affective responses' they
showed in the training groups.Conclusion: The finding that patterns of
improvement in ICPS performance are related to
patterns of involvement in the training groups
extends the existing literature on ICPS
interventions. It suggests that a positive, involving
group climate is an important factors for individual
ICPS outcomes.


China's involvement in African security has deepened in recent years, with growing multilateral engagements with the AU and the UN. China is also taking several measures to deal with non-traditional security threats – mainly issues of survival arising outside military sources, such as human trafficking, food and water security, terrorism, infectious diseases and energy security. This policy insights paper discusses three aspects of the China–Africa security relationship – Chinese citizens' physical security, pandemic diseases and environmental damage – to highlight some of the evolving challenges and the ways in which China responds to these. These responses illustrate China's deepening role across these fields and its increasing use of multilateral organisations in engaging with such issues.


Wireless networks are facing ever-growing demands on their spectrum and infrastructure resources nowadays, as high data-rate services and applications push networks to their limits. Adaptive antennas are considered to be a key technology and one of the leading innovations for achieving highly efficient networks that maximize capacity and improve quality and coverage. A programmable beamforming network for adaptive arrays applications is proposed herein, which is highly versatile and can be used in a variety of smart antennas applications. A thorough analysis of the array's electronic components, including specifications considerations, system architecture, part selection and circuit analysis is presented.


We propose a framework for sequence-to-sequence contrastive learning (SeqCLR) of visual representations, which we apply to text recognition. To account for the sequence-to-sequence structure, each feature map is divided into different instances over which the contrastive loss is computed. This operation enables us to contrast in a sub-word level, where from each image we extract several positive pairs and multiple negative examples. To yield effective visual representations for text recognition, we further suggest novel augmentation heuristics, different encoder architectures and custom projection heads. Experiments on hand-written text and on scene text show that when a text decoder is trained on the learned representations, our method out-performs non-sequential contrastive methods. In addition, when the amount of supervision is reduced, SeqCLR significantly improves performance compared with supervised training, and when fine-tuned with 100% of the labels, our method achieves state-of-the-art results on standard hand-written text recognition benchmarks.


The fact that household customers are central in the discussion of future sustainable energy systems compels the Swedish electricity retail companies to provide strategies in order to successfully follow the trends on the electricity market. The purpose of this thesis is to complement the electricity retail companies' understanding of how they are able to enter a sustainable and close business relationship with these customers. The purpose is fulfilled by the analysis of how relationship concepts impact the development of demand response specifically. The information has been collected through a case study of Smart Customer Gotland, via interviews with people who have great experience from the field and via a survey directed towards the customers.The results indicate that there is a major difference in both of the actors' visions regarding the relationship. The company desires to enter a position where less support and high customization is available. Customers instead want more personal support because of their lack of knowledge and uncertainty of new systems. To succeed, the companies have to consider the fundamental influencing incentives, economy and comfort, while also maintaining the customers' trust.The most essential parts of the context specific relationship exchange are product exchange, information exchange, and social exchange. These should be directed towards maintaining and increasing the trust from customers. Focusing the resources earlier used for marketing, on these exchanges to make the current customers more satisfied will open up for using word-of mouth primarily from early adopters. Continued work with these early adopters will also increase companies' knowledge, which is important for the companies to strategically develop its business towards the market of smart energy solutions.


EVf'I'y,luuly now-a-days iH intcrcstclI in the teaching or Engti~h". :nul it is ~ratifying to notl' that the teachin~ is i!:oill~ fOl'wanl on ('ommon-sonse, pradi<'al lines. Much IlIO!'(' attpJltion is given now than forlllerly to the l1cvclllJlIIH'1Jt of thO~t~ ~imllll' pl'i1H'illlf'R \\'hif'll m{l1prHc. all gc~od wl'iting:, and whil'll may prO}l!'r!y he called the fpllIlilat iOIlH of I'hptori<', 0111' of thp mOHt illlllOrtant ('J)II-


Bacillus subtilis, a rod shaped gram-positive bacterium, is highly studied because of its capability of forming endospores when there is an inadequate supply of nutrients. Despite the lack of nutrients in the environment, this microorganism has to be able to generate energy to support sporulation. One operon expressed during sporulation is the mother cell metabolic (mmg) operon. The six open reading frames (ORFs) of the mmg operon are mmgABCDE and yqiQ. The first three genes are homologs of fatty acid metabolism enzymes and the last three are expected to encode part of the methyl citric acid cycle, which is a metabolic pathway that processes propionyl-CoA. In the absence of glucose, the preferred carbon source, this organism most likely makes use of other carbon sources, such as fatty acids and/ or propionates to fuel sporulation. Based on sequence homology the function of mmgD is similar by sequence to
citrate synthase III. MmgD has been successfully cloned, overexpressed, and the purified MmgD enzyme from Bacillus subtilis strain 168 has demonstrated citrate synthase and methyl citrate synthase characteristics. MmgD showed slight preference for propionyl-CoA over acetyl-CoA. Besides activity determination and substrate preference, product formations of this enzyme have also been validated via 1H-proton NMR.


The science of remote sensing is commonly defined as method that employs electromagnetic energy to detect, record, and measure characteristics of a target. Concentrations of chlorophyll-a in water have been estimated from the spectral
distribution of back-scattered light, related to reflectance. Remote sensing in general has been used much more extensively for oceans than for inland waters. Advanced image processing techniques introduced and applied using Landsat Thematic Mapper data acquired on February 22, 1 994 over the indicated region of South China Sea. The objective of the study was to calculate the chlorophyll-a concentration along Kuala Terengganu. The method was carried out to calculate the chlorophyll-a concentration in the study area that is, digital image processing which include preprocessing, display, enhancement, information extraction, and algorithm to calculate the estimated chlorophyll-a. Results of the regression analysis of DNs against referenced chlorophyll-a was used to calculate the actual chlorophyll-a concentration (calculated chlorophyll-a) of Landsat TM bands 1, 2, and 3. The results show that the chlorophyll-a concentrations in the study area are significantly correlated with band 1, 2, and 3. The lower chlorophyll-a concentration with levels (0.031-0.019) mg/m3, the higher chlorophyll-a concentration with levels (0.404-0.391) mg/m3. Finally, band 2 was the best in terms of all the parameters evaluated. In conclusion, remote sensing is an important technology for measuring chlorophyll-a concentration in the coastal water of South China Sea. From the result, TM sensor has been found a useful tool for studying chlorophyll-a concentration.


The event analysis is only rarely incorporated into degree-theoretic treatments of adjectival comparatives. I propose a neodavidsonian account of predications like " Ann was happy"  that involves quantification over both states and events. This 'double-eventuality' analysis is motivated primarily by how stage-level gradable adjectives interact with temporal " for" -phrases in two classes of comparatives, which I differentiate as 'low' versus 'high' attachment of the comparative morpheme. Low attachment comparatives express canonical degree readings (" more available" ), while high attachment involve comparing numbers of occasions (" available more" ). I resolve these patterns by positing a stative core for adjectives, and the possibility of mapping properties of states to properties of events. Low attachment interpretations, then, involve comparison of states, and high involve comparison of (pluralities of) events. I show that the analysis extends to other cases where states and events can do work for adjectives outside of comparatives.


New fossils pertaining to the oldest known Asian plesiadapiform, the Gashatan carpolestid Subengius mengi , clarify aspects of the dental anatomy of this taxon. The dentition of S . mengi is substantially more primitive than previously recognized in retaining a lower dental formula of 188.8.131.52, a low-crowned p4 with three main cusps that are less fully connate than their counterparts in species of Elphidotarsius , P3 with a narrower and structurally simpler lingual margin, and in lacking widely splayed paraconid and metaconid on m1. The unique structure of P3 in S. mengi and a reassessment of P3 anatomy in Elphidotarsius sp., cf. E. florencae , suggest that certain cusp homologies on P3 in Carpolestidae have been misinterpreted in the past. Following a detailed character analysis, the phylogenetic relationships of carpolestids and their close relatives are reconstructed. The Bumbanian taxon Chronolestes simul is recovered as the most basal member of Carpolestidae. S. mengi and a second Bumbanian taxon, Carpocristes oriens , also appear to be relatively basal members of the carpolestid radiation, although none of these Asian carpolestid taxa seems to be specially related to each other. Dispersal of carpolestids between Asia and North America appears to have been restricted to earlier parts of the Paleocene, although carpolestids survived on both continents until sometime near the Paleocene–Eocene boundary.


Nasal adenocarcinomas have been reported to extend into the cranial vault and cause neurologic disease. This report discusses a dog and cat with nasal adenocarcinoma which extended into the retrobulbar space, base of the cranial vault and adjacent soft tissues. The invasive characteristics of the neoplasms were documented by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Documentation of the extent of tumor is important if radiation therapy or surgery is planned. MRI was valuable in identifying extracranial and intracranial tumor invasion in these patients.


China is the world's second largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and purchasing power parity (PPP). Despite the considerable amount of IS research in China, little work has been reported on the use of decision support systems (DSS), particularly large-scale business intelligence (BI). Because of the significant cultural differences between the West and China it may be that this Western technology is of little use in Chinese management structures and processes. In particular, the Chinese cultural norm of guanxi may affect BI usefulness. This research seeks to contribute to practice by developing a theory that will help Western BI practitioners to understand and better use guanxi in dealing with Chinese organisations. It is also expected to provide an important addition to knowledge, including BI theory and IS research methods.


MORE THAN 30 MILLION EMPLOYEES each year are exposed to hazardous occupational noise, and approximately one-third of them develop permanent hearing loss (NSC, 2000). Possible explanations for the latter statistic include worker regard for noise as a mere nuisance rather than as an occupational safety and health hazard, and consequent neglect of established protective measures (e.g., hearing protection); lack of knowledge concerning noise; improper use of hearing protection; worker indifference; and inadequate training (Bauer & Babich, 2004). Many drill rigs generate high sound levels, which vary according to the type of machine, its location with respect to the physical surroundings, and the location of the sound measured around the rig. A NIOSH study measured noise output from several types of drill rigs during field investigations (Ingram & Matetic, 2003). Two types of data were recorded— the actual noise generated by the drill rig at various positions around the rig and the noise to which the drill operator was exposed during the drilling cycle. For the latter, sound level measurements up to 120 dBA were recorded while hammering casing (metal on metal) in drilling a water well (Photo 1). Several types of administrative controls exist to address worker exposure to loud drill rig noise. Rotating duties to decrease exposure time and posting warning signs in high-noise work areas are two such controls. Another is the use of hearing protection. Worker use of hearing protection has been disappointing, however. One study by the University of Michigan found that construction workers used earplugs and earmuffs only between 36% and 61% of the time that they were necessary (Lusk & Kerr, 1998). In a 2001 study, OSHA reported a relatively low rate of 30.4% for use of earplugs among construction workers (Walker, 2001). Why are rates for hearing protection use so low? One explanation may be workers' lack of concern for noise in the workplace. They expect workplace noise to be a loud and inevitable nuisance and, therefore, accept it as part of the job. As a result, they disregard proven measures that can protect their hearing. Other workers may use hearing protection, but do so improperly. They may misguidedly remain in high-noise areas for extended periods thinking they are protected when in fact they are not. Other reasons for low use and/or misuse of hearing protection include poor education, lack of awareness and inadequate training (Nash, 2003). To address the training issue, NIOSH developed two exercises from which drillers can learn about noise, hearing loss and hearing protection. The first is an invisible ink exercise, titled "Drill Rig Incident" (DRI) (Photo 2); the second is a 3-D slide reel training aid, "Wearing Hearing Protection Properly" (WHPP) (Photo 3). DRI is an instructorEdward A. Barrett, CMSP, a mining engineer, has spent most of his career working in education and training at the Bureau of Mines and NIOSH. He holds a B.S. in Education from Bloomsburg University.


This study aimed to investigate, in oral squamous carcinoma cells (OSCC), the  antineoplastic effect of Apis mellifera honey produced from Aroeira and wildflower, in the region of Jequitinhonha River Valley, Brazil. Furthermore, we investigate the molecular mechanism of honey performance through bioinformatic analysis. Honey and OSCC-related gene list were screened using GeneCards. The online tool STRING was used to identify the potential interaction networks of protein products of these genes. The genes with the highest weighted number of links (WNL) were called leader genes. GO and KEGG pathway analysis was performed to classify the genes. We use a search tool STITCH for interactions of chemicals-proteins. The chemical characterization of honey and its antiproliferative and antimigratory effects in SCC-9 cell lines was evaluated in vitro. The analysis of the interaction network obtained from the STRING database indicated by the following leader genes: TNF, IL6 and HDAC1. GO analysis for the honey, and OSCC-related proteins revealed that leader genes-regulated cancers genes were markedly enriched in some functions. Through the chemical characterization, the bioactive classes: steroids/triterpenoids, flavonoids, saponins, alkaloids, and tannins were identified. Polyphenols act in activating CASP3 and TP53 and inhibit the action of DNMT1. The honey produced from Aroeira and wildflower reduced proliferative phenotype and migration of OSCC cells.

 Key words: Aroeira honey, Myracrodruon urundeuva, wild honey, Apis mellifera, therapeutic, Jequitinhonha River Valley.


Inspired by the eye diagram in classical radio frequency (RF) based communications, the MOL-Eye diagram is proposed for the performance evaluation of a molecular signal within the context of molecular communication. Utilizing various features of this diagram, three new metrics for the performance evaluation of a molecular signal, namely the maximum eye height, standard deviation of received molecules, and counting SNR (CSNR) are introduced. The applicability of these performance metrics in this domain is verified by comparing the performance of binary concentration shift keying (BCSK) and BCSK with consecutive power adjustment (BCSK-CPA) modulation techniques in a vessel-like environment with laminar flow. The results show that, in addition to classical performance metrics such as biterror rate and channel capacity, these performance metrics can also be used to show the advantage of an efficient modulation technique over a simpler one.


Lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) are loosely overlapping cells that line the lymphatic vasculature. In tissues, LECs are often located directly beneath the mucosal epithelial layer, and therefore, are likely to be among the first cells that come in contact with incoming pathogens and/or vaccine antigens and adjuvants when there is a breakage at the epithelial barrier. We are only starting to appreciate the role of LECs in the development of host innate and adaptive immune responses during infection or vaccine administration. This is largely due to the difficulties in studying LECs in vivo and the challenges in obtaining pure LEC cultures for study ex vivo. My work focused on isolation and establishment of primary LEC cultures derived from different tissue origins of commonly used animal models – ferrets and rhesus macaques – and assessment of the potential of these LECs to respond to pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or a subset of microbes (SIV/HIV-1). In addition, I also partially compared the phenotype and functionality of LECs to dendritic cells (DCs), an immune cell type that acts as a "bridge" between the host innate and adaptive immunity. My findings revealed that LECs were highly heterogeneous in their gene expression profiles. They also endogenously expressed multiple known viral entry and restriction factors for SIV/HIV-1. LECs responded to several PAMPs by producing proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines that are known to recruit immune cells to sites of inflammation. However, LECs were not highly susceptible or permissible to infection using genetically engineered, single-cycle competent SIV/HIV-1 or wild-type SIV. Interestingly, LECs expressed phenotypic markers that have been shown to be expressed by DCs and showed some functional similarities. LECs were able to take up and process model antigens, although it was not determined if these antigens were presented by MHC I and II molecules. These findings are of public health importance because they expand our knowledge of the emerging potential of LECs as key players in innate immunity during pathogen-host interactions or vaccinations. Improving our understanding of LECs will positively impact our knowledge of mucosal infections and will help in development of improved treatment and vaccination strategies. These primary cells will serve as tools to study LEC immunobiology and will also be useful in development of vaccines/therapeutics for human diseases of public health importance that target LEC and/or its crosstalk with other immune cells.


Summary Plant–microbe mutualisms can improve plant defense, but the impact of root endophytes on below‐ground herbivore interactions remains unknown. We investigated the effects of the root endophyte Piriformospora indica on interactions between rice (Oryza sativa) plants and its root herbivore rice water weevil (RWW; Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus), and how plant jasmonic acid (JA) and GA regulate this tripartite interaction. Glasshouse experiments with wild‐type rice and coi1‐18 and Eui1‐OX mutants combined with nutrient, jasmonate and gene expression analyses were used to test: whether RWW adult herbivory above ground influences subsequent damage caused by larval herbivory below ground; whether P. indica protects plants against RWW; and whether GA and JA signaling mediate these interactions. The endophyte induced plant tolerance to root herbivory. RWW adults and larvae acted synergistically via JA signaling to reduce root growth, while endophyte‐elicited GA biosynthesis suppressed the herbivore‐induced JA in roots and recovered plant growth. Our study shows for the first time the impact of a root endophyte on plant defense against below‐ground herbivores, adds to growing evidence that induced tolerance may be an important root defense, and implicates GA as a signal component of inducible plant tolerance against biotic stress.


This paper addresses the task of trajectory cost prediction, a new learning task for trajectories. The goal of this task is to predict the cost for an arbitrary (possibly unknown) trajectory, based on a set of previous trajectory-cost pairs. A typical example of this task is travel-time prediction on road networks. The main technical challenge here is to infer the costs of trajectories including links with no or little passage history. To tackle this, we introduce a weight propagation mechanism over the links, and show that the problem can be reduced to a simple form of kernel ridge regression. We also show that this new formulation leads us to a unifying view, where a natural choice of the kernel is suggested to an existing kernel-based alternative.


This research aimed to study performance, carcass production, meat quality, and economic feasibility of male Sumba Ongole cattle fed ration supplemented with velvet bean (M. pruriens). The research was designed in a completely randomized block design using 16 cattle with average body weight of 488+37.08 kg. The treatments were: T0= 15% straw + 85% concentrate; T1= T0 + 12% of velvet bean flour supplement; T2= T0 + 16% of velvet bean tempeh supplement; and T3= T0 + 200 mg/head/d of ractopamine hydrocloride. Data were analyzed by using analysis of variance with orthogonal contrast. The observed variables included feed consumption, average daily body weight gain (ADG), feed efficiency (FE), income over feed cost (IOFC), hot carcass weight (HCW), carcass percentage, subcutaneous fat thickness, meat pH, tenderness, cooking loss, and water holding capacity (WHC). The result revealed that the addition of 12% velvet bean flour into the rations increased dry matter consumption (P<0.05), but did not affect ADG, FE, IOFC, carcass production, and meat quality. The addition of 12% velvet bean flour produced the lowest cooking loss (P<0.05). The addition of 16% velvet bean tempeh into the rations significantly increased (P<0.05) dry matter consumption, however reduced (P<0.05) ADG, FE, and IOFC compared to control treatment. It is concluded that velvet bean flour at the level of 12% can be used as an alternative feed supplement in the ration of Sumba Ongole cattle and can replace the use of synthetic ß-agonist.


In this analysis of the Iran-Iraq war, Sick asserts that two major naturally wealthy regional powers consciously chose to forego diplomatic means to resolve their disputes. Moreover, by blatantly miscalculating and underestimating the damage of armed engagement, the leaders exhibited utter negligence and disobedience of the international code of conduct. With glaring lack of consideration for human anguish in the military attacks, they used children in battle, launched bombing and missile attacks on civilian targets and neutral shipping, and deployed chemical weapons. Implicated as well is the international community, which did little to stem the bloodshed.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to move away from a sole focus on assessing and dealing with individualised risk factors in order to more fully engage with and understand the social determinants of many of the harms that are manifest in families.

Design/methodology/approach

It draws from a number of research studies being conducted by the authors and a literature on psycho-social approaches to social suffering.

Findings

It highlights the evidence on the contribution of poverty and inequality to many of the problems encountered within families. It explores how hurt, shame and loss are experienced by those who are marginalised and struggling to live well and care safely for themselves and others.

Practical implications

It highlights the practice implications of adopting an approach that engages with both the social and the psychological and understands their inter-relationship. It offers some thoughts on how the social in psycho-social might receive the attention it deserves, a situation which does not pertain currently.

Originality/value

It offers an original contribution to thinking in the area of child protection where the focus is primarily on individualised risk factors. It highlights the importance of understanding the social determinants of many of the harms experienced in families and offers some pointers towards thinking and practising differently.


Salesmanship is central to a startup's success, but many entrepreneurs ignore this simple fact. They may believe that their idea will sell itself or that there's no point visiting a prospective customer without a finished product in hand. Those who search for sales advice find mostly tools and techniques for established companies. In a study of 120 entrepreneurs in six countries, more than half fully developed their products before getting feedback from potential buyers. Looking back, most said that was a mistake. Those who did start selling early did not spend enough time listening to prospects' reactions. Other mistakes included offering discounts to close initial deals, making early sales to family and friends, and failing to choose first customers strategically. When they did go on sales calls, the entrepreneurs fielded tough questions about the efficacy of their products, their credibility and experience, the size of their companies, their prices, and the cost of switching to an unproven offering. A sales model geared to entrepreneurs accounts for the fact that information gleaned during the sales process can be crucial in designing (or redesigning) the product itself. The model calls for meeting with prospects as soon as an idea is conceived to learn if it has broad appeal. The answer to that question determines whether the entrepreneurs jettison the idea, return to the drawing board, or proceed to prototype development and further testing with potential customers. INSET: Idea in Brief.


On August 17, 2017, the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors observed a low-mass compact binary inspiral. The initial sky localization of the source of the gravitational-wave signal, GW170817, allowed electromagnetic observatories to identify NGC 4993 as the host galaxy. In this work, we improve initial estimates of the binary's properties, including component masses, spins, and tidal parameters, using the known source location, improved modeling, and recalibrated Virgo data. We extend the range of gravitational-wave frequencies considered down to 23 Hz, compared to 30 Hz in the initial analysis. We also compare results inferred using several signal models, which are more accurate and incorporate additional physical effects as compared to the initial analysis. We improve the localization of the gravitational-wave source to a 90% credible region of $16~\mathrm{deg}^2$. We find tighter constraints on the masses, spins, and tidal parameters, and continue to find no evidence for nonzero component spins. The component masses are inferred to lie between 1.00 and 1.89 $M_\odot$ when allowing for large component spins, and to lie between 1.16 and 1.60 $M_\odot$ (with a total mass $2.73^{+0.04}_{-0.01} \, M_\odot$) when the spins are restricted to be within the range observed in Galactic binary neutron stars. Under minimal assumptions about the nature of the compact objects, our constraints for the tidal deformability parameter $\tilde \Lambda$ are $(0,630)$ when we allow for large component spins, and $300^{+420}_{-230}$ (using a 90% highest posterior density interval) when restricting the magnitude of the component spins, ruling out several equation-of-state models at the 90% credible level. Finally, with LIGO and GEO600 data, we use a Bayesian analysis to place upper limits on the amplitude and spectral energy density of a possible post-merger signal. (Abridged)


This study focuses on investigating the determinants and consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in Jordan. The study examines factors that influences CSR disclosure extent and quality, such as corporate characteristics (size, gearing, firm's age, and industry type), corporate governance (board size, number of meetings, non-executive directors, female directors in the board, family directors in the board, foreign members, audit committee, type of external auditors, and CEO duality) and ownership structure (government ownership, institutional ownership, and ownership concentration). A quantitative approach is adopted for this research, and a content analysis technique is used to gather CSR disclosure extent and quality from the annual reports. The sample is withdrawn from the annual reports of 118 Jordanian companies over the period of 2010-2015. A CSRD index is constructed, and includes the disclosures of the following categories; environmental, human resources, product and consumers, and Community involvement. A 7 point-scale measurement was developed to examine the quality of disclosure. This study fills the gap in the literature regarding CSRD in Jordan, and the fact that all the previous studies have ignored charts and images as a measurement of quality. The result shows that the extent of CSRD is higher than the quality in Jordan. Regarding the determinates of CSR disclosures, the following factors were found to have a significant relationship with both extent and quality of CSRD except non-executives, which was only found significant with the extent of CSRD: board size, non-executive directors, firm's age, foreign members on the board, number of boards meetings, the presence of audit committees, big 4, government ownership, firm's size, industry type. With regard to CSRD consequences, the result shows that CSRD has a positive and significant impact on company performance (ROA) and market value. This result provides evidence for policy makers (Jordan security commission) of the importance of CSRD and its impact on company's performance, and that companies should consider this type of disclosure more in their annual reports. They also have to consider introducing new laws that mandate CSR disclosures, since it has many advantages for the companies and society in general.


Delirio y destino, one of Maria Zambrano's best-known works, is often described as an "autobiographical novel" set in the years that led up to the Spanish Civil War. This very categorization is deeply problematic and it gives us an inside into the existing tension between three key elements: memory, truth, and writing. This paper re-examines the extent to which this work can be considered auto-biographical and it reassesses its significance deserve to b in the context of the current trend of the recovery of memory. It is my contention that Delirio y Destino moves beyond the testimonial account of the events it narrates, by using the distance that separates those experiences from the present and reframing them through the use of the third person narrative and the inclusion of non-autobiographical elements, such as philosophical reflections. Far from making any claims of truth, there is a deliberate lack of factual detail, suggesting that at least some of the memories shared in this writing are fictional, but also revealing a disperse and fragmented discourse typical of trauma narrative. The traumatic nature of this discourse, but also its redemptive component, reveal the dynamic interaction between past-present in Zambrano's thought. Freeing herself from the factual, allows the exercise of imagination, reflection and ultimately healing that makes Delirio y Destino very much relevant to the author's present and to our own, as it serves as a cathartic exercise for not just the writer, but also for readers across generations.


Summary Indonesia is one of the most active volcanic areas in the world and has a population of 150 million. Natural disasters affecting large areas and numbers of people are therefore a common occurrence and the authorities have developed strategies to cope with them. On 5 April 1982 Mt Galunggung in W Java suddenly erupted after 64 years and it is still active. From April to June this activity coincided with the rainy season; the volcanic mud and boulder flows (lahars) which were generated ended in late November. Tens of millions of cubic metres of unconsolidated volcanic ejecta, mostly ash and sand size, were deposited around the newly formed crater on the slopes of the volcano and over a wider area. In anticipation of the next rains check dams and other works were planned, as it was feared that as many as 250 000 people might be affected, and further large areas of agricultural land inundated as a result of rain generated lahar. A civil defence system has been initiated, utilizing the experience gained as result of previous similar disasters. The paper summarizes the geological background, and describes the related types of primary and secondary hazards and the attempts being made to mitigate the effects of these hazards.


The 'Great Acceleration' graphs, originally published in 2004 to show socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2000, have now been updated to 2010. In the graphs of socio-economic trends, where the data permit, the activity of the wealthy (OECD) countries, those countries with emerging economies, and the rest of the world have now been differentiated. The dominant feature of the socio-economic trends is that the economic activity of the human enterprise continues to grow at a rapid rate. However, the differentiated graphs clearly show that strong equity issues are masked by considering global aggregates only. Most of the population growth since 1950 has been in the non-OECD world but the world's economy (GDP), and hence consumption, is still strongly dominated by the OECD world. The Earth System indicators, in general, continued their long-term, post-industrial rise, although a few, such as atmospheric methane concentration and stratospheric ozone loss, showed a slowing or apparent stabilisation over the past decade. The post-1950 acceleration in the Earth System indicators remains clear. Only beyond the mid-20th century is there clear evidence for fundamental shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth System that are beyond the range of variability of the Holocene and driven by human activities. Thus, of all the candidates for a start date for the Anthropocene, the beginning of the Great Acceleration is by far the most convincing from an Earth System science perspective.


OBJECTIVE
Suicidal ideation is an uncommon symptom than can emerge during antidepressant treatment. The biological basis of treatment-emergent suicidal ideation is unknown. Genetic markers may shed light on the causes of treatment-emergent suicidal ideation and help identify individuals at high risk who may benefit from closer monitoring, alternative treatments, or specialty care.

METHOD
A clinically representative cohort of outpatients with major depressive disorder who enrolled in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) trial were treated with citalopram under a standard protocol for up to 14 weeks. DNA samples from 1,915 participants were genotyped for 768 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 68 candidate genes. Allele and genotype frequencies were compared between the 120 participants who developed treatment-emergent suicidal ideation and those who did not.

RESULTS
Two markers were significantly associated with treatment-emergent suicidal ideation in this sample (marker rs4825476, p=0.0000784, odds ratio=1.94; permutation p=0.01; marker rs2518224, p=0.0000243, odds ratio=8.23; permutation p=0.003). These markers reside within the genes GRIA3 and GRIK2, respectively, both of which encode ionotropic glutamate receptors.

CONCLUSIONS
Markers within GRIK2 and GRIA3 were associated with treatment-emergent suicidal ideation during citalopram therapy. If replicated, these findings may shed light on the biological basis of this potentially dangerous adverse event and help identify patients at increased risk.


The effect of a 19-amino-acid C-terminal peptide of tumstatin (aa 185-203, peptide 19) on human hepatoma cell (HepG2) proliferation was studied, as well as the mechanism by which it induces tumor cell apoptosis. Recombinant peptide 19 was purified by chitin affinity chromatography and identified by Tricine-SDS-PAGE. The DTT was removed with sephadex G-10. MTT colorimetry was used to evaluate the proliferation of tumor cells. Hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E staining) and AO/EB double staining were used to view morphological changes during apoptosis. Mitochondrial potential was measured via flow cytometer. Western blot analysis was performed to detect the transfer of cytochrome C from mitochondria to the cytoplasm and to monitor the expression levels of caspase-8, caspase-9, Fas, p53, Bcl-2, Bax and Bid in human hepatoma cells. Recombinant peptide 19 effectively suppressed the proliferation of HepG2 cells and induced apoptosis. Each of the two effects had a dose-dependent relationship with recombinant peptide 19. Peptide 19 upregulated the expression of caspase-9, Fas, p53, Bax and Bid, downregulated the expression of Bcl-2 and had little effect on the expression of caspase 8. Peptide 19 decreased the mitochondrial membrane potential and induced the release of cytochrome C from mitochondria to the cytoplasm. In conclusion, peptide 19 induced HepG2 cell apoptosis through the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway.


Using new cross-country survey and experimental data, we investigate if it is possible to increase people's support for the national government to address inequality through redistribution by providing them with information about inequality and social mobility in their country. We test this by conducting randomized control trials with over 50,000 online survey participants in 11 countries that make up over 30% of the global population and produce more than 40% of world GDP. Survey respondents were randomly allocated to receive either information about inequality and social mobility in their country, information about their position in the national income distribution or no information (control group). This is the first study to test the effect of providing different types of information about inequality and social mobility in the same field experiment and to include multiple middle income countries. Our key findings are as follows. Firstly, attitudes towards inequality are elastic to information in all countries but the effect varies in direction and by type of information. Whereas preferences for redistribution are only elastic to information in some countries and in the United States both types of information lowered support for redistribution. Secondly, in middle income countries, information about people's position in the national income distribution repeatedly reduces their concern about inequality regardless of whether they over- or underestimate their place, which is inconsistent with existing theories. Finally, in high-income countries, information about inequality and social mobility generally only affects the attitudes and/or preferences for redistribution of people who would not vote for one of the two major political parties in their country.


Many transitional countries face the problem of establishing the rule of law in a weak justice sector where a gulf separates local legal norms from national, constitutional norms that are drawn largely from the international sphere. As a case study of East Timor this article challenges simplistic positivist notions about the normative hierarchy of laws within a constitutionally bounded polity. It argues that in transitional countries such as East Timor legal pluralism is important but must be properly tuned to serve the rule of law. Legal pluralism poses certain dangers when it operates without any of the checks or balances that ensure accountability and the promotion of constitutional values such as equality. The rule of law is not served by an informal system where there are no formal avenues of appeal and thus minimal accountability and transparency. A more promising version of legal pluralism that comports with the rule of law is one that empowers the state to monitor local decisions to ensure that they observe the norms set out in East Timor's Constitution.


Objective: To prospectively investigate the diagnostic accuracy of dual-source 64-slice computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA), calcium scoring (CS) and both methods combined for assessing significant coronary artery stenoses relative to conventional coronary angiography (CCA). Design, setting and patients: Prospective, single-centre study conducted in a referral centre enrolling 74 consecutive patients (24 women; mean age 62 (SD 12) years) from August-October 2006. All study participants underwent CS, CTCA and CCA. Diagnostic accuracy was calculated for CS, CTCA and both methods combined relative to CCA. Not-evaluative segments at computed tomography were considered false positive. Results: CCA identified 139 stenoses in 36 patients. Average heart rate during CTCA was 68 (13) bpm (range 35–102 bpm), and 2% of segments (21/1001) in 11% of patients (8/74) were not evaluative. Considering these as false positives, per-patient sensitivity and specificity was 98% and 87%. When using CS cut-off values of 0 to exclude and ⩾400 to predict stenosis, sensitivity and specificity of CS was 100% and 70%, respectively. Combining CS and CTCA in all patients correctly reclassified five patients, while six were falsely classified as stenotic, all of them correctly classified with CTCA alone. Using CS only in patients with not-evaluative segments correctly reclassified five patients while avoiding misclassifications (sensitivity 98%, specificity 100%). Conclusion: Dual-source CTCA allows the diagnosis of significant stenoses with a high diagnostic accuracy. Selectively combining CS with CTCA in patients with not-evaluative coronary segments improves specificity from 87% to 100% without decreasing the high sensitivity of 98%.


Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools have been gaining popularity to automate, monitor and visualize the security posture of multi-cloud environments. The foundation to assess the risk lies on being able to analyze each vulnerability and quantify its risk. However, the number of vulnerabilities in National Vulnerability Database (NVD) has skyrocketed in recent years and surpassed 144K as of late 2020. The current standard vulnerability tracking system relies mostly on human-driven efforts. Besides, open-source libraries do not necessarily follow the standards of vulnerability reporting set by CVE and NIST, but rather use Github issues for reporting. In this paper, we propose a framework, NL2Vul, to measure score of vulnerabilities with minimal human efforts. NL2Vul makes use of deep neural networks to train on descriptions of software vulnerabilities from NVD and predicts vulnerability scores. To flexibly expand the trained NVD model for different data sources that are being used to evaluate the risk posture in CSPM, NL2Vul uses transfer learning for quick re-training. We have evaluated NL2Vul with vanilla NVD, public Github issues of open source projects, and compliance technology specification documents.


Vessels and seaports, as conduits for international trade growth, serving over 90% of world
commerce, ascend to ever greater significance in a cost-conscious world reeling from the aftermath
of the 2008 global financial crisis. Ensuring the security of these through cost-efficacious practical
measures becomes more and more essential to avoid the costs of threats disrupting the potential
international supply chain management system and the costs of disrupting trade. Given the
increasing risks of terrorism and global piracy, ensuring a custom's service that is sufficiently
modernised to simultaneously ensure the challenges of both trade facilitation and securitisation is
essential. This is paramount throughout the world but particularly for the vulnerable east Indian
Ocean facing Somalian piracy, port strikes and terrorism combined with historically underinvested
customs facilities. This paper utilises the main global elements, in particular through measures
endorsed globally and the specific example of South Africa to attempt to provide some insight
into formulating a custom's response to global maritime security challenges, that governments
facing scarce customs resources could potentially endorse to further ensure the defence of seaports,
vessels and trade, particularly for the east Indian Ocean.


Abstract In an increasingly complex and interdependent world, it has become increasingly difficult and costly to identify and protect systems, communities or organizations against all possible threats. Resilience approaches, however, provide capacities or abilities to respond to hazards and threats beyond existing scenarios and associated response plans, as well as learn from these disturbances and improve performance. Thus, resilience approaches provides increased capabilities for strengthening beyond traditional risk, crisis and business continuity approaches. However, there are inherent challenges of contextualizing resilience indicators for specific uses for specific critical infrastructures while also designing a comprehensive and multidimensional approach as well as for comparison across various infrastructures. Based upon the development and application of an indicator-based decision-support system for resilience in a Horizon 2020 project, we describe and analyse how we addressed such challenges, providing opportunities for improving resilience for drinking water supply and distribution in Sweden. The findings show the value of a modular approach, iterative indicator design processes with relevant stakeholders, the necessity to attend to their organizational processes, to the regulatory context as well as to the assignments, evaluation criteria and cognitive regimes among various target audiences. The approach is a useful methodology to achieve policy objectives for critical infrastructures from a systemic perspective, such as identifying and evaluating resilience, development of measures to increase resilience and the development of performance metric as well as facilitating information-sharing and training.


We implement a spatial probit model to differentiate states with a lottery from those without a lottery. Our analysis extends the basic spatial probit model by allowing spatial dependence to vary across geographic regions. We also separate the spatial effects of neighbors versus non-neighbors. The methodology provides consistent and efficient coefficient estimation in light of the simultaneity in spatial dependence. We find evidence of spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in lottery usage, and we find that spatial patterns differ significantly by geographic region. The importance of spatial dependence in state lottery usage suggests the need to consider spatial effects in empirical models examining the use of any policy tool by subnational governmental units.


Ill-health can be expected to reduce employment and income. But are the effects sustained over time? Do they differ across the income distribution? And are there spillover effects on the employment and income of the spouse? We use matching combined with difference-in-differences to identify the causal effects of sudden illness, represented by acute hospitalisations, on employment and income up to six years after the health shock using linked Dutch hospital and tax register data. On average, an acute hospital admission lowers the employment probability by seven percentage points and results in a 5% loss of personal income (30% for those entering disability insurance) two years after the shock. There is no subsequent recovery in either employment or income. The distribution of ill-health contributes to income inequality: a health shock is both more likely to occur and to have a larger relative impact on employment and income at the bottom of the income distr ibution. There are large spillover effects: household income falls by 50% more than the income of the disabled person, and the employment probability of the spouse is reduced by 1.5 percentage points. The negative spousal employment effect is larger for male than for female spouses and in higher income households.


Dialogue is often equated to "two-way symmetrical communication", and over the years the concept has been subsumed into the systems theory. Textbook authors make cursory references to "dialogue" and "conversation" while focusing mainly on achieving "symmetry" in the organisation-public relationship, suggesting that symmetry is the ideal state of public relations and that dialogue contributes to achieving this state. As a result they inadvertently perpetuate the myth that dialogue is not only the preferred mode of public relations practice but that it also leads to "agreement". Ironically, none—if any—provide practical guidelines as to how dialogue can be achieved. Scholars of dialogue often point out that dialogue requires not only a willingness to participate but also the suspension of control and focus on predetermined outcomes. In the practice of public relations, this appears to be an unrealistic goal to strive towards. As part of an ongoing study into dialogue in public relations theory and practice, this paper explores concepts and expectations in the dialogic process, highlighting the lack of clear definitions and principles communicated in popular Public Relations textbooks. It also reports on an exploratory survey among public relations practitioners in the AsiaPacific region to identify prevailing views of the use of dialogue and guide further qualitative investigation.


The University of Hong Kong-West China School of Stomatology, Sichuan University Conjoint Scientific Meeting & Research Day of State Key Laboratory of Oral Disease Dec 2011


http://journals.cambridge.org/tlp Theory and Practice of Logic Programming emphasises both the theory and practice of logic programming. Logic programming applies to all areas of artificial intelligence and computer science and is fundamental to them. Among the topics covered are AI applications that use logic programming, logic programming methodologies, specification, analysis and verification of systems, inductive logic programming, multi-relational data mining, natural language processing, knowledge representation, non-monotonic reasoning, semantic web reasoning, databases, implementations and architectures and constraint logic programming. To subscribe contact Customer Services


In 1986, Tanner and Mead [1] implemented an interesting constraint satisfaction circuit for global motion sensing in a VLSI. We report here a new and improved a VLSI implementation that provides smooth optical flow as well as global motion in a two dimensional visual field. The computation of optical flow is an ill-posed problem, which expresses itself as the aperture problem. However, the optical flow can be estimated by the use of regularization methods, in which additional constraints are introduced in terms of a global energy functional that must be minimized . We show how the algorithmic constraints of Hom and Schunck [2] on computing smooth optical flow can be mapped onto the physical constraints of an equivalent electronic network.


The ClimACT project has been developed under the priority axis "Low Carbon Economy" of the Interreg SUDOE program. It aims to support the transition to a low carbon economy in schools. Environmental audits addressing energy and water consumptions, waste management, travels to school, procurements and green spaces have been carried out in 38 pilots schools of Portugal, Spain, France and Gibraltar. Indoor air quality and ventilation measurements were also achieved. The concentrations of 9 aldehydes and 10 selected VOCs were measured from passive sampling in two classrooms of each school. In addition, TVOC, CO2, CO, PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were monitored for a period of 2 days or 1 week in French schools. Of all the individual VOCs and aldehydes investigated, only formaldehyde exhibit some concentrations over the guideline. On the other hand, PM10, PM2.5, CO2 and TVOC concentrations during the class hours are over the guidelines in 64%, 45%, 43% and 20% of classrooms, respectively. The time series of concentrations highlight that a significant part of TVOCs originates from the occupants. Similarly, PM10 concentrations over the guideline are mainly contributed by biogenic emissions and resuspension of settled particles. Another interesting conclusion coming from the study is that there are no significant differences in the characteristics of the air pollution in secondary schools, high schools and universities, when compared to primary schools. However, the characteristics of indoor air pollution in classrooms may be slightly different in Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and France.


The population dynamics of Pineus pini (Gmel.) was examined in two locations in the Kenya Highlands where the mean annual precipitation ranges from 620 to 1400 mm. Variations in population densities were related to rainfall. Generally, there was a marked decrease in population during the three months of heavy rainfall in March to May and a significant increase during dry weather from August to October. This was followed by a slight decrease in the rate of population build-up, until the long rains in April again resulted in another population collapse. Nine species of predatory insects were identified, and population fluctuations of the most common of these, Exochomus spp., was studied. Predators seemed to remove about 12% of the aphid population. Other mortality factors included heat and crawler dispersion. The greatest mortality occurred early in the life-cycle and was mainly due to eggs and crawlers being washed off the host-tree by rain.


Introduction: Radial Artery Occlusion (RAO) is a complication of the Transradial Approach (TRA). Ipsilateral ulnar artery compression was proposed as an effective technique to prevent acute RAO after TRA. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of ipsilateral ulnar artery compression obtained by the TR-band device on the ulnar site after classical hemostasis ("turnedTR band") on radial flow characteristics after 24 h from the procedure. Methods: 131 patients were randomized 1:1 to receive 2 h of ipsilateral ulnar artery compression after classical hemostasis with the Turned TR-Band technique (TTR-B) vs no intervention (CG). Peak Systolic Velocity (PSV) and radial caliber reduction were evaluated by duplex ultrasonography at baseline and 24 h after each procedure. The 24 h occurrence of RAO was also ascertained. Results: None of the 131 patients (n=62 TTR-B, n=69 CG) showed procedure-related complications. No relevant difference in the percentage rate of changes in PSV vs baseline was observed between groups (-7% in the TTR-B, -9% in the CG, p=0.57). 4 patients randomized to TTR-B vs 9 patients in the CG group showed radial caliber reduction at the puncture site (OR 0.72; 95% C.I. 0.19-2.69, p=0.63). None of the patients in the TTR-B experienced RAO, whereas 1 case was recorded in the CG (0% vs 1.4%, p=0.55). Conclusions: The ipsilateral ulnar artery compression through the "TTR-Band" procedure is feasible and safe. The 24 h rate of vessel caliber reduction and RAO is not superior to conventional hemostasis, with a non-significant tendency toward lower reduction in PSV


We consider a new learning model in which a joint distribution over vector pairs $(x,y)$ is determined by an unknown function $c(x)$ that maps input vectors $x$ not to individual outputs, but to entire {\em distributions\/} over output vectors $y$. Our main results take the form of rather general reductions from our model to algorithms for PAC learning the function class and the distribution class separately, and show that virtually every such combination yields an efficient algorithm in our model. Our methods include a randomized reduction to classification noise and an application of Le Cam's method to obtain robust learning algorithms.


Demand for three-dimensional (3D) urban models keeps growing in various civil and military applications. Topographic LiDAR systems are capable of acquiring elevation data directly over terrain features. However, the task of creating a large-scale virtual environment still remains a time-consuming and manual work. In this thesis a method for 3D building reconstruction, consisting of building roof detection, roof outline extraction and regularization, and 3D building model generation, directly from LiDAR point clouds is developed.

In the proposed approach, a new algorithm called Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF) and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used to segment point clouds for building roof detection. The modified convex hull (MCH) algorithm is used for the extraction of roof outlines followed by the regularization of the extracted outlines using the modified hierarchical regularization algorithm. Finally, 3D building models are generated in an ArcGIS environment. The results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness and satisfactory accuracy of the developed method.


X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, XPS, was used for the characterization of electrically conducting polymeric materials. In the spectrum of polypyrrole, PPy, the Nls region exhibits two peaks, at 402.0 and 399.8 eV, corresponding to -N+- and -N- moieties, respectively. The intensity of the N+ peak decreases as the material loses its conductivity, hence the ratio of the experimentally derived N+/C atomic ratio correlates exponentially with the measured conductivity. A similar observation also exists between the F-/C atomic ratio both in polypyrrole and polythiophene. In the XPS spectrum of the composite material prepared using polyaniline, PAN and polyvinylchloride, PVC, two different kinds of Cl2p spin-orbit doublets are present after irradiation by {\ }60Co g-rays. One of the Cl2p doublets can be assigned to the C-Cl in PVC and the other one is assigned to Cl- ions appearing after radiation. Since no Cl- peak is observed in PVC even after radiation, the presence in the composite must be related to dehydrochlorination of PVC and subsequent capture of the H-Cl by the neighboring PAN moieties. The measured Auger parameter of the Nals level of NaBr deposited on an oxidized form of the conducting polymer is between the values of NaBr deposited on Au (metal) and on Si (semiconductor). However, when NaBr is deposited on a reduced form of conducting polymer, the corresponding value approaches to that deposited on quartz (insulator).


Background. Family studies are an integral part of teaching of community medicine to all undergraduate medical and nursing students. It enhances the understanding of students about social determinants and multifactorial causation of disease. However, there is no standard approach towards it and it is seen as a clinical presentation with some elements of family included. We describe a systematic and comprehensive approach to a family study. Methods. Based on the existing literature and personal experience, we identified 11 domains under the acronym Family ASSESSMENT—Structure, Socioeconomic, Sickness, Nutritional, Educational, Environmental, Affordability, System (health), Mental, Family influence, Threats. Under each domain, we present indicative diagnoses and possible solutions. We also suggest that these domain diagnoses can be integrated into a single 'web of interaction' which provides a comprehensive understanding of the issues and guides us towards identifying the solutions. Results. We use a worked out example of a case of tuberculosis to demonstrate the use of this approach and develop a rich web of interaction, which is then linked to identification of possible approaches towards mitigating the impact of disease on the individual and the family. Some suggestions to the departments of community medicine on organizing family studies are also provided. Conclusion. Availability of a systematic and comprehensive approach would improve students' understanding of the social model of disease and multifactorial causation of disease. It will also provide a standardized method of teaching this important component of community medicine nationally.


We investigate the effect of individual income on interpersonal trust levels, using longitudinal survey data for 22,219 Australians over the 2005-2014 period. Our results produce two key insights. First, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for individual-level fixed effects, as the income coefficient goes from positive and statistically significant in a pooled regression to negative and statistically significant in a fixed effects panel model. Second, this negative effect of income on trust holds only for men, and not for women. This result appears to be concentrated among males who are young and moving from no income to positive income, but employment status is not the driving factor. Further, we explore a potential channel via psychological characteristics and find evidence of men reporting greater levels of neuroticism and fretfulness following an increase in income but, again, women do not. In turn, neuroticism and fretfulness are robust predictors of decreased trust levels; these additional findings are based on cross-sectional variation only, since both these variables are available in only one of the survey waves to date.


In this work, the design of a passive UHF RFID tag for sensor applications is described. The system level design issues are discussed taking into account the possible operation scenarios. Among the blocks in the tag, the emphasis is on the design of the rectifier and the capacitive sensor interface. The three-stage, differential-input rectifier is designed to generate the supply voltage with input levels as low as -13 dBm. The power conversion efficiency of the rectifier is 70%, driving a 30 kΩ load at -13 dBm source power. The fully-digital capacitive sensor interface designed to operate with a humidity sensor, can work with supply voltages as low as 0.8 V with good linearity and a power consumption of 12 μW. The tag is capable of getting linear sensor readout under input power levels as low as -9 dBm. The circuits are implemented in 0.18 μm UMC CMOS process.


This study extends previous research evaluating the association between the CHIP intervention, change in body weight, and change in psychological health. A randomized controlled health intervention study lasting 4 wk. was used with 348 participants from metropolitan Rockford, Illinois; ages ranged from 24 to 81 yr. Participants were assessed at baseline, 6 wk., and 6 mo. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and three selected psychosocial measures from the SF–36 Health Survey were used. Significantly greater decreases in Body Mass Index (BMI) occurred after 6 wk. and 6 mo. follow-up for the intervention group compared with the control group, with greater decreases for participants in the overweight and obese categories. Significantly greater improvements were observed in BDI scores, role-emotional and social functioning, and mental health throughout follow-up for the intervention group. The greater the decrease in BMI through 6 wk., the better the chance of improved BDI score, role-emotional score, social functioning score, and mental health score, with odds ratios of 1.3 to 1.9. Similar results occurred through 6 mo., except the mental health variable became nonsignificant. These results indicate that the CHIP intervention significantly improved psychological health for at least six months afterwards, in part through its influence on lowering BMI.


A sensing system utilizing a standard optical fiber as a distributed sensor for the detection and localization of mechanical vibrations is presented. Vibrations can be caused by various external factors, like moving people, cars, trains, and other objects producing mechanical vibrations that are sensed by a fiber. In our laboratory we have designed a sensing system based on the Φ-OTDR (phase sensitive Optical Time Domain Reflectometry) using an extremely narrow laser and EDFAs.


Adaptive streaming addresses the increasing and heterogenous demand of multimedia content over the Internet by offering several streams for each video. Each stream has a different resolution and bit rate, aimed at a specific set of users, e.g., TV, mobile phone. While most existing works on adaptive streaming deal with optimal playout-control strategies at the client side, in this paper we concentrate on the providers' side, showing how to improve user satisfaction by optimizing the encoding parameters. We formulate an integer linear program that maximizes users' average satisfaction, taking into account the network characteristics, the type of video content, and the user population. The solution of the optimization is a set of encoding parameters that outperforms commonly used vendor recommendations, in terms of user satisfaction and total delivery cost. Results show that video content information as well as network constraints and users' statistics play a crucial role in selecting proper encoding parameters to provide fairness among users and reduce network usage. By combining patterns common to several representative cases, we propose a few practical guidelines that can be used to choose the encoding parameters based on the user base characteristics, the network capacity and the type of video content.


It can be said that the financial industry is notoriously opaque due to the complex financial products and services that organisations provide, (Acharya et al, 2009; Claessens et al, 2010). This fact often makes it very difficult for outsiders to be able to identify or even become aware of issues or misdemeanours within companies. With this in mind, recently, scholars have realised the importance of whistle blowers in corporate governance. Prior to being announced to the public via the media, every corporate scandal has had some insiders aware of something in their respective company being amiss. Whistle blowers have earlier and better information about the most heinous type of corporate fraud as they are usually insiders, (Rapp, et al, 2010).

This investigation aims to uncover if the introduction of the "Protected Disclosures Act 2014" will encourage employees working in the professional services sector, specifically in Management and Accountancy companies based in Ireland to come forward and "blow the whistle" if they are aware of a corporate misdemeanour within their organisation, or will it affect their decision making process at all? We will look at those already working in management and accounting consulting firms specifically those working in "big four" organisations (KMPG, PWC, EY, Deloitte). The investigation will take place by means of qualitative interview with members of various organisations. The interview locations will have to differ in order to suit the participant and their work schedule. This investigation will take place over a six week period from June to mid-July. This topic of investigation was chosen due to the investigator having a predisposed interest in the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, and it was desired to uncover how the act would potentially influence or encourage potential whistle blowers to come forward and make a disclosure.

Through investigation it has been found that the Protected Disclosures Act does have an effect on the individual's inclination towards whistle blowing. But for the most part it is ever so slightly. Through the use of qualitative research via the interview of 15 workers in Big Four firms it was found that The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 does not increase workers inclination to the point whereby they would one hundred per cent make a disclosure. It can be said that respondents can be divided into three groups. The first; individuals who were totally unreceptive to the Act and showed a total attitude of apathy towards the entire Act, this group did not feel any inclination towards making a disclosure whatsoever. The second; those who did recognise the Act was a positive thing, but also were of the belief that it did not go far enough in protecting them, this combined with their insecurity of position meant that they too were only slightly more inclined to make a disclosure, this group did not believe that they would make a disclosure in the given situation. Finally, the group who were most receptive were also the smallest. This group wanted more information on the Act, they wanted to know exactly how it worked, and who it effected. This group became much more inclined towards making a disclosure. It should be noted though that although they were much more inclined, not one member of this groupsaid that they would definitely make a disclosure, only that they were more inclined to do so.


Alevi-Bektashi is one of the significant orders which was formed in Anatolia in 13th AD. Haj Bektash Veli, as the founder of the order, migrated to Anatolia from the focal point of Sufism, Khorasan. Probably Haj Bektash Veli was the caliph of Baba Elyas Khorasani, who was the leader of the Baba'i uprising that shook the foundations of the Seljuks in Anatolia in the first half of the 13th century. Eventually, the Seljuks could defeat them by the Frankish forces aid. Loss of his brother in the battle was enough for Haj Bektash to avoid a new military confrontation with the Seljuks, however, followed the intellectual path of the Baba'is in the rest of his life. Many factors such as the religious beliefs of Turks in the pre-Islamic era, the prevailing Sufi thoughts in Anatolia and Christianity affected the Bektashis during their long history. The backbone of the order was the cultural and religious tolerance that found several adherents in Anatolia. In Ottoman era Bektashiya became the official order that spiritually led the Jannissaries. Alevi-Bektashi also was influenced by other streams of thoughts such as Hurufis and the shi'i propaganda of the Safavid sheikhs. This article by historical approach examine the formation of Alevi-Bektashi order and clarifies how they were influenced and then had their impact on the history of Iran and Turkey.


This report outlines the highlights and logistics of major fieldwork campaigns across the Greater
London area during the summers of 2008 to 2009 and minor field campaigns in 2005 and 2006.
The Geochemical Baselines Survey of the Environment (G-BASE) project embarked on field
sampling of soils from across the urban sprawl of London and surrounding towns in 2005
(Scheib and Brown, 2005; Scheib et al., 2006); a continuation of the on-going national, regionalscale
geochemical survey of soils and streams. Also in 2005, urban centres across south Essex
and parts of east London were surveyed. Further progress was made in 2006 across east London
and Southend-on-Sea, largely completing coverage of the 'Thames Gateway'. At the time this
region was earmarked for redevelopment, and the survey was planned in anticipation of a
demand for geochemical data and to coincide with other BGS work in this area.
In 2008, with the inception of the Geochemical Baselines Team, it was decided to commence a
more focused effort to complete the sampling of the London urban area, defined by the Greater
London Authority (GLA) area, comprising all 32 London Boroughs plus the City of London.
This project was entitled London Earth and since has been registered as Trademark (Appendix
6). The completion of the field survey of the GLA area is a deliverable for the G-BASE project
by the end of the 2009-10 financial year. In addition, a 15 km 'buffer' around the GLA zone will
be used to define the outer limits of the London Earth project area, in effect the urban and 'periurban'
areas for all London. These data will provide a unique opportunity to compare the urban
geochemistry with that of the peri-urban region.
London Earth set out to establish the soil geochemical baseline of the most populated area in the
UK, providing geochemical data to investigate soil quality and geochemical processes to help
quantify the influences of man-made activities and to evaluate the levels of elements which are
potentially hazardous in the environment. These data will be made available to all under license.
Field procedures were carried out in accordance with the BGS version-controlled edition of the
2005 G-BASE field procedures manual: first revision (Johnson, 2005). Since 2008 a new
sample type was introduced and collected across the urban area. The procedure for this is an
Appendix (1) to this current report and has been included in the revised version of the manual.
This report also serves as a record of difficulties encountered, health and safety incidents and
near-misses in the field.


The rotational Raman scattered light from nitrogen present in a flame is analyzed with a Fabry-Perot interferometer whose free spectral range is matched to the frequency separation of the Raman lines. The resulting interferograms are fit to theoretical interferograms using a least-χ2 technique. Flame temperatures obtained from this analysis are compared to in situ thermocouple measurements with reasonable agreement. The measured temperatures are compared to other published data, and sources of error are discussed.


Providing up-to-date input to users' applications is an important data management problem for a distributed computing environment, where each data storage location and intermediate node may have specific data available, storage limitations, and communication links available. Sites in the network request data items and each request has an associated deadline and priority. In a military situation, the data staging problem involves positioning data for facilitating a faster access time when it is needed by programs that will aid in decision making. This work concentrates on solving a basic version of the data staging problem in which all parameter values for the communication system and the data request information represent the best known information collected so far and stay fixed throughout the scheduling process. The network is assumed to be oversubscribed and not all requests for data items can be satisfied. A mathematical model for the basic data staging problem is reviewed. Then, three multiple-source shortest-path algorithm based procedures for finding a near-optimal schedule of the communication steps for staging the data are described. Each procedure can be used with each of seven cost criteria developed. A subset of the 21 possible resulting heuristics that are expected to perform well (based on earlier experiments) are evaluated in simulation studies considering different priority weightings schemes, different average number of links used to satisfy each data request, and different network loadings. Finally, an approach considering data items with "more desirable" and "less desirable" available versions is evaluated using a variable time, variable accuracy algorithm, and simulation results are presented. The proposed heuristics are shown to perform well with respect to upper and lower bounds. Furthermore, the heuristics using a complex cost criterion allow more highest priority messages to be received than a simple-cost-based heuristic that schedules all highest priority messages first.


We present a method for the detection of instances of an object class, such as cars or pedestrians, in natural images. Similarly to some previous works, this is accomplished via generalized Hough transform, where the detections of individual object parts cast probabilistic votes for possible locations of the centroid of the whole object; the detection hypotheses then correspond to the maxima of the Hough image that accumulates the votes from all parts. However, whereas the previous methods detect object parts using generative codebooks of part appearances, we take a more discriminative approach to object part detection. Towards this end, we train a class-specific Hough forest, which is a random forest that directly maps the image patch appearance to the probabilistic vote about the possible location of the object centroid. We demonstrate that Hough forests improve the results of the Hough-transform object detection significantly and achieve state-of-the-art performance for several classes and datasets.


Molecular tools and analyses have played pivotal roles in uncovering the processes and patterns of biodiversity in the Indian and Pacific oceans. However, integrating genetic results into management and conservation objectives has been challenging, with few examples that show practical applicability. This review aims to address some of the perceived barriers to an enhanced approach that integrates molecular data into management and conservation goals, by reviewing papers relevant to both conservation and fisheries management in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly with respect to phylogeography, connectivity, and species identification, as well as stock delineation, restoration of depleted wild stocks, mislabeled marine resources and "molecular forensics." We also highlight case studies from each of these areas that illustrate how molecular analyses are relevant to conservation and management in the Indo- Pacific, spanning a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species. We discuss the application of genetic data to the design and evaluation of the effectiveness of marine protected area networks, stock delineation, and restoration and the usage of exclusion tests and parentage analyses for fisheries management. We conclude that there is a distinct need for increasing public awareness and ownership of genetically unique lineages and, ultimately, the increased inclusion of genetic research into management policy and conservation. Finally, we make a case for the importance of clear and effective communication for promoting public awareness, public ownership, and for achieving conservation goals within the region.


Clones of complementary DNA encoding the human lymphokine known as granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) were isolated by means of a mammalian cell (monkey COS cell) expression screening system. One of these clones was used to produce recombinant GM-CSF in mammalian cells. The recombinant hematopoietin was similar to the natural product that was purified to apparent homogeneity from medium conditioned by a human T-cell line. The human T-cell GM-CSF was found to be 60 percent homologous with the GM-CSF recently cloned from murine lung messenger RNA.


Some materials take place in class of advanced smart materials with adaptive properties and   stimulus response to the external changes. Shape memory alloys belong to this group, due to the shape reversibility and capacity of responding to changes in the environment. These alloys exhibit a peculiar property called shape memory effect, which is characterized by the recoverability of two certain shapes of material at different temperatures. These alloys have dual characteristics called thermoelasticity and superelasticity, from view point of memory behavior. Two successive thermal and stress induced martensitic transformations govern thermoelasticity and superelasticity in crystallographic basis. Thermal induced martensite occurs upon cooling beside with lattice twinning, and ordered parent phase shapes turn into twinned martensite structures, and these twinned structures becomes detwinned martensite structures by means of strain induced martensitic transformation, under low temperature condition by stressing material. Superelasticity is performed by stressing and releasing material at a constant temperature in parent phase region, and shape recovery is performed simultaneously upon releasing the applied stress. Superelasticity is performed in unsystematic way; stressing and releasing paths are different in the stress-strain diagram, and hysteresis loop refers to energy dissipation. Superelasticity is also result of stress induced martensitic transformation, with which ordered parent phase structures turn into the detwinned martensitic structures on stressing, and detwinned structures turn into the ordered parent phase structure upon releasing, by means of reverse austenite transformation.
The elementary processes involved in such martensitic transformations are lattice invariant shear, lattice twinning and detwinning. It is well known that crystal twinning and detwinning reactions play a considerable role in shape memory effect and superelasticity.

Shape memory alloys are functional materials due to the response to the external conditions, and used as shape memory elements in many fields of industry, engineering and other sectors. Shape memory effect is initiated by cooling and deformation processes in shape memory alloys, and performed thermally on heating and cooling after these processes. Therefore this effect can be called thermoelasticity. These alloys recover the original shape on heating and cycle between deformed and original shapes on cooling and heating. Thermal induced martensitic transformation is governed by lattice twinning, by means of lattice invariant shear; and the ordered parent phase structures turn into twinned structures. This transformations occur as martensite variants with cooperative movements of atoms by means of lattice invariant shears on a {110}-type plane of austenite matrix, and the transformed region consists of parallel bands containing alternately two different variants. These variants form internally twinned martensite regions. In the absence of external stress, multiple martensite variants are formed without causing any macroscopic deformation as lattice twins in self-accommodating manner.

Experimental studies have been performed on two copper based ternary shape memory alloys, with the following compositions; Cu-26.1%Zn 4%Al and Cu-11%Al-6%Mn (in weight). Martensitic transformation temperatures of these alloys are over the room temperature and they are entirely martensitic at room temperature. Specimens of these alloys were solution treated for homogenization in the i¢-phase field (15 minutes at 830i'°C for CuZnAl alloy and 20 minutes at 700i'°C for CuAlMn alloy), then quenched in iced-brine to retain the i¢-phase and aged at room temperature after quenching. Powder specimens for x-ray examination were prepared by filling the alloys, these specimens were heated in evacuated quartz tubes in the i¢-phase fields for homogenization and quenched in iced-brine. X-ray diffraction studies carried out on these specimens, and x-ray diffraction profiles were taken from the quenched specimens using Cu-Kii radiation with wavelength 1.5418 A. Powder samples of the alloys were aged at room temperature, and a series of x-ray diffractograms were taken in a long term interval, and compared with each other.

X-ray powder diffractograms and electron diffractions were taken from the samples in a long term interval. X-ray diffractograms and electron diffraction patterns reveal that both alloys have the ordered structure in martensitic condition, and exhibit superlattice reflections, ,the details were given elsewhere [1]. X-ray diffractograms and electron diffraction patterns reveal that both alloy have the ordered structure in martensitic condition, and exhibit superlattice reflections. A series of X-ray powder diffractograms and electron diffraction patterns were taken from both CuZnAl and CuAlMn alloy samples in a large time interval and compared with each other. It has been observed that electron diffraction patterns exhibit similar characteristics, but some changes occur at the diffraction angles and intensities on the x-ray diffractograms with aging duration. These changes occur as rearrangement or redistribution of atoms in the material, and attribute to new transitions in diffusive manner [1-3]. The ordered structure or super lattice structure is essential for the shape memory quality of the material. In the shape memory alloys, homogenization and releasing the external effect is obtained by ageing at β- phase field for adequate duration.
It can be concluded from the above results that the copper-based shape memory alloys are very sensitive to the ageing treatments. The diffraction angles and intensities of x-ray diffraction peaks changes with the ageing time in martensitic condition.


Soft material-enabled electronics can demonstrate extreme mechanical flexibility and stretchability. Such compliant, comfortable electronics allow continuous, long-term measurement of biopotentials on the skin. Manufacturing of the stretchable electronic devices is enabled by the recent development combining materials transfer printing and microfabrication. However, the existing method using inorganic materials and multi-layered polymers requires long material preparation time and expensive processing cost due to the requirement of microfabrication tools and complicated transfer printing steps. Here, this study develops a new fabrication method of soft electronics via a micro-replica-molding technique, which allows fast production, multiple use, and low cost by avoiding microfabrication and multiple transfer printing. The core materials, carbon nanomaterials integrated with soft elastomers, further reduces the entire production cost, compared to costly metals such as gold and silver, while offering mechanical compliance. Collectively, skinwearable electrodes, designed by optimized materials and fabrication method enable a highfidelity measurement of non-invasive electromyograms on the skin for advanced human-machine interface, targeting prosthesis.