The Arctic is estimated to contain at least 25% of the worlds undiscovered petroleum resources (Ahlbrandt, 2002, AMAP, 2007). By 2010, annual volumes of 150 million tonnes of oil may be shipped by sea as a result of the development of oil production and transportation infrastructure in the Barents region alone (Frantzen and Bambulyak, 2003). For example, Shtockman gas deposit are estimated at 3.2 billion cubic metres of gas and 31 million tonnes of condensate. As energy consumption and air pollution are directly linked, any increase in oil and gas related activities is likely to result in increased pollutant emissions. Oil spills, whether from blowouts, pipeline leaks or shipping accidents, pose a tremendous risk to arctic ecosystems. These ecosystems are characterised by a short productive season, low temperatures, and limited sunlight. As a result, it can take many decades for them to recover from habitat disruption, sediment disturbance and not least oil spills. The problem is particularly acute in ice-infested waters. There are two major gaps of knowledge and available technologies to limit potential risks of population-wide impacts by oil spills and gas leakages: 1. Monitoring tools to detect detrimental effects of oil spills from various sources on health of marine arctic organisms. 2. Effective method for containing and cleaning up an oil spill in ice conditions. In this talk we will focus on monitoring strategies for oil pollution accidents as well as chronic long term exposure scenarios. These strategies are already implemented in the frame of the Oslo Paris Convention (OSPAR) for the North Sea and North East Atlantic and Mediterranean regions (UNEP, Barcelona Convention) and need to be transferred to Arctic organisms. What is needed to fill critical gaps of knowledge for the protection of the Arctic before gas and oil exploration and exploitation starts? With respect to selection of indicator organisms, test organisms should encompass key ecologically important species in food webs. Ideally contaminant body residues should be determined so that they can be linked to effects of biomagnification in the foodweb and related health effects. As acute effects biomarkers indicating contact of organisms to oil related chemicals, induction of detoxifying enzymes such as EROD activity, induction CP4501, GST activity, antioxidant enzymes: SOD, CAT, GPX and GR DT-diaphorase are suitable tools. As long term effects biomarkers, lipid peroxidation/oxidative stress, micronuclei formation as indication for genotoxic effects and histopathology including cancer diagnosis are recommended by the ICES Working Group of Biological Effects of Contaminants (OSPAR). Parallel to acute and long term biomarkers, the measurement of lysosomal membrane stability is advised as biomarker integrating effects on cell (mal)function by various classes of oil components sensitively reflecting the onset and progression of toxicant induced tissue pathologies. For the successful implementation of an Arctic monitoring programme, acquisition of data on seasonal biomarker/ bioresponse/detoxification patterns of pressure- and cold-adapted indicator species are essential as a baseline. Status quo determination of biomarkers response, biodiversity, body burden of PAHs and other chemicals as well as water and sediment contamination before oil and gas exploitation activity start is a prerequisite for correct scientific interpretation of pollution effects and legal claims against producers.


Reply.— Concerning the depressed cases, it should be stressed that 75% of the depressed sample met DSM-III criteria for a major depressive disorder and that al l patients were required to be moderately depressed, as indexed by a score of at least 8 on the Raskin Depression Scale. In their inpatient studies, Raskin et al 1 employed a score of 9 on this screen, while outpatient studies by Klerman and his colleagues 2 used a score of 7. Moreover, as we pointed out in the above-referenced article (page 71), two of the 21 items of the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Units version of the Hamilton Depression Scale were not scored. Further, all patients were judged by experienced psychiatrists to be in need of pharmacologic treatment. In short, this is a bona fide clinically depressed sample. While we do not know why these patients did not show as much improvement in their clinical


The Unification of Italy in the nineteenth century was the unlikely result of a lengthy and complex process of Italian 'revival' ('Risorgimento'). Few Italians supported Unification and the new rulers of Italy were unable to resolve their disputes with the Catholic Church, the local power-holders in the South and the peasantry. In this fascinating account, Martin Clark examines these problems and considers: * The economic, social and religious contexts of Unification, as well as the diplomatic and military aspects * The roles of Cavour and Garibaldi and also the wider European influences, particularly those of Britain and France * The recent historiographical shift away from uncritical celebration of the achievement of Italian unity. Did 'Italian Unification' mean anything more than traditional Piedmontese expansionism? Was it simply an aspect of European 'secularisation'? Did it involve 'state-building', or just repression? In exploring these questions and more, Martin Clark offers the ideal introductory account for anyone wishing to understand how modern Italy was born. This new edition has been revised in the light of recent research and now has a greater emphasis on the 'losers' of the conflict, the impact of Unification on the South, and the complexity of the political realities of the times. It has also been updated with useful additional material such as a Who's Who and a plate section to go alongside its carefully chosen selection of original documents.


This paper shows that "one-sided" terms in standard contracts, which deny consumers a contractual benefit that seems efficient on average, may arise in competitive markets without informational problems (other than those of courts). A one-sided term might be an efficient response to situations in which courts cannot perfectly observe all the contingencies needed for an accurate implementation of a "balanced" contractual term when firms are more concerned about their reputation, and thus less inclined to behave opportunistically, than consumers are. We develop this explanation, discuss its positive and normative implications, and compare them to those of information-based explanations for one-sided terms.


In this thesis, dry chemical modification methods involving UV/ozone, oxygen plasma, and vacuum annealing treatments are explored to precisely control the wettability of CNT arrays. By varying the exposure time of these treatments the surface concentration of oxygenated groups adsorbed on the CNT arrays can be controlled. CNT arrays with very low amount of oxygenated groups exhibit a superhydrophobic behavior. In addition to their extremely high static contact angle, they cannot be dispersed in DI water and their impedance in aqueous electrolytes is extremely high. These arrays have an extreme water repellency capability such that a water droplet will bounce off of their surface upon impact and a thin film of air is formed on their surface as they are immersed in a deep pool of water. In contrast, CNT arrays with very high surface concentration of oxygenated functional groups exhibit an extreme hydrophilic behavior. In addition to their extremely low static contact angle, they can be dispersed easily in DI water and their impedance in aqueous electrolytes is tremendously low. Since the bulk structure of the CNT arrays are preserved during the UV/ozone, oxygen plasma, and vacuum annealing treatments, all CNT arrays can be repeatedly switched between superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic, as long as their O/C ratio is kept below 18%. The effect of oxidation using UV/ozone and oxygen plasma treatments is highly reversible as long as the O/C ratio of the CNT arrays is kept below 18%. At O/C ratios higher than 18%, the effect of oxidation is no longer reversible. This irreversible oxidation is caused by irreversible changes to the CNT atomic structure during the oxidation process. During the oxidation process, CNT arrays undergo three different processes. For CNT arrays with O/C ratios lower than 40%, the oxidation process results in the functionalization of CNT outer walls by oxygenated groups. Although this functionalization process introduces defects, vacancies and micropores opening, the graphitic structure of the CNT is still largely intact. For CNT arrays with O/C ratios between 40% and 45%, the oxidation process results in the etching of CNT outer walls. This etching process introduces large scale defects and holes that can be obviously seen under TEM at high magnification. Most of these holes are found to be several layers deep and, in some cases, a large portion of the CNT side walls are cut open. For CNT arrays with O/C ratios higher than 45%, the oxidation process results in the exfoliation of the CNT walls and amorphization of the remaining CNT structure. This amorphization process can be implied from the disappearance of C-C sp2 peak in the XPS spectra associated with the pi-bond network. The impact behavior of water droplet impinging on superhydrophobic CNT arrays in a low viscosity regime is investigated for the first time. Here, the experimental data are presented in the form of several important impact behavior characteristics including critical Weber number, volume ratio, restitution coefficient, and maximum spreading diameter. As observed experimentally, three different impact regimes are identified while another impact regime is proposed. These regimes are partitioned by three critical Weber numbers, two of which are experimentally observed. The volume ratio between the primary and the secondary droplets is found to decrease with the increase of Weber number in all impact regimes other than the first one. In the first impact regime, this is found to be independent of Weber number since the droplet remains intact during and subsequent to the impingement. Experimental data show that the coefficient of restitution decreases with the increase of Weber number in all impact regimes. The rate of decrease of the coefficient of restitution in the high Weber number regime is found to be higher than that in the low and moderate Weber number. Experimental data also show that the maximum spreading factor increases with the increase of Weber number in all impact regimes. The rate of increase of the maximum spreading factor in the high Weber number regime is found to be higher than that in the low and moderate Weber number. Phenomenological approximations and interpretations of the experimental data, as well as brief comparisons to the previously proposed scaling laws, are shown here. Dry oxidation methods are used for the first time to characterize the influence of oxidation on the capacitive behavior of CNT array EDLCs. The capacitive behavior of CNT array EDLCs can be tailored by varying their oxygen content, represented by their O/C ratio. The specific capacitance of these CNT arrays increases with the increase of their oxygen content in both KOH and Et4NBF4/PC electrolytes. As a result, their gravimetric energy density increases with the increase of their oxygen content. However, their gravimetric power density decreases with the increase of their oxygen content. The optimally oxidized CNT arrays are able to withstand more than 35,000 charge/discharge cycles in Et4NBF4/PC at a current density of 5 A/g while only losing 10% of their original capacitance.


Energy harvesting (EH) for tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMSs) is a key element to make tire sensors self-sufficient and to raise the features of vehicle tires to a next level. This work studies the commercially available piezoelectric flat transducers M2807-P1, M2807-P2 from SmartMaterials and P878.A1 and P876.SP1 from PI Ceramics to use the tire strain and to generate electrical energy inside the tire. An equivalent electromechanical network with the strain as input signal is derived and used to predict the voltage at the harvester output. A 220 μF capacitor is connected to store the harvested energy. In contrast to the common use of full-wave rectifiers, this work uses a synchronous electric charge extraction (SECE) circuit for efficient energy transfer. An electronic breaker (EB) serves as a simple implementation with discrete components. Although an EB provides only an efficiency of 40 %, it increases the amount of transferred energy significantly compared to state-of-the-art TPMS systems. Experimental results show an increase of the harvested energy of more than 200 % compared to former works.


A lipopeptide, carrying the antigenic peptide segment 135-154 of VP1, one of the capsid proteins of the picornavirus which causes foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, was investigated in lipid monolayers on the water surface and on hydrophobic solid supports. Such lipid monolayers, if present in the fluid state, can incorporate the lipopeptide at any given lipid/lipopeptide ratio. CD and IR spectroscopy show that, on the surface of the lipid layers, the peptidic portion of the lipopeptide adopts an av. structure similar to that obsd. on the surface of the intact virus. The peptide is fully accessible to specific antibody binding as revealed by epifluorescence microscopy of lipid monolayers on the water surface and by surface plasmon resonance measurements of supported layers. In addn., the lipid monolayer surface prevents nonspecific protein binding. Since the lipopeptide-contg. lipid monolayers can easily be formed by self-assembly on many transducer surfaces, we believe that this method is of general importance for the controlled presentation of antigens for the subsequent detection of antibody binding. More importantly, the findings open the way for simulating ligand-receptor interactions on biol. cell surfaces in a reconstituted system using modern surface sensitive techniques which are equally interesting for basic research and biosensor applications. [on SciFinder (R)]


Recently, there has been a surge of interest in representation learning in hyperbolic spaces, driven by their ability to represent hierarchical data with significantly fewer dimensions than standard Euclidean spaces. However, the viability and benefits of hyperbolic spaces for downstream machine learning tasks have received less attention. In this paper, we present, to our knowledge, the first theoretical guarantees for learning a classifier in hyperbolic rather than Euclidean space. Specifically, we consider the problem of learning a large-margin classifier for data possessing a hierarchical structure. Our first contribution is a hyperbolic perceptron algorithm, which provably converges to a separating hyperplane. We then provide an algorithm to efficiently learn a large-margin hyperplane, relying on the careful injection of adversarial examples. Finally, we prove that for hierarchical data that embeds well into hyperbolic space, the low embedding dimension ensures superior guarantees when learning the classifier directly in hyperbolic space.


In this work, we develop a distributed source routing algorithm for topology discovery, suitable for ISP transport networks, that is however inspired by opportunistic algorithms used in ad hoc wireless networks. We propose a plug-and-play control plane, able to find multiple paths toward the same destination, and introduce a novel algorithm, called adaptive probabilistic flooding, to achieve this goal. By keeping a small amount of state in routers taking part in the discovery process, our technique significantly limits the amount of control messages exchanged with flooding - and, at the same time, it only minimally affects the quality of the discovered multiple path with respect to the optimal solution. Simple analytical bounds, confirmed by results gathered with extensive simulation on several topologies (up to 10,000 nodes), show our approach to be of high practical interest.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
To investigate the incidence and outcome of optic neuropathy associated with thyroid-related orbitopathy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
All patients diagnosed as having optic neuropathy associated with thyroid-related orbitopathy who underwent treatment for optic neuropathy between January 1, 1999, and March 1, 2003, were reviewed. Demographic and clinical data were extracted from the oculoplastic registry (electronic medical record).

RESULTS
Optic neuropathy occurred in 20 of 595 patients with thyroid-related orbitopathy (3.4%). All patients received systemic steroids, 7 patients received orbital steroid injections, and 2 patients were treated with orbital radiotherapy. Orbital decompression was performed in all 26 orbits. Visual acuity improved from a mean of 20/150 to 20/30 (P < .001). Color vision improved from a mean of 5.2/14 to 11/14 (P = .001). The afferent pupillary defect disappeared shortly after treatment for all but 1 case, and improved in all cases. Exophthalmos decreased from 26.4 +/- 2.5 to 21.5 +/- 2.1 mm (P< .001; 95% confidence interval, 3.8 to 5.7).

CONCLUSIONS
Optic neuropathy manifests rarely in patients with thyroid-related orbitopathy. Monitoring visual acuity or afferent pupillary response may be a reliable way of assessing and monitoring optic neuropathy. In this study, patients had improved visual acuity and optic nerve function after a combination of medical and surgical treatment.


Examination of the factors contributing to the development of the Austin/San Antonio corridor as a high-technology center in the years 1945-1986. The paper uses a conceptual framework called the Technopolis Wheel, which identifies seven segments as fundamental in regional high-tech growth: university, large and small technology companies, state-local-and federal government, and support groups (e.g., chambers of commerce). The major contribution of the paper is its emphasis on using multiple data sources to measure the relative importance of these segments. It concludes with case studies of Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin and the biotechnology sector in San Antonio.


The association of bicuspid aortic valve with aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, and infective endocarditis has been known for almost 150 years and with dissection of the aorta for 75 years.1These complications are mentioned only briefly in cardiology textbooks3 and a standard work on medical insurance underwriting4 implies that it is usually a benign lesion: when diagnosed at routine medical examination and if the valve is functionally normal, insurance is offered at ordinary rates. The authors also state "If there is no stenosis by age 20 years (defined as a peak gradient of less than 40 mm Hg) and only trivial insufficiency, there is an excellent chance that significant haemodynamic change will not develop before age 70." However, on the basis of published reports by this age the majority of patients will have died or developed serious symptoms requiring surgical intervention. This review summarises the major studies that provide information on the incidence, pathology, and natural history of the bicuspid aortic valve. Clinical diagnosis of this condition was unsatisfactory before the widespread use of cross sectional echocardiography approximately 15 years ago. Most of the information in this paper therefore comes from large necropsy series and from reports on patients who have undergone aortic valve replacement. It has to be accepted that conclusions based on these reports may be inaccurate, because of non-uniformity of diagnostic criteria and varying age range, source/selection of patients studied, and study objectives.

A small percentage of malfunctioning congenitally abnormal aortic valves are unicuspid or unicommissural,5 but as most reports do not distinguish this from bicuspid aortic valve the abbreviation "bicuspid aortic valve" will used to include both types of valve unless stated otherwise.

Early pathology studies1 6 documented three characteristics of bicuspid aortic valve: inequality of cusp size, the presence of …


Induction motor speed sensorless torque control, which allows operation at low and zero speed, optimizing both torque response and efficiency, is proposed. The control is quite different than the conventional field-oriented or direct torque controls. A new discontinuous stator current FPGA based controller and rotor flux observer based on sliding mode and Lyapunov theory are developed, analyzed and experimentally verified. A smooth transition into the field weakening region and the full utilization of the inverter current and voltage capability are possible. The reference tracking performance of speed and rotor flux is demonstrated in terms of transient characteristics by experimental results.


The effects of dough aeration on measured bulk rheology of dough were investigated by preparing doughs with various gas contents and assessing their rheology under large deformation biaxial extension using the SMS Dough Inflation System. Doughs were mixed to various gas contents using a laboratory-scale mixer, the Tweedy 1, at various mixer headspace pressures. In order to consider the effect of oxidation processes, doughs were mixed in air, in nitrogen and in a controlled oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere in which the partial pressure of oxygen was kept constant. In the latter two cases a flow rate of gas through the mixer was maintained, while the doughs mixed in air had a static headspace. Dough aeration was quantified using density measurements. The dough rheology tests were performed under two different modes: constant volumetric air flow rate; and constant strain rate at two levels, 0.1 and 0.05 s(-1). Analysis of the stress-strain data of an inflating dough bubble using an exponential model enabled the strain hardening index, failure strain and failure stress to be determined. The strain hardening index, failure strain and failure stress decreased with gas content, indicating that gas bubbles in dough disrupt the integrity of dough structure. The faster strain rate tended to give higher values of all parameters and to be more discriminating, while testing at a constant volumetric air flow rate gave lower values. Doughs mixed under a constant partial pressure of oxygen resulted in the strain hardening index being minimally affected by the gas content, although failure strain and failure stress decreased with increasing gas content in the dough. The flow of gas through the mixer appeared to affect dough aeration and rheology, and the rate of work input was found to increase with increasing mixer headspace pressures. These suggest that dough aeration not only affects the rheology of static dough through the physical presence of gas bubbles following mixing, it also affects the development of its rheological properties within the mixer, through the physical presence of the bubbles affecting the rate of work input that develops the doughs, and also through the turnover of air that supplies oxygen to facilitate this development. (c) 2005 Society of Chemical Industry.


Plasma equilibrium in an artificial magnetosphere in interplanetary space is proposed to apply the idea of plasma equilibrium for magnetic sail spacecraft, which obtains a thrust force based on the interaction between solar wind particles and an artificial magnetosphere made by electromagnets onboard spacecraft. It is numerically shown that when releasing a low-velocity plasma from a magnetic sail spacecraft, an equatorial ring-current is excited around the spacecraft, which makes a larger magnetosphere and correspondingly a larger thrust level becomes possible. In our preliminary MHD and particle simulations, it is shown that thrust by magnetic sail using plasma equilibrium is more than three times larger than that of pure magnetic sail without releasing plasma, and this result shows promising feature of on magnetic sail using plasma equilibrium.


Abstract Background: The Family Medicine Department, University of the Free State (UFS) recently supervised the MFGP assessments of the College of Medicine in South Africa (first sitting), as well as the final assessment of the M Med Fam programme of the UFS (second sitting). The examinations, which took place in October and November 2006, were subjected to an internal quality assurance evaluation with the view to improve the standard and reliability of the examinations. Methods: All the candidates, as well as the examiners who participated in the MFGP and M Fam Med examinations, were included in the evaluation. Opinions were obtained from the students and examiners for each assessment on a structured data form directly after the examinations. A Smits blueprint was established for the written paper. Results: The majority of the students assessed the OSCE as being fair, understood the questions and agreed with the time allocated per question. A broad variety of competencies were assessed in a structured manner, which enhances the reliability of the examinations. The examiners evaluated the OSCE as being well structured and fair, as well as testing for the competencies of a family physician. Good agreement was achieved between the two different sets of candidates and examiners, and similar marks were achieved despite the separate settings, thus enhancing the validity of the examinations. The structured oral was evaluated as being fair regarding the variety and relevance of the questions by all the candidates and examiners. The written paper was on a relatively high cognitive level and tested a broad spectrum of knowledge. Although it did not cover the entire module, skills and approaches necessary for problem solving were tested. If a student could master these problems, he/she should be able to manage other areas not covered in the paper. Conclusion: The authors are of the opinion that the quality evaluation of clinical medicine in the final postgraduate examinations in Family Medicine held at UFS in 2006 showed it to be authentic, fair, reliable and objective, and that it assessed competencies for real-life situations, as well as the theoretical knowledge, attitudes and values required for a family practitioner.


We demonstrate optical trapping and orientational control over colloidal particles having complex shapes in an anisotropic host fluid using a dynamic holographic optical tweezers system. Interactions between a colloidal particle and the toroidal intensity distributions of focused Laguerre-Gaussian beams allow for stable optical tweezing and provide a tunable tilt of the particle out of the focal plane. Use of an aligned nematic liquid crystal as the host fluid suppresses rotations about the optical axis arising from angular momentum transfer from the beam and effectively defines a rotational axis for the colloid within the trap.


Few studies to date have investigated the extent of linkages between long-run asymmetries in bilateral trade and fluctuations in real exchange rates and importer demand in non-oil commodity markets. This paper generates estimates of trade elasticities in U.S. raw coffee imports, applying a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model and explicitly testing the extent to which nonlinearities matter to U.S. commodity sourcing in the short and long run. Models with asymmetries in both exchange rates and U.S. income point to the critical role that asymmetric pass-through plays in explaining long-run dynamics in U.S. import trade for a major commodity supply chain.


This guideline was developed to primarily deal with point-of-operation guarding but also addresses lock-out, blocking and fall arresting systems. It expands upon and replaces the Ontario Ministry of Labour Guideline Safety Standard for Rear Loading Mobile Refuse Compacting Trucks dated March 5th, 1993.


We describe a study involving simultaneous measurements of sap flow rate and sap nutrient content in three canopy and four sub-canopy trees of Dryobalanops aromatica Gaertn. f. (Dipterocarpaceae). Sap flow rate was measured using a heat pulse technique. Sap nutrient content was determined for potassium, calcium, total Kjeldahl nitrogen and phosphorus from samples collected diurnally in the tree crowns. Sap concentration for all nutrients at each 2-h sampling period was unrelated to tree size, except for during the 1600-1800 h period. Relative concentrations of the four nutrients followed the general pattern of N > K > Ca > P; greatest rates of delivery (mmol h⁻¹) to tree crowns tended to occur at mid-day for each of the four nutrients. Distinct diurnal patterns of sap flow and nutrient content were apparent in most trees. Sap nutrient concentration was often positively correlated with the rate of sap flow. We discuss possible explanations for this unexpected correlation in terms of within-tree nutrient cycling, and also the postulated osmotic role of xylem sap solutes. We conclude that combining measurements of sap flow and sap nutrient content, a technique apparently not previously used in a tropical rain forest study, has considerable potential in ecophysiology.


Abstract Thierry-Chef, I., Simon, S. L., Land, C. E. and Miller, D. L. Radiation Dose to the Brain and Subsequent Risk of Developing Brain Tumors in Pediatric Patients Undergoing Interventional Neuroradiology Procedures. Radiat. Res. 170, 553– 565 (2008). Radiation dose to the brain and subsequent lifetime risk of diagnosis of radiation-related brain tumors were estimated for pediatric patients undergoing intracranial embolization. Average dose to the whole brain was calculated using dosimetric data from the Radiation Doses in Interventional Radiology Study for 49 pediatric patients who underwent neuroradiological procedures, and lifetime risk of developing radiation-related brain tumors was estimated using published algorithms based on A-bomb survivor data. The distribution of absorbed dose within the brain can vary significantly depending on field size and movement during procedures. Depending on the exposure conditions and age of the patient, organ-averaged brain dose was estimated to vary from 6 to 1600 mGy. The lifetime risk of brain tumor diagnosis was estimated to be increased over the normal background rates (57 cases per 10,000) by 3 to 40% depending on the dose received, age at exposure, and gender. While significant uncertainties are associated with these estimates, we have quantified the range of possible dose and propagated the uncertainty to derive a credible range of estimated lifetime risk for each subject. Collimation and limiting fluoroscopy time and dose rate are the most effective means to minimize dose and risk of future induction of radiation-related tumors.


This work is financed via a grant by the Dutch National Initiative for Education Research (NRO)/The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science under the grant nr. 405-15-705 (SOONER/http://sooner.nu).


Clients within the construction industry have become more aware of benefits that exist and can be reached when going through a major construction project, benefits that invite for efficiency improvements both during construction and its prophases. New methods of execution and their different advantages are evaluated. This change has opened the door for new business models such as Construction Management (CM) but it also demands the contractors to adapt and come up with more client-customized methods. The thesis goes further into the question of when to use which execution method and describes how the client thinks in the decision-making process. What factors affect the client when making the choice between CM and contractors? It investigates and highlights the behaviors, features and processes that affect the client in their way towards an optimal investment. It further explores what the contractors and CM firms can do in order to adapt to their clients and win their trust. The Analysis & Conclusion chapter provides a summarized view of What the clients have in mind but also Why and How they make their decisions. Throughout the literature review and interviews we found five different parameters as particularly important:• Experience – what has been done before and was it successful?• Availability – how easy is it for clients to recall the different actors?• Relations – optimal teamwork and collaborations or just personal relations and quick fixes?•Price/Risk – what risks are included and how is that linked to costs?•In-House Resources – what does the clients' own organizations look like and what resources are available?Clients wish for a riskless, cheap and short construction process with retained good quality and without friction between organizations. On their way towards this goal they face several complex aspects as well as their own human characteristics, being affected by biases and heuristics. This thesis shows that the choice between these two business models is complex and not obvious but that improvements in the client's evaluation and decision-strategies can be made. The right business model for a projects specifics' can, in particular for redevelopment projects, give several benefits. It also shows that the execution firms can change and adapt in many ways in order to influence their situation with the clients.


PURPOSE
Dexamethasone is a key component in the treatment of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), but can induce serious adverse effects. Recent studies have led to the hypothesis that neuropsychological adverse effects may be a result of cortisol depletion of the cerebral mineralocorticoid receptors. We examined whether including a physiologic dose of hydrocortisone in dexamethasone treatment can reduce neuropsychologic and metabolic adverse effects in children with ALL.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We performed a multicenter, double-blind, randomized controlled trial with a crossover design. Of 116 potentially eligible patients (age 3 to 16 years), 50 were enrolled and were treated with two consecutive courses of dexamethasone in accordance with Dutch Childhood Oncology Group ALL protocols. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either hydrocortisone or placebo in a circadian rhythm (10 mg/m(2)/d) during both dexamethasone courses. Primary outcome measure was parent-reported Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire in Dutch, which assesses psychosocial problems. Other end points included questionnaires, neuropsychological tests, and metabolic parameters.

RESULTS
Of 48 patients who completed both courses, hydrocortisone had no significant effect on outcome; however, a more detailed analysis revealed that in 16 patients who developed clinically relevant psychosocial adverse effects, addition of hydrocortisone substantially reduced their Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire in Dutch scores in the following domains: total difficulties, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and impact of difficulties. Moreover, in nine patients who developed clinically relevant, sleep-related difficulties, addition of hydrocortisone reduced total sleeping problems and disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep. In contrast, hydrocortisone had no effect on metabolic parameters.

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that adding a physiologic dose of hydrocortisone to dexamethasone treatment can reduce the occurrence of serious neuropsychological adverse effects and sleep-related difficulties in pediatric patients with ALL.


A compact representation for non-transferable utility games founding on answer set programming is proposed. The representation is fully expressive, in that it can capture all games defined over a finite set of alternatives. Moreover, due to the knowledge representation capabilities of answer set programs, it can easily accommodate the definition of games within a wide range of application domains, ranging from scheduling, to routing and planning, just to name a few. The computational complexity of the proposed framework is studied, in particular, by focusing on the core as the prototypical solution concept. A system supporting the basic reasoning tasks arising therein is also made available, and results of experimental activity are discussed.


[1] The first measurements of ClOOCl in the stratosphere have been acquired from a NASA ER-2 aircraft, deployed from Kiruna, Sweden (68°N, 21°E), during the joint SOLVE/THESEO-2000 mission of the winter of 1999/2000. ClOOCl is detected by thermal dissociation into two ClO fragments that are measured by the well-known technique of chemical conversion, vacuum ultraviolet resonance fluorescence. Ambient ClO is detected simultaneously. Observations of the ratio [ClOOCl]/[ClO]2 (estimated uncertainty of ±25%, 1 σ) are used with a time-dependent photochemical model, to test the model representation of the ratios of kinetic parameters J/kProd and kLoss/kProd for day and nighttime observations, respectively. Here, kProd and kLoss are the rate constants for ClOOCl production and loss, respectively, and J is the photolysis rate of ClOOCl. The observations are in good agreement with J based upon the 2002 JPL recommended cross sections for ClOOCl [Sander et al., 2003], if the true value of kProd is given by either the 2000 JPL recommendation [Sander et al., 2000] or the work of Trolier et al. [1990]. The larger values of kProd given by Bloss et al. [2001] and the 2002 JPL recommendation are consistent with the observations only if J is increased by a significant amount. This is accomplished if J is calculated with the larger ClOOCl cross sections measured by Burkholder et al. [1990]. The J values for ClOOCl based on the Huder and DeMore [1995] cross sections are too small, by factors of ∼1.6 to 2.5 for all values of kProd, based on the observations. Nighttime results suggest that, for 190 < T < 200 K, the values for KEq (the equilibrium constant, equal to the ratio of kProd/kLoss) of Cox and Hayman [1988] and Avallone and Toohey [2001] are in best agreement with the observations.


Cyclase associated protein (CAP) is a bifunctional protein having an N-terminal adenylyl cyclase binding domain and a C-terminal actin-binding domain. In-between these two domains there is a proline rich SH3 domain presumably involved in the localization of CAP. CAP is expressed widely and has been found in yeast, Dictyostelium, Drosophila, rat, mouse and humans. Two homologues of CAP have been identified in higher eukaryotes, CAP1 and CAP2. Although CAP proteins have been studied for more than a decade and are present in all organisms, many questions remain about the mechanisms of CAP function. The roles of mammalian CAP2 proteins have not been investigated extensively. In our study we showed that CAP2 has 2 transcripts of 3 and 3.5 kb unlike the ubiquitously expressed CAP1, homologue of CAP2 in mice. In contrast to CAP1, CAP2 is expressed in a tissue specific manner. We found that CAP2 is present in relatively moderate levels in brain, heart and skeletal muscle and lower levels in skin. Furthermore, we investigated the expression pattern in more detail in these tissues and found that CAP2 is present in all parts of the adult brain but is detected only in the cerebellum and brain stem in the newborn mice and expressed only in the cerebellar region of the brain in embryos of E16. In brain CAP2 was expressed uniformly in the cortex and also found in the Purkinje cells and in the myelinated axons of the white matter. In skeletal muscle we observed a striated pattern..CAP2 was strongly expressed in the heart where it was present in cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and the capillary wall of the blood vessels. We observed a striated pattern, which correlated with an association of CAP2 with the M-bands. In the skin CAP2 was expressed in the basal epidermal layers and in the hair follicle region and was found in the sebaceous glands. CAP2 was also expressed in the keratinocytes in skin. Immunofluorescence studies with PAM212, a mouse keratinocyte cell line, and primary mouse keratinocytes revealed that CAP2 was surprisingly localized in the nucleus. Cell fractionation experiments performed with PAM212 cells confirmed the presence of CAP2 in the nucleus. In the case of primary mouse keratinocytes CAP2 was also localised to the nucleus apart from its presence in the cytosol. In contrast in human keratinocytes CAP2 localised to the cell cortex and present in patches. Immunofluorescence studies and experiments with drugs affecting the cytoskeleton revealed that CAP2 was partially associated with F-actin and the microtubules. The nuclear localization was dependent on the microtubular cytoskeletal network and independent of the actin cytoskeleton. Overexpression studies in HEK293 cells using EGFP and Myc fusion proteins showed that CAP2 is cytosolic and was associated with lamellipodia. Unlike our overexpression studies, the immunofluorescence studies with HL-1, a cardiomyocyte cell line, and with primary cardiomyocytes of embryonic stages E17 and E19 showed that CAP2 was localized to the nucleus as in the PAM212 cells. In cardiomyocytes, CAP2 colocalised partially with Troponin I. In order to investigate the interaction with its homologue CAP1, cotransfection of GFP-CAP1, Myc-CAP2 into HEK293 cells followed by immunoprecipitation experiments was performed. The results revealed that CAP2 interacts with CAP1. While investigating the interaction of CAP2 with other proteins, we found that ACF7, an F-actin crosslinking protein interacts with CAP2 in immunoprecipitation studies carried out on HEK293 cells, coexpressing GFP-C-ACF7 and Myc-CAP2. We further found that the domain of CAP2 interacts with myosin light chain alkali (MLC3nm) in skin lysate. In a wound healing assay CAP2 colocalised with F-actin at certain places suggesting CAP2 plays a role in wound healing. Using a conventional knock out strategy we are currently generating a mice knock out strain of CAP2 in order to learn more about the functions of this protein.


This study investigates the phenomenon of website-based voluntary environmental disclosures (VEDs) of ski resorts in the Northeast USA. The qualitative content analysis research method is used to investigate which environmental initiatives are being voluntarily disclosed by these ski resorts. Based on the adopted environmental categories of the Sustainable Slopes Program the study found that energy, waste management and water use initiatives are most popular among the Northeast USA ski resorts VEDs, and that the environmental education, transportation and riparian areas initiatives receive the least attention among. Therefore, it appears that the environmental initiatives with the most economic benefit to a firm are emphasized by these entities. Through the prism of the social exchange theory it is argued that due to their small size and lack of prominence within the USA ski industry these firms use their VEDs primarily to foster social relationships with such stakeholders as owners, investors and business community, although with certain efforts towards those with environmentalists, local communities and other stakeholders.


Nonlinear optical properties of colloidal systems containing single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) disperse in different surfactants are investigated. Thermal nonlinearity management Z-scan technique was performed to measure the nonlinear refractive index (n2) of colloidal system. The results presented in this letter show that the presence of SWNT enhances significantly the electronic nonlinear responses of the colloid and that the surfactants play an important role in the determination of electronic part of n2.


The classical reliability model for N-modular redundancy (NMR) assumes the network to be failed when a majority of modules which drive the same voter fail. It has long been known that this model is pessimistic since there are instances, termed compensating module failures, where a majority of the modules fail but the network is nonfailed. A different module reliability model based on lead reliability is proposed which has the classical NMR reliability model as a special case. Recent results from the area of test generation are employed to simplify the module reliability calculation under the lead reliability model. First a fault equivalent technique, based on functional equivalence of faults, is developed to determine the effect of compensating module failures on system reliability. This technique can increase the predicted mission time (the time the system is to operate at or above a given reliability) by at least 40 percent over the classical model prediction for simple networks. Since the fault equivalent technique is too complex for modeling of large circuits a second, computational simpler technique, based on fault dominance, is derived. It is then shown to yield results comparable to the fault equivalent technique. A more complex example circuit analyzed by the fault dominance model shows at least a 75 percent improvement in mission time due to modeling compensating module failures. A commercialy available 31 gate integrated circuit chip is also modeled to demonstrate the applicability of the technique to large circuits.


At laser intensities near the threshold fluence, the electron temperatures in metals heated by an ultrashort pulse can be comparable to the Fermi temperature. As the existing approximations for material properties used in the two-temperature models are limited to electron temperatures that are much lower than the Fermi temperature, the models are suitable only for low fluences. This paper extends the existing estimations for optical and thermal properties to high electron temperatures by the following improvements: (1) using the Fermi-Dirac distribution, the heat capacity of metal free electrons is calculated; (2) the free electron relaxation time and electron coductivity are determined by using a quantum model derived from the Boltzmann transportation equation for dense plasma; and (3) the free electron heating and interband transition are both taken into account using a modified Drude model with quantum adjustments to calculate the reflectivity and the absorption coefficient. The proposed two-temperature model is employed to calculate the heating process of thin metal films until melting occurs, which is assumed to be the initiation of damage. The predicted damage threshold fluences for 200 nm gold film using the proposed model are in good agreement with published experimental data. The damage threshold fluence as a function of pulse duration is also studied.


Despite several studies that have empirically examined either entrepreneurial orientation (EO) or its related dimensions, there is still some uncertainty about whether family businesses are more entrepreneurially orientated than non-family businesses. This uncertainty is of interest to family business researchers. The objective of this study is twofold: firstly, to compare the levels of EO of small family to small non-family South African businesses in terms of the five dimensions of EO; and secondly, to investigate the relationships between the five dimensions of EO and perceived business performance among these small businesses.
The data collected from 172 family and 145 non-family small business owner-managers were subjected to statistical analyses. Exploratory factor analyses were undertaken and Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated to assess the validity and the reliability of the measuring instrument. T-tests were conducted to identify significant differences, and Cohen's d statistics were calculated to assess practical significance. Multiple regression analyses were undertaken to investigate the influence of the five dimensions of EO on perceived business performance.
Small family businesses reported lower levels of autonomy than small non-family businesses. This finding was found to be of statistical significance, but of small practical significance. No differences were returned for the other dimensions of EO. The findings also show that the different dimensions of EO relate differently to perceived business performance, and vary across the small family and small non-family business contexts. Given the importance of entrepreneurial behaviour, this study provides insights into the EO of small family and small non-family businesses in South Africa.


In recent years, solvate and protic ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted much attention. We synthesized both types of ILs from alkyl aza-crown ethers (L = N-propyl-1-aza-15-crown-5 (L1) and N-C6F13C2H4-1-aza-15-crown-5 (L2)). The solvate ILs [ML][Tf2N] (M = Na+, K+) were solids (Tm = 58-68 °C), whereas the solvate ILs [ML][Tf2N] (M = Li+, Ag+) and protic ILs [HL][Tf2N] were liquids with low glass transition temperatures. The ILs containing Na ions were more crystalline and exhibited higher melting points than the other ILs. The decomposition temperatures of the protic ILs were higher than those of the solvate ILs. A protic IL with a paramagnetic anion, [HL1][FeCl4] (Tm = 70.5 °C), was also synthesized and its crystal structure was determined. The solvate ILs [NaL2][X] (X = Cl-, CF3CO2-, TsO-, PhSO3-) exhibited a lower critical solution temperature (LCST)-type behavior in water. The effects of salt addition on the LCST of L2 were also investigated. The LCST of these ILs generally increased with increasing hydrophilicity or basicity of the counter anion. This tendency, which is nearly opposite to that of ILs with quaternary onium cations, is ascribed to the amphiphilic nature of the cation. The corresponding protic ILs did not exhibit LCST behavior.


This study investigates the cumulative impacts of connection demands across media channels. A survey with 202 Irish college students showed that the magnitude of connection demands across social media channels increases both negative affect and positive affect. A connection overload path model indicated that difficulties controlling connection habits were related to negative impacts on important life activities, stress, and affect. While negative affect was influenced by connection demands only through an indirect mechanism, there were both indirect and direct links between connection demands and positive affect.


Sensing of chemical warfare agents is today an important target, mainly due to the international scenario. Here a new approach, based on supramolecular multi-topic recognition of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a simulant of chemical warfare agents, is reported. These receptors, based on metal-salen complexes, combine their abilities to establish Lewis acid-base interactions and hydrogen bonds and pave the way for the realization of a new class of supramolecular sensors for the non-covalent recognition of chemical warfare agent simulants.


Background Asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma–COPD overlap (ACO) are complex and heterogeneous diseases that share clinical characteristics (phenotypes) and molecular mechanisms (endotypes). Whilst physicians make clinical decisions on diagnostic groups, for some such as ACO there is no commonly accepted criteria. An alternative approach is to evaluate phenotypes and endotypes that are considered to respond well to a specific type of treatment ("treatable traits") rather than diagnostic labels. Purpose The prospective, longitudinal, and observational TRAIT study will evaluate disease characteristics, including both phenotypes and endotypes, in relation to the presentation of obstructive respiratory disease characteristics in patients diagnosed with asthma, COPD, or ACO in Japan, with the aim of further understanding the clinical benefit of a treatable traits-based approach. Patients and Methods A total of 1500 participants will be enrolled into three cohorts according to their treating physician's diagnosis of asthma, COPD, or ACO at screening. Part 1 of the study will involve cross-sectional phenotyping and endotyping at study enrollment. Part 2 of the study will evaluate the progression of clinical characteristics, biomarker profiles, and treatment over a 3-year follow-up period. The follow-up will involve three annual study visits and three telephone calls scheduled at 6-month intervals. A substudy involving 50 participants from the asthma cohort (in which the ratio will be approximately 1:1 including 25 participants with a smoking history of ≥10 pack-years and 25 participants with no smoking history), 100 participants from the ACO cohort, and 100 participants from the COPD cohort will evaluate disease phenotypes using inspiratory and expiratory computed tomography scans. Conclusion TRAIT will describe clinical characteristics of patients with obstructive respiratory diseases to better understand potential differences and similarities between clinical diagnoses, which will support the improvement of personalized treatment strategies.


We introduce a formula-based strategy and algorithm (JUMPm) for global metabolite identification and false discovery analysis in untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. JUMPm determines the chemical formulas of metabolites from unlabeled and stable-isotope labeled metabolome data, and derives the most likely metabolite identity by searching structure databases. JUMPm also estimates the false discovery rate (FDR) with a target-decoy strategy based on the octet rule of chemistry. With systematic stable isotope labeling of yeast, we identified 2,085 chemical formulas (10% FDR), 892 of which were assigned with metabolite structures. We evaluated JUMPm with a library of synthetic standards, and found that 96% of the formulas were correctly identified. We extended the method to mammalian cells with direct isotope labeling and by heavy yeast spike-in. This strategy and algorithm provide a powerful a practical solution for global identification of metabolites with a critical measure of confidence.


Integration of mangroves in projects to reduce coastal flood risk is increasingly being recognised as a sustainable and cost-effective alternative. In addition to the construction of conventional hard flood protection infrastructure, mangroves not only contribute to attenuating flood events (functionality), they also recover in, and adapt to, a changing climate (persistence). The implementation of mangroves in flood risk reduction, however, remains complex. This is because the innate functionality and persistence of mangroves depend on a range of environmental conditions. Importantly, mangroves may collapse when environmental impacts or climatic changes exceed key system thresholds, bringing uncertainty into a situation where failure could endanger lives and livelihoods. The uncertainties in mangrove functionality and persistence can be dealt with by (1) improving insights in how ecological and physical processes affect mangrove functionality and persistence across scales, (2) advancing tools to accurately assess and predict mangrove functionality and persistence, and (3) adopting an adaptive management approach combined with appropriate engineering interventions to enhance mangrove functionality and persistence. Here, we review existing evidence, monitoring techniques and modelling approaches from the viewpoint of mangrove functionality and persistence. Inspired by existing guidelines for Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to reduce flood risk, we provide an operationalization for this new approach. In addition, we identify where further research efforts are required for the practical application of mangroves in coastal flood risk management. Key aspects in the variability and uncertainty of the functionality and persistence of mangroves are their failure and recovery mechanisms, which are greatly site- and storm-specific. We propose five characteristic damage regimes that result in increasing reductions of mangrove functionality as well as post-storm recovery periods. Further research on the quantification of these regimes and their thresholds is required for the successful integration of mangroves in coastal flood risk management. Ultimately, the key challenge is the development of adaptive management strategies to optimise long-term mangrove functionality and persistence, or their resilience. Such adaptive strategies should be informed by continued mangrove functionality and persistence assessments, based on continued monitoring and modelling of key mangrove thresholds, and supported through well-established guidelines.


BACKGROUND
Under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) is the probability of a child born in a specific year or period dying before reaching the age of 5. Nigeria has a high rate of U5MR and accounts for a significant proportion of the high U5MR in sub-Sahara Africa. There are differences in health and social practice in the different states in Nigeria, coupled with the differences in developmental priorities of each State government. There is therefore the need to identify the states with high and low U5MR, to further explore the risk factors and make recommendations for planning. This study investigates variation in U5MR in Nigeria using Shewhart's theory of variation and control charts.

METHODS
We used data from the birth histories included in the 2008 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey to estimate U5MR using a synthetic cohort life table. We plotted control charts of the proportion of under-5 mortality for the 37 states (included federal capital Abuja) in Nigeria. The Local Indicators of Spatial Association was used as a measure of the overall clustering and is assessed by a test of a null hypothesis.

RESULTS
On average, more than 1 in every 10 children born in Nigeria (159 per 1000 live births) does not survive to their fifth birthday. Kwara and Osun states had the lowest U5MR (less than 60 per 1000 live births), while Jigawa, Kano, Sokoto, Niger and Adamawa states had the highest U5MR (more than 200 per 1000 live births). There is a wide variation in the U5MR between the 37 states. The funnel plot identifies 27 (73%) states within the 99% control limits indicating common-cause variation. Four states were above the upper control limit (higher than the average) and six states were below the lower control limit (lower than the average), indicating special-cause variation.

CONCLUSIONS
U5MR is high in Nigeria; the rates are in three digits. There is a wide variation in the U5MR in Nigeria, with 27% showing evidence of special-cause variation which merits further investigation to identify possible causes. However, the vast majority of states (73%) are consistent with common-cause variation.


This paper provides the results of an investigation on dietary intakes and internal doses of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for nonsmoking women from Beijing, China. Concentrations of PAHs were measured by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for human milk, placenta, and umbilical cord blood samples from 40 nonsmoking women and for 144 composite food samples covering major food categories. Information on food consumption and estimated ingestion doses of PAHs by the cohort was also collected individually. Relationship among the studied human samples and relative importance of breastfeeding to the total exposure dose of infants were addressed. The median (mean and standard deviation) total concentrations of 15 PAHs in human milk, placenta, and umbilical cord blood with (or without) fat normalization were 278 (9.30 ± 5.75), 819 (35.9 ± 15.4), and 1370 (5.521 ± 3.71) ng/g of fat, respectively, and the corresponding levels of benzo[a]pyrene equivalent (B[a]P(equiv)) were 11.2 (0.473 ± 0.605), 16.2 (0.717 ± 0.318), and 13.1 (0.140 ± 0.225) ng/g of fat, respectively. The calculated intake of B[a]P(equiv) by Beijing cohort varied from 0.609 to 4.69 ng·kg(-1)·day(-1) with a median value of 1.93 (2.09 ± 0.921 mean ± standard deviation) ng·kg(-1)·day(-1). Significant correlations were found among human milk, placenta, and umbilical cord blood (p < 0.05) for low-molecular-weight PAHs, indicating selective transfer potential of individual PAHs from mother to fetus. Internal dose of PAHs was not in proportion to amounts of food ingestion, daily dietary intake, lifestyle, and social-demographic characteristics of the participants (p > 0.05). Ingested doses of PAHs (3.00-102 ng·kg(-1)·day(-1)), which were much higher than the inhaled doses (0.152-8.50 ng·kg(-1)·day(-1)), were 3-4 orders of magnitude lower than the recommended reference doses, unlikely to impose any obvious risk based on current knowledge.


Solution-Focus (SF) is an evidence-based interviewing protocol that increases goal commitment and facilitates goal striving, yet few attempts have been made to use it in scalable interventions. This study tested a SF-inspired online intervention (Solution-Focus with Implementation Intentions, SFII) designed to enhance academic goal striving. SFII led students to find study strategies that worked for them and then it directed them to formulate implementation intentions (II) specifying when and where to replicate those strategies. Undergraduate students (N = 170) were randomly assigned to either SFII or an essay-writing condition. Daily study goal achievement for the following week was not significantly different between the two groups; however, students who carried out II did better in achieving their study goal than those who did not execute them, both within the SFII condition (d = 0.55, p = .042) and across the sample (partial h2 = .02, p = .047). Students in the SFII condition who followed through had on average higher levels of self-control than those who did not (d = 0.73, p = .003). These findings suggest that the SF distinctive approach might have helped in the formulation of effective II, and that carrying them out was mostly a matter of self-control. Keywords solution-focus, SF, goal achievement, mental contrasting with implementation intentions, MCII, self-control, online interventions Disciplines Counseling Psychology | School Psychology | Social Psychology This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/mapp_capstone/54 Running head: FINDING WHAT WORKS, WORKS; BUT DOING IT REQUIRES SELF CONTROL


In Japan, to prevent nil-ductile fracture of reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) due to neutron irradiation embrittlement, deterministic fracture mechanics evaluation in accordance with the codes provided by the Japan Electric Association is performed for assessing the structural integrity of RPVs under pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events considering neutron irradiation embrittlement. In recent years, a structural integrity assessment methodology based on probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) has been introduced into the regulations in the United States and a few European countries. PFM is a rational methodology for evaluating the failure frequency of important pressure boundary components by considering the probabilistic distributions of various influence factors related to aged degradation due to the long-term operation. In Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), a PFM analysis code called PASCAL has been developed to evaluate the failure frequency of RPVs considering neutron irradiation embrittlement and PTS events. In addition, we have developed a guideline for structural integrity assessment of RPVs based on PFM to improve the applicability of PFM in Japan and enable persons who have knowledge on fracture mechanics to perform PFM analyses and evaluate through-wall cracking frequency (TWCF) of RPVs easily. The guideline consists of a main body, explanation, and several supplements. The technical basis for PFM analysis is provided, and the latest knowledge is included in the guideline. In this paper, an overview of the guideline and some typical analysis results obtained based on the guideline and the Japanese database related to PTS evaluation are presented.


Histomorphometric and ultrastructural investigations were performed on the placental tissue of 20 heavy smokers and 20 non-smokers. All pregnancies were artificially terminated at 9-14 weeks' gestation. When compared with values in non-smokers, smokers had significantly increased arithmetic and harmonic mean thicknesses (P < .005 and P < .05, respectively) of the villous membrane, and arithmetic and harmonic mean thicknesses (P < .05 for both) of the trophoblastic layer. No significant difference was found between the groups for the mean number of capillary profiles per villous profile or for the mean volume fraction of the villi occupied by the trophoblast, the villous stroma, or the fetal capillary lumina. At the ultrastructural level, the mean number of areas presenting with syncytiotrophoblastic necrosis was significantly (P <.001) higher in the smoking than in the non-smoking group, whereas no difference was observed for the mean number of areas demonstrating trophoblastic basal membrane thickening. These results suggest that smoking during the first months of pregnancy induces morphologic changes, which may explain biologic disturbances observed during early gestation and also later in pregnancy.


A multiplier is one of the key hardware blocks in most digital and high performance systems such as FIR filters, digital signal processors and microprocessors etc. With advances in technology, many researchers have tried and are trying to design multipliers which offer either of the following- high speed, low power consumption, regularity of layout and hence less area or even combination of them in multiplier. Thus making them suitable for various high speed, low power, and compact VLSI implementations. However area and speed are two conflicting constraints. So improving speed results always in larger areas. So here we try to find out the best trade off solution among the both of them.To achieve speed improvements Baugh Wooley Multiplication technique used for signed multiplication Generally as we know multiplication goes in three basic steps. Partial product generation, reduction and final stage is addition. Hence in this paper we have first tried to design different adders and compare their speed and complexity of circuit i.e. the area occupied. And then we have designed Wallace tree multiplier then followed by Conventional, proposed Wallace multipliers and have compared the speed and Power consumption in both of them.


It is commonly acknowledged that business organisations are expected to demonstrate ethical and moral conduct, yet throughout the last half century the bar has been raised. Not only are organisations expected to behave ethically; they are being summoned to exercise Business Social Responsibility (BSR). While there is a growing amount of literature on BSR, research in this field has largely confined itself to corporations. As such, especially in the New Zealand space, it has neglected prolific Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The aim of this study was to explore SME ownermanagers ' perceptions of community engagement. To accomplish this aim an exploratory, qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with 10 SME owner-managers was conducted. SME owner-managers interviewed perceive business as having a highly integrated function in society. The owner-managers engage with their communities in significantly diverse ways, covering an extensive range of stakeholders. Primarily influenced by values pertaining to religion, family, and moral orientation, many owner-managers overlook economic gain, yet consider peripheral benefits to accrue nonetheless .


Fungi commonly occur in the soil and can readily adapt to cause diseases in both man and animals, multiplying rapidly in whatever tissue they are feeding on (22). They enter the body through cuts, abrasionsor bite wounds and are particularly a problem in reptiles during the first stages of growth from the egg, especially in hot, humid conditions. Some types of fungi can also pass across the egg membrane of reptiles just after the eggs are laid, causing death or malformation of the embryo(23,24,25,26).

There are not many published reports of fungal infections in crocodiles. Most of those reported show lung infection and sores in alligators (27,28) and crocodiles (29,30,31).

Contamination and skin sores in reptiles are usually caused by the fungal genera Fusarium and Paecilomyces or by keratin-loving fungi such as Trichophyton spp. (32) and Chrysosporium spp. (33,34). Keratin is a widespread animal protein found in horn, feathers, hair and hoofs. It is difficult to confirm the disease-producing status of the Chrysosporium genus because it is commonly found on the skin of healthy, normal-looking animals(35,36).

During a recent Oonoonba Veterinary Laboratory trial on crocodiles (C. porosus) from five to 16 weeks of age, we came across unusual skin sores which suggested a keratin-loving fungus. This article describes how the infection affected the crocodiles and the control measures used to eliminate the problem


Site dance performance offers creative opportunities for social and environmental activism. Conversely, social and environmental activism is becoming increasingly performative in seeking to evocatively engage a wide range of community members in both local and global concerns. The following pages focus on how research poetry arising in the creative process of developing performances of site dance may support activism. Drawing on interdisciplinary understandings of permaculture and sustainability and new approaches in narrative representation, the research poetry expresses backyard activism in a complementary manner to the site dance itself. The poetry synthesizes creative journal entries relating to somatic improvisation and choreography with dancers, and interviews and discussions with relevant community members. In Aotearoa New Zealand and in this wider neo-liberal era, urban residents are moving away from backyard gardening and local seasonal produce, and towards consumption of mass-produced, regulated and imported foods. In this context, community activism through performance may support local and alternative food movements and speak back to dominant, sociocultural and political power systems and norms relating to food production, consumption and sustainability.


Polarized micro-Raman spectra of a single large crystal of Keokuk kaolinite were recorded in the OH-stretching region with the laser beam directed along the different crystal axes. The Raman spectra are characterized by five OH-stretching bands at 3694, 3683, 3668, 3650 and 3620 cm−1 labeled A, Z, B, C and D, respectively. The relative intensities of these five bands depend on the orientation of the crystal and the scattering geometry. The spectra agree with the assertion that bands A and Z arise from out-of-plane vibrations, whereas band D corresponds to an in-plane vibration. The area ratios of the various bands were calculated from fitted curves of spectra recorded with the electric vector of the laser beam parallel to different crystallographic planes. The increments in the relative areas of bands B and C were parallel to those of bands A and Z and it appears that out-of-plane vibrations made considerable contributions to these bands also. From the change of area ratios with the change in the direction of the electric vector of the laser beam, bands A and Z were attributed to LO and TO frequencies of one inner-surface hydroxyl vibration. Bands A + Z, B, C and D were attributed to the vibrations of the hydroxyls assigned by Bish (1993) as OH(3), OH(4), OH(2) and OH(1), respectively. These observations were supported by photoacoustic and transmission IR spectra.


Nitric oxide synthase-2 is a proliferation-promoting marker of glioma stem cells. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cells within a tumor that exhibit sustained self-renewal and the capacity to produce secondary tumors like those of the primary tumors. One potential strategy to treat cancers is to target these CSCs selectively without affecting the proliferation and survival of normal stem cell populations that are necessary for tissue maintenance. Glioma is an especially lethal form of brain cancer, and glioma stem cells (GSCs) have been identified in this form of cancer. Eyler et al. sorted glioma cells from human tumors into GSC and non-GSC populations on the basis of two different GSC markers and found that the GSCs had increased production of nitric oxide (NO) and increased abundance of nitric oxide synthase-2 (NOS2). Disruption of NOS2 function with RNA knockdown or by pharmacological inhibition or reduction of NO by introduction of an NO scavenging protein blocked GSC properties, such as proliferation or neurosphere formation in culture. Comparative microarray analysis of GSCs and GSCs in which NOS2 was knocked down showed that expression of the gene encoding the cell cycle inhibitor CDA1 was reduced in GSC and that this repression depended on NOS2. Knockdown of CDA1 partially restored the proliferative capacity of GSCs in which NOS2 was knocked down, suggesting that NOS2 acts at least partially through repression of CDA1 to mediate its proliferation-promoting effects. There was a correlation between high NOS2 expression and low CDA1 expression and low patient survival. Various data suggest that NOS2 is not essential for normal neural stem cell function: NOS2-knockout mice exhibit normal neural development, and, as shown by Eyler et al., inhibition of NOS2 activity did not affect mouse, human fetal, or human adult neural progenitor cell proliferation or neurosphere formation in culture. Pharmacological inhibition of NOS2 activity reduced tumor growth of intracranial human glioma xenografts in mice without affecting neural progenitor cells in nontumor-bearing mice. These data suggest that targeting NOS2 with selective inhibitors may be an effective strategy for eliminating GSCs without impairing normal neural stem cell populations. C. E. Eyler, Q. Wu, K. Yan, J. M. MacSwords, D. Changler-Militello, K. L. Misuraca, J. D. Lathia, M. T. Forrester, J. Lee, J. S. Stamler, S. A. Goldman, M. Bredel, R. E. McLendon, A. E. Sloan, A. B. Hjelmeland, J. N. Rich, Glioma stem cell proliferation and tumor growth are promoted by nitric oxide synthase-2. Cell 146, 53–66 (2011). [PubMed]


The objective of this study was to carry out an economic comparison of different types of cold storage facilities for apple. Primary material of the study was comprised of original data acquired from cold storage facilities in Isparta province which is ranked number one in Turkey in the field of apple storage. Analyses were carried out by classifying the enterprises into three groups according to their cold storage types as those with normal atmosphere (NA), those with controlled atmosphere (CA) and those as cold storage facilities with a mixture of normal and controlled atmosphere (NA+CA). It was determined that the average capacities were 7,500 tons, 4,540 tons and 2,400 tons, respectively for NA+CA, NA and CA facilities. Capacity usage ratio was determined as 85.42% for CA facilities, 79.74% for NA facilities and 77.60 % for NA+CA facilities. It was determined that Golden Delicious ranked first among the apple types stored in all cold storage types. It was determined that the ratio of Golden Delicious among the apples stored in the facilities was 52.49 % for NA, 52.89% for NA+CA and 69.86 % for CA facilities. NA+CA facilities were determined to have the highest average annual operating cost among the examined facilities. Average total cost per enterprise among NA+CA facilities was determined as 355,869 USD, 192,131 USD for NA facilities and 121,282 USD for CA facilities. When the enterprises were compared with regard to net income per ton, it was observed that CA cold storage facilities were more profitable. Net income per ton was calculated to be 27 USD for CA facilities, 21 USD for NA+CA facilities and 17 USD for NA facilities. It was determined that total costs and total income were equal and that break-even point was reached when 41.62% of the capacity is used for CA cold storage facilities, 43.94% for NA+CA facilities and 45.75% for NA facilities. Facilities make profit after this point.


The University grants four degrees in medicine. Of these, the M.B. and Ch.B. must be taken together. The following outlines of the regulations for graduation are in accordance with the New Medical Ordinance, which came into operation on 1st October, 1911:? Before commencing medical studies, the student must pass the preliminary examination. This comprises (1) English, (2) Latin, (3) Mathematics, (4) an Additional Language, namely, Greek, French, German, Italian, or such other language


Abstract Several field and laboratory studies have demonstrated that secondary Fe-bearing minerals such as goethite, lepidocrocite and mackinawite have a high capacity for the uptake of As, but little work has been carried out to examine the capacity of the mineral vivianite [Fe3(PO4)2·8H2O] for this element. We report here preliminary results of an experimental study designed to test the efficiency of As(III) and As(V) uptake by natural vivianite at acid, near-neutral and alkaline pH at T = 4°C, which is representative of Lake Baikal-type environments, where natural vivianite is reported to occur. The vivianite takes up between 0 and 5% As(III), and between 21 and 45% As(V), from 200 ppb solutions of these As species. Further work at 25°C and other solution concentrations, together with characterization of the post-sorption solids, will yield information on the efficiencies and mechanisms of As uptake by natural vivianite.


Aiming to understand how human (false-)belief— a core socio-cognitive ability—would affect human interactions with robots, this paper proposes to adopt a graphical model to unify the representation of object states, robot knowledge, and human (false-)beliefs. Specifically, a parse graph (pg) is learned from a single-view spatiotemporal parsing by aggregating various object states along the time; such a learned representation is accumulated as the robot's knowledge. An inference algorithm is derived to fuse individual pg from all robots across multi-views into a joint pg, which affords more effective reasoning and inference capability to overcome the errors originated from a single view. In the experiments, through the joint inference over pgs, the system correctly recognizes human (false-)belief in various settings and achieves better cross-view accuracy on a challenging small object tracking dataset.


Objective To develop a forecasting model for weekly emergency department admissions due to pneumonia using information from hospital-based, community-based and laboratory-based surveillance systems. Introduction Pneumonia, an infection of the lung due to bacterial, viral or fungal pathogens, is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the past few decades, the threat of emerging pathogens presenting as pneumonia, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, avian influenza A(H5N1) and A(H7N9), and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus has emphasised the importance of the surveillance of pneumonia and other severe respiratory infections. An unexpected increase in the number of hospital admissions for pneumonia or severe respiratory infections could be a signal of a change in the virulence of the influenza viruses or other respiratory pathogens circulating in the community, or an alert of an emerging pathogen which warrants further public health investigation. The purpose of this study was to develop a forecasting model to prospectively forecast the number of emergency department (ED) admissions due to pneumonia in Singapore, a tropical country. We hypothesise that there is complementary information between hospital-based and community-based surveillance systems. The clinical spectrum of many respiratory pathogens causing pneumonia ranges from asymptomatic or subclinical infection to severe or fatal pneumonia, and it is usually difficult to distinguish between the different pathogens in the absence of a laboratory test. Infected persons could present with varying degrees of severity of the infection, and seek treatment at different healthcare facilities. Hospital-based surveillance captures the more severe manifestation of the infection while community-based surveillance captures the less severe manifestation of the infection and enables earlier detection of the infection. Thus, the integration of information from the two surveillance systems should improve the prospective forecasting of ED admissions due to pneumonia. We also investigate if the inclusion of influenza data from the laboratory surveillance system would improve the forecasting model, since influenza circulates all-year round in Singapore and is a common aetiology for pneumonia. Methods This was a retrospective study using aggregated national surveillance data and meteorological data during the period 3 January 2011 to 1 January 2017. We compared the performance of autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) with multiple linear regression models with ARIMA errors, with and without the inclusion of influenza predictors at forecast horizons of 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks in advance. Weekly data between the study period of 3 January 2011 and 1 January 2017 were split into training and validation sets, with the first three years of data used as the base training set. Time series cross validation was used to estimate the models' accuracy and out-of-sample forecast accuracy was based on the calculation of the mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute percent forecast error (MAPE). Results The multiple linear regression model with ARIMA errors that included influenza predictors was the best performing model while the basic ARIMA model was the worst performing model for all forecast horizons. The two multiple linear regression models with ARIMA errors had a MAPE of less than 10% for all forecast horizons. Conclusions Data from different multiple surveillance systems and the inclusion of influenza trends can be used to improve the forecast of ED admissions due to pneumonia in a tropical setting, despite the absence of large differences between seasons. Accurate forecasting at the national level can prepare healthcare facilities for an impending surge.


Plasminogen activator inhibitor type 2 (PAI-2) is a serine proteinase inhibitor or serpin that is a major product of macrophages in response to endotoxin and inflammatory cytokines. We have explored the role of PAI-2 in apoptotic cell death initiated by tumor necrosis factor α (TNF). HeLa cells stably transfected with PAI-2 cDNA were protected from TNF-induced apoptosis, whereas cells transfected with antisense PAI-2 cDNA, a control gene, or the plasmid vector alone remained susceptible. The level of PAI-2 expressed by different HeLa cell clones was inversely correlated with their sensitivity to TNF. Loss of TNF sensitivity was not a result of loss of TNF receptor binding. In contrast, PAI-2 expression did not confer protection against apoptosis induced by ultraviolet or ionizing radiation. The serine proteinase urokinase-type plasminogen activator was not demonstrated to be the target of PAI-2 action. The P1-Arg amino acid residue of PAI-2 was determined to be required for protection, because cells expressing PAI-2 with an Ala in this position were not protected from TNF-mediated cell death. The results suggest that intracellular PAI-2 might be an important factor in regulating cell death in TNF-mediated inflammatory processes through inhibition of a proteinase involved in TNF-induced apoptosis.


The concept of 'resistance' has turned into a critical tool in different areas of political, philosophical and sociological thought. At the same time, the notion seems to be as productive as it is diffuse. 'Resistance' is used in very specific contexts in scientific or technical disciplines, and with extreme flexibility in social and cultural studies. In the latter two areas, the concept is often used without prior reflection on its characteristics and limitations. In What is Philosophy? , Deleuze provides a possible framework for conceiving cultural and political practices of resistance as positions of force, when he defines contraction as 'a contemplation that preserves the preceding in the following'. The purpose of this article is to understand political ecologism in its activist and poetical dimensions, in light of a Deleuzian interpretation of resistance.


OBJECTIVE: To present the implications of genetics, particularly of cytogenetic techniques, for the diagnosis and prognosis of leukemia. SOURCES: A survey of articles selected from MEDLINE, American Society of Hematology educational programs, the CAPES web portal, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and textbook chapters. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS: Since the discovery in 1960 by Peter C. Nowel and David Hungerford of the 9:22 translocation (the Philadelphia chromosome), genetics has come to play an important role in hematology, in this case making it possible to diagnose chronic myeloid leukemia and opening doors to research avenues for the whole field of oncology. One point of great interest refers to the implications of these findings for the prognosis of a range of types of leukemia. In acute myeloid leukemia, the karyotype is of fundamental importance to postremission treatment decisions, and molecular factors determine the treatment of individuals with normal karyotypes. In chronic myeloid leukemia, clonal evolution is associated with progression to the blast crisis. Patients on imatinib who cease responding may have mutations on their ABL gene. Finally, in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, factors such as hyperdiploidy and t 12:21 are associated with good prognosis, whereas carriers of t 4:11 and t 9:22 are considered high risk patients. CONCLUSIONS: Genetics has come to stay as far as hematology and, in particular, the management of leukemia and its prognostic factors are concerned. These tests should always be carried out and the appropriate treatment adopted in the light of their results, so that optimal patient outcomes can be achieved.


Small, unmanned aircraft referred to as "drones" are becoming increasingly common in the skies above the United States. Their increasing ubiquity has been driven by the wide variety of industries and tasks to which they can be applied, but it has also drawn the attention of government. Where Amazon.com sees the potential for packages delivered in thirty minutes or less, governments see crowded skies and clumsy pilots, to name only two potential risks associated with the widespread integration of drones into the national airspace. To that end, just as Amazon.com has ambitiously made use of the technology, state and local governments have begun to actively regulate drone use. The City of Chicago, for example, enacted an ordinance essentially banning drones within city limits. A major legal hurdle potentially stands in the way of those state and local efforts: The federal government has also regulated the commercial use of drones. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), guided by congressional direction to safely accelerate the process of integrating drones into the national airspace, promulgated comprehensive regulations governing commercial drone use. This overlap with state and local laws leads to issues of preemption. The doctrine of preemption reflects the principle that, in the United States, where a (valid, constitutional) federal law conflicts with a state or local law, the federal law supersedes its counterparts. This comment explores the issue of federal preemption of state and local drone laws. It concludes—based on a survey of preemption law, useful analogues from other areas of law, and first-of-its-kind drone preemption litigation—that restrictive drone laws like Chicago's are preempted by the FAA regulations. Yet all is not lost for the state or local government wishing to have a say in matters of drone regulation. As this comment explains, there are strong arguments that state and local governments can regulate certain uses of drones, particularly in light of a doctrine known as the presumption against preemption. To that end, some state and local laws are clearly safe from preemption challenges. Others are just as clearly preempted. Finally, there is a category of state and local laws that fall somewhere in between those two extremes, for which the outcome of future preemption challenges is unclear.


The Federal Reserve has been criticized for not preventing the risky behavior of large financial companies prior to the financial crisis of 2008-09, for approving mergers that aggravated the "too big to fail" problem, and for its substantial contribution to bailouts when their risk management failed. The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, in attempting to diminish financial instability and eliminate too-big-to-fail policies, has established a new regulatory framework and laid out new responsibilities for the Federal Reserve. In doing so, it appears to address criticisms of the central bank by constricting its autonomy. The law, however, has also extended the Federal Reserve's supervisory authority and expanded its capacity to exercise regulatory control over its extended domain. This new authority is in addition to the augmentation of its monetary powers over the past several years. This paper reviews and evaluates both constraints imposed on the Federal Reserve by the Dodd-Frank Act and the expansion of Federal Reserve authority. It finds that the constraints are unlikely to have much impact, but the expansion of authority constitutes a significant increase in power and influence. The paper concludes that the expansion of Federal Reserve authority invites questions about the organizational design and governance of the central bank, and its traditional autonomy.


Detecting objects such as cars and pedestrians in 3D plays an indispensable role in autonomous driving. Existing approaches largely rely on expensive LiDAR sensors for accurate depth information. While recently pseudo-LiDAR has been introduced as a promising alternative, at a much lower cost based solely on stereo images, there is still a notable performance gap. In this paper we provide substantial advances to the pseudo-LiDAR framework through improvements in stereo depth estimation. Concretely, we adapt the stereo network architecture and loss function to be more aligned with accurate depth estimation of faraway objects --- currently the primary weakness of pseudo-LiDAR. Further, we explore the idea to leverage cheaper but extremely sparse LiDAR sensors, which alone provide insufficient information for 3D detection, to de-bias our depth estimation. We propose a depth-propagation algorithm, guided by the initial depth estimates, to diffuse these few exact measurements across the entire depth map. We show on the KITTI object detection benchmark that our combined approach yields substantial improvements in depth estimation and stereo-based 3D object detection --- outperforming the previous state-of-the-art detection accuracy for faraway objects by 40%. Our code is available at this https URL.


Austria is one of the wealthiest and most stable European Union Member States. With spectral analysis this paper attempts to forecast economic indicators of the Austrian economy up to 2030 to provide a clearer picture of its future economy. The applied spectral analysis reveals hidden periodicities in the studied country's economic data which are to be associated with cyclical behaviour or recurring processes in economic time series. The 2018-2030 period forecasts of Austria's real GDP, government budget deficit or surplus in current prices, current account balance and total population respectively are all bullish, including unemployment rate doomed to expand at an annual rate of 0.58% until 2030. https://doi.org/10.15458/ebr97


In his new book, perhaps the most cogent expression of his mature thought, Jean Baudrillard turns detective in order to investigate a crime which he hopes may yet be solved: the murder of reality. To solve the crime would be to unravel the social and technological processes by which reality has quite simply vanished under the deadly glare of media real time. But Baudrillard is not merely intending to lament the disappearance of the real, an occurrence he recently described as the most important event of modern history, nor even to meditate upon the paradoxes of reality and illusion, truth and its masks. "The Perfect Crime" is also the work of a great moraliste: a penetrating examination of vital aspects of the social, political and cultural life of the advanced democracies in the (very) late twentieth century. Where critics like McLuhan once exposed the alienating consequences of the medium, Baudrillard lays bare the depredatory effects of an oppressive transparency on our social lives, of a relentless positivity on our critical faculties, and of a withering high definition on our very sense of reality."


Helicobacter pylori (HP) can cause many diseases and malignant conditions. In the stomach, HP causes mucosal injury and inflammation. We determined the association of the platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) with HP-positive and HP-negative gastritis severity. We retrospectively reviewed 234 patients who had undergone upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for the investigation of dyspepsia and reflux symptoms. The patients were divided into three groups according to the results of the histopathologic evaluation: HP-negative gastritis group, HP-positive gastritis group and control group (neither HP positivity nor gastritis). We routinely collected laboratory data, including complete blood count, from all the patients. The mean neutrophil count was higher and the mean lymphocyte count was lower in the HP-positive gastritis group than in the other groups. The mean platelet count was increased in all groups, but the lowest increase was seen in the HP-positive gastritis group. Both the NLR and PLR were higher in the HP-positive gastritis group than in the other groups. This is first study to determine that the PLR is a biomarker for HP-positive gastritis. Moreover, the PLR is superior to the NLR in patients with HP-positive gastritis.


X-Ray and neutron reflectivity measurements on systems composed of a 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) bilayer and transcription-activating-factor derived peptides (TDPs) have allowed us to determine the mechanism of membrane translocation. By monitoring the structural changes of the bilayers caused by the binding of TDPs while systemically varying temperature and TDP concentration, our results revealed the detailed molecular structures of the stepwise interactions that occurred during the translocation of TDP across the lipid bilayers. While little indication of membrane perturbation was observed at low TDP concentrations, we found that the TDP movement across the membrane induced defect formations in the membrane at higher TDP concentrations.


A cohort of 6168 schizophrenic patients was followed from 1957 to 1984 to determine the incidence of cancer in these patients. In the male schizophrenic patients the incidence of cancer was found to be significantly reduced in comparison with the general Danish population. This reduction was especially marked for cancer in the respiratory system, cancer of the prostate and cancer of the bladder. In the female patients the overall incidence of cancer did not differ from that of the general Danish population, but there was an increased risk of cancer of the digestive tract, especially cancer of the pancreas and a slight increase of the risk of breast cancer. In the female patients the risk of respiratory cancers and cancer of the female genital organs, especially cancer of the uterine cervix, was reduced. These alterations of the incidence of cancer in schizophrenic patients cannot be ascribed to differences in diagnostic accuracy. As a possible explanation of these findings a reduced exposure to well known carcinogens such as cigarette smoke may be relevant. We speculate that exposure to neuroleptics such as phenothiazines and reserpine may also be part of the explanation for the findings.


This note compares the geographical distribution of New Kingdom Egyptian royal inscriptions, hieratic inscriptions and inscribed architectural elements from the Levant. It highlights a clear geographical north-south cut centered around the site of Beth Shean (Northern Palestine), the southern part showing clear signs of permanent Egyptian administration, and the northern part exhibiting signs of much looser and indirect Egyptian control.


Cross-presentation of endocytosed antigen as peptide/class I major histocompatibility complex complexes plays a central role in the elicitation of CD8+ T cell clones that mediate anti-viral and anti-tumor immune responses. While it has been clear that there are specific subsets of professional antigen presenting cells capable of antigen cross-presentation, identification of mechanisms involved is still ongoing. Especially amongst dendritic cells (DC), there are specialized subsets that are highly proficient at antigen cross-presentation. We here present a focused survey on the cell biological processes in the endosomal pathway that support antigen cross-presentation. This review highlights DC-intrinsic mechanisms that facilitate the cross-presentation of endocytosed antigen, including receptor-mediated uptake, maturation-induced endosomal sorting of membrane proteins, dynamic remodeling of endosomal structures and cell surface-directed endosomal trafficking. We will conclude with the description of pathogen-induced deviation of endosomal processing, and discuss how immune evasion strategies pertaining endosomal trafficking may preclude antigen cross-presentation.


In recent years the use of wireless technology is growing rapidly. Not only limited to the use of cell phones but also other wireless devices that use the air media as the information transmission line. The antenna is a very important component in wireless devices because its function is to convert electrical signals into electromagnetic signals and vice versa on transmitting the information in the air. One of the technologies that can overcome this is the use of microstrip antennas. The microstrip antenna is a lightweight, easy to fabricate so that can be placed on almost any type of surface and small size compared to other types of antennas. Because of its properties, microstrip antennas are highly suited to current needs. This antenna can be integrated with other telecommunications equipment in small size. This paper describes the design and realization of microstrip meander-line antenna at working frequency 915 MHz to be integrated on a telemetry measuring device pH meter water. The integration of the meander-line microstrip antenna on the pH meter measurements is capable of transmitting pH data at unobstructed conditions with a maximum distance of 210 meters, and in a blocked condition, a building is capable of transmitting pH data with a maximum distance of 110 meters.