An effective tool used by planners and policy makers in public health, such as Center for Disease Control (CDC), to curtail spread of infectious diseases over a given population is contagion diffusion simulations. These simulations model the relevant characteristics of the population (age, gender, income etc.) and the disease (attack rate, etc.) and compute the spread under various configuration and plausible intervention strategies (such as vaccinations, school closure, etc.). Hence, the model and the computation form a complex agent based system and are highly compute and resource intensive. In this work, we design a benchmark consisting of several kernels which capture the essential compute, communication, and data access patterns for such applications. For each kernel, the benchmark provides different evaluation strategies. The goal is to (a) derive alternative implementations for computing the contagion by combining different implementation of the kernels, and (b) evaluate which combination of implementation, runtime, and hardware is most effective in running large scale contagion diffusion simulations. Our proposed benchmark is designed using C++ generic programming primitives and lifting sequential strategies for parallel computations. Together, these lead to a succinct description of the benchmark and significant code reuse when deriving strategies for new hardware. For the benchmark to be effective, this aspect is crucial, because the potential combination of hardware and runtime are growing rapidly thereby making infeasible to write optimized strategy for the complete contagion diffusion from ground up for each compute system.


The muscarinic-gated atrial potassium (IKACh) channel contributes to the heart rate decrease triggered by the parasympathetic nervous system. IKACh is a heteromultimeric complex formed by Kir3.1 and Kir3.4 subunits, although Kir3.4 homomultimers have also been proposed to contribute to this conductance. While Kir3.4 homomultimers evince many properties of IKACh, the contribution of Kir3.1 to IKACh is less well understood. Here, we explored the significance of Kir3.1 using knock-out mice. Kir3.1 knock-out mice were viable and appeared normal. The loss of Kir3.1 did not affect the level of atrial Kir3.4 protein but was correlated with a loss of carbachol-induced current in atrial myocytes. Low level channel activity resembling recombinant Kir3.4 homomultimers was observed in 40% of the cell-attached patches from Kir3.1 knock-out myocytes. Channel activity typically ran down quickly, however, and was not recovered in the inside-out configuration despite the addition of GTP and ATP to the bath. Both Kir3.1 knock-out and Kir3.4 knock-out mice exhibited mild resting tachycardias and blunted responses to pharmacological manipulation intended to activate IKACh. We conclude that Kir3.1 confers properties to IKAChthat enhance channel activity and that Kir3.4 homomultimers do not contribute significantly to the muscarinic-gated potassium current.


Insurance fraud is noted as one of the most significant challenges to the financial stability of the insurance market (Wells, 2011; Yusuf & Babalola, 2009). The main purpose of this study is to explore and access the magnitude of the issues in a company setting and gather responses from the general environment regarding this threat. Due to the Malaysian cultural set up, there are gaps of research in this topic as fraud issues are considered sensitive and taboo. Although some researchers have shed some light on issues pertaining to fraud in Malaysia, however these studies have focused purely on mitigation and countering in the economic dimension without making relationship with authorities concerned.

This study looks to support the idea of Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Dato Mohd Najib Tun Razak, which are encompassed in the 'Economic Transformation Plan'. During the start of his Prime Minister role he urged all sectors to be more transparent and responsive. Besides, the pattern of an economic downturn for a second wave in 2008 demanded the insurers to offer fewer products or services, and at the same time be more stringent on the policy inclusions (Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), 2010).

This research has examined a broad volume of articles from specific areas of fraud including cases of insurance fraud. This is done to grasp the fraud control strategies and the current trends in Malaysia. This research applies multiple research methods that comprise of interviews', observations and document inspections within the selected companies. This to facilitate the coherence and collaborative work of the authorities selected in the case study which are crucial in evaluating the process of countering fraud. In order to ensure the success of this study, it utilized and adopted the CIPFA Red Book 2 as the main benchmark to gauge the initiatives of countering fraud in the Malaysian insurance industry.

The findings of the study revealed that there are two companies integrating good initiatives which enable them to avoid insurance fraud cases to a greater extent. However, one of the companies did not address the issues entirely as the operation of the working environment is atypical. All professionals agreed upon that this task, countering fraud and corruption, demands a certain set of skills. By that, this advocates the idea that countering fraud initiatives are not for a single performer imposition only.

On the contrasting side, due to the hierarchy and supremacy in Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) plays a vital role in the insurance market. However, they are still unwilling in making these concerns part of the national agenda since many companies have only recorded a satisfactory level in integrating the functions of combating fraud. However, specialists have urged some officials and relevant authorities, insurers and professionals in making precise arrangements to embark on the issues in an appropriate process.


Many animals can orient using the earth's magnetic field. In a recent study, we performed three distinct behavioral assays providing evidence that the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans orients to earth-strength magnetic fields (Vidal-Gadea et al., 2015). In addition to these behavioral assays, we found that magnetic orientation in C. elegans depends on the AFD sensory neurons and conducted subsequent physiological experiments showing that AFD neurons respond to earth-strength magnetic fields. A new behavioral study by Landler et al. (2017) suggested that C. elegans does not orient to magnetic fields and raises issues that cast doubt on our study. Here we reanalyze Lander et al.'s data to show how they appear to have missed observing positive results, and we highlight differences in experimental methods and interpretations that may explain our different results and conclusions. Moreover, we present new data from our labs together with replication by an independent lab to show how temporal and spatial factors influence the unique spatiotemporal trajectory that worms make during magnetotaxis. Together, these findings provide guidance on how to achieve robust magnetotaxis and reinforce our original finding that C. elegans is a suitable model system to study magnetoreception.


Advancements in multi-core have created interest among many research groups in finding out ways to harness the true power of processor cores. Recent research suggests that on-board component such as cache memory plays a crucial role in deciding the performance of multi-core systems. In this paper, performance of cache memory is evaluated through the parameters such as cache access time, miss rate and miss penalty. The influence of cache parameters over execution time is also discussed. Results obtained from simulated studies of multi-core environments with different instruction set architectures (ISA) like ALPHA and X86 are produced.


Abstract. If Robinson (1952, 4) suggested that the essential task of the cartographer was "to make the data intelligible for the reader", perhaps the essential problem for those of us that teach cartography is to make information learnable for students. As a design problem, teaching has three main components: we present instructional materials to students, we create environments for students to engage with what we present, and we provide feedback that aims to measure and motivate learning. This paper aims to help cartography educators design effective instruction in two ways: (1) by defining principles and patterns for effective instructional design that are gleaned from empirical studies of cognitive theories of learning and from pedagogical patterns of reflective practice; (2) by illustrating how these principles and patterns can inform cartography education with specific examples from an undergraduate course on cartographic design.Cognitive theories of learning can inform instructional design based on the premise that "designs that are consistent with the way the human mind works are more effective in fostering learning than those that are not" (Mayer 2009, 13). They provide three key insights (Mayer 2005). First, working memory has a limited capacity to process information at one time. Second, we have two separate channels for processing visual and auditory information (both with limited capacities). Third, we don't acquire knowledge passively but rather we actively engage in learning. This active engagement involves three key tasks: (1) figuring out or selecting the key information that we should pay attention to, (2) organizing this information into models, and (3) relating these models with previous knowledge. Within this theoretical framework, empirical studies have identified principles for instructional design that deal largely with presentation methods. In addition, they offer some helpful prescriptions for designing task environments that support learning by solving problems, for assessing learning, and for promoting learning through reflection.Pedagogical patterns aim "to offer a format and a process for sharing successful practices in a way that allows each practice to be used by a variety of people in many different ways" (Bergin 2012, iii). A pedagogical pattern is a template for instructional design that identifies a recurring problem and offers a general strategy for solving the problem. They do not originate from controlled experiments of theory, but rather they are discovered through the practice of teaching and by reflecting on these experiences. As such, they are similar to advice a junior colleague might receive from a senior mentor. They complement cognitive-based principles because they deal with aspects of teaching that are often missing from the controlled laboratory environments of empirical research. This includes strategies for designing social learning environments and active learning environments, and for providing constructive feedback.From these two sources, I compile a list of strategies organized by each design component. For designing presentations, strategies deal with questions of substance (what should you include in a presentation?), arrangement (how should you arrange or sequence elements of a presentation?), and modality (what should be the mode or form of a presentation?). For designing environments, strategies deal with questions of social environments (how should students interact with each other and with the instructor?) and task environments (how should students engage in activities or problems?). For feedback design, strategies deal with questions of assessment (how should you measure meaningful learning?), motivation (how should you deliver feedback to motivate learning?), and reflection (how should students reflect on their learning outcomes?).Because empirical principles and pedagogical patterns were developed for instruction in other domains, this article illustrates them with specific examples of instructional materials that I have developed for teaching cartographic design to undergraduate students. Examples include lecture activities, software tutorials, task scaffolding, and feedback methods.The main contribution of this article is to illustrate a framework that makes two important connections. First, it bridges principles from theory with patterns from practice. Second it links general principles/patterns with specific examples of their implementations. For experienced teachers, the principles, patterns, and examples described here may appear obvious or old hat, but for educators with little previous experience teaching, they may be especially helpful. In the future, it would be helpful if experienced educators contributed towards a resource for principles, patterns, and examples in cartography that young educators could draw from as they learn how to teach cartography.


Value generation is defined as meeting client requirements while minimizing waste. Researchers concur on the issues related to sequential design in handling client requirements, and suggest the use of an integrated design approach as an alternative. Little has been said, however, about the impact of adopting integrated design's work organization to traditional design practice, processes and tools, nor about the importance of breaking down socio-cognitive barriers related to mental model fragmentation between design professionals, clients and users. This may result in cognitive inertia, a major source of waste. The objective of this research is to develop and test the introduction of boundary objects, such as new technologies, to the context of integrated teams and organizations to break the cognitive inertia that hinders value generation. The research is conclusive about the effectiveness of using boundary objects to transform practices in construction. This research also contributes to a better understanding of the new purposes of construction projects by framing its context and process dimensions within a theoretical framework, as well as to the evolution of practices in construction – and of practices that could be applicable to other fields.


Accepted, May 29, 2002. OBJECTIVE: Using the neural stem cell (NSC) clone C17.2, we evaluated the ability of transplanted murine NSCs to attenuate cognitive and neurological motor deficits after traumatic brain injury. METHODS: Nonimmunosuppressed C57BL/6 mice (n 65) were anesthetized and subjected to lateral controlled cortical impact brain injury (n 52) or surgery without injury (sham operation group, n 13). At 3 days postinjury, all brain-injured animals were reanesthetized and randomized to receive stereotactic injection of NSCs or control cells (human embryonic kidney cells) into the cortex-hippocampus interface in either the ipsilateral or the contralateral hemisphere. One group of animals (n 7) was killed at either 1 or 3 weeks postinjury to assess NSC survival in the acute posttraumatic period. Motor function was evaluated at weekly intervals for 12 weeks in the remaining animals, and cognitive (i.e., learning) deficits were assessed at 3 and 12 weeks after transplantation. RESULTS: Brain-injured animals that received either ipsilateral or contralateral NSC transplants showed significantly improved motor function in selected tests as compared with human embryonic kidney cell-transplanted animals during the 12-week observation period. Cognitive dysfunction was unaffected by transplantation at either 3 or 12 weeks postinjury. Histological analyses showed that NSCs survive for as long as 13 weeks after transplantation and were detected in the hippocampus and/or cortical areas adjacent to the injury cavity. At 13 weeks, the NSCs transplanted ipsilateral to the impact site expressed neuronal (NeuN) or astrocytic (glial fibrillary acidic protein) markers but not markers of oligodendrocytes (2'3'cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase), whereas the contralaterally transplanted NSCs expressed neuronal but not glial markers (double-labeled immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that transplanted NSCs can survive in the traumatically injured brain, differentiate into neurons and/or glia, and attenuate motor dysfunction after traumatic brain injury.


Acute pulmonary exacerbations (APE) are well‐described complications of cystic fibrosis (CF) and are associated with progressive morbidity and mortality. Despite aggressive management with two or more intravenous anti‐pseudomonal agents, approximately 25% of exacerbations will result in a loss of lung function. The aim of this review is to provide an evidence‐based summary of pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD), tolerability, and efficacy studies utilizing anti‐pseudomonal cephalosporins (i.e., ceftazidime and cefepime) and penicillins (i.e., piperacillin–tazobactam and ticarcillin–clavulanate) in the treatment of APE and to identify areas where further study is warranted. The ceftazidime and cefepime dosing ranges from the literature are 200–400 mg/kg/day divided every 6–8 hr, maximum 8–12 g/day, and 150–200 mg/kg/day divided every 6–8 hr, up to 6–8 g/day, respectively. The literature supported dosing ranges for piperacillin and ticarcillin are 350–600 mg/kg/day divided every 4 hr, maximum 18–24 g/day of piperacillin component, and 400–750 mg/kg/day divided every 6 hr, up to 24–30 g/day of ticarcillin component, respectively. As a large portion of CF patients will not regain their lung function following an APE, we suggest the need to optimize antibiotic dosing and dosing regimens used to treat an APE in efforts to improve outcomes for CF patients infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Future studies are needed to determine the clinical efficacy of higher than FDA‐approved doses of ceftazidime, cefepime, and ticarcillin–clavulanate in APE. The usefulness of high dose piperacillin (>600 mg/kg/day) may be limited due to treatment‐related adverse effects. Further understanding of these adverse effects in CF patients is needed. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2013; 48:107–122. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Introduction: The tympanic membrane plays an important role in the physiology of hearing. If perforation occurs, the hearing power will decrease. Role of perforation closure operation results are still not satisfactory. Latest knowledge about stem cells as the cells was able to differentiate into other cells to produce a new treatment expectation in handling perforation. Method: The aim of this research was to assess the role of bone marrow stem cells in the healing of marmot tympanic membrane perforation. The number of sample were totaling 22 marmots that were divided into three groups, group I amounted to 8 marmots, in group II were 7 marmots and in group III were 7 marmots. All marmots with chronic perforations made in the tympanic membrane perforator then injected with Staphylococcus aureus bacteria taken from microbiology section at tympanic cavum. When there has been a chronic perforation and declared dry, the group I taped marmot bone of marrow stem cells, amnion membrane attached to group II, group III as the control (without treatment). Results: There was no significant difference between the mean of age of the sample in the three groups (p> 0.05) and also no significant difference in mean body weight among the samples into three groups (p> 0.05). In the first observation of perforation, closure has not occurred among the three groups yet, on the second observation there were significant differences according to the percentage of the tympanic membrane closure group (p <0.05) in which groups of stem cells, it closures on 3 samples (50%) than other groups. In the third observation there were significant differences in the percentage cover of amnion membrane according to group (p <0.05). In the group of stem cell and amnion membrane, the closure occurs each 6 (100%) and 5 samples (100%), whereas in the control group the closure of the tympanic membrane occurred in 2 samples (40%). Conclusion: The role of bone marrow stem cells as the cells that are able to differentiate into other cell can be covered perforation of the tympanic membrane was faster than using amniotic membrane closure and control groups.


Monitoring changes in serum protein expression in response to acute events such as trauma, infection or drug intervention may reveal key proteins of great value in predicting recovery or treatment response. Concerted actions of many proteins are expected. Proteins sharing similar expression changes may function in the same physiological process. As a model we analyzed expression changes in serum of colon cancer patients, before, during, and after laparoscopic colon resection. Eight samples were taken from each of four patients before, during, and up to 5 days after surgery. Total serum and a low molecular weight fraction were analyzed by SELDI‐TOF‐MS. In total 146 masses were detected. A principal components analysis (PCA) illustrates the temporal variation in the postsurgery proteome. Time series for each mass could be clustered into four distinct groups based on similarity in expression pattern. Two masses of 11.4 and 11.6 kDa, part of a slow response cluster, were identified as forms of the acute phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA). Fourteen more proteins belong to this cluster and may also function in acute phase response. We present an approach to analyze temporal variation in the proteome. This approach may be useful to evaluate surgical, nutritional, and pharmacological interventions.


From the author of the now-classic "Resource Wars," an indispensable account of how the world's diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of power Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources. Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world-- where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging "Chindia" juggernaut--the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.


Biological vision incorporates intelligent cooperation between the sensory and the motor systems, which is facilitated by the development of motor skills that help to shape visual information that is relevant to a specific vision task. In this article, we seek to explore an approach to active vision inspired by biological systems, which uses limited constraints for motor strategies through progressive adaptation via an evolutionary method. This type of approach gives freedom to artificial systems in the discovery of eye-movement strategies that may be useful to solve a given vision task but are not known to us. In the experiment sections of this article, we use this type of evolutionary active vision system for more complex natural images in both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) environments. To further improve the results, we experiment with the use of pre-processing the visual input with both the uniform local binary patterns (ULBP) and the histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) for classification tasks in the 2D and 3D environments. The 3D experiments include application of the active vision system to object categorisation and indoor versus outdoor environment classification. Our experiments are conducted on the iCub humanoid robot simulator platform.


We present a novel technique that can rapidly and accurately measure surface tension and viscosity by direct thermal processing of an optical fiber. We demonstrate the applicability of this technique for a variety of glass compositions from silica to soft glass fibers, and these results have been validated against results obtained with other techniques. In addition, this characterisation technique has been used to measure the surface tension and viscosity for previously unmeasured glass compositions. The techniques are ideal for acquiring critical parameters of relevance to the conditions for the controlled fabrication of new glass compositions into microstructured fibers.


The study of the Middle Ages in every aspect of the modern liberal arts-the humanities, STEM, and the social sciences-has significant importance for society and the individual. There is a common belief that the peoples of the past were somehow exempt from (positive, especially) human nature, had less of a sense of morality (by any definition) than we do now, or were unaware of basic human dilemmas or triumphs. Relegating the Middle Ages to 'primitive' distances us from close examination of what has not changed in society-or what has, which might not be for the better. Exploring and exploding these (mis)conceptions is essential to experience the benefits of a liberal education.


Threat actors are constantly seeking new attack surfaces, with ransomeware being one the most successful attack vectors that have been used for financial g ain. T his has been achieved through the dispersion of unlimited polymorphic samples of ransomware whilst those responsible evade detection and hide their identity. Nonetheless, every ransomware threat actor adopts some similar style or uses some common patterns in their malicious code writing, which can be significant evidence contributing to their identification. T he fi rst st ep in attempting to identify the source of the attack is to cluster a large number of ransomware samples based on very little or no information about the samples, accordingly, their traits and signatures can be analysed and identified. T herefore, t his p aper p roposes an efficient fuzzy analysis approach to cluster ransomware samples based on the combination of two fuzzy techniques fuzzy hashing and fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering. Unlike other clustering techniques, FCM can directly utilise similarity scores generated by a fuzzy hashing method and cluster them into similar groups without requiring additional transformational steps to obtain distance among objects for clustering. Thus, it reduces the computational overheads by utilising fuzzy similarity scores obtained at the time of initial triaging of whether the sample is known or unknown ransomware. The performance of the proposed fuzzy method is compared against k-means clustering and the two fuzzy hashing methods SSDEEP and SDHASH which are evaluated based on their FCM clustering results to understand how the similarity score affects the clustering results.


The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has not only opened up new opportunities for economic growth and social development but has also posed problems and challenges. It can shape and enhance wide range of developmental applications in agriculture, industry and social sectors and is influencing all sections of the society. ICT provides unique opportunities for human development. At the same time, ICT has been widening the gaps between and within countries, regions, gender while increasing disparities divide between the rural-urban, rich-poor, elite neglected and also within the different categories of women in various spheres of activity. It is necessary to build up women capacities to involve them in productive activities, institutional building, family and social transformation, decision-making process, political representation, trade and commerce, entrepreneurial development and social leadership. There is a need to enhance opportunities to women to enable them to own, manage and control industries and service enterprises including IT-based units. There is also need to provide more opportunities in e-related sectors to them in higher managerial, technical positions in government and non-government agencies, research, educational institutions in private and public sectors, without confining their role to only call centers, telecentres, data-entry level and lower levels in the organizations. ICT has to address to all these problems of women as a whole and has to be used to facilitate to build a women empowered society.


Endoscopic ultrasonography-guided antegrade stenting (EUS-AGS) and EUSguided hepaticogastrostomy (EUS-HGS) are suitable for obstructive jaundice associated with gastric outlet obstruction or surgically altered anatomy [1]. Recently, a long partially covered self-expandable metallic stent (LPC-SEMS) has been developed to prevent stent migration and bile leakage and allow safe and effective EUS-HGS.However, one disadvantage of the LPC-SEMS is tissue hyperplasia at the uncovered portion of the stent [2]. Here, we present the case of a patient who underwent a rescue procedure using antegrade diathermic dilation for hyperplastic tissue occlusion of an LPC-SEMS and for tumor ingrowth into an uncovered SEMS placed for EUS-AGS. A 60-year-old man with unresectable gastric cancer was admitted with gastric outlet obstruction and obstructive jaundice. He had undergone EUS-AGS using an uncovered metallic stent and EUSHGS using a LPC-SEMS (diameter 6mm, length 120mm, uncovered proximal portion 10mm; Taewoong Medical, Seoul, Korea). He again developed obstructive jaundice 7 months later. Antegrade cholangiography via the LPC-SEMS revealed perihilar bile duct stricture due to hyperplasia at the LPC-SEMS (▶Fig. 1). It was not possible to pass a tapered endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) catheter through the stricture (▶Video1). We successfully dilated the stricture using 6-Fr wire-guided diathermic dilation (Cysto-Gastro-Set; Endo-Flex, Voerde, Germany) (▶Fig. 2, ▶Video1). Antegrade cholangiography showed free drainage through the previously hyperplastic area at the uncovered portion of the stent. No stent was placed as the previously occluded LPCSEMS was now patent (▶Fig. 3). Subsequent antegrade cholangiography revealed occlusion of the uncovered metallic stent due to tumor ingrowth (▶Fig. 4 a). Passage was successfully obtained with antegrade diathermic dilation (▶Fig. 4b). Finally, an ultraslim uncovered SEMS (BileRush Selective, 5.7-Fr, diameter 10mm; Piolax Medical Devices, Kanagawa, Japan) was placed using a stent-in-stent method, without complications (▶Fig. 5, ▶Video1). Recurrent biliary obstruction caused by tissue hyperplasia is an unresolved major problem of the LPC-SEMS, and the optimal rescue technique has not been established. EUS-guided antegrade diathermic dilation has been recently reported [3–5]. To our knowledge, this is the first report of rescue for hyperplastic tissue occlusion of an LPC-SEMS that used wire-guided antegrade diathermic dilation with no need for secondary stenting. This rescue technique is a useful method of recanalization of an LPCSEMS occluded by hyperplastic tissue.


This paper summarises a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation study for precision resonance energy scan measurements. Apart from the proof of principle for natural width and line shape measurements of very narrow resonances with PANDA, the achievable sensitivities are quantified for the concrete example of the charmonium-like X(3872) state discussed to be exotic, and for a larger parameter space of various assumed signal cross-sections, input widths and luminosity combinations. PANDA is the only experiment that will be able to perform precision resonance energy scans of such narrow states with quantum numbers of spin and parities that differ from J = 1−−.


This study investigated the antiulcer activity of aqueous extract of unripe Musa paradisiacal (plantain) peels in rats using ethanol, aspirin, indomethacin and pyloric ligation-induced ulcer models. Fresh peels of M. paradisiaca were extracted in hot water and the yield lyophilised. Distilled water, standard drugs and extract were injected intraperitoneally before inducing ulcer. Lethality test and quantitative phytochemical analyses were also carried out using standard techniques. Results showed that the extract at 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg wt offered 73.87, 80.18 and 81.98% protection, respectively against ethanol-induced ulcer, whereas cimetidine (50 mg/kg) produced 72.07% ulcer protection. There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the various groups. The extract also inhibited aspirin-induced ulcer whereas omeprazole (20 mg/kg) significantly enhanced aspirin-induced ulcer. Similar to cimetidine, the extract did not inhibit indomethacin-induced ulceration. Extract (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg) and cimetidine (50 mg/kg) inhibited pyloric ligation-induced ulcer by 100 and 75%, respectively. Findings suggest antiulcerogenic potentials of the extract, thereby supporting its ethnomedicinal use as antiulcer agent. Up to 5000 mg/kg of extract did not cause mortality of the animals, indicating safety of the extract. The extract was rich in flavonoids (1.40 ± 0.02 mg/100 g).

 Key words: Musa paradisiaca, peptic ulcer, antiulcerogenesis, aspirin-induced ulcer, medicinal plants, flavonoids.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) represents the most common sustained heart rhythm abnormality. It presents in paroxysmal and persistent forms. The pathogenesis of AF is still debatable with several proposed mechanisms. The main pathway for diagnosis of AF is through electrocardiographic record. Treatment strategies can be divided into two strategies: rate and rhythm control. For rhythm control, antiarrhythmic drugs, direct current cardioversion, and electrophysiological ablation are used, while for rate control, chronotropic drugs are being used, while AV node ablation is required in order to reduce rapid ventricular rate, which is often observed in patients with AF. The rhythm control strategy implies the use of cardioversion to convert AF to normal, sinus rhythm. Cardioversion can be either pharmacological or electrical. Rate control strategy can be implied to patients with permanent AF but should also imply for the patients with paroxysmal AF when relapse occurs. Rapid ventricular rates can cause palpitations or even a syncope and other rate-related symptoms; however, these high ventricular rates lead to degradation of left ventricle performance, mitral regurgitation, and further dilatation of the left atrium. The main antiarrhythmic drugs used in treatment of AF are propafenone, flecainide, beta-blockers, amiodarone, dronedarone, dofetilide, vernakalant, and ranolazine.


Transformers, composed of multiple self-attention layers, hold strong promises toward a generic learning primitive applicable to different data modalities, including the recent breakthroughs in computer vision achieving state-of-the-art (SOTA) standard accuracy. What remains largely unexplored is their robustness evaluation and attribution. In this work, we study the robustness of the Vision Transformer (ViT) (Dosovitskiy et al. 2021) against common corruptions and perturbations, distribution shifts, and natural adversarial examples. We use six different diverse ImageNet datasets concerning robust classification to conduct a comprehensive performance comparison of ViT(Dosovitskiy et al. 2021) models and SOTA convolutional neural networks (CNNs), Big-Transfer (Kolesnikov et al. 2020). Through a series of six systematically designed experiments, we then present analyses that provide both quantitative andqualitative indications to explain why ViTs are indeed more robust learners. For example, with fewer parameters and similar dataset and pre-training combinations, ViT gives a top-1accuracy of 28.10% on ImageNet-A which is 4.3x higher than a comparable variant of BiT. Our analyses on image masking, Fourier spectrum sensitivity, and spread on discrete cosine energy spectrum reveal intriguing properties of ViT attributing to improved robustness. Code for reproducing our experiments is available at https://git.io/J3VO0.


This paper looks at the interdependence of metrical and linguistic units, focussing on metrical inversion and enjambment. While metrical texts favour (diagrammatic) iconicity as a result of equivalence (repetition) on the level of stress, foot, verse, stanza, etc., another source for iconicity is to be found in non-equivalent phenomena such as metrical inversion and enjambment. An example for inversion is the beginning of the first line of one of Keats' sonnets — " Much have I travelled in the realms of gold" — where metrical inversion coincides with syntactic inversion. The basis for enjambment is a discrepancy between metrical and syntactic structures, a discrepancy which may even affect morphology, as is the case at the beginning of Hopkins' The Windhover , where the change of the lines results in cutting asunder a word: " king- / dom ". Having demonstrated, at the level of meter, the interaction of the principles of equivalence and non-equivalence — according to Jakobson a fundamental quality of poetic texts in general — the paper points the way towards a poetics of verse.


This study examines the determinants of under-five child mortality in Bangladesh using the data extracted from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2011 and 2014. Product-Limit method and Log-Rank test have been used for bivariate analysis. Cox proportional hazard model has been employed under both classical and Bayesian approaches. Cox regression analysis reveals that region (Barisal and Sylhet), maternal education (higher education), mother's membership of NGO have significant impact on child mortality. The results obtained using Bayesian Cox PH model are almost similar except one key finding. Under Bayesian analysis, child's size at birth appeared as potential determinant of under-five mortality whereas it has insignificant effect on child survival when classical Cox model has been applied. Bangladesh J. Sci. Res. 30(1&2): 45-54, December-2017


Perylene bisimide (PBI) based molecules have recently attracted tremendous interest as acceptors in non-fullerene organic solar cells. However, most PBI-based acceptors possess deep LUMO energy levels (−3.9 ∼ −4.0 eV) and show an open-circuit voltage (Voc) below 0.90 V, thus limiting the improvement of device efficiency. Here, we report two novel ring-fused PBI dimers, SdiPBI-BT and diPBI-BT, with thienobenzene fused to the bay region of the PBI subunits. Conventional bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells based on SdiPBI-BT show a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.71% with a high Voc value of 0.95 V, a short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 10.31 mA cm−2 and a high fill factor (FF) of 68.7%. Devices based on diPBI-BT show a PCE of 5.84% with a high Voc value of 0.99 V. These results demonstrate that ring-fused PBI derivatives are promising materials for non-fullerene cells.


Numerical simulations are often used to understand spray atomisation and estimate the size of the liquid fragments. Several techniques (Level Set, Volume of Fluid, Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics, among others) exist to compute multiphase flows and potentially represent liquid-break-up. However, the complexity of the breakup process and the wide range of scales prevents the use of an unified approach to simulate the complete spray. Numerical techniques face different challenges depending on the spray characteristics. The incorrect representation of surface forces in capillary dominated flows, creates large parasitic currents that distort and in some cases destroy the interface. Methods that perform well in the capillary regime aim to capture the interface directly and the surface radius cur- vature is therefore larger than the mesh size. However, this creates large constrains on the mesh resolution and limits its applications to low Weber number flows, when there is no extensive atomization. Methods that simulate large Weber number flows (typical of industrial injectors) do not resolve the interface directly and the mesh is larger than the smallest radius of curvature. These models often have numerical or artificial diffusion that destroys small scale structures and alters the break-up. However, even at large Weber flows, the spray formation can be affected by errors due to the local imbalance between pressure and surface tension forces and interface curvature errors. Numerical schemes work around these problems by adjusting the amount of numerical diffusion of the scheme depending on the spray application. Intermediate Weber number sprays are well suited to study the performance of numerical methods as they exhibit hybrid behaviour between capillary flows and full atomization. In the present work an intermediate gas Weber of a laboratory air-blast atomiser is investigated using a volume of fluid approach. The amount of numerical diffusion is controlled by a compressive factor in the volume of fluid transport equation. The effect of the compressive term on spray atomization and droplet size distribution is explored. The results suggest that the optimal amount of diffusion depends on the local Weber number.


We study the family of p-resistances on graphs for p ≥ 1. This family generalizes the standard resistance distance. We prove that for any fixed graph, for p =1 the p-resistance coincides with the shortest path distance, for p = 2 it coincides with the standard resistance distance, and for p → ∞ it converges to the inverse of the minimal s-t-cut in the graph. Secondly, we consider the special case of random geometric graphs (such as k-nearest neighbor graphs) when the number n of vertices in the graph tends to infinity. We prove that an interesting phase transition takes place. There exist two critical thresholds p* and p** such that if p p**, it only depends on trivial local quantities and does not convey any useful information. We can explicitly compute the critical values: p* = 1 + 1/(d − 1) and p** = 1 + 1/(d − 2) where d is the dimension of the underlying space (we believe that the fact that there is a small gap between p* and p** is an artifact of our proofs). We also relate our findings to Laplacian regularization and suggest to use q-Laplacians as regularizers, where q satisfies 1/p* + 1/q =1.


The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a Reduced Risk of Fire Spread in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Communities research program. The program objective is to develop, by the end of FY2013 first generation tools for improved risk assessment and risk mitigation in WUI (wildland-urban interface) communities at risk from wildfires. These tools will be developed and tested through a coordinated effort that includes laboratory and field measurements, physics-based fire behavior models, and economic cost analysis models. The NIST WUI Team was invited by CAL FIRE to collect post incident data from the California October 2007 fires. Early on, the NIST WUI Team initiated a case study within the Witch Fire perimeter. The case study is focused on The Trails development at Rancho Bernardo, north of the City of San Diego. There were 274 homes in The Trails, with 245 within the fire perimeter 74 homes were completely destroyed and 16 were partly damaged. Field measurements included structure particulars, specifically roof type, proximity of combustibles to the structure, and damage to wildland and residential vegetation. Documentation included over 11 000 pictures. The data collected and the data analysis to be conducted are divided into three initial papers. This paper will address the event timeline reconstruction and general fire behavior observations. The second paper will investigate the impacts of structure attributes, landscaping characteristics, topographical features and wildland fire exposure on structure survivability. Lastly, the third paper will investigate the use computer modeling as a tool to understand fire behavior at the WUI.


The Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS), flying aboard NASA's Aqua satellite with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit‐A (AMSU‐A) and four other instruments, has been providing data for use in numerical weather prediction and data assimilation systems for over three years. The full AIRS data set is currently not transmitted in near‐real‐time to the prediction/assimilation centres. Instead, data sets with reduced spatial and spectral information are produced and made available within three hours of the observation time. In this paper, we evaluate the use of different channel selections and error specifications. We achieve significant positive impact from the Aqua AIRS/AMSU‐A combination during our experimental time period of January 2003. The best results are obtained using a set of 156 channels that do not include any in the H2O band between 1080 and 2100 cm−1. The H2O band channels have a large influence on both temperature and humidity analyses. If observation and background errors are not properly specified, the partitioning of temperature and humidity information from these channels will not be correct, and this can lead to a degradation in forecast skill. Therefore, we suggest that it is important to focus on background error specification in order to maximize the impact from AIRS and similar instruments. In addition, we find that changing the specified channel errors has a significant effect on the amount of data that enters the analysis as a result of quality control thresholds that are related to the errors. However, moderate changes to the channel errors do not significantly impact forecast skill with the 156 channel set. We also examine the effects of different types of spatial data reduction on assimilated data sets and NWP forecast skill. Whether we pick the centre or the warmest AIRS pixel in a 3 × 3 array affects the amount of data ingested by the analysis but does not have a statistically significant impact on the forecast skill. Copyright © Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The Canadian state undertook a major restructuring of the immigration and refugee program in the 1990s, committing itself to creating a new immigration act as part of this process. Trafficking is one major issue that the new act would concern itself with. In this paper I make the case that the state's proposals for addressing trafficking enable the state to posit itself as responsible for protecting "Canadians" while carefully avoiding any responsibility for the wellbeing of women who are trafficked; demonize smugglers as the cause of trafficking; and override the concerns and interests of women who are trafficked by making deportation the only "solution" to their presence in Canada. Consequently, these proposals will further penalize the women, while protecting the interests of the Canadian men, women, and employers who profit and benefit from their exploitation. Further, while this approach does nothing to address the root causes of trafficking, the state's enthusiasm for increasing trade liberalization will only exacerbate these very causes.


Aims: The promotion of sports participation during the early years of life is important not only because it promotes health during childhood and adolescence, but also because it has benefits in adulthood. This study was developed to identify the association between sports participation during the early years of life and adulthood, to analyze the non-participation in sports throughout life and to identify the correlates of non-participation in sports. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. Methods: The sample was composed of 743 adults randomly selected in a medium-size Brazilian city. Non-participation in sports during childhood and adolescence was assessed through specific questions, and nonparticipation in sports in adulthood was assessed using the second section of Baecke questionnaire. Answering "no" in the three periods assessed (childhood, adolescence and adulthood) was characterized as non-participation in sports throughout life. Chronological age, sex, formal education, BMI, current job and ethnicity were considered covariates. Categorical data were expressed as rates and compared using chi-square test and binary logistic regression. Results: The prevalence of adults not engaged in sports throughout life was 58.5% (95% CI= 55.1 – 62.1). Females (OR = 2.41 [1.71 – 3.38]), those more advanced in age (OR = 3.29 [1.82-5.94]) and/or possessing a lower level of education (OR = 4.47 [2.45 – 8.17]) were associated with the non-engagement in sports. Conclusion: Non-participation in sports during childhood can influence non-participation in sports during adulthood, which is significantly affected by sex, age and


The history of the U.S. environmental justice movement reveals that successful campaigns are seldom waged solely through litigation. Instead, communities have employed litigation and administrative actions as part of a broader grassroots struggle to achieve shortand long-term change. Even when not successful on the merits, such actions can facilitate both informationgathering and information-dissemination, with the accompanying public scrutiny providing an increased incentive to reform agency or corporate behavior. Latin American communities seeking environmental justice face similar, and often greater, obstacles in pursuing claims through the courts. Transnational corporations, operating under U.S. trade and investment treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement, can take advantage of ineffective environmental protection regimes in Latin American countries and generally escape liability in U.S. courts as well. Yet these trade treaties also include a citizen submission on enforcement matters process, where citizens can spotlight environmental violations and force an oversight body to generate and publish an authoritative factual record. This Article assesses this citizen submissions process in the context of a holistic approach to environmental justice campaigns. Drawing on parallels from the U.S. movement, the Article highlights how the citizen submissions process can validate data gathered by the community, facilitate generation of new information, publicize that information to a much wider audience, and provide a meaningful rallying point for community organizing. The Article concludes that, while the factual record itself holds limited value as a standalone remedy, the informational aspects of the process nonetheless can be an effective compliance-promoting tool in a broader environmental justice campaign.


The internal transitions and absorption spectra of confined magnetoexcitons in GaAs/Ga0.7Al0.3As quantum wells have been theoretically investigated under magnetic fields along the growth direction of the semiconductor heterostructure. The magnetoexciton states are obtained within the effective-mass approximation by using a variational procedure. The trial exciton-envelope wavefunctions are described as hydrogeniclike polynomial functions. The internal transition energies are investigated by studying the allowed magnetoexcitonic transitions using terahertz radiation circularly polarized in the plane of the quantum well. The intraexcitonic magnetoabsorption coefficients are obtained for transitions from 1s-like to 2p^{+-}-like magnetoexciton states as functions of the applied magnetic field.


Along with the deployment of the Face Recognition Systems (FRS), concerns were raised related to the vulnerability of those systems towards various attacks including morphed attacks. The morphed face attack involves two different face images in order to obtain via a morphing process a resulting attack image, which is sufficiently similar to both contributing data subjects. The obtained morphed image can successfully be verified against both subjects visually (by a human expert) and by a commercial FRS. The face morphing attack poses a severe security risk to the e-passport issuance process and to applications like border control, unless such attacks are detected and mitigated. In this work, we propose a new method to reliably detect a morphed face attack using a newly designed demising framework. To this end, we design and introduce a new deep Multi-scale Context Aggregation Network (MS-CAN) to obtain denoised images, which is subsequently used to determine if an image is morphed or not. Extensive experiments are carried out on three different morphed face image datasets. The Morphing Attack Detection (MAD) performance of the proposed method is also benchmarked against 14 different state-of-the-art techniques using the ISO-IEC 30107-3 evaluation metrics. Based on the obtained quantitative results, the proposed method has indicated the best performance on all three datasets and also on cross-dataset experiments.


The objectives of the study were to analyze the association between Parkinson's disease and restless legs syndrome, and explore the relationship between mood disorder comorbidity (anxiety and depression), pain, and restless legs syndrome. This study included 123 Parkinson's disease patients and 123 healthy controls matched for age and gender, and evaluated for anxiety severity, depression severity, pain severity, pain interference, pain disability, and restless legs syndrome prevalence. This was performed using semi-structured interviews and a neurological examination. Restless Legs Syndrome diagnostic criteria and the following inventories were used; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Brief Pain Inventory, and Pain Disability Index. Parkinson's disease patients had significantly greater anxiety severity, depression severity, pain severity, pain interference, pain disability, and restless legs syndrome prevalence in comparison to controls. In addition, Parkinson's disease patients' comorbid for anxiety and depression had significantly greater pain severity, pain interference, and pain disability, but not RLS prevalence, in comparison to Parkinson's disease only, Parkinson's disease anxiety, and Parkinson's disease depression patients. Pain interference, pain severity, and pain disability is greater among Parkinson's disease patients with anxiety and depression, in comparison to Parkinson's disease patients without anxiety and depression. On the contrary, the prevalence of restless legs syndrome was not found to be relevant.


Ada 9X -the revised definition of the Ada programming language- provides support for object-oriented programming. This course offers a comprehensive view of object-oriented programming with Ada; it is divided in three parts. First, we examine the object-oriented features of the language, their use, and how they fit into Ada's strong type system and genericity mechanisms. Basic object-oriented mechanisms are covered: extension, inheritance, and polymorphism. Second, we show how to integrate these mechanisms into good programming practices; topics include incremental programming, heterogeneous data structures, mixin and sibling inheritance. Finally, we compare standard object-oriented idioms in Ada vs. major object-oriented languages (C++, Smalltalk, Eiffel).


We used (1) water temperature (a proxy for water movement), (2) chlorophyll (a proxy for phytoplankton), and (3) zooplankton (bulk, small, and large size classes) to investigate the relationship between changing wind conditions and spatial patterns along linear transects (n 5 150) in two basins, South Arm and Annie Bay, of Lake Opeongo (Ontario, Canada). The basins have similar biological characteristics, but South Arm is larger and is oriented along the prevailing westerly wind direction. Large‐scale patterns (.1 km) were described with an accumulation index, and wavelet analysis was used to describe small‐scale patterns (≪1 km). Spatial descriptors were correlated with five descriptors of wind conditions: (1) wind force, (2) scalar wind speed, (3) vector wind speed, (4) wind persistence, and (5) wind direction. Persistent westerly winds in South Arm resulted in more downwind accumulation of warm water and total and large‐bodied zooplankton than in Annie Bay, while chlorophyll and small zooplankton did not show consistent downwind accumulation. The predominance of small‐scale variability, particularly in large zooplankton, increased in the South Arm as the persistence and strength of westerly winds blowing parallel to the sampling transects increased. Only temperature showed such a pattern in the smaller Annie Bay. These patterns were not related to winds blowing at the time of sampling but rather to those blowing up to 12 h before sampling. Our observations provide a basis for future consideration of how simple surface winds may actually shape the nature of trophic interactions in lake ecosystems.


The purpose of this thesis was to study food choice motivations in relation to fruit and vegetable consumption. To this end, four studies were undertaken. The first was a systematic review of the literature investigating factors affecting the food choice decisions of adults in relation to fruit and vegetable consumption.

The second study examined the different health and lifestyle factors, which affect fruit and vegetable consumption in women. Participants were drawn from the UK Women's Cohort Study (UKWCS), and were all females, aged 35-69 years (n = 35,367). These women provided health and lifestyle information including a 217-item food frequency questionnaire. The strongest predictors of a high level of fruit and vegetable consumption found in the logistic regression model were: being a vegetarian or vegan, taking vitamin or mineral supplements, being married, having an A-level or degree level of education and belonging to a higher socio-economic group.

The third study explored the priorities of high consumers of fruit and vegetables compared to lower consumers, within 998 women from the UKWCS, using the Food Choice Questionnaire. In a multiple linear regression model the strongest motivations affecting specifically fruit and vegetable intake were health and natural content. This study also investigated the relationships between food
choice motivations and the process of behaviour change, using the Stages of Change (SOC) ModeL The SOC evaluation showed significant associations with portions of fruit and vegetables consumed, and the findings showed that
women classified in differing phases of SOC model have different food choice motivations.

The final study assessed the variability and validity of plasma nutrient levels as biomarkers of fruit and vegetable intake. Participants were 54 non-smoking women recruited from the UKWCS. Two methods, the food frequency
questionnaire and the 4-day food diary were employed to assess fruit and vegetable intakes. The results implied that the practice of using plasma biomarkers simply as a proxy measure of dietary intake is not valid and emphasise that plasma biomarkers are not simply a reflection of dietary intake but also of a number of physiological processes.

Overall, the findings demonstrated: that health promotion interventions to increase fruit and vegetable consumption should primarily be targeted at people who smoke, live alone and are of a lower education level and socio-economic
status; that higher consumers of fruit and vegetables tend to be more motivated by health concerns and the natural content of the food, and less motivated by convenience and familiarity issues, than the lower consumers of fruit and
vegetables; that people classified in different Stages of Change have differing food choice motivations and finally; that plasma antioxidant levels are not biochemical markers of accurate dietary intakes, at either the food or nutrient
level, however they may give a more complete assessment of diet when used in conjunction with traditional dietary assessment methods.


We consider two multivariate long-memory ARCH models, which extend the univariate long-memory ARCH models, we first consider a long-memory extension of the restricted constant conditional correlations (CCC) model introduced by Bollerslev (1990), and we propose a new unrestricted conditional covariance matrix model which models the conditional covariances as long-memory ARCH processes. We apply these two models to two daily returns on foreign exchanges (FX) rates series, the Pound-US dollar, and the Deutschmark-US dollar. The estimation results for both models show: (i) that the unrestricted model outperforms the restricted CCC model, and (ii) that all the elements of the conditional covariance matrix share the same degree of long-memory for the period April 1979 - January 1997. However, this result does not hold for the floating periods March 1973 - January 1997 and September 1971 - January 1997. This break in the long-term structure may be caused by the European Monetary System inception in March 1979.


Aim The aim of this study was to determine the correlation of early interventions by health visitors with the performance and length of breastfeeding and the evaluation of child's development. Methods The study was conducted in 2012, in the town of Đakovo and the surrounding area which includes 56 settlements. The survey consisted of two parts; first part was filled by mothers who breastfed their children after leaving the maternity hospital, and the other part was filled by health visitors. Results: From a total of 154 parturient women who filled a survey after they had left the hospital, the decision about breastfeeding before the pregnancy was made by 58.4% of examinees. Primiparas from the town were older than primiparas from the rural area where we got statistical significance (p <0.001). Most information about the proper placement of the child on the chest after birth, 56.3% of the examinees were given by nurses in the maternity hospital. The study showed that the support of husband, during lactation, had 57.9% of the examinees. Health visitor's first visit was within 7 days after delivery, at three-quarters of examinees, which shows good awareness and collaboration between secondary and primary health care. The results showed that there is a good positive correlation between breastfeeding evaluation and evaluation of child development (p <0.001). Conclusion Evaluation of breastfeeding and evaluation of child's development conducted by health visitors was better in women who made their decision about breastfeeding before pregnancy, which indicates that we should work on the early education of pregnant women about breastfeeding through the work of health visitors in the field and maternity courses.  Keywords: breastfeeding, health visitor, breastfeeding evaluation, child's development.


This paper concerns strategic leadership as it functions in businesses today. The research will outline which skills and characteristics are the most important for being a 'strategic leader'. The influence of culture on leadership is also investigated, leading to the examination of the question of whether business strategy affects leadership. The paper links leadership with strategic management and discusses how a successful practice of leadership can help an organization create a unique and valuable market position, assisting the attainment of sustainable competitive advantage. The research demonstrates that strategic leadership is above the operational level of management and that strategic leaders understand their market and their resources. They have clarity of vision as well as an ability to develop well attuned business goals. The results show that the characteristics and skills of strategic leaders plays a dominant role in their ability to see the big picture, embedding these into daily business is crucial. Analysis also finds that national culture, competitiveness and market development affect strategic leadership. This research shows that strategic leadership is associated with business success and a lack of strategic leadership may find companies losing focus in the long term. It can therefore be concluded that strategic leadership tends to support a sustainable competitive advantage in the market place.


Objective: Social cognition is profoundly impaired in patients with schizophrenia. This study describes 'Mental-State Reasoning Training for Social Cognitive Impairment' (SoCog-MSRT), a 5-week program developed to improve social cognition in patients with schizophrenia. We aimed to investigate the feasibility of implementing SoCog-MSRT in a rehabilitation setting and to evaluate whether our training methods produced improvements. Method The feasibility and benefits of SoCog-MSRT were evaluated in an open clinical trial with 14 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Training comprised 10 twice-weekly sessions, for 5 weeks, with a pre- and post-training assessment. Results: There were significant improvements on: (a) a classic false-belief test of Theory of Mind (ToM); (b) inferring complex mental states from the eyes; and (c) a self-reported measure of social understanding. Some of these improvements were associated with baseline levels of working memory and premorbid Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Conclusions SoCog-MSRT can improve ToM abilities and social understanding, but individuals with poorer working memory and lower premorbid IQ may be less able to benefit from this type of training.


Some bacteria can produce extracellular bacterial cellulose (BC). This polysaccharide is chemically identical to cellulose produced by plants but has no associated lignin and hemicelluloses. The unique mechanical properties, chemical stability and purity allow BC to be exploited for a range of biomedical applications. However, medium costs limit commercial BC production. The suitability of using fish powder as a low-cost media component for producing BC by submerged culture of Gluconacetobacter xylinus in shake flasks was investigated. Fish powder was made by drying and grinding Koi carp (Cyprinus carpio), a pest fish in New Zealand waterways. Fermentations were done at 30oC in a growth medium containing 50 g/L glucose, the required minerals, and either 5 g/L yeast extract or 15 g/L fish powder, The BC yield on both yeast extract and fish powder was 0.04 g/g glucose, demonstrating fish powder was a suitable low cost ingredient for supplying nitrogen and amino acids in the media.


Metal halides are selective catalysts suitable for production of the fuel precursors furfural and 5-HMF from sugars derived from lignocellulosic biomass. However, they do not perform nearly as well when applied to biomass even in combination with immiscible extracting solvents or expensive ionic co-solvents. Here, we couple metal halides with a highly tunable co-solvent system employing renewable tetrahydrofuran (THF) to significantly enhance co-production of furfural and 5-HMF from biomass in a single phase reaction strategy capable of integrating biomass deconstruction with catalytic dehydration of sugars. Screening of several promising metal halide species at 170 °C in pH-controlled reactions with sugar solutions and larger 1 L reactions with maple wood and corn stover revealed how the interplay between relative Bronsted and Lewis acidities was responsible for enhancing catalytic performance in THF co-solvent. Combining FeCl3 with THF co-solvent was particularly effective, achieving one of the highest reported simultaneous yields of furfural (95%) and 5-HMF (51%) directly from biomass with minimal levulinic acid formation (6%). Furthermore, over 90% of the lignin from biomass was extracted by THF and recovered as a fine lignin powder. Tuning the volume ratio of THF to water from 4 : 1 to 1 : 1 preserved 10% to 31% of the reacted biomass as a glucan-rich solid suitable for further catalytic reaction, enzymatic digestion, or possible pulp and paper production.


An independent research laboratory owns a patented process innovation that can be licensed by means of an auction to two Cournot duopolists producing differentiated goods. For large innovations and close enough substitute goods the patentee auctions off only one licence, preventing the full diffusion of the innovation. For this range of parameters, however, if the laboratory merged with one of the firms in the industry, full technology diffusion would be implemented as the merged entity would always license the innovation to the rival firm. This explains that, in this context, a vertical merger is both profitable and welfare improving.


Society relies more and more on a continuous supply of electricity. However, while underinvestments in reliability lead to an unacceptable number of power interruptions, overinvestments result in too high costs for society. To give incentives for a socioeconomically optimal level of reliability, quality regulations have been adopted in many European countries. These quality regulations imply new financial risks for the distribution system operator (DSO) since poor reliability can reduce the allowed revenue for the DSO and compensation may have to be paid to affected customers.This thesis develops a method for evaluating the incentives for reliability investments implied by different quality regulation designs. The method can be used to investigate whether socioeconomically beneficial projects are also beneficial for a profit-maximizing DSO subject to a particular quality regulation design. To investigate which reinvestment projects are preferable for society and a DSO, risk-based methods are developed. With these methods, the probability of power interruptions and the consequences of these can be simulated. The consequences of interruptions for the DSO will to a large extent depend on the quality regulation. The consequences for the customers, and hence also society, will depend on factors such as the interruption duration and time of occurrence. The proposed risk-based methods consider extreme outage events in the risk assessments by incorporating the impact of severe weather, estimating the full probability distribution of the total reliability cost, and formulating a risk-averse strategy. Results from case studies performed show that quality regulation design has a significant impact on reinvestment project profitability for a DSO. In order to adequately capture the financial risk that the DSO is exposed to, detailed risk-based methods, such as the ones developed in this thesis, are needed. Furthermore, when making investment decisions, a risk-averse strategy may clarify the benefits or drawbacks of a project that are hard to discover by looking only at the expected net present value.


Abstract Questions over durable solutions in the social, political and security terrain of southern Sudan and northern Uganda invite recognition that simple delineations between "home" and "exile" are inadequate for an understanding of displacement and refugee status. Contrary to existing policies that assume an unproblematic repatriation of Sudanese refugees from their protracted exile in Uganda to a "post conflict" Sudan, the emerging reality is that multiple strategies of survival, self-protection and development are being employed. This paper explores the variety and ingenuity with which refugees address challenges to livelihoods, identities and security with a portfolio of responses which render the notion of a straightforward cross-border movement "home" largely notional. Drawing on long-term research in a number of Sudanese refugee settlements in northern Uganda since the mid-1990s, this article emphasizes the need to recognize that durable solutions should not be constructed as single and fixed in contexts where individuals and groups may continue to migrate so as to meet their family's collective needs. It also invites recognition of the extent and ways in which re-crossing international borders has particular meaning for refugees given their specific legal status, as well as the additional relevance and significance of physical, social and symbolic boundaries in such a context.


Intraductal papillary-mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) of the pancreas are rare lesions. We undertook this study to analyze these tumors by focusing on the diagnostic criteria and correlating the histologic features with clinical prognosis. Twenty-two cases of IPMN were retrieved from the Endocrine Tumor Registry of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Blocks or unstained slides were available for histochemical and immunohistochemical studies (including proliferative markers and cell cycle regulators) and K-ras oncogene mutations in 15 cases. Patient follow-up was obtained in all of the cases. IPMN occurs in both genders with a slight male predominance, with a mean age at presentation of 64.4 years (range, 48-85 yr). The patients presented with abdominal pain. The neoplasms were radiologically and grossly cystic, usually (18 cases of 22) located in the head of the pancreas. Histologically, the tumors consisted of intraductal papillary proliferations protruding into and expanding the pancreatic ducts. Invasion into the surrounding pancreatic parenchyma was detected in 15 cases. Chronic pancreatitis was present in all of the cases. p27 immunoreactivity always exceeded the immunoreactivity of cyclin E. K-ras oncogene mutations were detected in two cases. Patients were treated with a complete surgical resection (n = 7) or a Whipple procedure (n = 13). Only 2 of 22 patients died of disease (3 died immediately postoperatively and 3 died of unrelated causes), whereas the remaining 14 patients were alive at last follow-up, without evidence of disease, an average of 58.2 months after initial presentation. IPMNs are rare, distinctive neoplasms, with complex intraductal papillae, that can be easily separated from in situ ductal adenocarcinoma and mucinous cystic neoplasms. The high ratio of p27 protein to cyclin E supports the excellent prognosis of these neoplasms, despite the presence of invasion and K-ras oncogene mutation.


This paper proposes a two-step aggregation method for measuring long-term income inequality and income mobility, where mobility is defined as an equalizer of long-term income. The first step consists of aggregating the income stream of each individual into a measure of permanent income, which accounts for the costs associated with income fluctuations and allows for credit market imperfections. The second step aggregates permanent incomes across individuals into measures of social welfare, inequality and mobility. To this end, we employ an axiomatic approach to justify the introduction of a generalized family of rank-dependent measures of inequality, where the distributional weights, as opposed to the Mehran-Yaari family, depend on income shares as well as on population shares. Moreover, a subfamily is shown to be associated with social welfare functions that have intuitively appealing interpretations. Further, the generalized family of inequality measures provides new interpretations of the Gini-coefficient.


The translocation of the microtubule-organizing center (MTOC), its associated signaling complex, and the secretory apparatus is the most characteristic early event that involves the tubulin cytoskeleton of T or NK cells after their interaction with APC or target cells. Our results show that Fyn kinase activity is essential for MTOC reorientation in an Ag-dependent system. Moreover, T cells from Fyn-deficient mice are unable to rearrange their tubulin cytoskeleton in response to anti-CD3-coated beads. Analysis of conjugates of T cells from transgenic OT-I mice with dendritic cells revealed that an antagonist peptide induces translocation of the MTOC, and that this process is impaired in T cells from Fyn−/− OT-I mice. In addition, Fyn deficiency significantly affects the MTOC relocation mediated by agonist peptide stimulation. These results reveal Fyn to be a key regulator of tubulin cytoskeleton reorganization in T cells.


�� � Abstract: The past decade has brought a boom of online initiatives that monitor the performance of parliaments - a practice commonly referred to as 'parliamentary informatics'. A recent survey identified 191 organisations monitoring over 80 parliaments worldwide; many of these use digital tools to aggregate information and facilitate citizens' involvement in parliamentary activity (Mandelbaum 2011). At the same time, little is actually known about who uses these platforms and whether they increase the quality of democracy. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing parliamentary informatics projects in three European countries from the point of view of key democratic dimensions: equality, accountability, and political responsiveness. In particular, the paper shows that parliamentary informatics projects achieve mixed results in terms of democratic quality. Many of the traditionally underrepresented groups in politics have even more limited presence on these online platforms. Accountability - including access to user-friendly, close to real-time, and objective political information that help ordinary citizens to hold their representative accountable - turns out to be the strong point of this type of project. However, users do not consider transparency of information to be enough. Many participants build up significant expectations about the political effects of their engagement. Yet, their expectations are generally disappointed by lack of impact. �


The feasibility of in-depth analysis of the territorial organization of the healthcare system in Rivne region is determined primarily by the need to assess the quality of public health facilities operation and their availability in the region, which suffered significant radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl accident. The main goal of this study was to determine the characteristics of the territorial organization of healthcare system in Rivne Region assessing its impact on the medical and demographic situation in the region. Analysis of the territorial organization of medical services in Rivne Region was carried out by determining the number of parameters (localization index, index of territorial concentration, service area, and service radius). The best indicators of the ratio of health care institutions to the population are observed in Ostroh, Rivne, Kostopil and Zdolbunov districts. The biggest discrepancy between these figures were found in Berezne, Koretsk, Volodymyrets and Dubrovytsya districts, primarily due to the peripheral location of these districts in the region. Similar differences have developed well in terms of access to medical facilities. The smallest service areas of medical institutions are (188-244 sq. km) in Demydiv, Zdolbuniv, and Berezne districts. The biggest service areas of medical institutions are in Dubno, Kostopil, Ostroh, and Goshcha districts (692-1200 sq km). In general, the southern and central parts of the region are better provided with medical facilities. Rivne district should be noted separately for the best indicators of public healthcare due to its "capital" status. A correlation analysis was conducted in order to establish the relationship between the number of hospitals, on the one hand, and medical and demographic indicators (total mortality, morbidity, and spread of diseases). The results indicate a strong dependence: r1 = 0.7, r2 = 0.8, r3 = 0.9 respectively. This means that the public health depends significantly on the level of medical care.


Abstract. Saudi Arabia has the world's fifth-largest desert and is
the biggest importer of food and agricultural products. Understanding soil
microbial communities is key to improving the agricultural potential of the
region. Therefore, soil microbial communities of the semiarid region of
Abha, known for agriculture, and arid regions of Hafar Al Batin and Muzahmiya
were studied using Illumina sequencing. The results show that the microbial
communities of the Saudi desert were characterized by the presence of high
numbers of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Firmicutes. In addition to
Sahara desert signature phyla like Gemmatimonadetes, biogeochemically important
microorganisms like primary producers, nitrogen fixers and ammonia oxidizers
were also present. The composition of the microbial community varied greatly
among the sites sampled. The highest diversity was found in the rhizospheric
soil of Muzahmiya followed by Abha. Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and
Actinobacteria were the three main phyla detected in all the samples. Soils from
the agricultural region of Abha were significantly different from other
samples in containing only 1 % Firmicutes and 3–6 times higher
population of Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes, respectively. The presence
of photosynthetic bacteria, ammonia oxidizers, and nitrogen fixers along
with bacteria capable of surviving on simple and unlikely carbon sources
like dimethylformamide was indicative of their survival strategies under
harsh environmental conditions in the arid soil. Functional inference using
PICRUSt analysis shows an abundance of genes involved in photosynthesis and
nitrogen fixation.


Nanostructured polymeric membranes are key tools in biomedical applications such as hemodialysis, protein separations, in the food industry, and drinking water supply from seawater. Despite of the success in different separation processes, membrane manufacture itself is at risk, since the most used solvents are about to be banned in many countries due to environmental and health issues. We propose the preparation of polyethersulfone membranes based on dissolution in the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dimethylphosphate ([EMIM]DEP). We obtained a series of membranes tailored for separation of solutes with molecular weight of 30, 5, 1.3, and 1.25 kg mol with respective water permeances of 140, 65, 30, and 20 L m h bar. We demonstrate their superior efficiency in the separation of complex mixtures of peptides with molecular weights in the range of 800 to 3500 g mol. Furthermore, the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase separation leading to the pore formation in the membranes were investigated. The rheology of the solutions and the morphology of the prepared membranes were examined and compared to those of polyethersulfone in organic solvents currently used for membrane manufacture.


Audio can affect the human brain in the most powerful and profound ways. Using Apples Core Audio, you can leverage all that power in your own Mac and iOS software, implementing features ranging from audio capture to real-time effects, MP3 playback to virtual instruments, web radio to VoIP support. The most sophisticated audio programming system ever created, Core Audio is not simple. In Learning Core Audio, top Mac programming author Chris Adamson and legendary Core Audio expert Kevin Avila fully explain this challenging framework, enabling experienced Mac or iOS programmers to make the most of it. In plain language, Adamson and Avila explain what Core Audio can do, how it works, and how it builds on the natural phenomena of sound and the human language of audio. Next, using crystal-clear code examples, they guide you through recording, playback, format conversion, Audio Units, 3D audio MIDI connectivity, and overcoming unique challenges of Core Audio programming for iOS. Coverage includes: mastering Core Audios surprising style and conventions; recording and playback with Audio Queue; synthesizing audio; perform effects on audio streams; capturing from the mic; mixing multiple streams; managing file streams; converting formats; creating 3D positional audio; using Core MIDI on the Mac; leveraging your Cocoa and Objective-C expertise in Core Audios C-based environment, and much more. When youve mastered the black arts of Core Audio, you can do some serious magic. This book will transform you from an acolyte into a true Core Audio wizard.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To investigate the relationships among physiologic variables, fatigue, and quality of life (QOL) in patients with multiple myeloma.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional, descriptive, exploratory.

SETTING
Outpatient ambulatory care clinics at a tertiary oncology center.

SAMPLE
56 patients with multiple myeloma were accrued consecutively via nonprobability sampling strategy.

METHODS
Study participants completed the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QLQ-C30 and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Fatigue. Physiologic variables and demographic data were collected from patient charts.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Hemoglobin (hgb), C-reactive protein (CRP), fatigue, and QOL.

FINDINGS
Statistically significant correlations were found among hgb and two measures of fatigue and QOL, as well as among CRP and two measures of fatigue and QOL. Regression analysis revealed that as soon as the effect of CRP was removed, hgb was no longer a significant predictor of fatigue or QOL.

CONCLUSIONS
Although significant relationships between hgb and fatigue and hgb and QOL were identified, CRP made a significant contribution to predicting the variance in fatigue and QOL, whereas hgb did not. The findings suggest that higher CRP is predictive of greater fatigue and lower QOL.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Nurses play an integral role in the assessment and management of cancer-related fatigue. Greater understanding of the pathophysiology of fatigue may lead to progress in assessment and intervention, with the ultimate goal of reducing cancer-related fatigue and improving QOL.


Network meta-analysis (NMA), combining direct and indirect comparisons, is increasingly being used to examine the comparative effectiveness of medical interventions. Minimal guidance exists on how to rate the quality of evidence supporting treatment effect estimates obtained from NMA. We present a four-step approach to rate the quality of evidence in each of the direct, indirect, and NMA estimates based on methods developed by the GRADE working group. Using an example of a published NMA, we show that the quality of evidence supporting NMA estimates varies from high to very low across comparisons, and that quality ratings given to a whole network are uninformative and likely to mislead.


Heat and mass transfer through a gypsum board exposed to fire is simulated and compared to experimental data. The gypsum board is modeled as a porous medium with moist air in the pores. A dehydration front develops at the fire side and travels through the board, consuming energy and releasing water vapor. The vapor migrates through the porous medium by convection and diffusion, and condenses in colder regions away from the fire. The model involves several physics interfaces: Heat Transfer in Porous Media, Darcy's Law, Transport of Concentrated Species, and Weak Form PDE. The main mechanism is heat conduction. Heat convection by vapor transport has little influence, but condensation and evaporation are important for reproducing the experimentally observed temperature plateau.


In the Trasimeno Lake area (Umbria Region), several thrust sheets belonging to the Sansepolcro-Monte Filoncio and Rentella Units, are interposed between the Tuscan Nappe (in the hanging-wall) and the Umbria-Romagna Unit (in the footwall). The thrust sheets succession of the Sansepolcro-Monte Filoncio Unit is made up of Rupelian-Chattian Scaglia toscana Fm. and Chattian-Aquitanian foredeep deposits of Macigno Fm.; the base of the siliciclastic succession becomes gradually younger eastward. The compositional mode of the fine-grained rock fragments in the arenaceous turbidites is comparable with that of the upper part of the Macigno Fm. in the Tuscan Nappe.

The succession of the Rentella Unit includes Rupelian-Aquitanian Monte Rentella Fm. and Aquitanian-Burdigalian foredeep siliciclastic turbidites of the Montagnaccia Fm.. In the lower portion of the Montagnaccia Fm. a level of black cherty horizons is present, as detected in all Aquitanian-Burdigalian successions of the Northern Apennines. The compositional mode of the fine-grained rock fragments in the turbidites is comparable with that of Marnoso-Arenacea Fm..

All these data allow an Oligocene-Miocene paleogeographic reconstruction of the Northern Apennines foredeep. Based on the age, the compositional mode and structural position, the Rentella and Sansepolcro-Monte Filoncio Units can be compared to the Carigiola and Acquerino Units cropping out in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines.


We discuss a novel servo-motorized laser device and a research protocol for visual pathways diseases therapies. The proposed servo-mechanized laser device can be used for potential rehabilitation of patients with hemianopia, quadrantanopia, scotoma, and some types of cortical damages. The device uses a semi spherical structure where the visual stimulus will be shown inside, according to a previous stimuli therapy designed by an ophthalmologist or neurologist. The device uses a pair of servomotors (with torque=1.5kg), which controls the laser stimuli position for the internal therapy and another pair for external therapy. Using electronic tools such as microcontrollers along with miscellaneous electronic materials, combined with LabVIEW based interface, a control mechanism is developed for the new device. The proposed device is well suited to run various visual stimuli therapies. We outline the major design principles including the physical dimensions, laser device's kinematical analysis and the corresponding software development.


Investigation of petroleum inclusions in carbonate samples from the Senilix well in the Barents Sea reveals petroleum entrapment in Paleozoic carbonates at reservoir temperatures from as low as 87.3°C to more than 130°C. Using corrected bottom hole temperatures, this corresponds to depths of 2800–4100 m, compared to the present-day depth of these samples of only 1965.9–2020.5 m. The oil in the Gohta and Alta discoveries is concluded to be of either Lower Triassic or Paleozoic origin based on the isomer distribution of triaromatic dimethylcholesteroids (TA-DMC). A potential source-rock candidate is the Ørret Formation, which is the time-equivalent to the Ravnefjeld Formation in Greenland. These oils are of a different origin compared to oils in the nearby Skrugard (renamed to Johan Castberg) discovery which contain oil sourced from the Upper Jurassic Hekkingen Formation. Evidence is presented to suggest that the Gohta and Alta oils represent blends of petroleum expelled at maturities ranging from about 1.0% calculated vitrinite reflectance (Rc) to more than 1.3%Rc, and this corroborates the inferences made from the petroleum inclusions. This emerging play is significant to exploration in the karst developed on the Barents Shelf and the Bjarmeland Platform during the Permo-Carboniferous. Karst reservoirs have been linked to eustatic sea-level changes, and analogous karst reservoirs may be present elsewhere in the Circum-Arctic: for example, in the Sverdrup Basin.


We present a new paradigm for nitroxyl-mediated processes via the merger of oxoammonium cation-mediated oxidation with visible-light photoredox catalysis. The integration of these two forms of catalysis has been realised for the oxidative amidation of aldehydes, furnishing N-acylated heterocycles. Extension of this process to the oxidative amidation of alcohols via the intermediacy of an aldehyde was successfully pursued, thus proffering a general oxidation platform. The activated amides synthesised here are excellent synthetic handles for acylation.


Nanoscale delivery systems that respond to external stimuli or internal cues in the cellular microenvironment aiming for on demand cargo release, are of great interest for the controlled delivery of therapeutic compounds at disease targets. However, to create these systems a deep understanding of nanomaterial-cell interactions is necessary. In Chapter 2 of this thesis, the internalization of nanogels (NGs) with different stiffnesses by brain endothelial cells and its inverse correlation with their ability to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is described; Harder NGs showed a higher uptake, while softer NGs exhibited an enhanced capacity of crossing the BBB. The same NGs were employed in Chapter 2 to assess the effect of stiffness on the uptake of nanogels in 2D monocultures and a co-culture of glioma cells and macrophages. A preferred internalization of harder NGs was observed, although softer NGs showed a higher cytotoxic effect. In co-culture, the toxic effect was reduced, likely due to changes in macrophage phenotype as induced by factors secreted by glioma cells. Chapter 4 addresses the development and in vitro evaluation of breast cancer cell membrane-coated polymeric nanocarriers (NCs) containing paclitaxel as a model drug. The membrane-coated NCs significantly reduced cell viability of breast cancer cells when compared to non-coated NCs, but did not affect other epithelial cell types. To conclude, Chapter 5 describes the development of a light-inducible drug delivery system employing light-activated molecular motors (MMs). The incorporation of MMs in liposomes yielded a controllable light-responsive release system through reversible destabilization of the lipid bilayer.


As an important part of the farmland ecosystem, crop residues provide a barrier against water erosion, and improve soil quality. Timely and accurate estimation of crop residue coverage (CRC) on a regional scale is essential for understanding the condition of ecosystems and the interactions with the surrounding environment. Satellite remote sensing is an effective way of regional CRC estimation. Both optical remote sensing and microwave remote sensing are common means of CRC estimation. However, CRC estimation based on optical imagery has the shortcomings of signal saturation in high coverage areas and susceptibility to weather conditions, while CRC estimation using microwave imagery is easily influenced by soil moisture and crop types. Synergistic use of optical and microwave remote sensing information may have the potential to improve estimation accuracy. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: (i) Analyze the correlation between field measured CRC and satellite derived variables based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, (ii) investigate the relationship of CRC with new indices (OCRI-RPs) which combine optical crop residues indices (OCRIs) and radar parameters (RPs), and (iii) to estimate CRC in Yucheng County based on OCRI-RPs by optimal subset regression. The correlations between field measured CRC and satellite derived variables were evaluated by coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE). The results showed that the normalized difference tillage index (NDTI) and radar indices 2 (RI2) had relatively higher correlations with field measured CRC in OCRIs and RPs (R2 = 0.570, RMSE = 6.560% and R2 = 0.430, RMSE = 7.052%, respectively). Combining OCRIs with RPs by multiplying each OCRI with each RP could significantly improve the ability of indices to estimate CRC, as NDTI × RI2 had the highest R2 value of 0.738 and lowest RMSE value of 5.140%. The optimal model for CRC estimation by optimal subset regression was constructed by NDI71 × σ V V 0 and NDTI × σ V H 0 , with a R2 value of 0.770 and a RMSE value of 4.846%, which had a great improvement when compared with the best results in OCRIs and RPs. The results demonstrated that the combination of optical remote sensing information and microwave remote sensing information could improve the accuracy of CRC estimation.


This book defines and describes the meaning of social rage by examining the influence of social forces such as economic conditions, population diversity and power shifts. The role of media, in particular its encouragement of social rage through sensationalism, is also handled in this book. The author apporaches the issue of social rage on both an individual and a collective level with the goal of revealing its motivations and its impact.


AIMS
Validation of associations for SNPs in RAC2, NCF4 and SLC28A3, identification of a novel association with a TOP2B SNP and screening 23 SNPs putatively relevant to anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity.

PATIENTS & METHODS
A total of 166 breast cancer patients treated with doxorubicin underwent echocardiogram, including 19 cases with systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction <55%) and 147 controls. Four high priority SNPs were tested in the primary analysis, with appropriate statistical correction, and 23 additional SNPs were screened in an uncorrected secondary analysis.

RESULTS
Previously reported associations for RAC2, NCF4 and SLC28A3 could not be validated and a novel association with TOP2B was not discovered in this cohort (all p > 0.05), likely due to inadequate power. Two SNPs were identified in the uncorrected secondary analysis including a protective SNP in ABCB1 (3435C>T, p = 0.049) and a risk allele in CBR3 (V244M, p = 0.012).

CONCLUSION
The associations reported in prior publications and those discovered in this secondary analysis require further replication in independent cohorts.


One of the underlying mechanisms for metabolic individuality is genetic variation. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes of metabolic pathways can create metabolic inefficiencies that alter the dietary requirement for, and responses to, nutrients. These SNPs can be detected using genetic profiling and the metabolic inefficiencies they cause can be detected using metabolomic profiling. Studies on the human dietary requirement for choline illustrate how useful these new approaches can be, as this requirement is influenced by SNPs in genes of choline and folate metabolism. In adults, these SNPs determine whether people develop fatty liver, liver damage and muscle damage when eating diets low in choline. Because choline is very important for fetal development, these SNPs may identify women who need to eat more choline during pregnancy. Some of the actions of choline are mediated by epigenetic mechanisms that permit 'retuning' of metabolic pathways during early life.