This paper is a theoretical study based on information from the literature on emotions in organizations seeking the following aspects: conceptual clarification and definition of emotions, presenting the main interpretive-explanatory theoretical models depending on which analysis is performed, and highlighting the main causes associated with the appearance of emotions. In this paper we present some of the theories which outlines general conceptual framework used in addressing emotions. The second part of the paper is centered on the analysis of eight emotions, four positive emotions (joy, happiness, gratitude and well-being) and four negative emotions (anger, fear, envy and jealousy). Descriptive picture follows the main indicators of emotions in terms of intensity or level of activation, hedonic tone, duration, direction, expression, motivational value and cognitive value. The last part of the paper contains some general considerations on emotion management in organizations.


Background Cationic proteins (CP) of neutrophils are characteristically detected in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and growing evidence suggest that they are involved in disease pathogenesis. Objectives We investigated the concentration of the cationic proteins (CP) in lysosomes of neutrophils in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), RA, systemic scleroderma (SSd), activity of the blood complement system (CH50) and concentration of immune complexes (CIC) in the blood serum. Methods The study group included 105 patients with RA, SLE 158, 45 patients with SSd, and 78 healthy controls. CP content of neutrophils were assayed by fluorescent cytochemical method (lysosomal cationic test)/Neutrophils were stained with fast blue and asur II. Hemolytic complement activity was determined by the standard method using sheep red blood cells in units of 50% hemolysis (CH50). Circulating immune complexes were measured using polyethylene glycol 6000. Results CP in SLE, RA and SS significantly fall in all diseases. Decrease in CP followed by increased levels of the CIC in SLE and RA. Correlation of reduced complement activity with the CEC was marked in SLE and RA but not in SSc. At the same time, CH, increased levels of CIC complexes significantly correlated with the activity of SLE and, to a lesser extent RA. In systemic sclerosis increase levels of circulating immune complexes found only in severe Raynaud's syndrome and progressive lung disease CP (units/100 cells) CH50 (units/100 ml) CIC (units/100 ml) Control group (n=78) 1,63±0,24 37,9±1,5 0,035±0,02 RA (n=105) 0,98±0,13 40,2±0,8 0,068±0,005 SLE (n=158) 0,89±0,20 32,7±0,59 0,085±0,09 SSd (n=45) 0,75±0,21 44,8±5,6 0,083±0,066 Conclusions These findings suggest that peripheral blood neutrophils are involved in the pathogenesis of RA, SLE and SSc. In SLE and RA with great confidence we can assume the relationship of these changes with CIC. Significant decrease in complement activity in patients with SLE and RA confirms this hypothesis. Lower levels of complement in SLE may also indicate in favor of the rapid depletion of the complement system, genetically inherent in this disease. Data obtained in patients with scleroderma show significant differences from SLE and RA, and therefore evidence in favor of special pathogenesis of this disease. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.5724


Introduction: Biliary tract tumors, or cholangiocarcinomas (CCAs), comprise a heterogeneous group of malignant tumors that can affect any part of the biliary tree, from the interlobular canals of Hering to the primary biliary duct. In the last 20-30 years, the incidence of these tumours has increased especially after the introduction of the new imaging techniques endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography) and the increased interest for this pathology.
Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic methods and therapeutical results in patients with extrahepatic bile duct cancer.
Material and Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Surgery, Department of Surgery, Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, Mymensingh, Bangladesh from Jun-2018 to July-2021. We included 124 consecutive patients with suspected bile duct cancer who underwent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). Every patient underwent an ultrasound (US) examination before ERCP. ERCP was considered as the "gold standard" for diagnosis. The therapy applied consisted of endoscopic stenting, US guided biliary drainage or surgery. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were calculated for every tumour localisation and also globally for all tumours.
Results. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of US were 85.9%, 76.9% and 84.4% for hilar localization, 59.1%, 50% and 57.1% for the mid common bile duct (CBD) and 33.3%, 42.8% and 36.8% for the distal CBD tumours. The global performances for US in diagnosing extrahepatic chlonagiocarcinoma were 73.5%, 61.5% and 70.9%. In 73 cases (74.5%) an endoscopic stent was placed. In 11 cases (11.2%) we performed an US guided biliary drainage and in 14 cases (14.2%) surgery was recommended.
Conclusion: Ultrasonography proved to be a reliable method for the diagnosis of bile duct cancer in spite of its low accuracy for distal localization. The combination of the two investigations (US and ERCP) was very efficient in the management of these patients. Endoscopic stenting for hilar localization is a good therapeutical option.


[structure: see text] Formation of ionic pairs of identical molecules, extremely common in Nature but exceptional for diffractometric observations in the crystalline state, has been found in one of two polymorphs of a nucleobase analogue, 4,6-pyrimidinedione (1). The occurrence of the neutral and ionic polymorphs of 1 in many respects resembles neutral-ionic transitions of electon-donor/acceptor complexes. The ionization affects the reactivity of 1 and illustrates general properties of H-tautomers with low-disproportionation energy.


BACKGROUND: The effect of sound on biological systems has been addressed previously in the literature. However, most studies addressing this topic focus on the characterization of the effect of frequency on biological systems. In this regard the effect of other soundwave elements has been overlooked. In the present work, the effects of frequency, amplitude, duration, intermittence and pulse – individually and in combination – were tested with Escherichia coli by measuring biomass, viability and recombinant production yield, generating a deeper understanding of the effect of sound on bacterial systems. RESULTS: Frequency and duration treatments influenced biomass concentration, increasing its value 19% and 44%, respectively, when compared with the standard treatment at time 24 h. However, such treatments showed high variability. Amplitude had a significant effect on biomass viability, doubling the duration of the exponential phase. Concerning protein production, intermittence increased the yield of recombinant protein 1.5 times without the contribution of any other sound element. CONCLUSIONS: It was established that intermittence and amplitude have a relevant role in protein production yield and viability, respectively. Other sound elements such as frequency and duration seem to have effect on biomass concentration, although a high variability was observed under those treatments. These results contribute to a better understanding of the effect of the sound elements, both individually and in combination, on bacterial systems. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry


Privacy is one of the important parameters to support personal freedom and rights that should be provided on the basis of both international and domestic law. Lack of privacy in the court process and police investigation is the major complaint of victims of sexual offences and their family and relatives. Open investigation, the request to explain details involving their personal and family life, disclosure of private information and interference with physical, mental or moral integrity are examples of privacy violation in the process of criminal investigation. The failure to treat the victim's privacy respectfully on the part of authorities can lead to the risk of secondary victimization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the right to privacy has been protected under international law and the Iranian legal system, particularly with regard to victims of rape. The paper is divided into three main parts. The first part analyses the definition and aspects of privacy and the consequences of privacy violations. The second part explains how International law supports and recognizes the right of privacy. In the end, some examples of the Iranian legislative approach to protect this right will be analyzed. This paper will conclude that although the Iranian legislative system is familiar with the right to privacy and stipulates some protective strategies in different laws, this right has not been properly implemented in practice. Finally, this paper proposes to extend the conceptual framework of privacy and offers some suggestions to improve protective strategies.


BACKGROUND
Recent studies have demonstrated a high prevalence of pharyngeal (P) and rectal (R) Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC) and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infections among men who have sex with men (MSM). Guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend testing at least annually. But surveys of medical providers suggest that adherence to these guidelines is minimal as a result of limited time and staff. Because of these concerns, we evaluated the feasibility and accuracy of patient self-testing.

METHODS
Three-hundred seventy-four patients at a Washington, DC clinic who identified themselves as MSM and requested testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) participated in the study. Patients performed self-screening using the Gen-Probe APTIMA Combo 2 (AC2) kit after viewing written and pictorial instructions. Trained providers also screened patients. We randomized the order in which patients or providers performed testing.

RESULTS
Among those receiving specific tests, 8% of patients tested positive for R-GC, 9.3% for P-GC, 12.7% for R-CT, and 1.3% for P-CT. We performed McNemar tests, stratified by infection type and anatomic site to evaluate concordance. Self-administered testing was significantly better at identifying P-GC (discordant: 3%) and R-GC (discordant: 2.9%) (P ≤.01), and had results similar to provider- administered testing for P-CT (discordant: 0.5%) and R-CT (discordant: 1.1%) detection.

CONCLUSIONS
The equivalent or better detection rates for rectal and oral gonorrhea and chlamydia among patients suggest that patients are capable of performing their own screening for STIs, which may increase infection detection and treatment.


The city of Fortaleza has suffered an intense occupation anthropic starting from the 19 century, causing environmental impacts as aquatic pollution and coastal erosion. The solutions presented were always punctual, without an integrated environmental vision. The aim of this paper is to analyze in an integrated way the environmental problems and to suggest solutions to contribute for the installation of a process of ICZM in Fortaleza The environmental problems have been identified and analyzed using images of the Ikonos satellite and using software Arc View 3.2. In the study area we checked the information obtained by satellite and we took samples of sediments to be analyzed in the laboratory. The area has been divided in 5 coherent units of environmental management. Their water have been polluted by domestic garbage, organic matter and fecal coliformes. They have presented embankment in the east coast and important erosive processes in the west coast. The solution for the aquatic pollution requests: public investments for pollution elimination in the rivers by dragging; cleaning of accumulated garbage; expansion of the basic sanitation; application of an environmental educational program. To obtain the balance between the embankment processes and coastal erosion it is necessary a solution that will integrate the elements of the coastal dynamics through: the adequate management of the sedimentary stocks of the Titanzinho beach; transport of those sediments for 4 reception cells located in the west coast; dredge of the harbor basin; construction of an artificial reef to dissipation the energy of the waves in the coast. th


This study examines the burgeoning trend of Hong Kong university students conducting English language teaching as service-learning in mainland China, specifically in rural primary schools. The study reports the results of a questionnaire administered to Hong Kong undergraduate students after a series of such trips spanning a 4-year period. In particular, the study examines the students' perceptions of their own service orientation, cultural exchange experience, and language-learning outcomes. The findings allow for a broader qualitative discussion of the potential benefits for English language learners engaging in service-learning through teaching English. Recommendations focus on the potential for such trips to bolster the confidence and motivation of long-time English language learners, such as Hong Kong students.


The objectives of the study were to monitor and assess the road traffic noise in its spatial-temporal aspect in an urban area. The paper discusses the observations, results and their interpretation based on the study. Noise recordings from site, collected from April 2006 to March 2006, were used for statistical analysis and generation of various noise indices. Noise maps were also created for impact analysis and formulation of Noise Risk Zones. Mean Ldn value ranged between 55.1 and 87.3 dB (A). Day time Leq level ranged between 51.2 and 89.0 dB (A), where it ranged between 43.5 and 81.9 dB (A) during night. The study reveals that present noise level in all the locations exceeds the limit prescribed by CPCB. Based on the finding it can be said that the population in this industrial town are exposed to significantly high noise level, which is caused mostly due to road traffic.


A pioneer of ultracold quantum physics also promoted women in science Deborah S. Jin was a world leader in ultracold gases and a pioneering intellectual in quantum systems consisting of strongly interacting particles. She spent much of her career as a U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicist at JILA (formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) in Boulder, Colorado, where she undertook a string of challenging experiments, including the creation of the first Fermi gas of atoms and the formation of a condensate of paired fermions. She imbued all that she worked on with a sense of scientific vision, creativity, detail-oriented excellence, and old-fashioned hard work. Jin died of cancer on 15 September 2016 at the age of 47, a loss that leaves a void in the scientific community and is, for so many, the untimely loss of a colleague and friend.


Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis is a relatively common cause of hypertension and renal impairment in the elderly. We review its clinical features and the investigations and management options available.


This study examines the role of pre-IPO discretionary accruals in the valuation and underpricing of IPOs. We find that the underwriter offer price is unaffected whereas the market closing price is positively associated with the levels of pre-IPO discretionary accruals for issuers with aggressively reported earnings. We also find that this relative over-valuation of managed earnings by the markets explains a portion of the initial return that is not explained by other known determinants. For issuers with conservatively reported pre-IPO earnings, there is no relation between discretionary accruals and the offer price or the market price, and that the discretionary accruals do not explain any IPO underpricing. Our subsequent analysis shows that lower stock retention appears to be a screen and a signal of entrepreneurs' credibility to the markets. There seems to be a higher degree of earnings scrutiny by both the markets and the underwriters for IPOs with low insider retention. However, markets tend to assign higher weight to aggressively reported earnings of issuers with higher insider retention, presumably because of perceived incentive alignment. Underwriters, with relatively lesser information asymmetry than the markets, tend to see through the distortions caused by earnings manipulations in the valuation of IPOs, regardless of the levels of issuers' stock retention.


Report - Education 2000. Issues and options for the future of education in Queensland (Bassett Report) - Curriculum Policy Archive - NAME is a biographical, bibliographical and archival database of SUBJECT with links to related articles and images. ADD MORE DESCRIPTION AS REQUIRED


Background China's economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to high-quality development. The high-quality development of industry is the foundation of a sustainable and healthy growth of national economy, and is of great significance to improve people's living standards, and to meet people's needs for a better life. Methods We develop an evaluation index system of high-quality development of industry from the perspectives of industrial benefit, innovation ability, coordination ability, green ability, opening ability and sharing ability. Based on a panel data of 30 provinces in China during 1999–2018, we evaluate the level of high-quality development of industry using the entropy-weight method and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. Meanwhile we select six specific years and adopt the Natural Breaks method to classify the provinces according to their levels. At last, Moran's I index is used to analyze the spatial correlation among the provinces. Results Opening ability and innovation ability are found to have greater impacts on industrial high-quality development than other indices, and their influence has been increasing in recent years. There are large spatial and temporal differences among different provinces. Municipalities and coastal provinces are found to be at constantly high levels. The levels in the central region dropped first and then increased, however it was the opposite in the western region. In the northeast region, the levels fluctuated greatly. Overall, the high-quality development of industry among China's provinces shows positive spatial correlation. Most provinces in China are in High-High and Low-Low clustering States. The High-High clustering type is mainly distributed in the eastern region and the Low-Low clustering type is mainly distributed in the western and central regions. Conclusion (1) Innovation ability and open ability are the most important factors. (2) Green ability has not sufficiently contributed to China's industrial development. (3) Regional and time evolution differences are significant. (4) There is a significant and stable spatial clustering effect in the high-quality development of industry among China's provinces.


In 2013, Facebook was used in learning and teaching clinical problem solving in a Pathology and a Clinical Sciences course delivered at a South Australian university. It involved firstand second-year Medical Radiation students and second-year Nursing students, Of the 152 students enrolled in the Pathology course, there were 148 students who participated in the Facebook group. Of the 148 students, 61 (41%) completed the invited post-intervention questionnaire. At the same time, all 17 nursing students enrolled in a science course at the regional campus of the same university participated in the Facebook initiative, however, only 10 (59%) completed the post-intervention questionnaire. A good practice and checklist were developed from the post-intervention evaluations, which consisted of 25 Likertand open-type questions. Both student cohorts found the use of Facebook beneficial for them in terms of providing an innovative way of learning; fostering greater interaction amongst co-students and staff; and effectively engaging them with the content of courses. The importance of clear communication of goals and objectives to students was identified from student comments. Six good practice principles were identified relating to: goals and objectives, expectations, communication, engagement with the course content, active participation, and learning environment.


Distinguished Readers, this finalizing issue of Acta IMEKO's volume 7 presented here is based on the 22nd International Symposium and 20th Workshop on ADC/DAC held in Iasi, Romania in September 2017 by IMEKO Technical Committee Number 4, (Measurement of Electrical Quantities). This joint event was organized and hosted with the aim of supporting world development through electrical andelectronic measurements and of bringing to the debate among the global community of specialists the latest results achieved by professors and researchers from 17 countries with significant experience and results achieved within the realm of the IMEKO Confederation. Out of the 109 presented papers, the section chairmen and members of the Scientific Committee rigorously selected the 20 most suitable papers according to the standards, requirements, and reputation of Acta IMEKO Journal. After much hard work, in the company of a very demanding panel of reviewers but with a constructive approach, the best 12 papers were finally polished and consequently accepted for this issue. A common feature of the articles presented here is their innovative approach and technically and financially affordable solutions.


The European Union (EU) has promoted human rights in its external policy since the end of the Cold War. To achieve that aim, the EU has developed several diplomatic, political, and economic instruments. The EU prefers diplomatic instruments in conducting its external relations and its actions are based on dialogue and engagement. This has a great impact in the international arena in terms of promoting human rights and plays a key role in upholding human rights on a global scale. However, the EU has been criticized for the lack of effectiveness of its external human rights policy. Political and economic interests of the EU member states, difficulties in the consensus among EU states, the capacity of reciprocity of third countries, legality and consistency problems, and the lack of sufficient operational mechanism to evaluate, conduct and implement its human rights policy have all resulted in a less than effective external human rights policy. In addition, the EU's external human rights policy has met with several ethical challenges, such as consistency, coherency, sovereignty, legality, credibility, and legitimacy. It is concluded that the external policy of the EU will continue to fluctuate between values, norms, and interests.


Author(s): Jones, Eric C | Abstract: This paper proposes a hypothesis for a cultural model in Cotacachi, Ecuador that contains both 1) causality that occurs in nature, and 2) dimensionality of the essence of life. At the foundation of this research—of exploring humans, plants, animals, the supernatural, weather, and features of the landscape/environment—the question was: In the minds of our informants, of what does Nature's core consist when considering the six domains we chose. In this case, preliminary results suggest that Nature can exist without cities as part of the core, and Nature can exist without the Christian God at its core. This splitting of the spirit world between Christian spirits and Mother Nature (and other spirits), as well as the splitting of humans into urbanites and rural dwellers undoubtedly creates some cognitive dissonance, and may partially be influenced by the common Christian and Western/urban dualisms. However, these differentiations between kinds of spirit worlds and kinds of human worlds also gives the opportunity for people to be able to switch from one life to another, or to identify their existence with the cultural model that is convenient or appropriate at a given time. This perhaps occurs in many or all societies, but may also be indicative of the social and ecological changes these informants are experiencing.


The capstone forms an integral part of outcome-based education. Based on a concept from early Roman building techniques, a capstone experience aims to bring a period of study to meaningful and practical fruition. With this in mind, the English Department at the University of Stellenbosch has designed a module in its Honours course that allows post-graduate students the opportunity to develop additional skills in the design and development of multimedia projects that effectively combine the knowledge they have gained during the course of their English studies with state of the art technological innovations in education. This paper explores the nature of the capstone experience and discusses the contribution it makes to the education and skills development of post-graduate students. It describes the main assignment of the module "Learning and Teaching through Multimedia", shows that it demands carefully demarcated academic research, the ability to structure and present knowledge in an interactive multimedia environment and a sensitive understanding of both the learning and teaching process. As such, the assignment is a practical demonstration of skill and knowledge in an important, authentic context. The article is illustrated by extracts from multimedia projects completed by post-graduate students.
Keywords: Capstone; Multimedia projects; English language; English literature; Postgraduate
(J Language Teaching: 2003 37(1): 35-45)


Acanthodactylus is a widespread lacertid genus occurring from the Iberian Peninsula and western North Africa to western India including the Middle East, Cyprus, and the Arabian Peninsula. The genus is in dire need of a taxonomic revision, and the phylogenetic relationships amongst and within its species remain unclear. In particular, the taxonomy and relationship of the allopatric, narrow-ranged Acanthodactylus schreiberi and its close relative, the widespread Acanthodactylus boskianus asper, are poorly understood. We estimated the phylogenetic and phylogeographical structure of A. schreiberi across its distribution range, and evaluated its relationships to A. b. asper, using mitochondrial and nuclear data. The phylogenetic results indicate that both species are paraphyletic, with A. schreiberi nested within A. b. asper, and the subspecies A. schreiberi syriacus nested within a distinct lineage of A. b. asper. We suggest that the group is in need of a taxonomic revision because the identified lineages and genetic diversity are incongruent with the currently recognized taxonomy. We tentatively conclude that A. schreiberi is restricted to Cyprus and Turkey, reduced to a single form, and that the populations in Lebanon and Israel belong to A. b. asper.


This paper proposes a novel feature-based on-line detection strategy, Removing Adversarial-Backdoors by Iterative Demarcation (RAID), for backdoor attacks. The proposed method is comprised of two parts: off-line training and on-line retraining. In the off-line training, a novelty detector and a shallow neural network are trained with clean validation data. During the on-line implementation, both models attempt to detect samples from the streaming data that differ from the validation data (i.e., flag likely-poisoned samples and possibly a few clean samples as false positives). An anomaly detector is used to purify the anomalous data by removing the clean samples. A binary support vector machine (SVM) is trained with the purified anomalous data and the clean validation data. RAID uses the SVM to detect poisoned inputs. To increase the accuracy as new anomalous data is being detected, the SVM is updated as well in real-time. It is shown that with updating, RAID can efficiently reduce the attack success rate while maintaining the classification accuracy against various types of backdoor attacks. The efficacy of RAID is compared against several state-of-the-art techniques. Additionally, it is shown that RAID only requires a small clean validation dataset to achieve such performance, and therefore provides a practical and efficient approach.


In the Sahel region the population depends largely on rain-fed agriculture. In West Africa in particular, climate models turn to be unable to capture some basic features of present-day climate variability. This study proposes a contribution to the analysis of the evolution of agro-climatic risks in a context of climate variability. Some statistical tests are used on the main variables of the rainy season to determine the trends and the variabilities described by the data series. Thus, the paper provides a statistical modeling of the different agro-climatic risks while the seasonal variability of agro-climatic parameters were analized as well as their inter annual variability. The study identifies the probability distributions of agroclimatic risks and the characterization of the rainy season was clarified.


The level of the regional economy development is determined by various factors, including the performance of the for-profit and non-profit sector, in the structure of which socially oriented non-profit organizations (SONPOs) play an important role. Most of the research methodological programmes used to assess the performance of SONPOs at both the macro and micro levels are focused on determining their effectiveness, while the regional economy requires the development of scientific and methodological approaches to their assessment specifically in a spatial context. The article focuses on the development of an original research methodological programme for analyzing and evaluating the functioning and development of SONPOs in the economic area of the region. The methodological framework of the study includes the ideology of the spatial economy, the socio-economy of the region, the social market economy and the regional governance paradigm. The proposed research methodological programme is based on three groups of indicators that include spatial, socio-economic and financial indicators, which are selected based on the content aspects of the SONPO concept (systemic, spatial, institutional, organizational and managerial, functional), and are the basis for calculating the corresponding indices - private and integral. Spatial indicators relate to the characteristics of the saturation of the economic area of the SONPOs region in various contexts of their operation. Socio-economic indicators characterize the dynamics of the labor and volunteer resources of the functioning and development of SONPOs. Financial indicators make it possible to monitor the development of SONPOs as a tool for implementing socially important functions at the level of regional government and local self-governance. Interpretation of the indices takes additional indicators into account, which take the specifics of a particular region, as well as the results of regional rankings on the level of development of the SONPO sector into consideration, which makes it possible to identify spatial and economic trends and trajectories of SONPOs functioning in the regional economy.


Microglial cells are immediately activated in the central nervous system in response to a variety of neuronal environmental changes, such as injuries or inflammation. In addition to the modulation of the intrinsic immune response, a key role of microglial cells is the phagocytosis of dying cells and cellular debris. In this study, the inhibitory effects of epigallocatechine-3-gallate (EGCG), a most abundant and active polyphenol component of green tea, on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced microglial activation are determined. EGCG dose dependently suppressed LPS-induced nitric oxide production and the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in BV-2 microglial cells. EGCG are potent LPS-induced inhibitors of several pro-inflammatory cytokine expressions, such as TNF-α and IL-1β, in microglial cells. Furthermore, EGCG generally inhibits the induction of LPS-mediated microglial activation and potently inhibits the phagocytosis of LPS-stimulated BV2 microglia. Although the conditioned media from LPS-stimulated BV-2 cells caused the SN4741 cell death, that from the conditioned media of EGCG pretreated BV-2 cells did not diminish the viability of SN4741 cells. These results suggest EGCG, a green tea polyphenol, could be a promising available molecule for the modulation of harmful microglial activation.


abstract The orientation of force axes at the focus of an earthquake can be calculated using S polarization angles in a set of S -wave mechanism equations (Stevens, 1964). These equations are rederived in this paper in a more direct manner and each equation is shown to represent the plane of polarization of S at a point on the focal sphere. Two special cases of the general mechanism equations, the single-couple and the double-dipole focal mechanism, have been used to study a number of earthquakes. Mechanism solutions for seven Kamchatka-Kuril earthquakes and one Alaskan earthquake discussed previously (Stevens, 1964) are reconsidered. The former single couple solutions for the earthquakes of 1949 Nov 3, 1951 Nov 6, 1952 Nov 5 and 1957 Dec 17 are rejected. No meaningful solution of either type is considered possible with the limited data available. The single couple solution for the earthquake of 1955 April 17 is changed to a double dipole solution; the single couple solution for the earthquake of 1958 July 10 and the double dipole solution for 1953 Nov 10 are altered slightly; the single couple solution of 1960 July 25 is changed significantly. Mechanism solutions are presented for five Aleutian earthquakes using S polarization angles published by Stauder and Udias (1963). All five earthquakes are the double dipole type. The principal compressive stress axes are nearly horizontal and perpendicular to the trend of the Aleutian arc, the intermediate stress axes are horizontal and trend along the arc and the principal tensile stress axes dip steeply under the continent.


In this paper, we propose a direction for improving 'Geospatial information open platform' service to support the converged and integrated geospatial information. Since there can be a number of issues relating to the support for geospatial information convergence industry, two qualitative surveys were performed to collect opinions comprehensively and specifically. The responses from 165 experts from 5 areas that use geospatial information were used, and the requirements of demanders were divided into the aspect of policy, aspect of data development and distribution, and aspect of data utilization support in order to effectively analyze the survey results. As a result, a total of 26 major issues were derived and it was deemed that it is necessary to find a way to expand the role of 'Geospatial information open platform' from 「Open-API Oriented Passive Spatial Information Open Platform」 to 「Platform that Comprehensively Provides Active Convergence Support Information」in order to resolve the issues derived.


The selection of a growing medium is one of the most important decisions in the culture of hydroponic crops. In order to select a suitable medium for hydroponic cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv. Negin), an experiment was carried out on growing media containing different particle sizes of perlite and organic substrates in a run-to-waste system in a greenhouse experiment. The growing media tested were: very course perlite (VC-P, 70% by volume in the range of 2-3 mm), course perlite (C-P, 70% by volume in the range of 1-2 mm), medium perlite (M-P, 70% by volume in the range of 1 mm), fine perlite (F-P, 70% by volume in the range of 0.5-1 mm), very fine perlite (VF-P, 70% by volume < 0.5 mm), sawdust (Sd) (100%), one mixture of VC-P and Sd (50:50, v/v), one mixture of VC-P and poplar chip (Ch) (50:50, v/v) and one mixture of VC-P and wheat straw (St) (50:50, v/v). The eight treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replications. The results showed that there were significantly differences in the mean fruit weight, plant height, and leaf area of cucumber with respect to media containing very course (VC)-grade perlite (horticulture-grade perlite) and its incorporation with organic substrates, and media containing different grades of perlite (from very course to very fine-grade perlite). The incorporation of wheat straw (50:50) into VC-grade perlite brought decreases of about 35% in the mean fruit weight of cucumber, respectively. Media containing fine grade-perlite led to a significant increase in mean fruit weight (50%), plant height (25%), and leaf area (70%) of cucumber as compared with media consisting of very course-grade perlite. It was concluded that the medium containing fine-grade perlite had the best performance for cucumber plant growth.


Motional states of the NO2- ion doped in KI single crystals have been investigated using high-resolution infrared techniques. At very low concentrations of the impurity, the antisymmetric stretching vibration ( nu 3) of the NO2- ion shows multiplet structure at 1.7K. This structure can be understood in terms of contributions of different types of tunnelling motions of the NO2- ion among the twelve equivalent potential wells in the KI lattice. An attempt has been made to give an estimate of the potential barrier hindering reorientation of the ion in the KI lattice.


Purpose This research was performed to evaluate the antibacterial and health-promoting potentials of nanoliposome-encapsulated phenolic-rich fraction (PRF) from Alcea rosea leaves, as a dietary phytobiotic, in mice as challenged by enteropathogenic Escherichia coli ( E. coli ; O157: H7). Method The PEF was encapsulated in nanoliposomes (PEF-NLs), and the phenolic profiling of PEF-NLs was confirmed by HPLC. Next, 40 white male balb/c mice were assigned to four treatment groups to assess the antibacterial potential of PEF-NLs by measuring the blood parameters and the liver's lipid peroxidation in the mice as a result of the infection caused by E. coli . Finally, the expression of cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were determined in the mice's ileum tissues. A real-time PCR was used to analyze the relative fold changes in the population of E. coli in the ileum. Results The overall results demonstrated that the nanoliposome-loaded PRF contained gallic acid, salicylic acid, pyrogallol, cinnamic acid, catechin, naringin, and ferulic acid. The E. coli intervention impaired the mice's weight gain, food intake, liver enzymes, lipid peroxidation, and the ileum's morphometric characteristics. The challenge also upregulated the inflammatory genes (COX2, iNOS), downregulated the antioxidant-related genes (SOD and GPx), and increased the population of E. coli in the ileum. The dietary inclusion of the nonencapsulated PRF and the nanoliposome-encapsulated PRF, at the concentration of 10 mg TPC/kg BW/day, improved these parameters. However, compared to nonencapsulated PRF, the nanoliposome-encapsulated PRF appeared to be more effective in improving the health parameters in mice. Conclusion As a promising phytobiotic, the nanoliposome-encapsulated PRF could play a critical role against the E. coli infection in mice probably due to the increase in the higher intestinal solubility, bioavailability, and absorption of phenolic compounds encapsulated in the nanoliposome carrier.


This paper presents a new approach for identifying the measurement error in the DC power flow state estimation problem. The proposed algorithm exploits the singularity of the impedance matrix and the sparsity of the error vector by posing the DC power flow problem as a sparse vector recovery problem that leverages the structure of the power system and uses l1-norm minimization for state estimation. This approach can provably compute the measurement errors exactly, and its performance is robust to the arbitrary magnitudes of the measurement errors. Hence, the proposed approach can detect the noisy elements if the measurements are contaminated with additive white Gaussian noise plus sparse noise with large magnitude, which could be caused by data injection attacks. The effectiveness of the proposed sparsity-based decomposition-DC power flow approach is demonstrated on the IEEE 118-bus and 300-bus test systems.


Binary decision diagrams can compactly represent vast sets of states, mitigating the state space explosion problem in model checking. Probabilistic systems, however, require multi-terminal diagrams storing rational numbers. They are inefficient for models with many distinct probabilities and for iterative numeric algorithms like value iteration. In this paper, we present a new "symblicit" approach to checking Markov chains and related probabilistic models: We first generate a decision diagram that symbolically collects all reachable states and their predecessors. We then concretise states one-by-one into an explicit partial state space representation. Whenever all predecessors of a state have been concretised, we eliminate it from the explicit state space in a way that preserves all relevant probabilities and rewards. We thus keep few explicit states in memory at any time. Experiments show that very large models can be model-checked in this way with very low memory consumption.


ABSTRACT

 This paper is concerned in general with the intersection of cognitive and clinical science and in particular with schema theory. The use of schema theory in the various subdisciplines of cognitive science, as well as by cognitive-behavioral clinicians and psychoanalytically oriented clinicians is reviewed. It is argued that schema theory, in both cognitive and clinical sciences, allows a focus on mental structures their biological basis, their development and change, and on the way in which they direct psychological events. Schema theory not only enables important advances in different clinical schools, but it allows central clinical themes to be tackled in convergent ways. It is concluded that the schema construct allows integration within cognitive science, within the clinic, and between the two.


We investigated the clinical efficacy and safety of administration of naftopidil at 75 mg for clinically benign hyperplasia patients who had moderate or severe urinary disturbance according to guidelines for clinical studies regarding urination disorder. Among patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia who were treated with a alpha1-adrenoceptor blocker, we administered naftopidil (75 mg/day) for 12 weeks to 85 patients in whom the global severity was evaluated as moderate or severe. This agent significantly reduced the international prostate symptom score (I-PSS) and residual urine volume, and improved the QOL index and maximum urine flow volume in comparison with the baselines. Concerning the global treatment response, a partial response or better was achieved in 83.8% of the patients. Neither blood pressure nor heart rate were changed in patients who continued to receive this therapy. Side effects included orthostatic hypotension (1 patient: discontinuation), dizziness (2 patients: discontinuation, 1 patient: continuation), and palpitation (1 patient: discontinuation). These results suggest that a once-a-day administration of naftopidil at 75 mg safely relieves urination/accumulated urine symptoms in patients with moderate or severe urination disorder related to prostatic hypertrophy.


In this paper, we consider a joint source-channel coding problem and minimize the end-to-end mean square error (MSE) distortion of a communication system through power allocation to the transmitted bits. This communication system consists of a quantizer with natural binary mapping and Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulator at the transmitter and we consider the cases with and without coding. We show that there is an optimal transmit power allocation to the transmitted bits of the quantized word that minimizes MSE. In the first part of the paper, the case with no channel coding is considered with hard decision decoding at the receiver. The optimum power profile is determined analytically by using the Chernoff bound and through computer-based optimization methods. The optimum power allocation gives a constant MSE gain over the uniform power allocation for high SNRs. In the second part of the paper, (7,4) Hamming code with soft-decision decoding is considered. An upper bound on the MSE expression is derived and nearoptimum power allocation is obtained. It is observed that for lower SNRs, power is allocated only to the information bits showing that coding is not required while for higher SNRs, power is allocated to all the bits in a codeword and it gives a constant gain in MSE over the uniform power allocation.


Newcastle disease (ND) is regarded as one of the most important diseases in the poultry industry. Currently, vaccines for ND are produced by using embryonated chicken eggs, a method which has the disadvantages of being labour-intensive, time consuming and requires large area for the incubation of eggs. In the present study, the production of lentogenic Asplin F strain of Newcastle disease virus by using cell culture method was studied. Experiments were carried out in T-flasks to investigate the effects of serum concentration in the culture medium during virus replication phase and multiplicity of infection (MOI) on ND virus propagation in DF-1 cells. Results show that virus infectivity titre of 6.62 x 10 7 TCID50/ml was achieved when serum concentration of 0.5% and MOI of 20 was used.


The paper presents the results of the experimental tests of Al-Cu bimetallic bars rolling process in multi-radial modified passes. The bimetallic bars consist of aluminium core, grade 1050A and copper outer layer, grade M1E. The stocks were round bars with diameter 22 mm with a copper layer share of 15 and 30%. As a result of rolling in four passes, bars of a diameter of about 16.0 mm were obtained. A bimetallic stock was manufactured using an explosive welding method. The use of the designed arrangement of multi-radial modified stretching passes resulted in obtaining Al-Cu bimetallic bars with the required lateral dimensions, an uniform distribution of the cladding layer over the bar perimeter and high quality of shear strength between individual layers.


Submarine hydrothermal systems along active volcanic ridges and arcs are highly dynamic, responding to both oceanographic (e.g., currents, tides) and deep-seated geological forcing (e.g., magma eruption, seismicity, hydrothermalism, and crustal deformation, etc.). In particular, volcanic and hydrothermal activity may also pose profoundly negative societal impacts (tsunamis, the release of climate-relevant gases and toxic metal(loid)s). These risks are particularly significant in shallow (<1000m) coastal environments, as demonstrated by the January 2022 submarine paroxysmal eruption by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcano that destroyed part of the island, and the October 2011 submarine eruption of El Hierro (Canary Islands) that caused vigorous upwelling, floating lava bombs, and natural seawater acidification. Volcanic hazards may be posed by the Kolumbo submarine volcano, which is part of the subduction-related Hellenic Volcanic Arc at the intersection between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates. There, the Kolumbo submarine volcano, 7 km NE of Santorini and part of Santorini's volcanic complex, hosts an active hydrothermal vent field (HVF) on its crater floor (~500m b.s.l.), which degasses boiling CO2–dominated fluids at high temperatures (~265°C) with a clear mantle signature. Kolumbo's HVF hosts actively forming seafloor massive sulfide deposits with high contents of potentially toxic, volatile metal(loid)s (As, Sb, Pb, Ag, Hg, and Tl). The proximity to highly populated/tourist areas at Santorini poses significant risks. However, we have limited knowledge of the potential impacts of this type of magmatic and hydrothermal activity, including those from magmatic gases and seismicity. To better evaluate such risks the activity of the submarine system must be continuously monitored with multidisciplinary and high resolution instrumentation as part of an in-situ observatory supported by discrete sampling and measurements. This paper is a design study that describes a new long-term seafloor observatory that will be installed within the Kolumbo volcano, including cutting-edge and innovative marine-technology that integrates hyperspectral imaging, temperature sensors, a radiation spectrometer, fluid/gas samplers, and pressure gauges. These instruments will be integrated into a hazard monitoring platform aimed at identifying the precursors of potentially disastrous explosive volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides of the hydrothermally weakened volcanic edifice and the release of potentially toxic elements into the water column.


Two adults, both non-smokers, with large peripheral lung cysts, which were of long standing (12 and nine years), were found to have well differentiated mucus secreting adenocarcinomas with a bronchioloalveolar growth pattern associated with the cysts. Lobectomy is likely to have been curative in one of the cases and earlier surgery might have been so in the other. The fact that many of the reported carcinomas associated with lung cysts have developed at an early age, as well as some histological features, suggests that the association is not coincidental; and early surgery for lung cysts is therefore recommended.


Fusion technique is a key research topic in multimodal sentiment analysis. The recent attention-based fusion demonstrates advances over simple operation-based fusion. However, these fusion works adopt single-scale, i.e., token-level or utterance-level, unimodal representation. Such single-scale fusion is suboptimal because that different modality should be aligned with different granularities. This paper proposes a fusion model named ScaleVLAD to gather multi-Scale representation from text, video, and audio with shared Vectors of Locally Aggregated Descriptors to improve unaligned multimodal sentiment analysis. These shared vectors can be regarded as shared topics to align different modalities. In addition, we propose a self-supervised shifted clustering loss to keep the fused feature differentiation among samples. The backbones are three Transformer encoders corresponding to three modalities, and the aggregated features generated from the fusion module are feed to a Transformer plus a full connection to finish task predictions. Experiments on three popular sentiment analysis benchmarks, IEMOCAP, MOSI, and MOSEI, demonstrate significant gains over baselines.


Simon recognized the limitations of the classical normative decision theory and established descriptive theory. His concept of bounded rationality and administrative behavior was a big step ahead, but the world has changed dramatically since then. Multiple, continuous changes have become normal, which brings up new problems on the decision maker's and on the organization's level as well. It became usual that the decision maker is not able to define preferences for lack of knowledge and have to learn or delegate much more frequently than before. In the same time the organization should be more resilient or nimble in this ever- changing environment. The authors outline a research agenda on both levels: some about the continuous learning and frequent delegating, and some about the HRM and IT-management issues of organizational nimbleness.


It is acknowledged that high-dose corticotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgical decompression of the orbit are often efficient in dysthyroid optic neuropathy. Corticotherapy and radiotherapy are also given to patients with dysfunction of eye-muscle motility and/or proptosis in the absence of visual loss. The latter indication has been retrospectively evaluated in 13 patients. The limited character of our series is partially explainable by strict inclusion criteria (objective evaluation of muscle dysfunction and proptosis). We failed to demonstrate any significant functional improvement after oral corticotherapy and/or radiotherapy. It thus appears that our study sheds doubt on the actual efficacy of these treatments in patients presenting with not very evolutive involvement of eye-muscle motility. A larger study aimed at comparing the benefits and drawbacks of these treatments is consequently to be encouraged.


The purpose of this research was to find out the potency of Wedelia biflora water extract as pain killer. Completely randomized design (CDR) was used in this study. A total of 30 mice (Mus musculus) were divided into five treatment groups. Mice in group 1 (P0) were administered with mefenamat (positive control) and mice group 2 (P1) were only given aquadest (negative control). Mice in another3 groups (P2, P3, and P4) were administered with Wedelia biflora water extract with the concentration of 100, 75, and 50%, respectively. The painful response time was done using hot plate method and observed at 0, 30, 60, and 90 minutes, whereas abdominal writhing method was applied to count the total of writhing. Data were analyzed using ANOVA followed by Duncan. Result showed that Wedelia biflora water extract with various levels of concentration were affect significantly (P0.05) compared to negative control but no significant different (P0.05) with positive control. The analgesic potency showed significant effect (P0.05) at concentration of 100 and 75% compared to negative control, but no significant different (P0.05) compare to positive control on both hot plate methods and abdominal writhing method, whereas 50% concentration showed analgesic potency (P0.05) only on hot plate method. In conclusion, Wedelia biflora water extract is potential as analgesic on mouse and shows no significant different with mefenamat. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Key words: analgesik, Wedelia biflora, painful, total of writhe


Introduction Despite the increasing interest in antibody-mediated kidney allograft rejection (AbMR), the underlying immunologic mechanisms of this process are not completely understood. B-cell activating factor (BAFF) plays a critical role in the ontogeny of B cells, and the interaction with its receptor, BAFFR, regulate the survival of B cells and plasma cells. Therefore, we aim to analyze the relationship between the differential expression of BAFFR molecules in different cell populations and the appearance of AbMR in kidney transplant recipients. Material and Methods: A cohort of 42 adult kidney transplant recipients, transplanted in Universitary Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla from February 2015 to January 2016 was studied prior performing the surgery. The diagnosis of AbMR was biopsy-proven according to Banff criteria. Protocol biopsies were also performed 12 months after transplantation. B cell subpopulations including naïve, different subsets of immature and transitional B cells, unswitched memory B cells, switched memory B cells and plasma cells were analyzed through multiparametric flow cytometry using CytoFLEX (Beckman Coulter). The expression of BAFFR molecules in the different cell populations was also determined using the same approach. Results and Discussion Main patient characteristics are shown in table 1. AbMR was observed in 14.3% of the transplant recipients. 66.7% of them were C4d+ and 100% were g+ptc > 2, according to histologic criteria. No differences between patients suffering AbMR and those patients without any symptom of rejection were found in B cell subpopulation levels. When the expression of BAFFR molecules in plasma cells prior transplantation was measured, a strong correlation with AbMR was observed. Using ROC curves to calculate a cut-off value for the number of BAFFR molecules in plasma cells to discriminate AbMR, 12196 molecules was stablished. Such cut-off reached a sensitivity of 50% and specificity of 96.6% for predicting AbMR. Those patients with higher levels of BAFFR molecules in plasma cells than 12196, were at risk of AbMR [OR 28 (2.1-361.2), p=0.011]. Table. No title available. Conclusion The measurement of BAFFR molecules in plasma cells prior kidney transplantation could be a biomarker of AbMR. Specifically, the detection of higher levels of BAFFR molecules in plasma cells could allow to predict the development of AbMR. However, more and prospective studies should be done to corroborate these data. Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias-ISCIII (PI1100990, PI1400378, PI1601585, and RD16/0009/0027) and IDIVAL.


Take-out robots used for handling of the plastic parts manufactured with the injection mold are usually the gantry type that consists of long and thin links, The performance of the take-out robot is determined by the speed of the motion and the positioning accuracy to grab the part out of the mold, As the speed of the robot increases the flexure in the links of the take-out robot becomes more significant and it results in more residual vibration, The residual vibration deteriorates the positioning accuracy and compels the operator to slow down the motion of the robot. The typical method to reduce the vibration in the robot requires stiffening the links and/or slowing down the robot, Vibration control could achieve the desired performance without increasing the manufacturing cost or the operation cost that would be incurred otherwise, Considering the point-to-point nature of the task to be performed by the take-out robot the time-delay command (or input) shaping filter approach would be the most effective control method to be adopted among a few available control schemes. In this paper a direct adaptive command shaping filter (ACSF) algorithm has been modified and applied to design the optimal command shaping filters for various configuration of the take-out robot. Optimal filters designed by ACSF algorithm have been implemented on a take-out robot and the effectiveness of the designed filters in terms of vibration suppression has been verified for multiple positions of the robot.


U.S. Day-Ahead Markets (DAMs) for wholesale electric power managed by Independent System Operators (ISOs) encompass more than 60% of U.S. generating capacity. The current design of these DAMs encourages a focus on decisions that minimize immediate net costs without explicit consideration of pre-DAM and post-DAM decision opportunities. This study proposes a practical DAM reformulation that enables a coupled consideration of past, current, and future energy/reserve procurement processes. The key innovation is the inclusion of ISO-determined virtual supply offers and virtual demand bids into the DAM power balance equations that permit the ISO to plan to satisfy next-day balancing needs by an efficient mix of energy/reserve cleared before, during, and subsequent to the DAM. The proposed reformulation is illustrated for three types of DAMs: a day-ahead energy market; a co-optimized day-ahead energy/reserve market; and a stochastic co-optimized day-ahead energy/reserve market.


With the coming growth in Internet of Things (IoT) applications, we can expect environments with many independent networks operating in nearby locations. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), which have become popular during the last few years, are the main type of networks used in IoT. The IEEE 802.15.4 protocol designed for low-rate wireless personal area networks has been widely adopted for this kind of network. Together with ZigBee, this protocol is gaining increasing interest from the industry, as they are considered a universal solution for low-cost, low-power, wireless connected monitoring and control devices. Internetwork interference issues in IEEE 802.15.4 networks can be a major problem because of the extensive use of wireless channels. In this thesis, an in-depth simulation study of the internetwork interferences is performed using Castalia, a widely used network simulator. We focus on the beacon collision problem, as it has been proved to be the main cause of performance degradation for coexisting networks. We carry out a prestudy of the main node simulation parameters to setup the different scenarios. Then, we evaluate how the overlap of the active periods and the location of the nodes affect the network performance. We continue with a network coexistence analysis to study the interaction of two networks of two nodes and their performance regarding the beacon reception rate. We show that there are significantly different operation regions, depending on the network location. Following this, a probabilistic analysis is carried out in order to obtain an average beacon reception rate depending on the size of the area considered. Finally, we discuss available beacon collisions avoidance methods, taking into account the detailed simulation results. Our conclusions have theoretical and practical implications for the design of wireless sensor networks, and for the evaluation of beacon collisions avoidance schemes.


This study examined the influence of Process Approach on English as second language Students' performances in essay writing. The purpose was to determine how far this current global approach could be of assistance to the writing skill development of these bilingual speakers of English language. The study employed the pre-test post-test control quasi-experimental research design. The sample consisted of 80 senior secondary school final year students. The research material included the senior secondary school English Language recommended textbook, National Examination Council (NECO) and West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC) English Language Syllabi, Federal Ministry of Education English Language Curriculum, English-Language Teachers' Lesson Notes and Students Essay Writing Exercise books. The West African Examinations Council's (WAEC) English Language Essay Question as an adapted instrument was used to gather data.  The data generated were subjected to statistical analysis and the results of the analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the pre-test scores of both the Control and the Experimental group which indicated the homogenous state of both Control and Experimental groups. There was significant difference in the post-test scores of the Experimental and the Control groups. There was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the students in Control group. As evident from the out-come of the research, the Process Approach (which presents writing in multiple drafts before the final writing) had significant effect on students' overall performance in essay writing.


A rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with a broadband circular polarization (CP) radiation is presented using a single feed excitation. A simple feed method is proposed using an open half-loop antenna that consists of three metallic strips. Utilizing such an excitation has provided a circular polarization over a bandwidth of 7% that has been increased further to 13% by adding a concentric parasitic open half-loop in the structure. This has been achieved in conjunction with a 20% impedance matching bandwidth over the same frequency range. The configuration has been rigorously modeled using a method of moments (MoM) model. The computed and measured results are in good agreement.


Disruptive innovations in mobile broadband system design are required to help network providers meet the exponential growth in mobile traffic demand with relatively flat revenues per bit. Heterogeneous network architecture is one of the most promising low-cost approaches to provide significant areal capacity gain and indoor coverage improvement. In this introductory article, we provide a brief overview of heterogeneous network architectures comprising hierarchical multitier multiple radio access technologies (RAT) deployments based on newer infrastructure elements. We begin with presenting possible deployment scenarios of heterogeneous networks to better illustrate the concepts of multitier and multi-RAT. We then focus on multitier deployments with single RAT and investigate the challenges associated with enabling single frequency reuse across tiers. Based on the spectrum usage, heterogeneous networks can be categorized into single carrier usage, where all devices within the network share the same spectrum, and distinct carrier usage, where different types of devices are allocated separate spectra. For single carrier usage, we show that interference management schemes are critical for reducing the resulting cross-tier interference, and present several techniques that provide significant capacity and coverage improvements. The article also describes industry trends, standardization efforts, and future research directions in this rich area of investigation.


N-[N-(4-Deoxy-4-amino-10-methylpteroyl)-4-fluoroglutamyl]-ga mma-glutamate has been synthesized and its ability to serve as a substrate for folylpolyglutamate synthetase and gamma-glutamyl hydrolase has been investigated. It was anticipated that this compound would be a substrate for both of these enzymes. Although the title compound proved to be a good substrate for folylpolyglutamate synthetase, hydrolysis catalyzed by gamma-glutamyl hydrolase was unexpectedly slow. These results suggest the use of fluoroglutamate-containing peptides as hydrolase-resistant folates or antifols in a variety of chemotherapeutic regimens.


This study investigated the effect of verapamil metabolites on R- and S-verapamil protein binding in plasma samples collected from subjects prior to rac-verapamil dosing and following single dose and steady state rac-verapamil dosing. In vitro studies of the effects of norverapamil, D617 and D620 on R- and S-verapamil protein binding were also performed. Protein binding of R- and S-verapamil was unchanged following single and multiple doses of rac-verapamil as compared with protein binding in pre-dose samples. In vitro, norverapamil had no effect on R- and S-verapamil protein binding up to 1000 ng ml-1. Norverapamil 5000 ng ml-1 caused a 30% increase in free fraction of both R- and S-verapamil. D617 and D620 concentrations up to 5000 ng ml-1 had no effect on R- and S-verapamil protein binding. We conclude the metabolites of verapamil have no clinically significant effect on R- and S-verapamil protein binding.


In recent times it is quite obvious that bone and joint ailments have almost been forgotten about in our primary health care scheme. Yet this is the problem that is most prevalent in our rural/urban communities. The dearth of specialist in this area and the concentration of the few in specialist centres have left the rural areas solely to the hands of "traditional bone setters" (TBS). This unfortunate pattern of health arrangement has left the specialist with the option of receiving more of complicated cases already mismanaged by our "TBS". This report highlights the problem and proffer suggestions on how to improve the outcome of our rural orthopaedic and trauma practices in line with government policy of primary health care and health for all by the year.......!


The dental caries experience of 5- and 12-year-old children from several locations in South Otago was examined following observations by the school dental nurses that there appeared to be differences. Differences between the locations were observed, but these were not statistically significant.


Fertilization of Oreochromis aureus eggs with UV-irradiated sperm from the closely related species O. niloticus, followed by diploidy restoration, produced offspring with lower embryo viability and higher skeletal deformation rates than siblings generated with sperm from a genetically distant species (Tilapia zillii). Results showed that: (a) deleterious effects due to O. niloticus sperm accumulate in gynogenetic fish over generations; (b) such effects are eliminated when using T. zillii sperm to fertilize eggs from gynogenetic mothers produced by full-sib matings. These results suggest that: (a) deleterious effects are associated with residual male DNA fragments which may be passed on to descendent offspring; (b) such fragments are significantly purged following full-sib mating. These findings suggest that biparental reproduction may play an important role in the control of genome integrality by purging supernumerary chromosome fragments.


A 79-year-old woman was admitted to a nearby hospital for seven days due to low-grade fever, loss of appetite and general fatigue. She was diagnosed with normal condition and discharged. She was admitted to our hospital one week later with disturbed consciousness. Laboratory findings upon admission revealed anemia, elevated alanine amino transferase, elevated total birirubin and thrombocytopenia. Abdominal CT demonstrated multiple low intensity lesions in the liver. Enhanced brain CT revealed multiple lesions with increased signal intensity lesions in the white matter and cortex. The value of soluble IL-2 receptor antibody was 16,000U/ml. Intravascular lymphoma was suspected because of brain CT finding and IL-2 receptor antibody titer. Methylprednisolone pulse therapy was started considering her age and general condition, but she was died thirteen days after admission. Postmorten examination revealed widespread intravascular aggregation of malignant lymphoma cells in the liver, spleen, bone marrow, bladder, ovary and stomach indicating a diagnosis of an Asian variant of intravascular large B cell lymphoma (AIVL). Neurological abnormalities are not usually associated with AIVL, but this patient had rare AIVL presenting with initial progressive nonspecific neurological symptoms.


Over the past half-century, distress and collapse due to scour and scour-related complications have been shown to account for the majority of bridge failures in North America. Accordingly, there are several design standards which contain provisions for design of bridge piers with respect to scour on the basis of several design equations. These empirical equations have shown a tendency towards over-prediction of scour depth, which yields uneconomical design. Over the past several years, there have been a number of experimental investigations into local scour around bridge piers carried out at the University of Windsor with the intention of improving current scour depth estimation practices. While there is a large amount of scour modelling data publically available, there are many uncertainties regarding the conditions under which these tests were performed; hence, results of the present investigation were obtained under controllable conditions in order to isolate the effects of various non-dimensional quantities and attempt to quantify their individual and collective influences on scour depth and geometry. The focus of the majority of these investigations has been on determining effects of blockage ratio, flow shallowness (h/D), and relative coarseness (D/d50) on maximum scour depth. Preliminary analysis indicated that D/d50 is of great importance in scour modelling, but variation in results indicated additional contributing parameters. Analysis of experimental results obtained indicated that an additional sediment-related non-dimensional parameter, the densimetric Froude number (Fd), also contributed to scour geometry.


We previously reported evidence of beta-adrenoceptor-mediated induction of IL-1 beta mRNA in the rat hypothalamus. The present in vitro studies using northern blot analysis showed that the beta-adrenoceptor agonist isoproterenol (1 x 10(-8) to 1 x 10(-5) M) caused a marked induction of IL-1 beta mRNA in microglia, but not in astrocytes. This induction was remarkably suppressed by pretreatment of cells with the beta-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol. These phenomena were confirmed by in situ hybridization with digoxigenin-labelled IL-1 beta RNA probe. Furthermore, dibutyryl cyclicAMP (dbcAMP) (5 x 10(-4) and 5 x 10(-5) M) markedly induced IL-1 beta mRNA in microglia. The intracellular level of cAMP in microglia was elevated in a dose-dependent manner when they were treated with isoproterenol, and this elevation was completely blocked by propranolol. The induction of IL-1 beta mRNA by either isoproterenol or dbcAMP was strongly inhibited by a cAMP-dependent protein kinase inhibitor, H8. These results, taken together, suggest that (1) microglia primarily induce IL-1 beta mRNA by stimulation of beta-adrenoceptors, and (2) cAMP and cAMP-dependent protein kinase presumably participate in a signal transduction mechanism involved in the induction of IL-1 beta mRNA via beta-adrenoceptors.


We study sub-Riemannian (Carnot-Caratheodory) metrics dened by noninvolutive distributions on real-analytic Riemannian manifolds. We establish a connection between regularity properties of these metrics and the lack of length minimizing abnormal geodesics. Utilizing the results of the previous study of abnormal length minimizers accomplished by the authors in (Annales IHP. Analyse nonlin eaire 13, p. 635-690) we describe in this paper two classes of the germs of distributions (called 2-generating and medium fat) such that the corresponding sub-Riemannian metrics are suban- alytic. To characterize these classes of distributions we determine the dimensions of the manifolds on which generic germs of distributions of given rank are respectively 2-generating or medium fat.


Sir: It is unfortunate that Wald and Morris I consider the term "case-finding" unsatisfactory and that they only refer to the seminal work of Wilson and [ungner." Sackett and Holland' followed up the Lancet series on Screening for disease' and the correspondence that this evoked by a careful analysis of a variety of the descriptive terms used and their meaning. Wald and Morris neglect the fundamental difference between screening and case-finding. In the first, the encounter is initiated by the health care provider, and the objective is to separate "healthy" volunteers into groups with high or low probability of a given disorder. By contrast, "case-finding" is the testing of patients who have sought health care for disorders which may be unrelated to their chief complaints. The execution of casefinding does not carry an implied guarantee that patients will benefit, as in screening; only that they will receive the highest standard of care available at that time and place. Sackett and Holland reviewed the properties of tests for these different encounters and showed the crucial differences in these situations for example, in the requirement for simplicity, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. They also discussed the differences between the two procedures in terms of the promise to the citizen, adherence to prescribed treatment, economic consequences, and community decisions. It is still important to recognise the differences between the two different types of encounter, and thus the different criteria used for assessment of a test. Throwing out the distinction between "case-finding" and "screening" is likely to be counterproductive.


Proxy signature is a cryptographic primitive used for delegating the signing rights. It helps the proxy signer to sign messages on behalf of the original signer. This signature is used when the original signer is not available to sign a specific document. While several attribute-based signature schemes were proposed, unfortunately they do not have the nature of the agency. In this paper we first formally define a notion of the attribute-based proxy signature scheme. Then we propose an attribute-based proxy signature scheme. Finally we demonstrate that our scheme is efficiently and unforgeable under adaptive chosen-message attack under the Strong EDH assumption.


In this Paper, reduction of noise and vibration in ship cabins by using floating floor is studied. Two theoretical models are presented and predicted insertion losses of floating floor are compared to experimental results, where measurements have been done in mock-up built for simulating typical ship cabin structures. In ships, mineral wool is usually used as the impact absorbing materials. The first model (M-S-Plate Model) is that upper plate and mineral wool are assumed as a one-dimensional mass-spring system, which is in turn attached to the simply supported elastic floor. The second model (Wave-Plate Model) is that mineral wool is assumed as an elastic medium for wave propagation. The comparisons show that M-S-Plate model is in good agreement with experimental results when density of mineral wool is 140K, and fiber direction is horizontal. For higher density and vertical fiber direction, Wave-Plate model shows good agreements with measurements. It is found that including the elastic behavior of the floor is essential in improving accuracy of the prediction for low frequency ranges below $100{sim}200Hz$.


Unless treaties are read in very liberal terms, the European Union (EU) is not competent for defining the construct of a fair tax system and determining who should pay taxes and in which proportion within the EuropeanUnion.Yet, the European Commission has increasingly been using references to tax fairness in its tax policy discourse. This raises questions on the future of EU tax law, the commission's role in responding to European citizens' concerns, and achieving tax fairness.
By exploring six case studies, this contribution argues that the commission's narrative on tax fairness remains vague and ambiguous which might indicate that it is not taking tax fairness – as a procedural and/or distributive issue – seriously. The commission uses fairness somewhat loosely to cover three main types of objectives including trade objectives that differ from what has traditionally been linked to tax fairness in the political philosophy literature. Building upon the work of legal scholars and economists, this article then concludes that the commission's 'fair tax' agenda will, at best, achieve objectives in terms of procedural fairness.


Abstract Two new α-pyrones, fupyrones A and B (1 and 2) and a biosynthetically related known α-pyrone, 4-methyl-5,6-dihydro-2H-pyran-2-one (3), were isolated from an endophytic fungus, Fusarium sp. F20, harbored in the stems of the Chinese medicinal plant Mahonia fortunei. Their structures were determined on the basis of spectroscopic data including MS and NMR. The antibacterial efficacies of compounds 1–3 were evaluated against four selected Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and their quorum sensing inhibitory activity was also investigated against the test organism, Chromobacterium violaceum.


Objective: To present the proposal of educational workshops on diabetes and a strategy of evaluation aimed at upgrading the professionals' performance in primary care. Methods: The workshops were implemented using participatory methodology, play techniques, experiences, and group dynamics, involving the participation of 85 health professionals from Units of Primary Care, in the city of Belo Horizonte, MG. The knowledge about the disease and the skills required for self-care were measured by applying specific instruments. The workshops were evaluated based on the instrument developed for that purpose. Results: There were limitations in the knowledge of professionals about pathophysiology and the disease's complementary tests. The workshops helped to awaken the potential of professionals (reflection, criticism and creativity) necessary to change the educational process. It was considered a pedagogical strategy, easy to understand, interactive and playful. Conclusions: The workshops contributed to the planning of the educational process and the structuring of an evaluation model of practices of health and education promotion in diabetes.


The relationship between the time of intake of docosahexaenoic acid [DHA, 22:6(n-3)] and maze behavior in mice was studied. Male Crj:CD-1 mice (3 mo old) were fed a diet containing 2 g DHA-ethyl ester/100 g diet plus 3 g palm oil/100 g diet (DHA-EE group) or a diet containing 5 g palm oil/100 g diet (control group) for different periods of time. Maze-learning ability was assessed at 1 and 2 wk and 1 and 3 mo after the start of the control and experimental diets. In each maze-learning test, the time required to reach the maze exit and the number of times that a mouse strayed into blind alleys in the maze were measured in three trials, one every 4 d. After the last learning test in each trial, all mice were killed and the fatty acid compositions of plasma and brain lipids were determined. There were no significant differences in the results of the maze-learning tests between mice fed the diets at 1 or 2 wk in any of the three trials. After 1 and 3 mo, the DHA-EE diet groups required less time (P < 0.05) to reach the maze exit and strayed into blind alleys fewer times (P< 0.05) than did the control diet groups during trial 3. Significantly greater DHA levels were observed in the plasma and brain total lipids of the mice fed the DHA-EE diet after 2 wk, compared with those fed the control diet (P < 0.05), which was compensated for by lower arachidonic acid [20:4 (n-6)] levels. There were no significant differences in brain DHA levels among mice fed the DHA-EE diet for 2 wk, 1 mo, or 3 mo. Improved maze-learning ability after DHA intake was evident at 1 mo after the start of feeding and were maintained up to 3 mo, whereas the increased DHA levels in brain were apparent after feeding for just 2 wk. These results suggest that it may take time after the incorporation of DHA into the brain for improvement in learning ability to occur.


Photoelectron-Auger electron coincidence experiments have been used to disentangle the contribution of the two spin-orbit components of the S(2p) Auger spectrum of OCS. The results have been compared with theoretical ab-initio calculations which take into account the main effects of nuclear vibrational motion and estimate the intensity of the transitions via a two-hole population analysis.


This dissertation explores how the body''s movement in spatial orientation may play an influential role in the dis-ordering tendencies of personality. The somatic psychodiagnostic approach to personality presented in this dissertation advances the case for a more rigorous examination of the body/psyche dynamic in the formation, assessment, and treatment of personality issues. The hypothesis of this study is that stimulation of the motor/sensory system in movements through various spatial planes substantially impacts perceptions of self, others, and the world. These perceptions form the basis of the evolving personality. Rather than viewing personality as a set of fixed traits, personality is viewed as a state of consciousness on a continuum of adaptations to self, others, and the world. Research findings of this study with 70 research participants indicate that fixations in movement correlate with fixations in personality. In this schema a causal comparative relation between 12 fixated spatial orientations and 12 clinically recognized personality disorders is demonstrated in matrix, tabular, and textual formats.


The modern news media comprise powerful institutions that require the kind of scrutiny they direct towards other influential institutions. The 50th anniversary of The Australian offers a timely opportunity to examine how fairly and accurately the national daily newspaper has reported on its parent company's strengths and weaknesses, and those of its commercial rivals, as well as covering overall trends in the media industry. The article argues that when The Australian's Media section began in 1999, it substantially expanded for readers the available range of news and views about the media. However, the section never reached its advertising revenue targets and in recent years has lost much of the revenue it once had. Over the past decade, the section has become increasingly narrow-minded in the range of its coverage, tone and approach.


Mentalities and taboos concerning class, gender, and nation have always influenced the individual's social behavior and led to identity issues. Both gender and sexuality are important to our understanding of identity. Gender, as an unstable category, has been a central concern of literary studies from the late 1960s onwards, as the rise of feminist theories precipitated a widespread critical debate around the representations of women and femininity in literature and their clashing relationship with patriarchal authority. In his fiction, Ian McEwan attempts to illustrate the way in which the chaotic state of the modern world acts as an obstacle for viable, life-affirming relationships, and how it destroys the individual (Jack Slay). McEwan illustrates traditional male and female gender roles and, by presenting extreme attitudes of control, domination and exploitation toward women, he criticizes the patriarchal ideologies which are created and encouraged by the contemporary society. Moreover, in McEwan's fiction men and women re-evaluate their stereotypical roles: McEwan's female characters break the societal barriers becoming the strength within their relationships. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the way in which McEwan's fiction discusses gender roles, sexuality and identity within the politics of relationships and the impact of the historical and political constructs upon the private sexual life of the individual and private male-female relationships.


Preliminary experiments were carried out on archaeological wood to investigate methods of cellulose hydrolysis and carbohydrate monomer purification for the purpose of compound-specific radiocarbon dating. The Chelford log, a known 14C dead source of wood cellulose, was selected for study in order to investigate the levels of contamination introduced during sample purification. Two methods of hydrolysis were examined, mineral acid hydrolysis and enzyme hydrolysis using cellulase from Penicillium funiculosum. Under the conditions described, enzymolysis was far superior to acid hydrolysis in terms of the glucose monomer yield. Glucose monomer purification was accomplished using high pH anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection. This high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method does not require sample derivatization and the chromatography products can be collected in water. These characteristics make it potentially well suited to carbon dating applications. 14C dating of chromatographically purified glucose fractions revealed significant levels of contamination had accumulated during both protocols. Glucose contamination from the cellulase enzyme preparation was a major source of contamination within the enzymatically hydrolyzed samples. Ultrafiltration of the enzyme removed some but not all of this contamination. The contamination must be reduced 10-fold before the methodology could be viable for dating. This hydrolysis/HPLC method is also being investigated for 14C dating of other carbohydrate polymers such as chitin.


Acidic pH shift occurs in many physiological neuronal activities such as synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity but also represents a characteristic feature of many pathological conditions including inflammation and ischemia. Neuroinflammation is a complex process that occurs in various neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington's disease. Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) represent a widely expressed pH sensor in the brain that play a key role in neuroinflammation. On this basis, acid-sensing ion channel blockers are able to exert neuroprotective effects in different neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we discuss the multifaceted roles of ASICs in brain physiology and pathology and highlight ASIC1a as a potential pharmacological target in neurodegenerative diseases.


1. Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering & IT, Rahim Yar Khan, Punjab, Pakistan 2. Lecturer Government College Kabirwala, District Khanewal, Punjab, Punjab, Pakistan 3. Ex-Dean Faculty of Arts, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan PAPER INFO ABSTRACT Received: April 18, 2020 Accepted: June 15, 2020 Online: June 30, 2020 This paper endeavors to probe into the motivational patterns associated with gender in a particular Pakistani social context. For this purpose a self-report questionnaire was used to collect data. The questionnaire included different measures adapted from Gardner (1985), Dornyei (1990, 2001), Clement (1994) and Ghani (2002). Data were collected from three different campuses of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Besides questionnaire, participants were also given FCE (First certificate in English) test regarding reading comprehension and use of English along with a cloze test to judge their proficiency in English language. Data were analyzed using SPSS (version 16) for windows and results manifested that there existed notable gender-based differences in learners' motivation to learn English and their English language proficiency


Within the framework of transition path sampling (TPS), activation energies can be computed as path ensemble averages without a priori information about the reaction mechanism [C. Dellago and P. G. Bolhuis, Mol. Simul. 30, 795 (2004)]. Activation energies computed for different conditions can then be used to determine by numerical integration the rate constant for a system of interest from the rate constant known for a reference system. However, in systems with complex potential energy surfaces, multiple reaction pathways may exist making ergodic sampling of trajectory space difficult. Here, we present a combination of TPS with the Wang-Landau (WL) flat-histogram algorithm for an efficient sampling of the transition path ensemble. This method, denoted by WL-TPS, has the advantage that from one single simulation, activation energies at different temperatures can be determined even for systems with multiple reaction mechanisms. The proposed methodology for rate constant calculations does not require the knowledge of the reaction coordinate and is generally applicable to Arrhenius and non-Arrhenius processes. We illustrate the applicability of this technique by studying a two-dimensional toy system consisting of a triatomic molecule immersed in a fluid of repulsive soft disks. We also provide an expression for the calculation of activation volumes from path averages such that the pressure dependence of the rate constant can be obtained by numerical integration.


The accompanying article provides a broad perspective that contributes much to the areas of American Indian law, Family Law, and Tribal Law on the topic of American Indian children. By contextualizing the life experience of children within the accepted eras of U.S. Indian policy, the authors intend to provide insight into the contemporary experiences of American Indian children. Societal, health, and juvenile justice statistics are presented to highlight the quality of life issues impacting the next generations of tribal peoples in the United States.This is a significant work in addressing the often "invisibility" of American Indians and in particular children. As U.S. Indian policy has had a profound impact on tribal governance, the most vulnerable populations in tribal communities, children, have also been heavily impacted. The major U.S. Indian policies of warfare, assimilation through mandatory boarding school education, placing American Indian children into white adoptive homes, and addressing past policy negative consequences in contemporary federal initiatives are examined.As contemporary tribal governments seek to embrace educational reform and greater child protection measures, the federal funding available and interaction with federal agencies has become increasingly important. This article serves as foundational information piece tracing historical U.S. Indian policies impacting American Indian children to the present to inform policy makers, legal scholars, tribal leadership and others.


Introduction Effective management and therapies for the motor complications of Parkinson's disease (PD) require appropriate clinical evaluation. The Parkinson's KinetiGraph™ (PKG) is a wearable biosensor system that can record the motion characteristics of PD objectively and remotely. Objective The study aims to investigate the value of PKG in identifying and quantitatively assessing motor complications including motor fluctuations and dyskinesia in the Chinese PD population, as well as the correlation with the clinical scale assessments. Methods Eighty-four subjects with PD were recruited and continuously wore the PKG for 7 days. Reports with 7-day output data were provided by the manufacturer, including the fluctuation scores (FS) and dyskinesia scores (DKS). Specialists in movement disorders used the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-IV (MDS-UPDRS IV), the wearing-off questionnaire 9 (WOQ-9), and the unified dyskinesia rating scale (UDysRS) for the clinical assessment of motor complications. Spearman correlation analyses were used to evaluate the correlation between the FS and DKS recorded by the PKG and the clinical scale assessment results. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to analyze the sensitivity and specificity of the FS and DKS scores in the identification of PD motor complications. Results The FS was significantly positively correlated with the MDS-UPDRS IV motor fluctuation (items 4.3–4.5) scores (r = 0.645, p < 0.001). ROC curve analysis showed a maximum FS cut-off value of 7.5 to identify motor fluctuation, with a sensitivity of 74.3% and specificity of 87.8%. The DKS was significantly positively correlated with the UDysRS total score (r = 0.629, p < 0.001) and the UDysRS III score (r = 0.634, p < 0.001). ROC curve analysis showed that the maximum DKS cut-off value for the diagnosis of dyskinesia was 0.7, with a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 83.3%. Conclusion The PKG assessment of motor complications in the PD population analyzed in this study has a significant correlation with the clinical scale assessment, high sensitivity, and high specificity. Compared with clinical evaluations, PKG can objectively, quantitatively, and remotely identify and assess motor complications in PD, providing a good objective recording for managing motor complications.


New C-11 esters of the fermentation product wortmannin have been synthesized, with some of them further derivatized at C-17. The new esters show greater inhibition of isolated phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and increased cell cytotoxicity in a rapidly proliferating leukemia cell line, when compared to wortmannin. Reduction of the C-17 ketone caused a slight increase in activity, while acylation of this new alcohol caused severe loss of activity. With their increased activity, the new C-11 esters may be good candidates to explore the in vivo antitumor effects of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors.


In recent years, there is an increasing interest in the development of rapid, inexpensive and customerfriendly bio-sensing devices for fast detection of critical substances even under field-conditions. Since the first investigations by Mirkin and co-workers , several colorimetric-based systems with gold nanoparticles have been developed. The basic principle of detection utilised the strong dependence of the optical properties of the nanoparticle on their size. Thus, gold nanoparticles are coupled with molecules that target analyte of interest. Upon binding of analytes to corresponding target molecules on the surface of gold nanoparticles, a particle aggregation occurs, which lead to a colour shift from red to purple. In view of this, we investigated, for the first time, the use of bacterial surface layer proteins (Slayers) as target molecules for detection of arsenic in model solutions. The aim of our work was to investigate the capability of several S-layers on gold nanoparticles to detect arsenic (V). S-layers are multifunctional molecules with a remarkable potential for bioand nanotechnological applications . Using the S-layer of Lysinibacillus sphaericus JG-A12, concentrations of arsenic in the range of 1 mM to 50 μM were detectable. Further, the sensitivity of the system was tunable by changing the nanoparticle size.


BACKGROUND
In previous research on motion sickness in simulated and virtual vehicles, subjects' experience controlling the corresponding physical vehicles has been confounded with their age. During driving of virtual automobiles in a video game, we separated chronological age from experience driving physical automobiles.

METHODS
Subjects drove a virtual automobile in a driving video game. Drivers were young adults with several years of experience driving physical automobiles, while nondrivers were individuals in the same age group who did not have a driver's license and had never driven an automobile. During virtual driving, we monitored movement of the head and torso. We collected independent measures of the incidence and severity of motion sickness.

RESULTS
After virtual driving, motion sickness incidence did not differ between drivers (65%) and nondrivers (60%). Game performance and the severity of symptoms also did not differ between drivers and nondrivers. However, movement differed between subjects who later became motion sick and those who did not. In addition, physical driving experience influenced patterns of postural activity that preceded motion sickness during virtual driving.

CONCLUSIONS
The results are consistent with the postural instability theory of motion sickness, and help to illuminate relationships between the control of physical and virtual vehicles.Chang C-H, Chen F-C, Kung W-C, Stoffregen TA. Effects of physical driving experience on body movement and motion sickness during virtual driving. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2017; 88(11):985-992.