Defining steel's dynamic behaviour is important for armoured applications. The material characteristics dictate the appropriate application for the material. A pertinent dynamic behaviour that should be considered in impact dynamics is a material's spall strength. Understanding how a material reacts dynamically to an impact force can aid in selecting and possibly improving steel to withstand large dynamic forces. Two different grades of armoured steel were supplied by Bisalloy®. Bisalloy ultra-high toughness (UHT) 440 and Bisalloy ultra-high-hardness (UHH) 600 are compared in spall strength and Hugoniot Elastic Limit (HEL) to determine which material is more suitable for military applications. This was done through flyer plate impact testing with 70mm high-velocity single stage light gas gun at UNSW Canberra. From impact tests and microstructural analysis, UHT440 had the higher spall strength than UHH600. Relationships between the grain sizes, ductility and effect on the spall peak gradient demonstrated a relationship for the higher spall strength. Theory suggests that higher yield stress characteristics in a material correlate to a higher HEL. In this case, UHH600 was determined to achieve a higher HEL than compared to UHT440. It was concluded that UHT440 is more resistant to high impact stresses such as blast waves, where UHH600 would be more suitable against ballistic penetration.


Mining communities face a host of issues, including economic volatility, uncertainty, and closure. Thus, the common perception of mining towns revolves around a notion of impermanence - that the town follows the ore and when the ore is depleted, so is the community. However, this image is inherently problematic as it fails to recognize the fact that people put down roots, become attached to place, and create homes on the same ground from which ore is extracted. This thesis examines the various ways in which place identity is constructed in affiliation with the mining industry in Buchans, Newfoundland, and explores how identity and sense of community have contributed to community development and resilience post-closure. In doing so, it relies on qualitative methods and oral histories to provide insight into the sense of place that can develop in a former mining company town, how these relationships to place develop, and potential implications for community well-being and survival.


Abstract Since 1989, four Canadian Consensus Conferences on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia (CCCDTDs) have provided evidence‐based dementia diagnostic and treatment guidelines for Canadian clinicians and researchers. We present the results from the Neuroimaging and Fluid Biomarkers Group of the 5th CCCDTD (CCCDTD5), which addressed topics chosen by the steering committee to reflect advances in the field and build on our previous guidelines. Recommendations on Imaging and Fluid Biomarker Use from this Conference cover a series of different fields. Prior structural imaging recommendations for both computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) remain largely unchanged, but MRI is now more central to the evaluation than before, with suggested sequences described here. The use of visual rating scales for both atrophy and white matter anomalies is now included in our recommendations. Molecular imaging with [18F]‐fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]‐FDG) Positron Emisson Tomography (PET) or [99mTc]‐hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime/ethylene cysteinate dimer ([99mTc]‐HMPAO/ECD) Single Photon Emission Tomography (SPECT), should now decidedly favor PET. The value of [18F]‐FDG PET in the assessment of neurodegenerative conditions has been established with greater certainty since the previous conference, and it has now been recognized as a useful biomarker to establish the presence of neurodegeneration by a number of professional organizations around the world. Furthermore, the role of amyloid PET has been clarified and our recommendations follow those from other groups in multiple countries. SPECT with [123I]‐ioflupane (DaTscanTM) is now included as a useful study in differentiating Alzheimer's disease (AD) from Lewy body disease. Finally, liquid biomarkers are in a rapid phase of development and, could lead to a revolution in the assessment AD and other neurodegenerative conditions at a reasonable cost. We hope these guidelines will be useful for clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and the lay public, to inform a current and evidence‐based approach to the use of neuroimaging and liquid biomarkers in clinical dementia evaluation and management.


Foreign Direct Investment plays a very significant role both in the economic and social development of a country. Its potential benefits to developing countries has increased in recent years. The main objective of this paper is to examine the determinants which can attract or deter Foreign Direct investment in Anglophone and Francophone African countries. We used Panel Data from 37 countries covering the period 2004-2012. Results from a Hausman test indicated that the Random effect model is appropriate in performing the estimation. The regression results show the strength to protect investors, the time required to start business, human resources, domestic credit to private sector have significant influence on FDI. We also employ interactive variables, allowing for interaction effect between time required to start a business and strength to protect investors. Further, interaction effect is allowed between electricity production and economic growth. The results indicate that the interactive variables have a great influence on FDI inflows to these countries. Electricity production is still a big challenge for most Anglophone and francophone countries. We suggest that African governments should direct their efforts towards production of power in order to maintain the long- run sustainability of FDI in Anglophone and Francophone African countries.


We use a minimal system with a single micron-size bead trapped with optical tweezers to investigate the kinetics of escape under force. Surprisingly, the exponential decay of the off rate with the barrier energy is still valid close to the critical force. Hence, the high viscosity approximation derived by Kramers in the case of a high energy barrier holds even for an energy barrier close to the thermal energy. Several recent models describe a single biomolecule bond by a smooth single-barrier energy profile. When this approach is accurate enough, our result justifies the use of Kramers' approximation in the high-force regime, close to the critical force of the system, as done in recent single biomolecule bond studies.


Abstract
Control Rod Reactivity Analysis of One Stuck Rod Condition in 10 MWth Experimental Reactor Design (RDE-10 MWth) on First Full Core has been done. One of the accidents that may occur in the reactor core is the possibility of congestion conditions control rod (stuck rod) one or any and all parts of the reactor control rods that result cannot be controlled or extinguished due to the decrease of core reactivity values. Therefore, the aim of research is to get the values of reactivity control rods for the condition of one stuck rod at different heights so that the values are a source of information for the design of RDE 10 MWth. In this study first performed the first full-core condition simulation on the RDE reactor with the ratio F:M=52:48, using the MCNP6 program package. Furthermore, simulation and analysis of multiplication factors (keff) and reactivity of the control rods in one stuck rod and non stuck rod conditions are performed. The simulation is done using MCNP6 program package while for visualization is used VisEd program package. The simulation results show the ratio of F:M=52:48, the relation of the depth of the control rod insertion to the multiplication factor in the stuck rod control condition of one stuck rod and non stuck rod has an S chart pattern. In the condition of one stuck rod obtained negative reactivity worth that is equal to -0.06, a sequence of keff value is 1.05. For non stuck rod conditions where full control rods entirely result in negative reactivity, ie -0.14 with a keff value of 0.98. In order for one stuck rod to obtain multiplication value <1, several alternatives can be done: increase the B4C density, increase the diameter of the control rod or reduce the number of pebble moderators.


We present a systematic experimental investigation of an unusual transport phenomenon observed in two-dimensional (2D) electron gases in Si/SiGe heterostructures under integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE) conditions. This phenomenon emerges under specific experimental conditions and in different material systems. It is commonly referred to as a Hall resistance overshoot but it lacks a consistent explanation so far. Based on our experimental findings, we have developed a model that accounts for all of our observations in the framework of a screening theory for the IQHE. Within this model, the origin of the overshoot is attributed to a transport regime where current is confined to co-existing evanescent incompressible strips of different filling factors.


We have previously introduced an easy to perform, cost‐effective and highly efficient acetylation technique for solid phase synthesis (SPPS). Malonic acid is used as a precursor and the reaction proceeds via a reactive ketene that acetylates the target amine. Here we present a detailed mechanistic study of the malonic acid‐mediated acylation. The influence of reaction conditions, peptide sequence and reagents was systematically studied. Our results show that the methodology can be successfully applied to different types of peptides and nonpeptidic molecules irrespective of their structure, sequence, or conformation. Using alkyl, phenyl, and benzyl malonic acid, we synthesized various acyl peptides with almost quantitative yields. The ketenes obtained from the different malonic acid derived precursors were characterized by in situ 1H‐NMR. The reaction proceeded in short reaction times and resulted in excellent yields when using uronium‐based coupling agents, DIPEA as a base, DMF/DMSO/NMP as solvents, Rink amide/Wang/Merrifield resins, temperature of 20°C, pH 8–12 and 5 min preactivation at inert atmosphere. The reaction was unaffected by Lewis acids, transition metal ions, surfactants, or salt. DFT studies support the kinetically favorable concerted mechanism for CO2 and ketene formation that leads to the thermodynamically stable acylated products. We conclude that the malonic acid‐mediated acylation is a general method applicable to various target molecules. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers (Pept Sci) 104: 495–505, 2015.


An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is an underwater system that contains its own power and is controlled by an onboard computer. Although many names are given to these vehicles, such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), submersible devices, or remote controlled submarines, to name just a few, the fundamental task for these devices is fairly well defined: The vehicle is able to follow a predefined trajectory. AUVs offer many advantages for performing difficult tasks submerged in water. The main advantage of an AUV is that is does not need a human operator. Therefore it is less expensive than a human operated vehicle and is capable of doing operations that are too dangerous for a person. They operate in conditions and perform task that humans are not able to do efficiently, or at all (Smallwood & Whitcomb, 2004; Horgan & Toal, 2006; Caccia, 2006). First developed in the 1960's, development was driven by the demand from the US Navy (Wernli, 2001), which required them to perform deep sea rescue and salvage operations. In the 1970s, universities, institutes and governmental organizations started with the experimentation with AUV technology. Some of them were successful, most were not. Despite this, there was significant advancement in the development of AUVs. Since then, other sectors have realized the potential of such devices for all manner of tasks. The first of these was the oil and gas industry. These companies employed AUVs to reinforce in the development of off shore oil fields (Williams, 2004). In the 1980's, AUVs came into a new era as they were able to operate at depths well below commercial diver limits. Falling oil prices and a global recession resulted in a stagnant period in terms of AUV development in the mid 1980s. During the 1990s there was a renewed interest in AUVs in academic research. Many universities developed AUVs. This research was followed by the first commercial AUVs in 2000 (van Alt, 2000; Blidberg, 2001). Since then, AUVs have been developing at a fast rate (Smallwood et al., 1999; Griffiths & Edwards, 2003). AUVs are now being used in a wide range of applications, such as locating historic ship wrecks like the Titanic (Ballard, 1987), mapping the sea floor (Tivey et al., 1998). More mundane applications consist of object detection (Kondoa & Ura, 2004), securing harbours, searching for seamines (Willcox et al., 2004), and, most recently, in scientific applications


INTRODUCTION
Histological typing, especially the evidence of anaplasia and stage of the tumor are two major prognostic indicators in Wilms tumor, but some genetic factors have recently been noted. Mutations in TP53, which is a tumor suppressor gene, have been demonstrated to be associated with poor prognosis in some malignancies. There are also few studies which have confirmed the correlation between p53 protein overexpression and advanced course in Wilms tumor. This study was conducted to determine the correlation p53 immunoexpression and prognosis and outcome of Wilms tumor.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The overexpression of p53 in 44 specimens of children (26 boys and 18 girls) with Wilms tumor (median age, 36 months; range, 4 to 96 months) was assessed in Mofid Children's Hospital, Tehran, Iran. The overexpression of p53 was determined by immunohistochemistry with antihuman p53 antibody.

RESULTS
A positive immunostaining for p53 was detected in 24 of the 44 cases (54.7%). The grade of the tumor and anaplasia were associated with p53 positivity, but there was no association of p53 with the tumor stage. In comparison to p53 negatives, week-moderate and high p53-expressing tumors had significantly decreased the overall survival (hazard ratio, 3.75 and 8.61; P = .05 and P = .01, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
Overexpression of p53 protein in Wilms tumor is an indicator of poor pro gnosis, because it is correlated with unfavorable histology tumors and a shorter survival period.


A review of the literature concerning the relationship between anorexia nervosa (AN) and religion reveals two disparate themes: religion as a cultivator of AN, and religion as a recovery benefactor. The purpose of the present study was to address this discrepancy by exploring one factor—religious coping style—suspected to influence the role religion assumes in the lives of individuals with AN. A sample of 134 women who self-identified as having received an AN diagnosis completed measures of religious coping style and anorectic symptomology. Analyses revealed that religious coping style significantly predicted severity of anorectic symptomology.


The authors write down precisely what is determined by measuring the ratio, R, of the cross sections for double to single ionization, produced by a beam of bare projectiles, charge Zp, incident at high energy on a helium target. They confirm the general, nonrelativistic, behaviour of the reaction cross sections, sigma r, to be of the form predicted by Bethe (1930), i.e. as a function of the projectile energy, Ep, to behave as sigma r=BrCr+In(Ep/E0)/Ep. They arbitrarily set E0 to 1 keV amu-1. When they calculate sigma r, ab initio, for protons incident on helium they can extract Br and Cr. The authors' value for Cr is different from that given by Sidorovich (1991) for double ionization. The analysis suggests that the asymptotic formula is accurate above 10 MeV amu-1 and that, as the energy is raised further, their calculated R increases slowly; it rises to 0.0027 at 200 MeV amu-1, some 5% above its value at 10 MeV amu-1.


The multidrug resistance of bacteria caused by the abuse of traditional antibiotics poses a great threat to public health, so it is urgent to develop effective antibacterial agents to deal with this dilemma. Biomimetics and nanotechnology are expected to provide new strategies for solving this problem. This study takes inspiration from the adhesive protein properties of mussels to design and synthesise biomimetic polydopamine nanospheres (FeCo@PDA NPs), which have strong adhesion and catalytic Fenton reactive enzyme activity. The antibacterial activity of FeCo@PDA NPs against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is significantly better than that of traditional antibiotics daptomycin (Dap) and vancomycin (Van). PDA NPs with an intrinsic hierarchical structure have the ability to adhere to bacterial surfaces and improve the loading rate of metal ions Fe2+/Co2+. In addition, due to the dual effects of strong adhesion and Co2+, FeCo@PDA NPs can destroy the bacterial membrane structure and release endogenous hydrogen peroxide, which increases the generation of reactive oxygen species by synergistic catalysis of bimetal ions Fe2+/Co2+ to further kill bacteria thoroughly. The cytotoxicity test results show that FeCo@PDA NPs have good cytocompatibility. The impressive antibacterial properties and good biocompatibility of FeCo@PDA NPs make them a potential antibacterial drug.


A miniaturized, dual-band, circularly polarized microstrip antenna (CPMA) for satellite mobile phones was designed. Two miniaturized radiation elements using folded structures are stacked vertically to achieve dual bands. Each radiation element shows left-handed circular polarization. The total volume of this dual-band, circularly polarized, microstrip antenna is 46 mm (length) x 24 mm (width) x 13 mm (height). The overall antenna is mounted on a phone-shaped ground plane to fit inside satellite mobile phones.


The relationship between economic growth and CO2 emission has been a widely researched topic in the global context. This paper intends to shed light on the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emission in selected group of countries with special comparison between Sri Lanka and each country since it is the research gap identified by the researchers. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emission in Sri Lanka in comparison with the reference countries. Examining the impact of the size of urban/rural population, GDP growth rate and electric power consumption on CO2 emission are specific objectives. The group of countries selected for this study are Sri Lanka, India, Norway, and the United States of America. This study uses secondary data for each country collected from the World Bank database for the period of 1994-2018. A period of 25 years with 20 cross sections draws 500 total observations. The Fixed Effect Panel Regression (FEPR) method is applied by using SPSS software as the analytical tool of the study. As expected, the p values of the study showed that there is a high impact of economic growth on CO2 emission in Sri Lanka and USA. Further, the study found that the economic growth of India and Norway have less effect on CO2 emission compared to Sri Lanka and USA. The study also found that the size of urban and rural population has a direct impact on CO2 emission in selected countries while GDP growth rate and electric power consumption has no impact into CO2 emission. The study concludes that the overall population of selected countries has significant impact on CO2 emissions since the increase in both urban and rural population has led to higher CO2 emission. Further, the research confirms the Environmental Kuznets Curve analysis since the results show that the countries with higher GDP growth rate and electric power consumption are contributing to lower CO2 emission. Finally, the research suggests that the Sri Lankan policy makers to implement a suitable program to lower the environmental degradation within the country. Developing or importing appropriate and advanced technology can minimize the environmental impact on developing process.
Keywords: Economic growth, CO2 emission, Urban/rural population, GDP growth rate, Electric power consumption


Abstract. The surface reflection of solar radiation comprises an important boundary condition for solar radiative transfer simulations. In polar regions above snow surfaces, the surface reflection is particularly anisotropic due to low Sun elevations and the highly anisotropic scattering phase function of the snow crystals. The characterization of this surface reflection anisotropy is essential for satellite remote sensing over both the Arctic and Antarctica. To quantify the angular snow reflection properties, the hemispherical-directional reflectance factor (HDRF) of snow surfaces was derived from airborne measurements in Antarctica during austral summer in 2013/14. For this purpose, a digital 180∘ fish-eye camera (green channel, 490–585 nm wavelength band) was used. The HDRF was measured for different surface roughness conditions, optical-equivalent snow grain sizes, and solar zenith angles. The airborne observations covered an area of around 1000 km × 1000 km in the vicinity of Kohnen Station (75∘0′ S, 0∘4′ E) at the outer part of the East Antarctic Plateau. The observations include regions with higher (coastal areas) and lower (inner Antarctica) precipitation amounts and frequencies. The digital camera provided upward, angular-dependent radiance measurements from the lower hemisphere. The comparison of the measured HDRF derived for smooth and rough snow surfaces (sastrugi) showed significant differences, which are superimposed on the diurnal cycle. By inverting a semi-empirical kernel-driven bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model, the measured HDRF of snow surfaces was parameterized as a function of solar zenith angle, surface roughness, and optical-equivalent snow grain size. This allows a direct comparison of the HDRF measurements with the BRDF derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite product MCD43. For the analyzed cases, MODIS observations (545–565 nm wavelength band) generally underestimated the anisotropy of the surface reflection. The largest deviations were found for the volumetric model weight fvol (average underestimation by a factor of 10). These deviations are likely linked to short-term changes in snow properties.


Crosslinked copolymers of 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate/methylmethacrylate (HEMA/MMA) with different MMA contents were prepared. Water sorption kinetics, copolymer-solvent interaction parameters (χ) and water structure have been studied with the introduction of chloride sodium (NaCl). The results indicate that when increasing the ionic strength of NaCl, the equilibrium water content and diffusion coefficient both decrease but copolymer-solvent interaction parameters increase. The amount of freezing water and nonfreezing water were determined by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC).


Title of Thesis: Sustainable Entrepreneurship: The Motivations & Challenges of Sustainable Entrepreneurs in the Renewable Energy Industry Authors: Bell, J. F., & Stellingwerf, J. J. Tutor: Achtenhagen, L. University: Jönköping International Business School Master Program: Strategic Entrepreneurship Sustainability and sustainable development is slowly gathering momentum in public discourse, and greater attention and reverence in academic research. While there still appears to be no consensus defining sustainability, which has lead to hampered discussion, this should not impede nor hinder a greater call for dialogue of how to ultimately change the world, and for the global economy to consider what type of individual will address environmental and social issues simultaneously. We consider 'traditional' entrepreneurship still necessary and vital to the continuing development of disruptive innovation and market change, however, a new breed of entrepreneur must now achieve greater focus. A sustainable shift in societies development is required to guarantee a capacity to endure. Sustainable development is critical to not only the environments long-term well-being, but also a necessity to curve the ultimate slow demise of the human race. Economic responsibly toward the environment and society is imperative. Sustainable development meets at the confluence of three constituent parts environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-political sustainability, the foundations to an emerging new field of entrepreneurship Sustainable Entrepreneurship. Sustainable Entrepreneurs enact a holistic approach to a venture start-up that embeds environmental, economic and social sustainability dimensions. Sustainable Entrepreneurs have received insufficient attention by the media, policy makers and have failed to grab the attention of academics to test theory in an exploratory cross-case analysis approach. Previous research has mainly been conceptual and theoretical. Literature is lacking practical insights into how entrepreneurs conduct sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives and whether such definitions hold true. A cross-case analysis of five entrepreneurs operating in the renewable energy industry is conducted, evaluating theory against real life. We fill this gap by conducting exploratory research in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, identifying the entrepreneurs motivations to start-up their unique venture, challenges faced throughout the venture development process and their impact within their defined market. It is evident throughout the five case studies all our entrepreneurs have encountered some sort of antecedent exposure to an environmental concern; leading to our belief that prior exposure to a sustainability related market failure has resulted in these entrepreneurs to pursue their business initiative. Leading from this analysis, it is evident Sustainable Entrepreneurs are highly motivated to solve environmental and/ or social related problems (sustainability-related market failures). Customer perceptions and unawareness for alternative sustainable products remain a considerable challenge. It is proposed that patents, cooperating with educational institutions, establishment of an international network and organisational culture, are all important practices that assist in the business development.


Objective To find out the situation of rodent infected by new tick pathogens in Suifenhe and Dongning ports.Methods Field investigation and epidemiological investigation methods were used in this study.Results Nine kinds of tick pathogens were detected in 102 rodent.The species infected were mainly Apodemus agrarius and Microtus fortis.The main tick pathogen was Babesia microti and B.divergens,with the highest infection rate of 25.0%-27.3% and 33.0%-42.9% respectively,followed by Borrelia garinii and B.afzelii,with the infection rate of 21.2%-30.0% and 28.6%-33.0% respectively.The infection of tick borne encephalitis virus to rodent was the lowest,with the infection rate of 5.00%.Conclusion The rodent infected by tick pathogen were mainly A.agrarius and M.fortis in the two ports,which would provide the evidence for further epidemiological investigation.


The Lazy Eye SIR,-I would like to answer Mr. S. Black's accusation (Jan. 10, p. 77) that the School Ophthalmic Service is essentially curative. Admittedly this is so in many parts of the country, but in Devon the preventive side is considered the most important. For the past ten years the Devon County Council has entrusted the Ophthalmic Service to the care of two full-time ophthalmic surgeons under the County Medical Officer. There is complete. liaison between the Maternity and Child Welfare Department and the School Ophthalmic Service, and infants are seen and followed through their pre-school and school years. Any infants suspected, even remotely, of eye defect by medical officer, health visitor, or parents are referred to the ophthalmic surgeon for full examination, and having once been referred they become the responsibility of the ophthalmic department. In this way congenital defects, squints, errors of refraction, particularly high degrees of anisometropia, are treated at an early age and the development of amblyopia prevented. On attaining school age every child in every school has a visual acuity test every year, the most important group being that of the school entrants, who, though they are not conversant with letters, are tested by other reliable and scientific methods. Any child not attaining the standard of 6/6 in each eye separately is referred for ophthalmic examination, through which it is possible to find visual defects early so that treatment can be instituted before it is too late to be effective. Naturally many cases referred are found to have no ophthalmic defects at all, but the principle is maintained that it is better to examine the normal than miss the defective.-I am, etc..


To the Editor: —Noting your article on methods of blood transfusion (Therapeutics,The Journal, June 17, 1916, p. 1923), may I call attention to the advantages of the Abelmann syringe method which you illustrate? This simple instrument makes it possible for one operator to transfuse blood with certainty and ease. I have performed over a thousand blood transfusions, without any assistance whatsoever. The apparatus is also admirably adapted for administering salvarsan. With all my transfusion work, I have had no fatalities and during the past year have had no alarming symptoms develop as the result of administering incompatible blood. The biologic test for blood incompatibility developed by this method is more delicate and reliable than the laboratory tests, and can be made in a few minutes. The blood is taken at chosen intervals, giving such measured quantities as the condition warrants. The results obtained in treating certain chronic conditions in


To evaluate whether clonidine exerts its action within the central nervous system or outside the central nervous system to induce hyperglycemia, we compared the effects of clonidine injected into the third cerebral ventricle or intravenously on hepatic venous plasma glucose concentrations in fasted rats. Clonidine administration produced a dose-dependent hyperglycemia in each case. At all tested doses (5, 50, and 100 nmol) the hyperglycemic responses to clonidine injected intravenously were not significantly different from those to clonidine injected into the third cerebral ventricle. Intraperitoneal pretreatment with yohimbine (50 nmol) or phentolamine (50 nmol), both α-adrenergic antagonists, reduced the hyperglycemic response to clonidine (100 nmol) given intravenously, but these antagonists preinjected into the third cerebral ventricle did not reduce the response. Moreover, no significant differences in venous plasma clonidine concentrations were observed when intravenous and third cerebral ventricle injections of clonidine (100 nmol) were compared. These results suggest that clonidine-induced hyperglycemia is mainly mediated by the peripheral mechanism rather than through the central mechanism. To gain an insight into the peripheral mechanism for the hyperglycemic action of clonidine, we measured the plasma immunoreactive glucagon and insulin concentrations after intravenous clonidine (100 nmol). We found that plasma immunoreactive glucagon concentrations significantly increased, whereas plasma immunoreactive insulin concentrations did not change significantly despite hyperglycemia. Furthermore, the clonidine-induced hyperglycemia and hyperglucagonemia were completely abolished by constant intravenous infusion of somatostatin (1.0 μg. kg− · min−1). These results suggest that clonidine-induced hyperglycemia is associated with not only the suppression of insulin release but also the stimulation of glucagon release. Additionally, clonidine may not act directly on the liver to produce hyperglycemia in fasted rats.


X-ray examination of crystals of α-amino isobutyric acid shows them to be built upon a composite monoclinic unit having a=10.59 kx, b=8.97 kx, c=11.34kx, and β=94°, containing eight molecules. The space group is C2/c with all atoms being in the general positions with the following parameters which were determined by the three-dimensional Fourier analysis; nitrogen: x=0.154, y=0.100, z=0.388; carboxylic carbon: x=0.178, y=−0.025, z=0.199; α-carbon: x=0.212, y=−0.031, z=0.331; methyl carbon 1: x=0.355, =−0.027, z=0.365; methyl carbon 2: x=0.148, y=−0.167, z=0.382; oxygen 1: x=0.112, y=0.083, z=0.159; oxygen 2: x=0.224, y=−0.121, z=0.138. Bond distances are 1.26 and 1.20 kx. for carbon-oxygen, 1.52, 1.53 and 1.54 kx. for carbon-carbon and 1.49 kx. for carbon-nitrogen. There are observed a considerably close intramolecular approach between nitrogen and oxygen atoms and also close contact between two methyl groups.


A case report is given of a 24 year old patient who had relapsing massive gastrointestinal bleeding from varices in the duodenum and jejunum, due to occlusion of the mesenterial vein. There is only one similar case described in the literature. 97 patients with varices of the small intestine have been described; in 41 of these cases there was extrahepatic, in 47 intrahepatic portal hypertension. In 60 of the 91 cases varices were found in the duodenum, less frequently in the ileum or jejunum too. In another 10 cases varices had formed around an ileostomy. In 1/3 of all cases abdominal surgery had preceded formation of varices in the small intestine. Pathogenesis, diagnosis and therapy are discussed.


Plant volatile compounds have been shown to affect microbial growth and seed germination. Here two fruity volatiles found in strawberry ( Fragaria × ananassa ), γ-decalactone ("peachlike" aroma) and methyl anthranilate ("grapelike" aroma), were tested for effects on relevant pathogens and seedling emergence. Significant growth reduction was observed for Botrytis cinerea , Colletotrichum gloeosporioides , Colletotrichum acutatum , Phomopsis obscurans , and Gnomonia fragariae at 1 mM γ-decalactone or methyl anthranilate, and 5 mM γ-decalactone or methyl anthranilate supplemented medium resulted in complete cessation of fungal growth. Phytophthora cactorum was especially sensitive to 1 mM γ-decalactone, showing complete growth inhibition. Bacteriostatic effects were observed in Xanthamonas cultures. Postharvest infestations on store-bought strawberries were inhibited with volatile treatment. The γ-decalactone volatile inhibited strawberry and Arabidopsis thaliana germination. These findings show that two compounds contributing to strawberry flavor may also contribute to shelf life and suggest that γ-decalactone may play an ecological role by preventing premature germination.


Natural steppe grasslands are the principal food resource for sheep in the Patagonia region, reared for meat and wool. However, there is currently a concern about the relationship between ruminant livestock and climate change due to its contribution to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The objective of this study was to determine the carbon footprints (CF) of sheep meat (lamb) and wool on a range of farms using empirical data collected on farm and then upscaled to the regional scale using models that use topographic, climatic, and vegetation indices as independent variables. At the regional level, the total CF of lamb and wool (the combination of emissions produced on farm, via transport, and via industrial processing) varied from 10.64 to 41.32 kg CO2-eq/kg for lamb meat (carcass) and from 7.83 to 18.70 kg CO2-eq/kg for fine-grade wool. For both, the predominant contribution was from primary production on-farm (75–90%), followed by industrial processing (2–15%), and transportation. We used multiple regression models to produce maps of lamb and wool CF at farm gate across Santa Cruz province. The model for variation of lamb CF explained 95% of the variance on the data and the most significant predictor variables were temperature seasonality and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, dimensionless). The most important variables for the model of CF of greasy wool production at farm gate were isothermality, temperature seasonality, and NDVI explained 98%. The lowest CF values of both products (lamb and wool) were located in more productive grasslands. The successful management of livestock GHG emissions becomes an important challenge to the scientific, commercial, and policy communities. The results of CF for lamb and wool production found in the present work assist in characterizing the greenhouse gas emissions profile of livestock products in Southern Patagonia by providing a baseline against which mitigation actions can be planned and progress monitored.


The close intra-arterial injection of mescaline in adequate doses causes partial or complete paralysis in the dog neuromuscular preparation. Mescaline and curare tend to supplement one another with respect to their depressant actions on indirectly stimulated skeletal muscle. After complete blockade with mescaline, the muscle can readily be activated by direct stimulation. Following chronic denervation, the directly stimulated muscle fails to show an immediate depression of contractions when mescaline is administered. Adrenaline, KCl and prostigmine can oppose the paralyzing action of mescaline. The site of action of mescaline in producing paralysis is localized in the neuromuscular complex.


The Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), in a little over 2 years, have established a Southern African AIDS Training Programme (SAT) that is effective in developing community-based responses to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, the program provides financial assistance, training, monitoring, and advice and information to 120 project partners. The average grant size is $40,000. In a second phase of the project, SAT will attempt to meet the requests of its partners for more services. Currently, to meet needs for rapid, responsive training, and novel approaches to skill building, SAT has developed a collaborative nongovernmental organization (NGO) initiative, "The School Without Walls". This program identifies and amplifies what has worked effectively for organizations and programs. Other similar organizations and programs learn from these experiences. Site visits, apprenticeships, mentor organizations, and skills-building based on shared problem-diagnosis and resolution are some of the techniques employed. A draft report of the CIDA midterm external evaluation of SAT recommends renewal of the program, resourcing of the program to meet its regional responsibilities, and adoption of "The School Without Walls" as a central strategy for southern Africa.


In many gynodioecious species, gender differences have been documented. Previous studies on populations of Lobelia spicata consistently documented hermaphrodites having larger corollas than females, but inconsistencies as to whether females had higher fruit set or not. In this study we expanded the data set on floral morphology, and to relate morphological differences to potential reproductive output we recorded stigma pollen loads and pollen tube growth to the ovary for both genders from four populations. Also, individuals were bagged to determine if and how much self-pollen deposition occurred on stigmas. Because this species is self-compatible but protandrous, it was thought unlikely to be able to self-fertilize through autogamy. Hermaphroditic flowers were larger than female flowers in four out of the six flower traits analyzed. Overall, hermaphroditic flowers had larger corollas and stigma–nectary distance, but female flowers had longer and wider stigmas and more ovules. Open-pollinated hermaphroditic flowers received more pollen grains on the stigma than female flowers. Positive correlations were found between floral morphological traits and stigma pollen load, but only for hermaphrodites. Pollen was found on the stigmas of all hermaphroditic bagged individuals and on a few female bagged individuals, though pollen tube growth was quite limited. Lastly, population differences were found. This study has identified several floral morphological traits and pollen grain/tube differences between genders and among populations for Lobelia spicata, supporting overall patterns identified in other gynodioecious species and adding a more detailed description of differences between the reproductive biology of each gender for this particular species.


Purpose: To examine the effects of auricular acupressure on symptoms of patients with allergic rhinitis and their quality of life. Methods: A quasi experimental was used with a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest method involving 56 adult outpatients who were seen in the Allergy & Asthma clinic at a tertiary referral hospital in Seoul, Korea. The experimental group (n=28) received 2 weeks of auricular acupressure to the Shenmen, wind stream, endocrine, adrenal, and lung acupuncture points; no acupressure was provided to the control group (n=28). Outcome measures included Total Nasal Symptom Score used to assess nasal symptoms, and the Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire to assess the quality of life. Repeated measure ANOVA and independent t-test were used to calculate statistical significance. Results: The experimental group showed significant improvements in terms of allergic rhinitis symptoms (p<.001) and on the Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire (p<.001) compared to the control group. Conclusion: Finding in this study indicate that auricular acupressure can be used as a nursing intervention to alleviate nasal symptoms and improve rhinoconjuctivitis quality of life in allergic rhinitis patients.


Three studies examined the relative valence and strength of implicit attitudes toward Arab-Muslims using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) while exploring the moderation of such implicit effects. Studies have suggested that repeated exposure to information associating members of a social group (e.g., Arab-Muslims) with evaluative attributes (e.g., terrorism) might create automatic attitudes toward them. Consistent with this notion, the IAT results indicated strong implicit preference for White over Arab-Muslim, whereas the magnitude of such a bias was substantially diminished when assessed by explicit measures (Study 1). It is also interesting to note that participants exhibited implicit preference for Black over Arab-Muslim when measured by the IAT, whereas no difference was found between the 2 groups in stimulus familiarity and in explicit attitudes (Studies 2 and 3). However, such implicit effects were moderated when participants were exposed to positive information about Arab-Muslims (Study 3). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are further discussed.


In general, research findings on the emergence of international assessments focus on the time period after 1990. Indeed, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the internationalization of education policies and particularly the inclination for assessment by so-called international experts became dominant, symbolized not least by the OECD's publication of the first issue of Education at a Glance 1992: OECD Indicators (OECD, 1992). This is an indication of a 'comparative turn', based on international indicators that allow evaluation of the individual educational systems (Martens, 2007). However, this chapter argues that what becomes visible after the end of the Cold War is less the emergence of something new—brainchild of a neoliberal ideology of globalization, for instance—but more a materialized expression of a Cold War grid of thinking. In support of this thesis, after providing some contextual information, the chapter identifies three stages in the development of international education indicators in the 1960s—namely, first, the idea and vision of forecasting (largely quantitative description), then, under the catchwords of development and growth, the commitment to planning with regard to defined (quantitative) benchmarks, and, last, the idea of management, meaning fundamentally changing the whole school systems on all levels, foremost its quality, leading eventually to a quantification of school quality, and by that contributing to overall attempts at social engineering, based upon defined indicators.


This paper describes a soft-error tolerant and marginenhanced nMOS-pMOS reversed 6T SRAM cell. The 6T SRAM bitcell comprises pMOS access and driver transistors, and nMOS load transistors. Therefore, the nMOS and pMOS masks are reversed in comparison with those of a conventional bitcell. In scaled process technology, The pMOS transistors present advantages of small random dopant fluctuation, strainenhanced saturation current, and small soft-error sensitivity. The fourpMOS and two-nMOS structure improves the soft-error rate plus operating margin. We conduct SPICE and neutron-induced soft-error simulations to evaluate the n-p reversed 6T SRAM bitcell in 130-nm to 22-nm processes. At the 22-nm node, a multiple-cell-upset and single-bit-upset SERs are improved by 34% and 51% over a conventional 6T cell. Additionally, the static noise margin and read cell current are 2.04× and 2.81× improved by leveraging the pMOS benefits. key words: robust SRAM, soft error rate, neutron particle, single bit upset, multiple cell upset, nucleus reaction


The diversity of arboreal species and the forest structure composition of Pinus patula Schl et Cham under different silvicultural conditions, in Ixtlan of Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico was evaluated and compared. The information was registered only for trees over 7,5 cm of diameter breast height ( dbh ). The diversity was estimated through the Shannon Index (H'), the structural composition was defined through three characteristics, mingling species, spatial distribution and size differentiation, through the indices, Mingling by Godow (Mi), Contagion (Wi) and Dominance (Ui), respectively. The analysis was carried out comparing four silvicultural conditions called, pole stage, young stem, medium stem and old stem. The comparative results showed that greater diversity was presented in the medium stem and old stem forest. The major mingling degree was presented in the old stem condition. The tree distribution, in the four environments, presented a random distribution pattern and the dominance of Pinus patula is increasing while the condition develops.


The purpose of this study is to evaluate long-term clinical and angiographic follow-up results after placement of the Palmaz-Schatz stent and angiographic follow-up results of repeat interventions for stent restenosis. From June 1990 to September 1993, the Palmaz-Schatz stent was placed in 411 patients, 427 lesions. Follow-up angiography was performed in 307 lesions at 3-6 months and in 189 lesions at 1 year. Palmaz-Schatz stent implantation resulted in 97.2% procedure success and 94.6% clinical success. Stent thrombosis was observed in 2.2%. Angiographic restenosis rate was 16.3% at 3-6 months study. At 1 year study, "new" restenosis occurred only in 2.3%. Minimal lumen diameter did not change between 6 months and 1 year (2.32 +/- 0.51 mm vs 2.30 +/- 0.54 mm). With the mean follow-up interval of 22 +/- 9 months, cardiac event-free survival was achieved in 74.3%. Among 50 lesions with restenosis, stent restenosis occurred diffusely in 15 lesions (30%), focally inside the stent in 22 lesions (44%) and focally at the stent border in 13 lesions (26%). Repeat interventions were performed in 35 lesions. Restenosis at 3 months after repeat intervention was demonstrated in 9 (32.1%) out of 28 lesions restudied. Restenosis rate after repeat intervention for diffuse stent restenosis was significantly higher than that for focal in-stent restenosis (75% vs 7.7%). Palmaz-Schatz stent implantation was associated with a high initial success rate and a low late restenosis rate. Luminal renarrowing did not occur beyond 6 months up to 1 year.


Eugenia Linnaeus (1753: 470) is a widespread tropical genus with about 385 species in Brazil (Govaerts et al. 2014, Sobral et al. 2016), most of which grow in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest biome (Oliveira-Filho & Fontes 2000). This richness, allied to the fact that some species are known from a single historical collection, perhaps a specimen with only fruits or only flowers, results at times in considerable taxonomic uncertainty, making it difficult to identify specimens with any level of confidence (Landrum & Kawasaki 1997: 509).


Neurological side-effects of linezolid manifesting as a posterior reversible leuco-encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is rare. Early identification of this offending drug might reverse this catastrophic event. We report a 45-year-old female, who was diagnosed as a case of disseminated tuberculosis and was treated with antitubercular drugs (ATT), but later developed ATT-induced hepatitis. She was then put on modified ATT (moxifloxacin, terizidone, and linezolid). In the next two days she developed an altered sensorium. Brain imaging was suggestive of PRES. Linezolid was withdrawn, following which she showed an excellent clinical and radiological recovery.


: "Metaverse" has been gaining popularity since 2021 and the term has observably inextricable relation with cinema. But the implication of Metaverse film should be far more than a sci-fi subgenre. Following Deleuze and Manovich's discourse of intermediality analysis, this paper discusses how Metaverse influences cinema with its connotation, cultural principles as well as its technologies, argues that it may bring about a fundamental change to cinema, especially when it is integrated with video installations, which will change cinema in all aspects of its aesthetics, narrative and distribution, and explores these revolutions from both the aesthetic and material perspectives of cinema. narrativa e distribuição. Este artigo explora essas revoluções tanto na perspectiva estética quanto material do cinema.


The reduction in scatter during magnification techniques is compared with the effect of grids. The results of extensive measurements concerning scatter and distance in a water phantom are shown in 24 diagrams. The various factors were altered as follows: distance 0-1.5 m., phantom thickness 0-27.5 cm., area 5 cm. x 5 cm. - 30 cm. x 30 cm. and kilovoltage 50-150 kv. The amount of scatter immediately behind the phantom is compared with that through a grid by observing image quality for given amounts of scatter. This "grid-equivalent" image quality can be used to determine the circumstances under which a magnification technique can be employed without using a grid.


The term developmental evaluation was coined by Michael Quinn Patton in the mid-1990s to describe the role of evaluators in the development of an innovative initiative. Core evaluation skills, such as articulating the initiative's theory of change, asking evaluative questions, and providing timely information on emerging results, help the initiative to develop through iterative cycles of learning and adaptation. A growing number of case studies provide valuable insights into the specific situations where developmental evaluation may be useful, the roles and skills required of the evaluator, and the challenges this approach brings. This article provides a concise summary of the insights from theory and case studies to help programme developers and evaluators decide whether and how to use developmental evaluation.


Background and Aims It is believed that the medical reports submitted to the Education Department are wordy and repetitive. The aims of the audit were to create clear and concise reports for the Education as a part of the special needs assessment and to test the above hypothesis. Methods It is a retrospective qualitative analysis of the medical reports submitted to the Education department by a busy Community Paediatrics department of a District General hospital. 46 reports which were submitted to the Education from January 2011 to April 2011 were analysed through a standardised audit questionnaire. Results Of all 46 reports, 100% had parental views expressed, 98% had no repetition, 86% had some documentation about the behaviour, in 85% the summary was clear and concise with appropriate recommendations, 82% had documentation about the hearing and 80% had documentation about the vision and developmental milestones. On the other hand only 56% had some documentation about the medications, 47% had a problem list, 28% had documentation of learning ability and 8% had documentation about strengths. Conclusions The hypothesis that the medical reports are wordy and repetitive is wrong however there should be clear headings for problem list, medications, vision, hearing and developmental milestones. It was found that the existing template for the medical reports was not followed. As a result of this audit, a new template for the medical reports was developed to be used by the Community Paediatricians in an attempt to provide clear and concise reports for the Education Department.


We propose a new mechanism for the formation of dark matter clumps in the radiation era. We assume that a light scalar field is decoupled from matter and oscillates harmonically around its vacuum expectation value. We include self-interactions and consider the nonrelativistic regime. The scalar dynamics are described by a fluid approach where the fluid pressure depends on both quantum and self-interaction effects. When the squared speed of sound of the scalar fluid becomes negative, an instability arises and the fluctuations of the scalar energy-density field start growing. They eventually become nonlinear and clumps form. Subsequently, the clumps aggregate and reach a universal regime. Afterwards, they play the role of cold dark matter. We apply this mechanism first to a model with a negative quartic term stabilized by a positive self-interaction of order six, and then to axion monodromy, where a subdominant cosine potential corrects a mass term. In the first case, the squared speed of sound becomes negative when the quartic term dominates, leading to a tachyonic instability. For axion monodromy, the instability starts very slowly after the squared speed of sound first becomes negative and then oscillates around zero. Initially the density perturbations perform acoustic oscillations due to the quantum pressure. Eventually, they start growing exponentially due to a parametric resonance. The shape and the scaling laws of the clumps depend on their formation mechanism. When the tachyonic phase takes place, the core density of the clumps is uniquely determined by the energy density at the beginning of the instability. On the other hand, for axion monodromy, the core density scales with the soliton mass and radius. This difference comes from the crucial role that the quantum pressure plays in both the parametric resonance in the linear regime and in the nonlinear formation regime of static scalar solitons. In both scenarios, the scalar-field clumps span a wide range of scales and masses, running from the size of atoms to that of galactic molecular clouds, and from 10(-3 )gram to thousands of solar masses. Because of finite-size effects, both from the source and the lens, these dark matter clumps are far beyond the reach of microlensing observations. We find that the formation redshift of the scalar clumps can span a large range in the radiation era; the associated background temperature can vary from 10 eV to 10(5) GeV, and the scalar-field mass from 10(-26 )GeV to 10 GeV.


Searching for objects in an indoor environment can be drastically improved if a task-specific visual saliency is available. We describe a method to incrementally learn such an object-based visual saliency directly on a robot, using an environment exploration mechanism. We first define saliency based on a geometrical criterion and use this definition to segment salient elements given an attentive but costly and restrictive observation of the environment. These elements are used to train a fast classifier that predicts salient objects given large-scale visual features. In order to get a better and faster learning, we use an exploration strategy based on intrinsic motivation to drive our displacement in order to get relevant observations. Our approach has been tested on a robot in indoor environments as well as on publicly available RGB-D images sequences. We demonstrate that the approach outperforms several state-of-the-art methods in the case of indoor object detection and that the exploration strategy can drastically decrease the time required for learning saliency.


The electronic medical record (EMR) is an enabling technology that allows physician practices to pursue more powerful quality improvement programs than is possible with paper-based records. However, achieving quality improvement through EMR use is neither low-cost nor easy. Based on a qualitative study of physician practices that had implemented an EMR, we found that quality improvement depends heavily on physicians' use of the EMR-and not paper-for most of their daily tasks. We identified key barriers to physicians' use of EMRs. We then suggest policy interventions to overcome these barriers, including providing work/practice support systems, improving electronic clinical data exchange, and providing financial rewards for quality improvement.


In an electric vehicle (EV) with in-wheel motors, reducing the weight of the motor is a very important problem in order to improve the driving performance. In this paper, we examine the lightweight design of an outer-rotor-type multipolar switched reluctance (SR) motor applied to a prototype EV. We design three SR motors which have different yoke widths and calculate the motor characteristics at a steady rotational speed based on a finite element method. We discuss the optimum relationship between a pole and yoke widths.


Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy studies were carried out on single crystals of colossal magnetoresistive manganite Pr0.68Pb0.32MnO3 at different temperatures in order to probe their spatial homogeneity across the metal-insulator transition temperature TM-I(~255K). A metallic behavior of the local conductance was observed for temperatures T<TM-I. Zero bias conductance (dI/dV)V=0, which is directly proportional to the local surface density of states at the Fermi level, shows a single distribution at temperatures T< 200 K suggesting a homogeneous electronic phase at low temperatures. In a narrow temperature window of 200 K <T<TM-I, however, an inhomogeneous distribution of (dI/dV)V=0 has been observed. This result gives evidence for phase separation in the transition region in this compound


A 10 ns fast luminescence was observed at 270 nm in Cs2LiY Cl6:Ce3+ in addition to the 5dt–4f Ce3+ doublet emission at 370 and 405 nm. This anomalous luminescence occurs exclusively for an excitation of the 4f–5de transitions of Ce3+ around 210 nm. It is not excited under across band gap excitation which makes it an uncommon phenomenon. The emission shows a large Stokes shift of 1.2 eV that must be related to an excited state with a very strong electron–lattice interaction or possible involvement of conduction band states. The 270 nm emission undergoes thermal quenching between 140 and 250 K while the 5dt–4f Ce3+ emission gains intensity. The shape of the decay time spectra of the 5dt–4f Ce3+ emission reflects a temperature activated transfer from the anomalous state to the 5dt lowest Ce3+ level.


The article discusses a new understanding of the reality in the 20th century. Since the key figure in these changes was the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, we refer to his early and later articles to analyze the use of the term "reality". Through an analysis of the terms, it is shown that Bohr describes discoveries in earlier articles that are inconsistent with old concepts in physics, and it is these questions that will further lead him to a new understanding of reality. In the article we also indicate how many times and in what contexts the term "reality" is used. Further, we find that the term "reality" is more common in later articles than in his earlier works (Copenhagen's interpretation of quantum theory had not yet been formulated at the time of writing the early works). Through the analyzing of usage of certain terms, we show how the emphasis in the early and late Bohr's articles shifts. For many years, the Danish physicist has sought to clarify quantum theory. In some later articles, we note that the problems affect not only physical, but also other areas of knowledge. We also analyze the use of the term in later articles. This analysis shows how Niels Bohr's discoveries in the nature of the objects of the micro-world lead him to questions about the nature of reality. How discoveries in the microcosm affect the new conception of reality is best traced in controversy with other physicists. As the most striking example, we took the article "Discussion with Einstein on epistemological problems in atomic physics". In this article, Bohr describes the specific behavior of micro-objects, features of physical experiments and proves the idea that a fundamentally new (including ontological plan) understanding of physical processes is needed. An analysis of the terms shows that, from Bohr's point of view, reality itself is as described by its quantum mechanics. We strive to show the evolution of Bohr's views in the context of how they influenced the revision of all physics. We conclude that the discovery of stationary states in an atom is the first step to rethinking philosophical questions of a nature of reality.


This article explores in four sections the logic and impact of the ways in which all archival collections, but African American collections most poignantly, are incomplete; and how a national search engine for African American history confronts and attempts to address the absence of African American stories, voices, documents, and histories. Following the work of scholars such as Verne Harris, Michelle Caswell, and others, the first section analyzes how and why archives are always necessarily incomplete, as well as the particular reasons behind the bias and erasure of and within African American history and the archives that have come to collect and represent it. The second section discusses how Umbra Search African American History (umbrasearch.org) was conceived as a response to the need for a more complete archival record of African American history and culture. Section three presents Umbra Search as a case study—what it is, how it has grown, the role of partners, and the challenges it faces. The final section considers the roles of academic and community collections, technology, and collaboration in creating access to a deeper and more fulsome representation of American history and culture.


Here we report the first case of an inverted duplicated neocentric small supernumerary marker chromosome present in a karyotype 47,XX,+mar(Y). As expected a partial disomy of Ypter to Yp11.2 did not lead to any major malformations. However, the formation of an inverted duplicated chromosome from a Y chromosome is not possible by a U-type exchange, as has been suggested for such kind of neocentric marker chromosomes. Thus, some evidence is here provided that this concept might not always be true.


The FirePlex® microRNA (miRNA) Assay enables high-throughput, multiplexed analysis of miRNAs directly from complex biofluids to provide robust data for miRNA biomarker discovery and verification. Here, we demonstrate strong cross-platform concordance of the FirePlex miRNA Assay with other profiling technologies while showing excellent data reproducibility even with diminishing RNA input.


We apply the principle of structured illumination microscopy to a fluidic imaging device. The necessary phase shifts are no longer obtained by controlled displacement of the illumination pattern but by flowing the sample itself. The resulting scheme retains all the benefits of fluid systems while enabling easy integration with existing microscopes, flow cytometers, and aquatic imagers. We present the theory of flow-based structured illumination and demonstrate the technique experimentally by reconstructing super-resolved images of yeast cells.


ABSTRACT This paper examines the shifting approaches to ethnic representation in the multi-ethnic democracies of Pacific Asia (that is, Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific). While Tan and Preece (this volume) chart the range of quotas and seat reservations across Asia, I argue that more integrative approaches to the political representation of ethnicity are also evident in Asia's new and emerging democracies. Comparative institutional analysis shows a shift in ethnic inclusion in Asia towards more aggregative electoral processes, pan-ethnic political parties, and oversized multiethnic executive governments. With few exceptions, the region has abandoned the idea that cleavages of ethnicity, region or language should be replicated directly in the political architecture of the state, seeking instead to aggregate social cleavages into majoritarian multiethnic institutions. This marks a change from earlier decades, and highlights a regional shift towards more 'centripetal' models of institutional design.


We analysed neural network dynamics by a Caianiello type of equation with special reference to memory organization and the corresponding synaptic connection matrix. Global analysis of the dynamics yielded only stable equilibrium configurations and no periodic solutions.


The authors report reliable single-pass second harmonic generation (SHG) of more than 400 mW of 532 nm average power from a compact, all-solid state non-planar ring Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. A maximum single-pass efficiency of 65% is observed. The second harmonic output is a single-frequency mode and has diffraction limited beam quality.


We studied the ability of lectins isolated from the surface of the two strains of nitrogenfixing soil bacteria of the genus Azospirillum, A. brasilense Sp7 (epiphytic) and A. brasilense Sp245 (endophytic), to show have a regulating effect on the activity of pectinolytic enzymes in the roots of wheat seedlings. Research results showed that the lectins under study can cause the induction of the activity of polygalacturonase, pectinesterase, pectatlyase from the plant cell wall, thereby ensuring the bacteria penetration in the plant tissues, as well as the induction of plants responses which, being combined with growth-stimulating effect of bacteria, contributes to the formation of plants stability and productivity.


Abstract The postprandial regulation of progranulin by oral uptake of lipids and carbohydrates in healthy individuals has not yet been investigated. The regulation of progranulin in 2 large cohorts of healthy volunteers during oral lipid tolerance test (OLTT; n=100) and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; n=100) was analyzed. One hundred healthy volunteers underwent OLTT and OGTT in an outpatient setting. Venous blood was drawn at 0 hours (h) (fasting) and at 2, 4, and 6 h in OLTT or 1 and 2 h in OGTT. A novel OLTT solution completely free of carbohydrates and protein was applied. Subjects were characterized by anthropometric and laboratory parameters. Serum concentrations of progranulin were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Circulating progranulin levels remained unchanged during OLTT and OGTT. Fasting progranulin levels ranged between 31.3±8.7 and 40.6±7.7 ng/ml and were not different in subgroups addressing BMI, gender, family history, smoking habits, and hormonal contraception. There was a reciprocal correlation of progranulin with HDL (negative) and LDL cholesterol levels (positive). In healthy adults, fasting and postprandial circulating progranulin levels are not different in BMI subgroups. Oral uptake of carbohydrates and lipids does not influence circulating progranulin levels in a short-term manner. A postprandial and short-term regulation of this adipokine is absent, at least in healthy subjects. There is a negative correlation of progranulin with HDL cholesterol, but a positive correlation with LDL cholesterol. This reciprocal association might be of physiological importance for an individual's atherosclerotic risk.


The hypothesis is tested that individuals exposed to traumatic stress who currently have lower social support have higher rates of post-traumatic stress and associated disorders. To test this, the current prevalence of five psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress, generalized anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse, were studied among a random sample of veterans who served in Vietnam (N = 2,490) and a random sample of "era" veterans who did not (N = 1,972). Logistic regression was used to analyze each disorder, controlling for past combat exposure, current social status, childhood delinquency, military adjustment, and current social support. Combat exposure was the best predictor of post-traumatic stress and was also associated with anxiety and depression, but not alcohol or drug abuse. Substance abuse was associated with childhood delinquency, and the best predictor of drug abuse was illicit Army drug use. Lower social support was associated with all disorders, except drug abuse. Although the causal nexus is not clear in this case, this study suggests that future research and clinical interventions should not overlook the significance of social support among victims of traumatic stress.


We observed that a defect related to carbon and phosphorus was formed during the carbon-enhanced annihilation of thermal donors at 470°C in silicon. We determined, using deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), that the defect has a deep level at Ec-0.36 eV and its density has positive correlation with carbon and phosphorus densities. The formation rate of the defect is proportional to the phosphorus density. We also observed the 767 meV photoluminescence line (P-line) that had been identified as the complex with a core of interstitial carbon, vacancy and oxygen dimer. We tentatively ascribe the Ec-0.36 eV defect to the pair of interstitial carbon and substitutional phosphorus.


Due to the highly complex nature of fluorescent lamp discharge, its electrical behavior and interaction with ballast can only be fully investigated and understood in the framework of a self-consistent model. Collisional-radiative modeling provides the capability to describe in details the microscopic reactions in the discharge on the basis of three groups of continuity equations: particle balance, electron energy and gas temperature. This paper discusses the formulation of these equations and later applies them to modeling the lamp's electrical behavior in a ballast environment. Prototypes of the conventional magnetic ballast and half-bridge LCC inverter ballast were constructed to verify the model accuracy. The self-consistency of the model has enabled the computer design of lamp ballast for any given lamp parameters, that is: lamp radius, wall temperature, buffer gas pressure, power supply voltage or current, frequency and power.


Abstract Housing has become the most important asset held by a large proportion of China's older citizens. Therefore, the role of housing wealth in the consumption decisions of the elderly is a central topic of research and gains insights into the saving, investment and consumption decisions made throughout household life to meet later pension needs. In this paper, using data drawn from a household survey conducted between 2002 and 2009, we estimate the influence of housing wealth on the non-housing consumption of the elderly, and identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We find that on average, changes in housing wealth have limited effects on elderly consumption. However, we also find that the role of housing in consumption differs according to the income, health status, and living arrangements of the elderly. The paper draws attention to the influence of housing and its links with social and health-care systems on the lives of older people, with important policy implications.


Introduction This session focuses on the impact of a far-reaching campaign to tackle work-related exposures to carcinogens – and examines what now needs to be done to cut instances of occupational cancer. Methods Launched by IOSH in 2014, No Time to Lose has raised awareness and understanding of work-related exposure to carcinogens, and helped organisations take action. The campaign has offered free, practical materials for businesses to deliver effective prevention programmes for solar radiation, diesel exhaust emissions and silica dust. To maximise its impact, IOSH has encouraged organisations to sign the campaign pledge, outlining what they will undertake to manage carcinogenic exposures. Results Since its launch, the campaign has reached more than 66 million people worldwide through media coverage. More than 200 organisations have formally supported it, with another 100-plus businesses signing up to the pledge. The campaign website has had 2 07 000 visits, with the free resources downloaded 71 000 times. No Time to Lose has been presented at 139 events around the world, in countries including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt and Ireland. And in November 2016, IOSH, industry leaders, academics and safety and health experts agreed 'Tackling respirable crystalline silica together: a cross-industry commitment', a cross-sector plan of action to reduce exposures to this hazardous substance. Discussion No Time to Lose has raised awareness and understanding of occupational cancer, but carcinogenic exposure remains a widespread threat – an estimated 7 42 000 people die annually from occupational cancer, according to research findings published in 2017. There are barriers to progress, such as the long latency period between the disease's contraction and symptoms, and attitudinal issues prevalent in male-dominated industries. This session will be a platform for discussing a global, cross-sector approach to tackling occupational cancer, and explore what delegates can do to promote awareness and help manage its risks among their communities and networks.


Critical-current (J c ) measurements for YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-δ (YBCO), Gd 0.6 Ca 0.4 Ba 1.6 La 0.4 Cu 3 O 7-δ (TX-GBCO) and TX-GBCO/YBCO bilayers were performed with transport measurements at different applied magnetic fields. The film samples were prepared by pulsed laser deposition n and patterned as microbridges. The highest J c (1. 5 X 10 6 A/cm 2 ) at 75 K in 5 Tesla (Hllab) was observed for TX-GBCO/YBCO bilayers, which showed a 40 % increase in J c over YBCO under the same conditions. The bilayer samples possess a T c at 90 K and display superconducting properties similar to YBCO. A possible mechanisms for the high J c of bilayer YBCO films is discussed. Development of these bilayer and multilayer structures represents a promising new direction to improve the superconducting properties of YBCO since the TX-GBCO layer provide both protection against corrosion and a significant improvement in J c .


Cortical morphologic changes in kidneys of patients with sickle cell anemia include vascular dilatation and engorgement of vessels with red blood cells, glomerular enlargement, hypertrophy and hypercellularity of glomerular mesangial cells, and iron deposits in various glomerular and tubular structures. Occasionally, glomerular sclerosis develops, with resultant end-stage renal failure. In the renal medulla, vascular congestion, edema, focal scarring, and occasional papillary necrosis are seen. Vascular dilatation and engorgement also occur in renal pelvis submucosa, where vessel rupture may cause hematuria. Young patients with sickle cell anemia have increased total renal blood flow while medullary blood flow is probably decreased. Glomerular filtration rate is also increased in young patients. A renal concentrating defect is reversible in younger age groups, becoming irreversible in older patients.


The article deals with urgent questions of the rational application of antifebriles among children. The author provides modern data on the efficiency and safety of antifebriles applied in pediatric practices. Key words: fever, antifebriles, paracetamol, ibuprofen, children.


Frequent lane changes during congestion at freeway bottlenecks such as merge and weaving areas further reduce roadway capacity. The emergence of deep reinforcement learning (RL) and connected and automated vehicle technology provides a possible solution to improve mobility and energy efficiency at freeway bottlenecks through cooperative lane changing. Deep RL is a collection of machine-learning methods that enables an agent to improve its performance by learning from the environment. In this study, a decentralized cooperative lane-changing controller was developed using proximal policy optimization by adopting a multi-agent deep RL paradigm. In the decentralized control strategy, policy learning and action reward are evaluated locally, with each agent (vehicle) getting access to global state information. Multi-agent deep RL requires lower computational resources and is more scalable than single-agent deep RL, making it a powerful tool for time-sensitive applications such as cooperative lane changing. The results of this study show that cooperative lane changing enabled by multi-agent deep RL yields superior performance to human drivers in term of traffic throughput, vehicle speed, number of stops per vehicle, vehicle fuel efficiency, and emissions. The trained RL policy is transferable and can be generalized to uncongested, moderately congested, and extremely congested traffic conditions.


The fourth edition of CIMA's "Official Study Systems" is published by Elsevier on behalf of CIMA. Key sections of the 2004 Study Systems are again written by examiners so each text fully reflects what could be tested in the exam. Updated to incorporate legislative and syllabus changes, the 2004 Study Systems provide complete study material for the May and November 2004 exams. The new edition maintains the popular loose-leaf format and contains topic summaries and recommended reading articles from a range of journals. CIMA's Study Systems are the only books with past papers and examiners answers. Nov 2002 and May 2003 Q&As are included in this edition. The official study systems are the only study materials endorsed by CIMA. The key sections are written by examiners for the most accurate, up-to-date guidance towards exam success. It is a complete integrated package incorporating syllabus guidance, full text, recommended articles, revision guides and extensive question practice including November 2002 and May 2003 question papers and examiners answers.


In this research I am interested in the issue of the relationship between the religious and philosophical phenomenon. I think there is a unity of these two phenomena in the beginning of the history of Romanian philosophy; and also, I think, in any beginning of a particular philosophy, be it ancient or modern. I try to formulate, in my paper, arguments for the following two ideas: 1) the beginning of the Romanian philosophy is complex: three works belong, together, to this beginning; 2) each of these works, but also their unity, imply, in a great measure, religion.


The Budget held two unpleasant surprises for equity investors and those who invest in businesses in South Africa. The real impact of these surprises will likely be felt long after our current crop of politicians have retired, but my feeling is that they are going to be detrimental to our country in the long term.


The timing jitter of a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) can be a limiting factor for the performance of quantum key distribution (QKD). Within QKD receiver modules, single mode fiber coupling has been extensively studied due to optical fiber-based demonstrations. However, multimode fiber, which is utilized for free-space demonstrations because it reduces the coupling losses, has been less extensively studied, but it is understood that multimode fibers will increase the timing jitter and decrease the performance of the detector as the fiber core diameter increases. Here, we present a collection of experimental analysis over the relationships between characteristics of multimode fiber such as length, core diameter and incident spot size and how this impacts the timing jitter of the detector. Additionally, we present analysis on the use of graded-index multimode fibers, mitigating for a portion of the impact on quantum bit error rate (QBER) due to multimode characteristics which can improve implementation of these receiver systems.


An approach is presented for the explicit representation of heterogeneity of micro–structure within the constitutive description of superplastic materials. The evolution of inhomogeneous distribution of grain size is modelled, and is fully coupled with the material–s deformation behaviour. The approach is used to model the evolution of initial distributions of grain size during superplasticity and comparisons are made with experimental results. Good comparisons are achieved. The model is used to investigate the effects of different distributions of initial grain size, and their evolution, on subsequent mechanical properties in superplasticity. The experimentally observed dependence of stress–strain–rate behaviour on the distribution of grain size is correctly predicted by the model. Increasing the range of the distribution of grain size is found to lead to increased flow stresses and to reduced strain–rate sensitivities. The effect of the distribution of grain size on strain–rate sensitivity, and the ability of a model to predict it, are technologically important because the properties of superplastically formed components are dependent on strain–rate sensitivity and, in turn, on the distribution of grain size. The model presented therefore provides a step towards the successful design and optimization, by means of process modelling, of superplastic–forming processes.


We present SQLova, the first Natural-language-to-SQL (NL2SQL) model to achieve human performance in WikiSQL dataset. We revisit and discuss diverse popular methods in NL2SQL literature, take a full advantage of BERT {Devlin et al., 2018) through an effective table contextualization method, and coherently combine them, outperforming the previous state of the art by 8.2% and 2.5% in logical form and execution accuracy, respectively. We particularly note that BERT with a seq2seq decoder leads to a poor performance in the task, indicating the importance of a careful design when using such large pretrained models. We also provide a comprehensive analysis on the dataset and our model, which can be helpful for designing future NL2SQL datsets and models. We especially show that our model's performance is near the upper bound in WikiSQL, where we observe that a large portion of the evaluation errors are due to wrong annotations, and our model is already exceeding human performance by 1.3% in execution accuracy.


Home is a very important notion in human life which helps people establish emotional, social and intellectual belonging and identifications so that they can hold on to life. When the sense of home is contested, the sense of identity is impaired too. Those people who are characterized by the sense of disconnectedness and desire to re-establish their home are known as diasporic people. The protagonist of Maru (1971), Margaret is one of those diasporic people who long for home and attachments to people. This article is an attempt to examine the struggle of Margaret against a ruthless and cruel society. In her status as a diasporic individual, Margaret is seen as a nonhuman being due to her race, as a Masarwa, living in Botswana. She is alienated, and treated as a pariah, because she does not belong to a superior race defined by the colonial British forces which ruled Botswana. The article tries to view the protagonist's estrangement and her experience as a diasporic pariah through the lenses of some of the famous postcolonial critics and writers.  It also tries to explore the origins and aspects of this kind of treatment.


Ozone is a very small part of earth atmosphere, but its presence is nevertheless vital to human well-being. Most ozone resides in the upper part of the atmosphere. This region called the stratosphere is more than 10 kilometers above earth's surface. About 90 percent atmospheric ozone is contained in the ozone layer or ozonosphere which shields every living thing from ultraviolet light from the sun. Total ozone is all the ozone in the atmosphere. Total ozone values often report in Dobson units. Typical values vary between 200 to 500 Dobson over the globe. Total ozone varies strongly with spatial (latitude) and temporal over the planet. This paper with using different statistical as regression analysis, variance analysis and StudentNewman-Keuls (SNK) methods tried to discover the relationship between total ozone and time variation in monthly, seasonal and annual time scale in Isfahan ozone metric station. Analysis of variance shows significant different between time series means p<0.01. The best series agreement with the among of ozone is seasonal series so that average of among of ozone shows a significant in each season with S.N.K test but monthly and yearly mean of ozone don't show significant difference in all of months and years . Spring has the maximum of seasonal mean of ozone and fall has the minimum of it. Results of study on trend indicate a no significant trend in the annual mean in the time series.


The business figures linked to the economy of big companies have shown that large technology platforms are some of the few major beneficiaries of the global economic crisis generated by COVID-19. The study compares biannual results of digital consumption and links user monitoring methods with the realization of qualitative focus groups. It analyses the evolution of the consumption of digital tools (mainly social media) by young university students in Spain between 2019 and 2021. The results of the comparative study show a 36% increase in the time spent using digital applications between the two years studied, as well as a greater concentration of time spent on a few platforms. The qualitative results indicate a self-declaration of addictive dependence on the use of social media; an increasing trend in declaring that youngsters have no interest in stopping their use of these platforms, and a justification that technology companies may not pay the user for the content and data they subsequently use to generate revenue in exchange for personal privacy. This behaviour describes the consolidation of the attention economy concept, which denotates a discursive appropriation of the university students who justify a part of the economic, social, and cultural domination that the technological giants carry out.


Build accurate DNN models requires training on large labeled, context specific datasets, especially those matching the target scenario. We believe advances in wireless localization, working in unison with cameras, can produce automated annotation of targets on images and videos captured in the wild. Using pedestrian and vehicle detection as examples, we demonstrate the feasibility, benefits, and challenges of an automatic image annotation system. Our work calls for new technical development on passive localization, mobile data analytics, and error-resilient ML models, as well as design issues in user privacy policies.


Well known linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on the Fisher criterion is incapable of dealing with heteroscedasticity in data. However, in many practical applications we often encounter heteroscedastic data, i.e., within-class scatter matrices can not be expected to be equal. A technique based on the Chernoff criterion for linear dimensionality reduction has been proposed recently. The technique extends well-known Fisher's LDA and is capable of exploiting information about heteroscedasticity in the data. While the Chernoff criterion has been shown to outperform the Fisher's, a clear understanding of its exact behavior is lacking. In addition, the criterion, as introduced, is rather complex, making it difficult to clearly state its relationship to other linear dimensionality reduction techniques. In this paper, we show precisely what can be expected from the Chernoff criterion and its relations to the Fisher criterion and Fukunaga-Koontz transform. Furthermore, we show that a recently proposed decomposition of the data space into four subspaces is incomplete. We provide arguments on how to best enrich the decomposition of the data space in order to account for heteroscedasticity in the data. Finally, we provide experimental results validating our theoretical analysis.


We propose EnDex, the first human-reaction based model to evaluate dialogue engagingness. EnDex is trained on 80k Reddit-based Engagement Dataset (RED) curated using a novel distant-supervision framework. Engagingness is a key measure that captures high-level quality of AI dialogue systems and closely reflects actual user experience. However, data shortage, plus the abstract and extensive definition of engagingness makes it challenging to develop an automatic metric. Our work departs from mainstream approaches that use synthetic negative examples to train binary classifiers, and instead, proposes a solution using distant-supervision from human-reaction feedback. To support the soundness of our EnDex metric, we offer a theoretical foundation for engagement, an extensive ablation study, and empirical evidence of high correlation on five engagingness related datasets. We will release code, off-the-shelf EnDex model, and a large-scale dataset upon paper publication to facilitate future research.


Administration of hepatotoxic doses of acetaminophen (APAP) to mice results in necrosis, not only of liver cells but of renal proximal tubules and bronchiolar and olfactory epithelium. In the liver, covalent binding is localized to the centrilobular hepatocytes which later undergo necrosis. This study was undertaken to compare the cellular distribution of bound APAP in all four major target tissues with that of cytochrome P4502E1 (a P450 isoenzyme commonly associated with APAP bioactivation), with emphasis on the cell types which later undergo necrosis. Tissues were collected from mice at selected times after APAP administration (600 mg/kg, po) and fixed by microwave irradiation for immunohistochemistry, or in formalin for histopathological study. Immunohistochemical localization of bound APAP was performed on 5-microns paraffin sections using an affinity-purified anti-APAP antibody. Similar tissues from naive mice were used for immunohistochemical localization of cytochrome P4502E1 (using a polyclonal sheep anti-P4502E1 antibody). Positive staining with both the anti-APAP and the anti-P4502E1 antibodies was similar in distribution, being present in the cell types which become damaged by APAP in all four target tissues. These results demonstrate that covalent binding and subsequent necrosis are localized in common with cytochrome P4502E1, suggesting that, as in the liver, toxicity in extrahepatic targets is also related to the ability of these tissues to activate APAP in situ.


Four recently developed computer programs can help students with the composition process. The first, a prewriting program, helps students prepare to write by asking them a series of questions, similar to those an instructor would ask, intended to help them think more deeply about their subject. The second writing program also contains prewriting questions, but attempts to show subsequently how information gathered during the questioning can be structured during the actual writing stage by creating a model rough draft of the essay. The third program, developed as a text editing system for journalism assignments, relies on a matching routine that takes a series of predetermined key words and searches for them in the student's news story. Ihe program acknowledges pertinent information and points out errors with an explanation when the pertinent information is missing. In the fourth program, also a text editing program, the computer "reads" the entered essays, then prints out statistics on sentence length, use of prepositions, and use of "to be" verbs and nouns ending in "tion." The statistics are followed by an appropriate warning about convoluted sentences or the excess of the "tion" nouns or "to be" verbs. These programs do not actually understand the essay, and better programs will be developed as more people contribute to the task; but they do successfully take students through their assigned phases in the writing process, freeing the instructor for more indiviivalized instruction. (HTH)


Ethanol stimulates the production of prostaglandins in many species. The purpose of this study was to verify the effect of ethanol on the production of prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) and luteolysis in bovine females. In the first experiment, Holstein cows at day 17 of the oestrous cycle were treated with 100% ethanol (0.05 ml/kg of body weight, IV; n = 5), saline (0.05 ml/kg of body weight, IV; n = 4) or synthetic prostaglandin (150 μg of D-cloprostenol/cow, IM; n = 4). The plasma concentrations of 13, 14-dihydro-15-keto PGF2α (PGFM; the main metabolite of PGF2α measured in the peripheral blood) were assessed by radioimmunoassay (RIA). There was an acute release of PGFM in response to ethanol comparing to other treatments (p ≤ 0.05). However, only cows treated with PGF2α underwent luteolysis. In the second experiment, endometrial explants of cross-bred beef cows (n = 4) slaughtered at day 17 of the oestrous cycle were cultured for 4 h. During the last 3 h, the explants were cultured with medium supplemented with 0, 0.1, 1, 10 or 100 μl of 100% ethanol/ml. Medium samples were collected at hours 1 and 4 and concentrations of PGF2α were measured by RIA. Ethanol did not induce PGF2α production by the endometrium. In conclusion, ethanol does not cause luteolysis in cows because it stimulates production of PGF2α in extra-endometrial tissues.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to estimate the effects of non-fatal whole-body γ-irradiation on outward potassium plasma membrane conductivity in rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), and to identify underlying mechanisms. Materials and methods: Rats were exposed to a 6 Gy dose irradiation from a cobalt60 source. Whole-cell potassium current was measured in freshly isolated rat aorta smooth muscle cells using standard patch-clamp technique. Results: We have determined that whole-body ionising irradiation significantly inhibits whole-cell outward K+ current in rat aortic VSMC obtained from irradiated rats 9 and 30 days after irradiation, and this inhibition appears to be increased throughout post-irradiation period. Using selective inhibitors of small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (SKCa), apamin (1 μM), intermediate conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (IKCa,), charybdotoxin (1 μM) and a large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (BKCa), paxilline (500 nM), we established that the main component of whole-cell outward K+ current in rat aortic VSMC is due to BKCa. It is clear that on the 9th day after irradiation paxilline had only a small effect on whole-cell outward K+ current in VSMC, and was without effect on the 30th day post-irradiation, suggesting complete suppression of the BKCa current. The PKC inhibitor, chelerythrine (100 nM), effectively reversed the suppression of whole-cell outward K+ current induced by ionising irradiation in the post-irradiation period of 9 and 30 days. Conclusions: The results suggest that irradiation-evoked inhibition of the BKCa current in aortic VSMC is mediated by PKC. Taken together, our data indicate that one of the mechanisms leading to elevation of vascular tone and related arterial hypertension development under ionising irradiation impact is a PKC-mediated inhibition of BKCa channels in VSMC.


Poultry susceptibility to avitaminosis K-induced granulomatous endocardial lesions was studied in broiler and layer chicks. They were fed either a practical corn-soybean meal diet with and without added vitamin K (vit K), or a 61% raw sugar-isolated soybean protein diet (RS-IS) with no added vit K for 10 weeks. Heart lesions were not found in birds fed any of the experimental diets. Mortality, body weight gain, and prothrombin time did not differ significantly between birds fed the practical diet regardless of vit K supplementation. In contrast, the RS-IS diet significantly increased mortality, prothrombin time, and markedly decreased growth. Furthermore, more than a third of the birds fed the high sugar diet had subcutaneous edema, which resembled exudative diathesis. Compared with swine, poultry are apparently less susceptible to granulomatous endocardial lesions induced by a vit K deficiency.


Maximal rate of force development in adult humans is determined by the maximal motoneuron output, however the origin of the underlying synaptic inputs remains unclear. Here, we tested a hypothesis that the maximal motoneuron output will increase in response to a startling cue, a stimulus that purportedly activates the pontomedullary reticular formation neurons that make mono- and disynaptic connections to motoneurons via fast-conducting axons. Twenty-two men were required to produce isometric knee extensor forces "as fast and as hard" as possible from rest to 75% of maximal voluntary force, in response to visual (VC), visual-auditory (VAC), or visual-startling cue (VSC). Motoneuron activity was estimated via decomposition of high-density surface electromyogram recordings over the vastus lateralis and medialis muscles. Reaction time was significantly shorter in response to VSC compared to VAC and VC (i.e., the StartReact effect). The VSC further elicited faster neuromechanical responses including a greater number of discharges per motor unit per second and greater maximal rate of force development, with no differences between VAC and VC. We provide evidence, for the first time, that the synaptic input to motoneurons increases in response to a startling cue, suggesting a contribution of subcortical pathways to maximal motoneuron output in humans, likely originating from the pontomedullary reticular formation.