In this work, glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1) and glutathione (GSH) over-expression in liver cancer was utilized to design a reduction-responsive and active targeting drug delivery system AG-PEG-SS-PCL (APSP) for the delivery of sorafenib (SF). The SF-APSP micelles were prepared using the thin film hydration method and characterized by various techniques. In vitro release experiments showed that the cumulative release of SF-APSP micelles in the simulated tumor microenvironment (pH 7.4 with GSH) reached 94.76 ± 1.78% at 48 h, while it was only 20.32 ± 1.67% in the normal physiological environment (pH 7.4 without GSH). The in vitro study revealed that glucosamine (AG) enhanced the antitumor effects of SF, and SF-APSP micelles inhibited proliferation by targeting HepG2 cells and suppressing cyclin D1 expression. The in vivo antitumor efficacy study further confirmed that the SF-APSP micelles had excellent antitumor effects and better tolerance against nude mouse with HepG2 cells than other treatment groups. All in all, these results indicated that SF-APSP micelles could be a promising drug delivery system for anti-hepatoma treatment.


Objectives: To study the preventive effects of chlorhexidine against root caries under oral biofilm in an artificial mouth. Study Design: Sixteen human tooth-root disks were inoculated with a salivary sample that was produced by mixing the unstimulated saliva of three adults who had no untreated caries. The disks were incubated in an artificial mouth fed with a 5% sucrose solution three times daily for one week. Eight disks received a twice daily rinse of 0.12% chlorhexidine (test group). The other eight disks were rinsed in distilled water (control). The biofilm was then studied with three techniques: colony forming unit (CFU) counting, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). The changes in the chemical structure of the root surface were studied using Fourier transform infra-Red spectroscopy. Type-I collagen and proteoglycans on the root surface were quantified using immunocytochemical staining. Results: The log CFU for the test and control groups were 4.21 and 8.27, respectively (p<0.001). The CFU count of Streptococci and Lactobacilli were negligible. Both the SEM and the CLSM showed suppressed bacteria growth in the test group. The log [amide-I: HPO42-] of the test and control groups were 1.11 and 1.93, respectively (p=0.02). The mean counts of sound type-I collagen in the test and control groups were 16.8/?m2 and 13.0/?m2, respectively (p<0.001), whereas the mean counts of intact proteoglycans were 5.6/?m2 and 3.5/?m2, respectively (P<0.001). Conclusions: Chlorhexidine suppressed the growth of selected cariogenic bacteria in oral biofilm on the root surface and thus protected tooth-root from cariogenic challenge. Key words:Chlorhexidine, biofilm, caries risk, root, caries, artificial mouth, demineralization, streptococci, lactobacilli, proteoglycans, collagen I.


This paper aims at assessing the potential of partially superconducting generators for 10 MW direct-drive wind turbines by investigating their performance for a very wide range of excitation currents. Performance indicators such as shear stress and efficiency and other generator characteristics are compared for 12 different generator topologies. To be sufficiently attractive, superconducting generators must have significant advantages over permanent magnet direct-drive generators, which typically have shear stresses of the order of 53 kPa and efficiencies of 96%. Therefore, we investigate what excitation is required to obtain a doubled shear stress and an efficiency of 98%. To achieve this, the different topologies require a range of excitation from 200 to 550 kAt (ampere-turns) with a low armature current density of 2 A/mm<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^2$</tex-math> </inline-formula>. The more iron that is used in the core of these topologies, the easier they achieve this performance. By examining the maximum magnetic flux density at the location of the superconducting field winding, feasible superconductors can be chosen according to their engineering current density capabilities. It is found that high- and low-temperature superconductors can meet the performance criteria for many of the topologies. MgB <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_2$</tex-math></inline-formula> superconductors are feasible for the fully iron-cored topology with salient poles but need cooling down to 10 K.


This dissertation focuses on African American cultural products, such as literary texts, films, and artworks, as artifacts of their condition. They do not merely attest to the historical fact of slavery; they represent forms of response, writing back to white supremacy, working through trauma, and forging grounds for a sense of identity by legitimating personal experience within the context of widespread, systemic violence filtered through the lens of the creative process. The focus of this dissertation is therefore an examination of both historical documents and contemporary creative works to identify the extent to which PTSlaveD can be mapped in African American writing or creative arts. My particular examples will be slave narratives, chiefly that of Harriet Jacobs, but also other forms of contemporary autobiographical writing, and the work of Toni Morrison, although the reach of the project requires that many other texts and textual processes are addressed in terms of a residual trace of the impact of slavery on cultural practices. PTSlaveD is, in essence, a 'retronym' in that the issue has always existed despite not being named as such. My assertion is that, by focusing on narrative and artistic expression, the origins of this disorder can be assembled within the context of American culture, and some of the modes of transmission from one generation to another can be mapped in substantial detail as a result. What follows from this, I believe, is the recognition that white supremacist ideology, in all of its manifestations, and African American experience and collective identity have been shaped by a mutually contingent relation to one another, and African American history is accordingly the product in part of the moral violations inherent in white supremacist social practice. The history of that collective experience, then, must be moral as well as intellectual, culturally centered as well as factually accurate. A further issue at hand regards not only contextualizing slave narratives, and therefore contemporary African American literature, but in determining the residual effects of a history of bondage and racism in any efforts to teach American history.


With the development of surface mount technology, solders are required for applications that require high reliability and dimensional stability. Composite solders, reinforced with particles in a conventional solder alloy, is an attractive and potential method. This study presents series results on the binary eutectic Sn-Bi composite solders reinforced with Cu6Sn5 particles (0.5wt.% and 1wt.%). With this process, the wettability of composite solders was accepted although they were worse than that of Sn-58Bi. Compared with the spread area of Sn-58Bi, that of Sn-58Bi-1wt.% Cu6Sn5 was reduced about 10% after reflowing for 30min. The reinforcement particles were well dispersed in the solder matrix and refined the grain size of β-Sn and Bi-rich phase. During the liquid interfacial reaction, the size of interfacial IMC was increased with reflowing time and it got larger for the addition of Cu6Sn5. The shear strength of composite solder joints was higher than that of Sn-58Bi/Cu. The fracture modes of composite solder were mainly ductile while that of Sn-58Bi/Cu was brittle when e =9×10-3s-1.


Gerhard Richter is justly famed for the photorealism of his early canvases, but it is less well known that he has also painted directly onto photographic prints. These (mostly small-format) pieces were reproduced in books as early as the first Atlas, but practically all of the works themselves are housed in private collections and rarely exhibited in public. Overpainted Photographs gathers this body of work, which unites the labor of the hand with the work of mechanical reproduction to produce a kind of art as conceptually rich as Richter's better-known paintings, neutralizing the expressive powers of each medium to reach an indifference to their potency. In an overture to Duchamp's "degree zero" found objects, the original photographs are frequently bland in content--an empty office, a ball, a beach scene or tourist snapshot--and Richter's painterly gestures bounce off that content in peculiar ways, sometimes interacting with it, sometimes overlaying it and sometimes threatening to eclipse it altogether. The final effect is to cause both photography and painting to seem like incredibly bizarre activities, disparate in texture but often complicit in aspiration. This monograph offers a unique opportunity to savor what had previously been a neglected but copious aspect of Richter's work.


Linear and nonlinear propagations of quantum ion acoustic waves in positive, negative ions and electron plasma have been vetted via the dispersion relation and Korteweg–de Vries equation, where the ions are inertial and electrons are inertialess. The quantum mechanical effects arising due to the quantum diffraction and Fermi–Dirac statistics for this system are taken into account. The existence, as well as the type (compressive/rarefactive) of solitary wave propagating in the system, is strongly dependent on the numerical value of dimensionless quantum parameter He. It is observed that negative ion population and ion mass ratio have emphatic influence on the phase velocity of ion acoustic wave and the propagation of localized coherent solitary structures at quantum scale in the system.


The census tract—based residential segregation literature rests on problematic assumptions about geographic scale and proximity. We pursue a new tract-free approach that combines explicitly spatial concepts and methods to examine racial segregation across egocentric local environments of varying size. Using 2000 Census data for the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, we compute a spatially modified version of the information theory index H to describe patterns of Black—White, Hispanic-White, Asian-White, and multigroup segregation at different scales. We identify the metropolitan structural characteristics that best distinguish micro-segregation from macro-segregation for each group combination, and we decompose their effects into portions due to racial variation occurring over short and long distances. A comparison of our results with those from tract-based analyses confirms the value of the new approach.


While speaker verification represents a critically important application of speaker recognition, it is also the most challenging and least well-understood application. Robust feature extraction plays an integral role in enhancing the efficiency of forensic speaker verification. Although the speech signal is a continuous one-dimensional time series, most recent models depend on recurrent neural network (RNN) or convolutional neural network (CNN) models, which are not able to exhaustively represent human speech, thus opening themselves up to speech forgery. As a result, to accurately simulate human speech and to further ensure speaker authenticity, we must establish a reliable technique. This research article presents a Two-Tier Feature Extraction with Metaheuristics-Based Automated Forensic Speaker Verification (TTFEM-AFSV) model, which aims to overcome the limitations of the previous models. The TTFEM-AFSV model focuses on verifying speakers in forensic applications by exploiting the average median filtering (AMF) technique to discard the noise in speech signals. Subsequently, the MFCC and spectrograms are considered as the inputs to the deep convolutional neural network-based Inception v3 model, and the Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO) algorithm is utilized to fine-tune the hyperparameters related to the Inception v3 model. Finally, a long short-term memory with a recurrent neural network (LSTM-RNN) mechanism is employed as a classifier for automated speaker recognition. The performance validation of the TTFEM-AFSV model was tested in a series of experiments. Comparative study revealed the significantly improved performance of the TTFEM-AFSV model over recent approaches.


The microstructure, composition, morphology and distribution of second phases in the YBCO superconductor have been investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning Auger microprobe (SAM) and optical polarising microscopy (OPM). The vast majority of 123 grains show the 'twin layer' structure (with 5-100 nm width). The twin boundary is usually a clean interface. A few second-phase domains are present between 123 grains (which have an average size of 1 mu m). Some microdomains ( approximately several tens of nm) of non-superconductive phase are present in a 123 grain. The majority of grain boundaries in the authors samples are free of second phases. A few of the boundaries usually contain second-phase particles and amorphous material and have a multilayer structure. SAM data suggest that these boundaries are rich in Ba and C and deficient in Cu and Y. SEM of the boundaries show that the second-phase particles contain barium carbonate, copper oxide and other carbides. The influence of second phases on the superconductivity of materials is also discussed.


The invention discloses an assembly type steel frame eccentric supporting and meshing splicing system for a rigid joint and belongs to the technical field of structural engineering. The structural system is formed by assembling assembly type floors, assembly type supports and assembly type flange pillars through bolts. The assembly type floors can be spliced into the needed scale and are mutually spliced through the bolts to form a whole-storey floor of a building. Corrugated web U-steel beams are adopted in the assembly type floors, and webs of the two corrugated U-steel beams at the joint of two adjacent assembly type floors are in butt joint in a meshed mode, the webs are assembled and connected through the bolts, the assembled steel beams are in a meshed shape, and the shearing resisting and bearing capacity of the assembly time steel beams is effectively enhanced. Industrialized production is achieved with the steel-structured system, on-spot fast assembling is achieved, meanwhile, on-spot assembling is performed by totally adopting the high-strength bolts, and environmental pollution caused by concrete pouring and steel welding is avoided.


We describe a 6-year-old boy with a right-sided heart part of the Kartagener syndrome, complicated by presence of a perimembranous ventricular septal defect. The defect was closed interventionally using the Amplatzer™ asymmetrical occluder for ventricular septal defects. The procedure was event-free. Non-operative closure of a ventricular septal defect in this patient demonstrated no other difficulty than mirror-imaged thinking, thus giving evidence that such treatment also can be offered to patients with positional anomalies.


Initial development of the Nacimiento uplift occurred during the Laramide orogeny by what may have been shear folding of the brittle Precambrian basement rocks and stretching of the incompetent overlying sedimentary strata along a monoclinal fold on the west side of the uplift. Antithetic and synthetic normal faults formed in the strata along the monocline as it developed. The normal faults and the fold were cut by the Nacimiento fault which is nearly vertical at depth but flattens upward and has westward movement of the hanging wall block over the San Juan basin. Where the Nacimiento fault is preserved at high structural and stratigraphic levels it is gently dipping and has normal faults in the hanging wall block. These longitudinal normal faults formed as the uplift was arched and stretched.

A model based on primary vertical uplift integrates the different stress fields that caused the complex sequence of monoclinal folding, normal faulting, and reverse faulting with concomitant tensional features in the hanging wall block.


We examine the information asymmetry hypothesis and the management control hypothesis by examining the relation between insider trading and insider holdings to the choice of payment method in acquisitions. Our results indicate that both insider ownership and insider trading are significantly related to payment method. These results provide additional evidence in favor of both the management control theory and the asymmetric information theory in the choice of payment method in acquisitions. Furthermore, we find a significant relation between insider trading activity and the market reaction to the announcement of acquisitions. We conclude that information asymmetry exists in the takeover market and it influences the payment method decision.


A new concept of noninterference based on subject's actions and views is presented in this paper, and then a complete secure information flow model based on the new concept is described. In the model, operations of computer systems are assumed to have only two access modes, i. e. read and write, therefore two state transition rules of systems are defined according to these modes. The proof about security of the model is given finally. This model has two significant features: it can be used to analyze security of systems, and it is able to support multiple security policies.


Aim: The aim of the present study is to analyze the role of GLUT-1 in detection of early alterations occurring in oral leukoplakia. This study was to evaluate the expression of GLUT-1 in normal oral epithelium, the expression of GLUT-1 levels in the tissue samples of oral leukoplakia and to statistically compare the expression of GLUT-1 in normal epithelium and oral leukoplakia. Materials and Methods: The study sample comprised formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue specimens from 23 cases of histopathologically diagnosed oral leukoplakia and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue specimens from 10 cases of normal oral mucosa. Sections were mounted on glass slide coated with Aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APES; Sigma chemical co., USA) and processed for subsequent immunohistochemical study to demonstrate GLUT-1. Results: GLUT-1 expression in normal oral mucosa revealed weak positivity in all 10 cases (100%). The oral leukoplakia cases showed immunopositivity in all 23 cases (100%) of which 10 cases (39.14%) demonstrated focal positivity and 13 cases (60.86%) of diffuse positivity. The results were compared statistically using ANOVA test was significant at P = 0.002. Conclusion: The present study shows expression of GLUT-1 in leukoplakia may be used as a reliable marker to identify the high risk group for malignant transformation.


Inorganic phosphate is one of key macronutrients essential for plant growth. The acquisition and distribution of phosphate are mediated by phosphate transporters functioning in various physiological and biochemical processes. In the present study, we comprehensively evaluated the phosphate transporter (PHT) gene family in the latest release of the Populus trichocarpa genome (version 3.0; Phytozome 11.0) and a total of 42 PHT genes were identified which formed five clusters: PHT1, PHT2, PHT3, PHT4, and PHO. Among the 42 PHT genes, 41 were localized to 15 Populus chromosomes. Analysis of these genes led to identification of 5–14 transmembrane segments, most of which were conserved within the same cluster. We identified 234 putative cis elements in the 2-kb upstream regions of the 42 PHT genes, many of which are related to development, stress, or hormone. Tissue-specific expression analysis of the 42 PtPHT genes revealed that 25 were highly expressed in the roots of P. tremula, suggesting that most of them might be involved in Pi uptake. Some PtPHT genes were highly expressed in more than six of the twelve investigated tissues of P. tremula, while the expression of a few of them was very low in all investigated tissues. In addition, the expression of the PtPHT genes was verified by quantitative real-time PCR in four tissues of P. simonii. Transcripts of 7 PtPHT genes were detected in all four tested tissues of P. simonii. Most PtPHT genes were expressed in the roots of P. simonii at high levels. Further, PtPHT1.2 and PtPHO9 expression was increased under drought conditions, irrespective of the phosphate levels. In particular, PtPHT1.2 expression was significantly induced by approximately 90-fold. However, the transcriptional changes of some PtPHT genes under drought stress were highly dependent on the phosphate levels. These results will aid in elucidation of the functions of PtPHT in the growth, development, and stress response of the poplar plant.


What might an ethnographic study of late capitalism look like? Anthropologists have answered this question by increasingly assuming that what distinguishes their discipline is the study of culturethe culture of capitalism, of globalization, and so forth. Instead, we need to balance such concerns with a focus on the material conditions of capitalist reproduction that are not immediately available to experience so that we can expose the way in which processes of social reproduction relate to our experience of being in the world. An exploration of programmes for the development of regional economies in Europe shows how these programmes have repositioned social science intellectuals, thereby affecting the ways in which they configure their research and their images of reality. Insofar as these findings become the basis for policy, they produce a reality with which the people in these sites have to deal.


Infertility impacts millions of people of reproductive age worldwide, with approximately 10–15% of couples affected. When infertility is present, there are many potential barriers to treatment, leading to inequity of access. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are the mainstay of medical treatment for infertility and include procedures such as in vitro fertilisation. This scoping review aims to explore the barriers to accessing assisted reproductive technologies to highlight a potential role for the pharmacist in addressing these barriers. Five databases, including CINAHL, Emcare, Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science, were searched using keywords that resulted in 19 studies that explored barriers to initially accessing or continuing ART. Studies identified more than one barrier to accessing ART, with the most mentioned barrier being the geographic location of the patient, with others themed as psychological, financial, minority groups, educational level, and the age of the patient. Recommendations were made to address barriers to accessing ART, which included changes to government regulations to increase health education and promotion of infertility. Pharmacists' accessibility, even in geographically remote locations, places them in an ideal position to address many of the challenges experienced by people accessing infertility treatment to improve outcomes for these people.


finger. - A 5-day-old girl was presented with monoarthritis of the proximal interphalangeal joint of the right fourth digit, without signs of septic illness or meningitis, due to group B Streptococcus agalactiae.


Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond windows are a crucial component in heating and current drive (H&CD) applications. In order to minimize the amount of reflected power from the diamond disc, its thickness must match the desired beam wavelength, thus proper targeting of the plasma requires movable beam reflectors. This is the case, for instance, of the ITER electron cyclotron H&CD system. However, looking at DEMO, the higher heat loads and neutron fluxes could make the use of movable parts close to the plasma difficult. The issue might be solved by using gyrotrons able to tune the beam frequency to the desired resonance, but this concept requires transmission windows that work in a given frequency range, such as the Brewster window. It consists of a CVD diamond disc brazed to two copper cuffs at the Brewster angle. The brazing process is carried out at about 800°C and then the temperature is decreased down to room temperature. Diamond and copper have very different thermal expansion coefficients, therefore high stresses build up during the cool down phase that might lead to failure of the disc. Considering also the complex geometry of the window with the skewed position of the disc, analyses are required in the first place to check its feasibility. The cool down phase was simulated by FEM structural analyses for several geometric and constraint configurations of the window. A study of indirect cooling of the window by water was also performed considering a HE11 mode beam. The results are here reported.


The CLAS Collaboration Theoretical studies suggest that experimental observables for hyperon production reactions can place stringent constraints on the free parameters of hyperon-nucleon potentials, which are critical for the understanding of hypernuclear matter and neutron stars. Here we present preliminary experimental results for the polarization observables Σ, Py, Ox, Oz, Cx, and Cz for final-state interactions (FSI) in exclusive Λ photoproduction off the deuteron. The observables were obtained from data collected during the E06-103 (g13) experiment with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B at Jefferson Lab. The g13 experiment ran with unpolarized deuteron target and circularlyand linearly-polarized photon beams with energies between 0.5 GeV and 2.5 GeV and collected about 5×1010 events with multiple charged particles in the final state. To select the reaction of interest, the K+ and the Λ decay products, a proton and a negative pion, were detected in the CLAS. The missing-mass technique was used to identify exclusive hyperon photoproduction events. Final-state interaction events were selected by requesting that the reconstructed neutron has a momentum larger than 200 MeV/c. The large statistics of E06-103 provided statistically meaningful FSI event samples, which allow for the extraction of oneand two-fold differential singleand double-polarization observables. Here we present preliminary results for a set of six observables for photon energies between 0.9 GeV and 2.3 GeV and for several kinematic variables in the Λn center-of-mass frame. Our results are the very first estimates of polarization observables for FSI in hyperon photoproduction and will be used to constrain the free parameters of hyperon-nucleon potentials.


In frontier basins such as the deepwater blocks offshore Myanmar, determining the subsurface pore pressures is inherently challenging. Typically, offset well data is rare or irrelevant and the primary dataset is limited to seismic interval velocities with some form of interpretation of the geological depositional system. As a result, making any assessment of the pore pressure is problematic. One of the keys methods to unlock the potential of the deepwater blocks and to ensure successful exploration in the future is to adopt different approaches and include as much geological understanding as possible into the study to ensure consistency. The approach described here involves utilizing multiple techniques and data types to help model the pore pressures in the deepwater. Data include the use of seismic amplitudes, seismic interval velocities and 2D basin modelling. Using the integrated approach to model the pore pressures ensures consistency between the multiple disciplines and allows quantifying the uncertainties adequately.


People who suffer from stroke have a higher difficulty performing gait activity, affecting their quality of life. New technologies have been developed to assist and rehabilitate the affected limbs. This paper presents the AGoRA V2 unilateral lower-limb exoskeleton and the assessment of physiological and spatiotemporal parameters of gait in 10 subjects who participated in a test. AGORA V2 combine a stiff structure for the Hip and Knee and the T-FLEX ankle exoskeleton (soft structure). The results showed a significant decrease in muscle activity compared to the condition without an exoskeleton. This decrease was 8% in Biceps Femoris (BF) muscle activity and 4% in Vastus Medialis (VM) muscle activity, generated by proper assistance of the devices thigh muscles. Tibialis Anterior (TA) and Lateral Gastrocnemius (LG) muscles and gait times did not show significant changes, which can be interpreted as a correct synchronisation of the devices with the person's gait. The results obtained can be used as a baseline for future studies with pathological patients.


The dielectric response of poly [(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] (PHB) was investigated as a function of time after quenching a film from the melt to a crystallization temperature of 20 °C. In the frequency range investigated (20 to 106 Hz) a relaxation maximum was observed–attributable to the glass transition–which could be analysed by the Havriliak–Negami relation. Changes in the complex dielectric constant were monitored both during spherulite growth (primary crystallization) and subsequently during a period of progressive crystallization (secondary crystallization) at room temperature. The relaxation strength changed only slightly during primary crystallization and its peak position remained at a constant frequency. Subsequently a continuous decrease in relaxation strength occurred, indicating considerable changes in molecular mobility after spherulite growth had been completed. The results provide further evidence that molecular mobility in the amorphous regions decreases significantly with time, and that this would be the reason why PHB shows embrittlement on ageing at room temperature. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry


"Buying local״ has become one of the most important trends in food marketing. Despite widespread public attention, the influence of the "local״ attribute on food prices is not well understood. We aim to begin to fill this gap in research by exploring the presence of a price premium for "local״ in actual market transactions. Using scanner data on fresh packaged lettuce in the Honolulu market and hedonic modeling, we investigate consumers' revealed preferences for the attribute. Contrary to the positive willingness to pay for local food widely reported in previous studies, we find no local premium for fresh lettuce in the Honolulu market.


The paper focuses on one of the main challenges of Kazakhstan's economy – its high energy intensity of GDP. Contemporary scholarship states that high energy intensity of GDP is a common characteristic of almost all post-Soviet countries, which are also very affected by weak institutions and under-developed legal frameworks in the fuel and energy sectors. The paper analyzes the legal framework existing in Kazakhstan, the largest economy of Central Asia, with respect to energy efficiency and energy saving policies, which are considered a sufficient way of reducing energy intensity of GDP. A total of seven key documents adopted in 2010-2014 are carefully reviewed, which comprise the legal foundation of Kazakhstan's energy efficient economy. The paper also presents a "pyramid" of energy efficiency and energy saving development of Kazakhstan, on the bottom of which is the legal framework, based on the results of our analysis.


Short and Scary! includes stories of ghosts, monsters, and aliens - as well as some much more unexpected scares! Over forty stories in one book - all of them very, very short! None of the stories are more than two pages long, but each of them is special and thought-provoking to inspire short story writers. Drawn from a range of sources, including folk tales, urban myths, and narrative jokes, as well as original stories, the stories are ideal for use in the classroom.


Problem setting. Many decades have passed since the Pact was signed, and the essential nature of the it continues to spark debate among historians and scholars. The main criterion that continues debates is the fact that the signing of the act resulted in a change of the entire European continent and a change in the geopolitical balance. Therefore, the relevance of the topic is that today there is no clear political and moral assessment of the pact on the basis of which a rational international significance of the document could be established. Target of research. The purposes of this study are to establish the legal characteristics and nature of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact; to analyze the consequences of which the document has been signed; to distinguish the positive and negative sides of the act in combination with the proposal of its international significance. Analysis of resent researches and publications. The following scientists were engaged in research of the specified question: M. Shvagulak, S. Pron, I. Khalupa, Nicolas Burns and Andreas Ortega. Article's main body. This publication discusses the document – the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which has had a significant impact on both political and social development and the future potential of dozens of countries across the European continent. The Pact still defines many geopolitical realities in modern Europe. Discussions about the historic role of the non-aggression treaty and secret protocols are still relevant. The article deals with the legal characterization and essence of an international act of political and legal nature. The consequences of the signature of the "fateful sentence" are analyzed, as well as the positive and negative sides of this document, in combination with the establishment of its international significance, are highlighted and presented in detail. Conclusions and prospects for the development. Thus, as can be seen from all the work, the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact has a rather contradictory character, both in relation to the countries it has in some way concerned and to history in general. So, on the one hand, this treaty was really beneficial and needed by the countries that signed it, namely Germany and the Soviet Union. However, the benefits in each of these countries were different. Discussions are still ongoing about the legal force of the treaty, as well as its international legal assessment. But from the point of view of international law, the Pact should be regarded as a huge violation that has influenced the development of new rules and principles in modern society. That is why the author believes that it is the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact that became the signature of both states in the face of the forthcoming explosion of the largest Second world war.


PCA3 is a prostate-specific non coding RNA (ncRNA), involved in the control of prostate cancer (PCa) cell survival, through modulating androgen receptor (AR) signaling. We aimed to investigate whether several cancer related genes, including those involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and AR co-regulators could modulate LNCaP cell survival in response to PCA3 downregulation. We also aimed to promote PCA3 stable silencing through a lentiviral vector containing a PCA3 short hairpin RNA (shRNA) specific sequence. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) or lentivirus vector-based shRNA were used to downregulate PCA3 expression. Upon PCA3 downregulation, cells were analyzed by qRT-PCR to investigate mRNA expression. Flow cytometry was performed to analyze the percentage of LNCaP GFP + cells and trypan blue staining to analyze the number of viable cells after PCA3 stable silencing. Among 14 AR co-regulators genes investigated, 12 were upregulated in siPCA3-transfected cells in relation to controls. We also found that among 84 cancer-related genes tested, 16 were differentially expressed in LNCaP siPCA3-transfected cells when compared to transfected cells with a scramble sequence. Of these, 30% are genes coding for signal transduction molecules and transcription factors. Gene expression profile of EMT-related genes revealed that E-cadherin, Claudin-3, Cytokeratin-18, Snail, Twist and Slug are upregulated in LNCaP siPCA3-transfected cells compared to control, while Claudin-4, Cytokeratin-8 and Vimentin are downregulated. LNCaP cells transduced with lentiviral vectors carrying the GFP gene and shPCA3 stably dowregulated PCA3 expression, producing a reduction of 60% of LNCaP GFP+ cells compared to shScr transduced or non-transduced LNCaP cells. Our results suggest that the decrease in the number of LNCaP viable cells upon siPCA3 transfection is not modulated by the classical EMT program. Observed upregulation of most tested AR co-regulators upon PCA3 silencing indicates that this non-coding RNA could negatively modulate the transcription of these genes. Our data further suggest that that this ncRNA perform a regulatory role in gene expression, being able to modulate gene expression of several signaling pathways related to cancer. Finally, stable silencing of PCA3 expression using lentivirus vector shows potential as a PCa therapeutic approach by negatively modulating cell survival. Citation Format: Ana Emilia Goulart, Luciana B. Ferreira, Paula Priscilla de Freitas, Nadia Batoreu, MARTIN H. BONAMINO, Etel Rodrigues Pereira Gimba. Investigation of molecular mechanisms by which PCA3 modulates prostate cancer cell survival. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 163. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-163


In this paper we consider the quasi-static irreversible evolution of a connected network related to an average distance functional minimization problem. Our main goal is to extend some geometric properties of optimal sets to the coercive L measure case, and determine whether a branches is exhibited during the a minimizing movement evolution, thus changing the topology. We would give a sufficient condition for the latter. Tools belonging to minimizing movements and optimal transportation theory with free Dirichlet regions will be used extensively. Finally, we will apply our results to find an upper bound for the branching time for a particular class of configurations.


Young male rats were fed a diet containing 0, 1, 10, 100, or 500 ppm of a commercial mixture of polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) that had been accidentally incorporated into a mineral mixture and fed to Michigan livestock and poultry. After 30 days, 9 of the 12 rats in each group were killed and tissues were examined. Liver weight to body weight ratios were significantly increased at all feeding levels; at 500 ppm, liver weight had more than doubled. Kidney weight was not affected. Microscopic lesions were mostly confined to the liver and consisted of extensive swelling and vacuolation of hepatocytes in rats fed diets containing 100 and 500 ppm of PBB. Slight swelling and vacuolation were seen in rats fed the diet containing 10 ppm, and lesions were not found at 0 or 1 ppm. There was a significant increase in hepatic mitochondrial size at 1 ppm, and smooth endoplasmic reticulum was markedly increased at 100 and 500 ppm. Myelin bodies were present at 100 and 500 ppm, and vacuoles were numerous. Rats killed at 60 days had similar lesions. The activity of hepatic microsomal enzymes increased at all levels of feeding of PBB. Rat pups nursing dams fed a diet containing 10 ppm of PBB had microscopic and ultrastructural hepatic lesions. When guinea pigs were fed PBB at the same amounts as were rats, the results were strikingly different. Guinea pigs fed a diet containing 500 ppm of PBB died within 15 days; at 100 ppm, only 2 of 6 survived for 30 days. Effects on liver weight were inconsistent, but 2 of 6 fed a diet containing 10 ppm had enlarged livers.


Various novel amine solutions both in aqueous and non-aqueous [monoethylene glycol (MEG)/triethylene glycol(TEG)] forms have been studied for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) absorption. The study was conducted in a custom build experimental setup at temperatures relevant to subsea operation conditions and atmospheric pressure. Liquid phase absorbed H2S, and amine concentrations were measured analytically to calculate H2S loading (mole of H2S/mole of amine). Maximum achieved H2S loadings as the function of pKa, gas partial pressure, temperature and amine concentration are presented. Effects of solvent type on absorbed H2S have also been discussed. Several new solvents showed higher H2S loading as compared to aqueous N-Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) solution which is the current industrial benchmark compound for selective H2S removal in natural gas sweetening process.


Brain abscess is an uncommon and serious life-threatening infection in children. Focal intracranial infections caused by Salmonella spp. in this age group are also rare. We report the case of a 4-month-old male infant with a frontoparietal brain abscess caused by Salmonella typhimurium, the presence of which was not suspected clinically.


We have studied the radiation hardness of the submicron NMOS fabricated by electron-beam lithography. E-beam lithography is known to create neutral traps in the gate oxides of MOS devices. These traps may make the devices more sensitive to radiation. We have developed an e-beam NMOS process, and have investigated the electrical characteristics of these devices before and after various radiation doses. We found that, for radiation doses below 10 Krad, the threshold shifts of the MOSFETs are not significant (<100mv). Also, there is no channel-length dependence on radiation hardness with devices made by the present process.


PROGRAMMABLE CONCURRENCY IN A PURE AND LAZY LANGUAGE Peng Li Steve Zdancewic This dissertation presents a number of methods to build massively concurrent network applications in Haskell, a pure, lazy and functional programming language. The key challenge is to combine threads and events, two seemingly opposing programming models, into one single application, so the programmer can get both the ease of multithreaded programming and the performance of event-driven systems. This dissertation first shows a purely application-level solution using monadic, continuation-passing style threads and evaluates its performance using benchmarking programs. It then shows a more generic solution obtained by re-designing the Haskell runtime system with lightweight concurrency primitives that can be used to implement high-level concurrency features in Haskell libraries. The new runtime system allows massive concurrency to be implemented using any of the following configurations: OS threads, user-level threads, or application-level, monadic threads. This dissertations presents the prototype implementation of the new runtime system and two concurrency libraries. It also compares the I/O performance of different concurrency configurations using benchmark programs and discusses their trade-offs. The conclusion of this dissertation is summarized from three different perspectives. For systems programmers, it compares the two solutions to combine events and threads in Haskell. For developers of the Haskell runtime system, it discusses the trade-offs involved to adopt the new runtime system design. For language designers, it summarizes the lessons learned in the programming experience of using the Haskell language.


Catheters were implanted through the left atrium into large veins drawing blood from regions of the diaphragmatic lobes in five ponies. Measurement of oxygen and carbon dioxide tensions in blood samples drawn through these catheters showed that in laterally recumbent conscious and anaesthetised animals the function of the lowermost lung is progressively impaired while in the supine position the function of both lungs is adversely affected.


Cloud computing is a Pay-Per-Use model which provides services and various resources to the users in an efficient way using the internet without involving much economic investment. Due to this low cost involvement and also simple implementations CC has found its applications in so many areas. It is uniquely enriched with various features like heterogeneous, flexible, distributed, location independent, on demand self service and universal network access. Gaining popularity due to its indifferent quality of being operable even on underlying physical infrastructure i.e. it does not require any special infrastructure to use the services and resources from the cloud. Cloud Computing works on virtualisation. The user does not have any information and details about the physical infrastructure of the service provider such as location, platform where the function is running etc. Therefore for load balancing of such systems proper arrangement of the operations is required. And for this purpose Scheduling came into existence. Scheduling in CC is performed at two levels1. Host Level (VM SchedulingAllocation of PEs to the Hosts) 2. User level (Cloudlet Scheduling-Allocation of cloudlets to VM for execution). However in this paper we are proposing a new algorithm for allocation of PEs to VMs. We have proposed a better output of the algorithm by using an optimisation technique Ant Colony Optimisation.


A 43-year-old male with a history of allergic rhinitis on chronic intranasal corticosteroids presented with complaints of a "black band" in his right eye visual field. On examination, he had subretinal fluid and lab tests and imaging studies including optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescein angiography (FA) did not show any evidence of inflammatory, degenerative, or malignant process. He was diagnosed with central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR). Symptoms improved and the subretinal fluid resolved after the discontinuation of intranasal corticosteroid medication. Intranasal corticosteroids are rarely associated with CSCR. Patients and providers should be aware of the potential risk of vision loss caused by intranasal corticosteroids.


The study was designed to discover the relationship between communication skills and knowledge transfer of engineers in SMEs. The communication skills involved are Listening skills, Seeking and Giving Feedback abilities, Understanding Others abilities ,Influencing and Relating abilities and Oral and Written skills. The findings were collected through a survey by means of questionnaire distributed to subordinates of engineers. The findings show that workers under engineers' supervision feel that all the communication attributes are important to be possessed by the engineers. However, there is a lack of communication skills in the part of engineers in delivering the knowledge. This, in turn, will affect the receiving of knowledge at the other end. Logically, this will give great impact to the productivity of the companies. This study is a preliminary approach in determining the factors to boost knowledge transfer in industrial sectors. Recommendations are provided to enhance communication skills for better knowledge transfer exercise in organizations.


The effective interactions between the constituents of driven soft matter generically defy Newton's third law. Combining theory and numerical simulations, we establish that six classes of mechanics with no counterparts in equilibrium systems emerge in elastic crystals challenged by nonreciprocal interactions. Going beyond linear deformations, we reveal that interactions violating Newton's third law generically turn otherwise quiescent dislocations into motile singularities which steadily glide though periodic lattices.


Abstract Sea ice is generally covered with snow, which can vary in thickness from a few centimeters to >1 m. Snow cover acts as a thermal insulator modulating the heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, and it impacts sea-ice growth rates and overall thickness, a key indicator of climate change in polar regions. Snow depth is required to estimate sea-ice thickness using freeboard measurements made with satellite altimeters. The snow cover also acts as a mechanical load that depresses ice freeboard (snow and ice above sea level). Freeboard depression can result in flooding of the snow/ice interface and the formation of a thick slush layer, particularly in the Antarctic sea-ice cover. The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) has developed an ultra-wideband, microwave radar capable of operation on long-endurance aircraft to characterize the thickness of snow over sea ice. The low-power, 100 mW signal is swept from 2 to 8 GHz allowing the air/snow and snow/ ice interfaces to be mapped with 5 cm range resolution in snow; this is an improvement over the original system that worked from 2 to 6.5 GHz. From 2009 to 2012, CReSIS successfully operated the radar on the NASA P-3B and DC-8 aircraft to collect data on snow-covered sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic for NASA Operation IceBridge. The radar was found capable of snow depth retrievals ranging from 10 cm to >1 m. We also demonstrated that this radar can be used to map near-surface internal layers in polar firn with fine range resolution. Here we describe the instrument design, characteristics and performance of the radar.


Although more assessment and certification schemes aimed at buildings appear on the market, professionals always face the same challenges: information scarcity and data flow interruptions. It therefore becomes crucial to rigorously assess the information workflows associated with built assets in order to help deliver the subsequent assessment services and certification schemes. The Smart Readiness Indicator is a new assessment scheme directed at harmonizing the smartness levels of buildings and intelligent installations at a European level. While the European Union defines the Smart Readiness Indicator scope and assessment methodology towards new regulations with the member states, the availability of data should strategically rely on existing sources such as the Building Information Model in order to automate and simplify the efforts of assessors. This paper explores the potential of Building Information Model data, more specifically relying on the Industry Foundation Classes schema, to support assessors with more automatic extraction of relevant information on the building and its equipment. The adopted methodology looks at the semantic alignment between the two domains. An initial alignment of concepts from several versions of the Industry Foundation Classes is proposed. This alignment was implemented using several rules, which were tested on the architectural and mechanical models of the same building. The study shows the convenience of employing such a methodology, the usefulness of data from existing building models, but also their limitations in correctly identifying relevant concepts.


For the population of Berlevåg the psychiatric morbidity is 37.3% registered with the Harvard health and family life survey and 20.5% with clinical estimates (life prevalence). The actual psychiatric morbidity (point prevalence) is assumed to be markably less than 20%. By checking psychiatric cases seen by the public health officer in the first half of 1973 and by 2 psychiatrists during field work the summer of 1974, the morbidity not registered yet, predominantly consists of borderline neurotic states, who by many psychiatrists will be considered as being within the limits of normal variation.


We study coordination games with multiple equilibria, in which players are penalized for picking numbers higher than the minimum anybody picks, and everyone prefers a larger minimum. 'Weakest-link' games like this model organizational situations in which the worst component of a product or process determines its overall quality. In experimental groups, the best equilibrium was reached infrequently. Aggregating two groups into a larger one always hurt. We argue that players' beliefs about what the minimum will be are an 'expectational asset' (or liability) which is socially complex, linking organization-level behavior and the resource-based view of the firm.


Blind signature schemes allow a user to decide any message without disclosing any information about the message to the signer; while oblivious signature schemes allow a signee to selected one of several predetermined messages without revealing any information about the selected message, making such schemes well suited for electronic voting applications. However, the oblivious signature scheme only allows users to select one of the n candidates. In this paper, we first propose a t-out-of-n oblivious signature scheme based on the oblivious transfer method to satisfy the security requirements of not only completeness, unforgeability, privacy, but also selection restriction and non-reduplication; making such scheme well suited for multiple-choice e-voting applications. Moreover, we propose multiple-choice e-voting scheme based on the proposed t-out-of-n oblivious signature scheme, and implement the scheme in mobile phones to allow users voting securely and conveniently. Security analysis and comparisons of computation and communication efficiency are also provided to validate the proposed schemes.


Dynamic posturography, a new method to study postural stability in humans, was performed in 11 healthy volunteers before administration of midazolam 0.1 mg/kg body weight i.v., and repeated subsequently at 45, 105 and 165 min. Results indicate that balance was affected significantly (P less than 0.008) up to 45 min after i.v. midazolam and did not return to control values until 105 min. The quantified version of the Romberg test performed with the eyes open or closed using the Equitest did not appear to be sensitive in detecting residual effects of midazolam on balance. We conclude that healthy, young persons should not be considered to have regained postural stability for up to 105 min after sedation with midazolam. Dynamic posturography appears to be a useful test in the objective assessment of balance disturbances.


New blood vessel formation is a prominent feature of human cancers and tumor progression and is frequently accompanied by the acquisition of an angiogenic phenotype associated with a switch in the balance of proangiogenic and antiangiogenic molecules. This study was designed to investigate the role of activated H-RAS on the angiogenic phenotype of melanoma that arises in the inducible Tyr/Tet-RAS Ink4a/Arf(-/-) model using in vivo imaging with histopathologic correlation. We show that loss of RAS activity in fully established melanomas led to a reduction in tumor volume, which was preceded by impairment of vascular function as determined by in vivo magnetic resonance imaging. This correlated with activation of apoptosis in host-derived endothelial cells as well as in tumor cells. Thus, real-time in vivo imaging provided evidence that maintenance of tumor angiogenesis requires activated RAS in this model system, and that loss of vascular integrity upon inactivation of RAS is an active process rather than a consequence of loss of tumor cell viability.


In architectural designs, ponds and the like generally have a primary function other than as an aesthetic element, it also becomes the thermal controller of the surrounding environment. Hasanuddin University Campus in Gowa has a fountain pool located at the front entrance of Library Building and Center of Technology (CoT) Building. In fact, the existence of this fountain pond is relatively not become the attraction for people who pass around the pool area. Physically the function as a thermal controller is also not felt by those around them. This study finds out why the design of fountain ponds did not work as a focal point of the visual design composition? Why does not the fountain pool serve as a thermal controller from the surrounding environment? What should be done so that the expected fountain pool function as a focal point and as a thermal controller can be achieved? The results show that the existence of a fountain does not succeed to be a campus focal point because the visual design composition ignores the site requirements and visual elements that influence people to direct the view toward the fountain.


SIR: The article on herpetic whitlow by Vellar, Goldwasser and Morrison' again brings to our attention this condition, which should be more widely recoqnized. It is important that doctors in charge of nurses' sick-parades are well aware of the condition. I would also like to point out that there was a previous article on herpetic whitlow." The article is well illustrated. The author saw and treated about 20 patients from the nursing staff of the Royal Brisbane Hospital. P. MILLROY. 73 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Old 4000.


Over the past 20 years, there has been a wealth of research on the implementation and evaluation of physical activity promoting interventions (Kahn et al., 2002). Among these is Physical Activity Counselling (PAC), an individual, face-to-face intervention that uses a Motivational Interviewing (MI) counselling style and other behaviour change techniques for eliciting physical activity behaviour change (Fortier et al., 2007; Fortier, William, et al., 2011). Recently, the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy version 1 (BCTTv1) was developed to provide an agreed and standard method of describing intervention content (Michie et al., 2013). Given the poor representation of MI in the BCTTv1 and its proven effectiveness for changing health behaviours (Lundahl et al., 2013), a recent conceptual review was conducted to identify relational and content techniques specific to MI (Hardcastle, Fortier, Blake, & Hagger, 2016). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and quantify the specific BCTs and MI techniques applied during PAC sessions. Videotaped recordings of six PAC sessions were analyzed. Results indicated that the most utilized BCTs include 3.1 Social support (unspecified) (k=6), 1.1 Goal setting (behaviour) (k=4) and 1.2 Problem Solving (k=3). The most utilized relational techniques of MI include Open-ended questions (k=6), Affirmation (k=6), Reflective statements (k=6), Summary statements (k=6) and Permission to provide information and advice (k=5), whereas Consider change options (k=4) and Values exploration (k=3) were the content techniques of MI most frequently used. These preliminary findings shed light on the techniques applied and the relational-content interplay during PAC.


Decision-making algorithms are being used in important decisions, such as who should be enrolled in health care programs and be hired. Even though these systems are currently deployed in high-stakes scenarios, many of them cannot explain their decisions. This limitation has prompted the Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) initiative, which aims to make algorithms explainable to comply with legal requirements, promote trust, and maintain accountability. This paper questions whether and to what extent explainability can help solve the responsibility issues posed by autonomous AI systems. We suggest that XAI systems that provide post-hoc explanations could be seen as blameworthy agents, obscuring the responsibility of developers in the decision-making process. Furthermore, we argue that XAI could result in incorrect attributions of responsibility to vulnerable stakeholders, such as those who are subjected to algorithmic decisions (i.e., patients), due to a misguided perception that they have control over explainable algorithms. This conflict between explainability and accountability can be exacerbated if designers choose to use algorithms and patients as moral and legal scapegoats. We conclude with a set of recommendations for how to approach this tension in the socio-technical process of algorithmic decision-making and a defense of hard regulation to prevent designers from escaping responsibility.


The water-destilled essential oil of sage (Salvia officinalis L.) grown in Serbia was analyzed by GC/MS. The major constituents of oil were α-thujone (24,88%), camphor (16,03%) and 1,8-cineole (9,79%). The essential oil (2% and 1% in ethylene glycol) from the sage leaves was found to be active against Bacillus subtilis S, Staphylococcus aureus 6538, Escerichia coli 95, Salmonella enteritidis and Aspergillus niger.


Eight known secondary metabolites were isolated from the methanolic extract of the whole plant of Astragalus lycius Boiss. They were identified as 5,5′-dihydroxy-3′-methoxy-isoflavone-7-O-β-D-glucoside (1), genistin (2), sissotrin (3), 5,4′-dimethoxy-isoflavone-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (4), (7S,8R)-5-methoxydehydrodiconiferyl alcohol-4-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (5), 4-O-lariciresinol-glucoside (6), 2-phenylethyl-β-D-glucopyranoside (7) and β-sitosterol-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (8) by spectroscopic methods including 1H- and 13C-NMR and HR-MS experiments, and by comparison with literature values. Compounds 1–7 are reported for the first time from Astragalus taxa. All of the compounds were tested for their cytotoxic activities against a number of cancer cell lines. Among them, only 6 exhibited significant activity against human colon carcinoma (HT-29) at 2.69 μM concentration.


This present study was conducted to determine the sero-prevalence of Newcastle disease (ND) antibodies in both local and exotic chickens in Gwagwalada, Nigeria. Two hundred sera were randomly collected post slaughter from chickens and analysed by Haemagglutination (HI) and Haemagglutination Inhibition Test (HIT). Fifty structured questionnaires were distributed among poultry keepers, workers and other stakeholders to evaluate their level of awareness and impact of avian ND in the study area. Results revealed an overall sero-prevalence of 63.5%. Breed sero-prevalence was 54% and 73% for local and exotic chickens respectively. However, 46% local chickens and 27% of exotic chickens had no detectable antibodies. Statistical analysis of the avian ND antibody titres showed association between breeds of chickens [PE'0.05; (χ2=7.79); df= 1)]. The questionnaire study further revealed high level of ND awareness and the adverse effects of ND virus in poultry. Local breeds were rarely vaccinated against ND virus as indicated by the respondents and low antibody titres detected. This study provides preliminary information on ND prevalence in exotic and local chickens in Gwagwalada. Hence, the need to conduct further researches on ND in the study area using molecular diagnostic techniques in order to affirm disease burden and impact especially amongst local chickens for the purpose of control.

 Key words: Newcastle disease antibodies, sero-prevalence, haemagglutination, questionnaires.


In this article, I analyse three months of ethnographic field work conducted with the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 'Safer Communities' project in Bosnia–Herzegovina (BiH) in 2011 using an analytical framework grounded in Lendvai and Stubbs' work on 'policy translation'. This framework suggests that the spaces which exist between different 'security nodes' such as 'Safer Communities' can be analysed as 'contact zones' where different actors and interests converge to shape the contours of security governance in transitional, post-conflict societies. Analysing 'Safer Communities' as a 'contact zone' provides insight into the power politics of the project and into the important role that capital and nodal proximity play in determining the translational capacities of different stakeholders. My analysis of this case study affirms the significant influence of supranational institutions like the European Commission and their ability to draw upon substantial economic capital to align the outputs of local security nodes from a distance. It also presents a nuanced account of networked security governance in which multi-lateral institutions like the UNDP can draw upon their nodal proximity and limited capital to mediate pressures for structural alignment. This latter finding is promising because it highlights a 'nodal solution' to the question of 'how nodal relations could be transformed to improve governance processes and outcomes for weak actors' in structurally weak and dependent societies like BiH.


Purchasing decisions of capital-intensive goods have a long-lasting impact on the company's profitability. As a result, potential buyers of capital goods want to know and understand the expected Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) during the tendering phase. Vanderlande is a supplier of capital-intensive goods who is increasingly faced with TCO related challenges. Interestingly, many Vanderlande systems are designed to satisfy specific customer needs, so how can you estimate the (expected) TCO phase when the product design is not frozen? And how can Vanderlande create the highest added value, by influencing the TCO by making a smarter system design? Together with Eindhoven University of Technology, Vanderlande developed an intuitive tool that enables Vanderlande to calculate, evaluate and influence the TCO and the System Availability of a customer-specific design in the tendering phase. This research project shows that it is both smart and financially feasible to design for availability. This award-winning project is portrayed in this best practice. Moreover, recent applications of the tool during tenders demonstrate the added value of the tool.


Separators with excellent physical and electrochemical performances are in urgent demand for higher power-density and energy-density lithium ion batteries (LIBs). This implies that these separators must possess high porosity, thin thickness, a large electrolyte uptake, and good thermal stability and mechanical properties. Thus, it is difficult for single component separators to satisfy all of these requirements. Recently, composite membranes modified with inorganic nanoparticles have attracted great interest as LIB separators, which show better physical and electrochemical performances than pure separators. In this article, recent advances, the main types, their manufacturing and the performances of composite membranes are thoroughly reviewed, covering three important types: inorganic particle-coated composite membranes, inorganic particle-filled composite membranes and inorganic particle-filled non-woven mats. The outlooks and future direction are also described in this review. This review will hopefully stimulate more extensive and insightful studies for fabricating and designing new LIB separators with excellent physical and electrochemical performances.


Ceramic nanocomposites, containing at least one phase in the nanometric dimension, have received special interest in recent years. They have, in fact, demonstrated increased performance, reliability and lifetime with respect to monolithic ceramics. However, a successful approach to the production of tailored composite nanostructures requires the development of innovative concepts at each step of manufacturing, from the synthesis of composite nanopowders, to their processing and sintering. This review aims to deepen understanding of some of the critical issues associated with the manufacturing of nanocomposite ceramics, focusing on alumina-based composite systems. Two case studies are presented and briefly discussed. The former illustrates the benefits, in terms of sintered microstructure and related mechanical properties, resulting from the application of an engineering approach to a laboratory-scale protocol for the elaboration of nanocomposites in the system alumina-ZrO2-YAG (yttrium aluminium garnet). The latter illustrates the manufacturing of alumina-based composites for large-scale applications such as cutting tools, carried out by an injection molding process. The need for an engineering approach to be applied in all processing steps is demonstrated also in this second case study, where a tailored manufacturing process is required to obtain the desired results.


-------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT-------------------------------------------------------Biometric Technologies are automated methods for verifying or recognizing the identity of a living person based on physiological or behavioral characteristics. Multimodal Biometric Systems are those which utilize more than one physiological or behavioral characteristic for enrollment, verification or identification. Speaker Recognition is the task of recognizing the speakers using their speech signal. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) of speaker is determined by extracting and analyzing speaker – specific features from the speech signal. Signature Recognition is the task of recognizing signatories by using their signatures. Features like Horizontal Projection Profile (HPP), Vertical Projection Profile (VPP) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) are determined. Handwriting biometric feature can also be used for person authentication, since handwriting has been trained during initial days of learning of language; it is possible to find more regular and reliable results using this feature. In this project, we develop a Multimodal Biometric System using speech, signature and handwriting features, with the objective of improving performance and robustness. For identification and verification, we use MATLAB 7.14 to determine MFCC, HPP, VPP, DCT coefficients. KeywordsBiometrics; Speaker recognition; Signature recognition; Handwriting recognition; Multimodal system. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date of Submission: 06 June 2014 Date of Publication: 20 June 2014 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This paper proposes a LMMSE-based channel estimator which, unlike the classical LMMSE estimator, does not require the covariance matrix of the channel nor its estimation. Actually, we add at the receiver side a fully adjustable filter, which acts like an artificial channel and hides the physical channel. We then perform an LMMSE estimation of the sum of the physical and artificial channel using the filter covariance matrix and the channel estimation is obtained by subtracting the filter. Theoretical developments, shown in this paper, prove that the performance of the proposed solution can be driven by the parameters of this additional filter and can reach the one of the theoretical LMMSE estimator closely. Simulations, proposed in a DRM context, also display the validity of this technique for both preamble-based and scattered pilot distributions. It is shown that the proposed solution is only about 1 dB from the LMMSE technique in term of Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) and Bit Error Rate (BER).


---Numerous subcontinental-scale projects have placed significant emphasis on the use of Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI's) derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite data for vegetation type recognition. In multi-season AVHRR data, overlap of NDVI ranges for vegetation classes may degrade overall classification performance. The preliminary work of this project is presented to illustrate potential differences in vegetative cover discrimination capabilities between original visible and near-infrared (NIR) channels of AVHRR data and NDVI's derived from these channels. Initial tests on AVHRR data have been performed for regions of known vegetative cover composition in Northern Mexico. The results are presented here to stimulate debate on the effectiveness of use of NDVI's for vegetation type discrimination.


Rationale Interrupting tuberculosis (TB) transmission requires an improved understanding of how – and when – the causative organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is aerosolized. Although Cough is commonly assumed to be the dominant source of Mtb aerosols, recent evidence of Cough-independent Mtb release implies the contribution of alternative mechanisms. Objective To compare the aerosolization of Mtb and particulate matter from GeneXpert-positive patients during three separate respiratory manoeuvres: Tidal Breathing (TiBr), Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), and Cough. Methodology Bioaerosol sampling and Mtb detection were combined with real-time assessments of CO2 production and particle counts from 39 confirmed TB patients. Measurements and Main Results TiBr and FVC produced comparable numbers of particles, with Cough producing >4-fold more. For all manoeuvres, the proportions of particles detected across size categories from 0.5 – 5 μm were similar, with minor differences observed only in particles between 1.5 – 2 μm (p = 0.014) and >5 μm (p = 0.020). Viable Mtb bacilli were detected in 66%, 70%, and 65% of TiBr, FVC, and Cough samples, respectively. Notably, while Cough produced 3-fold more Mtb than TiBr, the relative infrequency of coughing compared to breathing implies that TiBr likely contributes >90% of the daily aerosolised Mtb across a range of Cough frequencies. Conclusions Our results suggest that, while Cough increases particle aerosolization compared to TiBr, this is not associated with increased Mtb aerosolization. Instead, TiBr produces more Mtb per particle than Cough. Assuming the number of viable Mtb organisms detected provides a proxy measure of patient infectiousness, these observations imply a significant contribution of TiBr to TB transmission.


Hypothalamic LHRH neurons form the final pathway for the central control of reproduction. Release of LHRH from hypothalamic neurons is regulated by the interaction of several neurotransmitter systems with gonadal steroids, which act at different levels of their synaptic network. We previously found that LHRH-producing GT1–7 cells respond to ACh with an increase in [Ca]i through activation of muscarinic receptors. This effect is acutely modulated by 17b-oestradiol (E2) in a manner compatible with specific membrane binding sites (Morales et al. 2002). Increasing evidence suggests that second messengers are involved in the rapid action of oestrogen by interacting with membrane receptors (Nadal et al. 2000). The aim of this study was to characterize the effect of E2 on AChinduced Ca signals in GT1–7 cells and to identify the potential second messenger systems that might be involved. [Ca]i measurements were achieved in cells loaded with fluo-3 AM by confocal microscopy as described elsewhere (Nadal et al. 2000). Control cells were exposed to two 5 s pulses of 100 mM of ACh separated by 10 min. In oestrogen-treated cells, 2 min prior to the second application of ACh, the cells were exposed to different E2 concentrations from 10 pM to 10 mM. Peak parameters analysed were maximal amplitude (maximal [Ca]i), area under the curve (total [Ca]i), and tÎ (time at half-maximal height).


A review of the literature on the Vaccine Revolt shows that it continues to be treated in an overly simplistic manner as a "structure" subjected to some form of regulation, from which its dynamics can be explained and its "root causes" identified. It is possible to forge a new, more cautious historiographical path, seeking to view this "structure" as a rhizome, as a loosely connected ensemble that exists under unstable circumstances whose precarious (dis)order cannot be grasped in its complexity by a reductionist analysis.
 Another historiographical approach that can shed new light on the popular revolt of 1904 situates it in the context of its links to the history of the smallpox vaccine and its diffusion. Viewing the episode as equally relevant to the history of science and technology, this article proposes to "vaccinate the Vaccine Revolt"—that is, to reintroduce the smallpox vaccine as a protagonist in the events—highlighting the need to treat the revolt as a chapter of a sociotechnical history; after all, what could be more sociotechnical than a technoscientific artifact that gave its name to a popular revolt? This is a history of scientists convinced of the superiority of their technical knowledge and of their right to exercise their power for the good of the public, who would be obliged to comply; most of all, it is a history without the problematic distinctions between content and context, between rationality and irrationality, between science and society.
 It is also a history of the popular mobilization on the streets of downtown Rio de Janeiro, exemplified by the vigorous resistance mounted in the working-class neighborhood of Saúde under the command of the Black man known as Prata Preta, which serves as a counterpoint to top-down historical narratives more concerned with the comings and goings of White political elites and coup-plotting, positivist-inspired generals, marked by the symptomatic exclusion of Black and working-class actors. It also serves to emphasize the symptomatic absence of the voice of Prata Preta, who was imprisoned and summarily banished without any due process. The fact that he was silenced has made it easier to construct allegories about "the people," portraying them as heroic opponents of elite oppression or the exact opposite: an antiheroic, dangerous, and disposable rabble. Among the entourage of characters who have been silenced, one should also note the absence of women's voices; although vaccine opponents rallied around the claim that they were defending against the "violation" of women's bodies, nothing was heard from women's mouths.
 Finally, revisiting the history of the Vaccine Revolt offers another opportunity to unmask the project of an authoritarian political, military, and scientific elite, with a particular focus on Oswaldo Cruz, one of Brazil's greatest champions of science. In the name of science and public health, that elite envisioned a modern Brazil, while remaining ignorant of the daily nightmare lived by the vast majority of the Black, poor, and marginalized population.


Partha Chatterjee Vasco da Gama's arrival in Calicut in 1498 and all those processes of great consequence in the subsequent centuries which this event is supposed to have inaugurated constitute a veritable ideological minefield. Of course, there are certain safe routes through the field that have, been charted and well traversed, at least since the era of decolonisation in the middle of the 20th century. Those who wish to play it safe speak of universal humanity and brotherhood, of the falsity of the distinctions between east and west, of history as indubitable progress from backwardness to modernity, of universal access to the benefits of modern science and technology and, in more recent years, of unfettered entry into the dreamland of universal consumption in the millennium of globalisation. Not wishing to tread this safe path, the author in this paper turns to some of the political and moral issues posed by the history of relations between Europe and south Asia in the last five hundred years.


Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) and hemolytic‐uremic syndrome (HUS) represent multiple disorders with diverse etiologies. We compared the gender and race of 335 patients enrolled in the Oklahoma TTP‐HUS Registry across 21 years for their first episode of TTP or HUS to appropriate control groups. The relative frequency of women and white race among patients with TTP‐HUS‐associated with a bloody diarrhea prodrome and the relative frequency of women with quinine‐associated TTP‐HUS were significantly greater than their control populations. The relative frequency of women and black race among patients with idiopathic TTP and TTP‐associated with severe ADAMTS13 deficiency was significantly greater than their control populations. The relative frequency of black race among patients who had systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) preceding TTP was significantly greater than among a population of patients with SLE, and the relative frequency of black race among patients with other autoimmune disorders preceding TTP was significantly greater than their control population. No significant gender or race disparities were present among patients with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation‐associated thrombotic microangiopathy, TTP associated with pregnancy, or TTP associated with drugs other than quinine. The validity of these observations is supported by the enrollment of all consecutive patients across 21 years from a defined geographic region, without selection or referral bias. These observations of different gender and race disparities among the TTP‐HUS syndromes suggest the presence of different risk factors and may serve as starting points for novel investigations of pathogenesis. Am. J. Hematol., 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This work attempts to identify and estimate flexible system's parameters and states by a simple utilization of the Action-Reaction law of dynamical systems. Attached actuator to a dynamical system or environmental interaction imposes an action that is instantaneously followed by a dynamical system reaction. The dynamical system's reaction carries full information about the dynamical system including system parameters, dynamics and externally applied forces that arise due to system interaction with the environment. This in turn implies that the dynamical system's reaction can be considered as a natural feedback as it carries full coupled information about the dynamical system. The idea is experimentally implemented on a dynamical system with three flexible modes, then it can be extended to the more complicated structures with infinite flexible modes.


The central point of this article is that the concept of memory as information storage in the brain is inadequate for and irrelevant to understanding the nervous system. Beginning from the sensorimotor hypothesis that underlies neuroscience--that the entire function of the nervous system is to connect experience to appropriate behavior--the paper defines memories as sequences of events that connect remote experience to present behavior. Their essential components are (a) persistent events that bridge the time from remote experience to present behavior and (b) junctional events in which connections from remote experience and recent experience merge to produce behavior. The sequences comprising even the simplest memories are complex. This is both necessary--to preserve previously learned behaviors--and inevitable--due to secondary activity-driven plasticity. This complexity further highlights the inadequacy of the information storage concept and the importance of extreme simplicity in models used to study memory.


Programmed cell death (PD)/PD-ligands (PD-Ls) pathway plays an important role in the regulation of physiologic immune response. Several cancers, including lymphoma exhibit abnormal PD-1/PD-Ls expression, which may contribute to treatment failure, progression, and inferior outcomes. PD-1/PD-Ls expression has predominantly been described in B-cell lymphoma; such data in peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is limited. We described PD-1/PD-Ls expression patterns and associations with clinical characteristics and outcomes, in patients with systemic PTCLs. Correlation between PD-1/PD-Ls expression and outcomes was analyzed in patients who received lymphoma-specific therapy. PD-1/PD-Ls expression was observed across all common PTCL histologies at different proportions (PD-1 0%–76.9%, PD-L1 38.5%–62.5%, and PD-L2 62.5%–100%) with PD-1 being highly expressed in angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. Baseline characteristics were comparable between PD-1/PD-Ls expression status. Of 47 patients who received lymphoma-specific therapy, outcomes were similar across all PD-L1/PD-L2 subgroups. In the Cox proportional hazard analysis, treatment response was the only factor associated with survival outcomes. However, PD-1/PD-Ls expression, either in lymphoma or stroma, was not a predictor for survival outcomes. In conclusion, differential PD-1/PD-Ls expressions were observed among various histological PTCL subtypes. In this study, we were unable to demonstrate an association between PD-1/PD-Ls expression, clinical characteristics, treatment response, and outcomes of PTCL patients.


This paper presents an approach to terrain synthesis from minimal-detail userprovided heightmaps. There is no assumption regarding the level of detail provided, in order to allow users without access to powerful heightmap tools and/or resources to generate useable terrain based on a self-provided crude feature plan. We present the issues stemming from a lack of detail in user input, notably sharp altitude increases and oversimplified feature edges, and proceed to elaborate on using the terrain synthesis algorithm to solve the issues and create a level of detail that more closely resembles realistic terrain models. The algorithm pipeline is presented and parameterized to show how the user can influence the resulting model.


Mycobacterial Ser/Thr kinase, PknB, is essential for the growth of the pathogen. Unphosphorylated PknB is catalytically inactive, and its activation requires autophosphorylation of Thr residues on the activation loop. Autophosphorylation can in principle take place via two distinct mechanisms. Intermolecular trans autophosphorylation involves dimerization and phosphorylation of the activation loop of one chain in the catalytic pocket of the other chain. On the other hand, intramolecular cis autophosphorylation involves phosphorylation of the activation loop of the kinases in its own catalytic pocket within a monomer. On the basis of the crystal structure of PknB in the front-to-front dimeric form, it is currently believed that activation of PknB involves trans autophosphorylation. However, because of the lack of coordinates of the activation loop in the crystal structures, atomic details of the conformational changes associated with activation are yet to be deciphered. Therefore, to understand the conformational transitions associated with activation via autophosphorylation, a series of explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations with a duration of 1 μs have been performed on each of the phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated forms of the PknB catalytic domain in monomeric and dimeric states. Simulations on phosphorylated PknB revealed a differential network of crucial electrostatic and hydrophobic residues that stabilize the phosphorylated form in the active conformation. Interestingly, in our simulations on nonphosphorylated monomers, the activation loop was observed to fold into its own active site, thereby opening the novel possibility of activation through intramolecular cis autophosphorylation. Thus, our simulations suggest that autophosphorylation of PknB might also involve cis initiation followed by trans amplification as reported for other eukaryotic kinases based on recent reaction kinetics studies.


The article is devoted to an attempt to limit secret police permissiveness before World War I. Deputy Interior Minister V.F. Dzhunkovsky carried out a number of reforms aimed at limiting provocation in the army, among students of secondary educational institutions, the State Duma deputies. He took measures to put the secret police activities under strict control of legal investigation bodies. The article analyzes these reforms' causes, course, results and estimation.


ABSTRACT The emergence of a distinct subpopulation of human or simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV/SIV) sequences within the brain (compartmentalization) during infection is hypothesized to be linked to AIDS-related central nervous system (CNS) neuropathology. However, the exact evolutionary mechanism responsible for HIV/SIV brain compartmentalization has not been thoroughly investigated. Using extensive viral sampling from several different peripheral tissues and cell types and from three distinct regions within the brain from two well-characterized rhesus macaque models of the neurological complications of HIV infection (neuroAIDS), we have been able to perform in-depth evolutionary analyses that have been unattainable in HIV-infected subjects. The results indicate that, despite multiple introductions of virus into the brain over the course of infection, brain sequence compartmentalization in macaques with SIV-associated CNS neuropathology likely results from late viral entry of virus that has acquired through evolution in the periphery sufficient adaptation for the distinct microenvironment of the CNS. IMPORTANCE HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders remain prevalent among HIV type 1-infected individuals, whereas our understanding of the critical components of disease pathogenesis, such as virus evolution and adaptation, remains limited. Building upon earlier findings of specific viral subpopulations in the brain, we present novel yet fundamental results concerning the evolutionary patterns driving this phenomenon in two well-characterized animal models of neuroAIDS and provide insight into the timing of entry of virus into the brain and selective pressure associated with viral adaptation to this particular microenvironment. Such knowledge is invaluable for therapeutic strategies designed to slow or even prevent neurocognitive impairment associated with AIDS.


ABSTRACT EKO WULANDARI, Management Development Tourism Village Kembang Arum, Donokerto, Turi, Sleman towards sustainable agriculture. Supervised by SOEHARTO and BUDI WIDAYANTO. The purpose of this research are to analyze the management and community participation in the village tourism development, to analyze the value added after the tourist village and to analyze the relationship between management and community participation. Method this study uses descriptive methods. Sampling in the management and members of the village tourism using purposive sampling method. While the sampling method accidental visitors. Number of samples taken 51 samples. Retrieval of data using a questionnaire. To analyze some of the objectives in this study using semantic differential scale. This results of research indicated that management in the development of rural tourism is very good to get score of 73,3 %, community participation in the development of village tourism get the high score of 41,46 % and community acquire value added of 19,82 % after a touristm village. While there are relationship between management and community participation in village tourism shown on correlation coefficient of 0,584. Keywords : Management, Community participation, Sustainable Agriculture, Value Added.


A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Masters of Science (Applied Analytical Chemistry) in the School of Pure and Applied Sciences of Kenyatta University, August 2015


Reliability, security, scalability and QoS (quality-of-service) have become key issues as we envision the future Internet. The paper presents the "cognitive packet network" (CPN) architecture in which intelligent peer-to-peer routing is carried out with the help of "smart packets" based on best-effort QoS goals. Since packetized voice has stringent QoS requirements, we then discuss the choice of a "goal" and "reward" function for this application and present experiments we have conducted for "voice over CPN". Its performance is detailed via several measurements, and the resulting QoS is compared with that of the IP routing protocol under identical conditions showing the gain resulting from the use of CPN.


This paper introduces for the first time a framework to obtain provable worst-case guarantees for neural network performance, using learning for optimal power flow (OPF) problems as a guiding example. Neural networks have the potential to substantially reduce the computing time of OPF solutions. However, the lack of guarantees for their worst-case performance remains a major barrier for their adoption in practice. This work aims to remove this barrier. We formulate mixed-integer linear programs to obtain worst-case guarantees for neural network predictions related to (i) maximum constraint violations, (ii) maximum distances between predicted and optimal decision variables, and (iii) maximum sub-optimality. We demonstrate our methods on a range of PGLib-OPF networks up to 300 buses. We show that the worst-case guarantees can be up to one order of magnitude larger than the empirical lower bounds calculated with conventional methods. More importantly, we show that the worst-case predictions appear at the boundaries of the training input domain, and we demonstrate how we can systematically reduce the worst-case guarantees by training on a larger input domain than the domain they are evaluated on.


There is an age-related decline in fine motor control. Functional changes in the primary motor cortex may help explain the age-related decline in fine motor control. Both facilitatory and inhibitory processes in the motor cortex are important for the execution of movement. The aims of the current study were to systematically and comprehensively investigate age-related changes in motor cortical facilitation and inhibition and to investigate the role of these processes in fine motor control. In healthy younger (n = 26) and older adults (n = 21), fine motor control was measured using the Purdue pegboard and a unimanual circle task. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to measure short-interval intracortical facilitation (SICF) and short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) acting on an intrinsic hand muscle (important for fine motor control). Results show no difference in SICF between younger and older adults. When SICI was measured using TMS parameters corresponding to high levels of SICF, older adults showed less SICI than younger adults. When SICI was measured using TMS parameters corresponding to low levels of SICF, there was no difference in SICI between younger and older adults. Older adults showed a relationship between SICI and fine motor control, suggesting greater SICI results in better performance on fine motor control tests. Together findings suggest a complex interaction between the balance of facilitation and inhibition, and that this is affected by age and influences fine motor control.


The Internet as a platform for ubiquitous communication has quickly advanced in the last years. New services have emphasized the limits of the current Internet and motivated the development of the Future Internet. Future communication infrastructures intend to be more distributed and, ideally, more secure, resulting in high complexity. Further, as new technologies emerge, new requirements and security issues are highlighted. These issues reinforce the importance of Identity Management systems for the network infrastructure in the Future Internet, termed Future Network, to provide adequate dynamic services in relation to user's personal data and requirements. Hence, this survey presents the state of the art of Identity Management systems for the Future Network. It highlights the existing architectures, specific devices applied, challenges and future perspectives.


Early one bright afternoon, seventeen centuries ago, Constantine stood staring at the sun. According to his self-appointed biographer Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, who claimed to have heard the story from Constantine himself, the emperor was on campaign, when, 'around midday, as the day was declining' he saw a shining cross of light over the sun, with the attached text 'By this conquer'. The understandably startled ruler slept on the matter, whereupon Christ appeared in a dream and instructed him to fashion himself a copy of the holy sign, which would protect him against his enemies. He did as he had been told, took Christian clerics as his advisers and, not long afterwards, set off for Italy to fight his rival, Maxentius. The rhetorician Lactantius, writing about twenty years before Eusebius, presented a different tale in his De mortibus persecutorum: Constantine, on the eve of his decisive battle against Maxentius in a.d. 312, at the Milvian Bridge to the north of Rome, was instructed in a dream to 'mark the heavenly sign of God' on his shields. Constantine's moment of epiphany, sometimes equated with his 'conversion', has traditionally been seen both as one of history's great turning-points and as one of its most enduring enigmas. The interpretation of Constantine's vision(s) is further complicated by an anecdote that appears in an anonymous panegyric of the emperor, delivered in a.d. 310. Having turned off from the road to visit 'the most beautiful temple in the world', Constantine was greeted by a remarkable sight: 'For you saw, I believe, Constantine, your Apollo, accompanied by Victory, offering you laurel crowns, which each brought an omen of thirty years [of life or rule]'.


This paper presents a performance assessment of two failure sensors for the detection of events in a pipeline distribution system. These sensors identify abnormal events on the basis of water opacity and differential temperature. The opacity sensor measures the cloudiness of the water, which is assumed to be dependent on water flow rate and turbulence caused by local events, while the second sensor measures water temperature difference. Both sensors, installed in the same housing, have been deployed at ten strategic locations in one zone of a local water company's distribution network. An isolated section within the zone has been selected for monitoring by the two sets of sensors. Detailed analysis for the flow measurement has been conducted in the isolated section using modelling software. The analysis is supported by a series of flushing trials organised for the performance assessment of both sensor locations in the pipeline network. A comparison is also made with data from established pressure loggers, which were located at various strategic locations in the zone during these trials.